First-Time Caller

Chapter 3

S ilence fills the airwaves.

It’s a fair reaction. I’m sure Maya’s mom didn’t expect to walk in on her daughter having a conversation past her bedtime with the host of a public radio show. I don’t know if Maya thought she wouldn’t get caught or what the plan was, but it’s clear her mom was not involved in the decision-making.

I watch the seconds tick by on the large clock we keep above the door.

Twelve seconds of completely dead air and it might be the most compelling programming we’ve had all year. I glance at the red light on the phone system to make sure the call hasn’t dropped. I told Jackson earlier this week I’d make more of an effort to enjoy the show, and this is me . . . making an effort.

Though I’m certainly not forcing my enthusiasm or interest tonight. The first thing Maya said when I took her call was, “Look. My mom might kill me, but it is what it is.” What it is, apparently, is a lot of dialogue about her mother’s lackluster love life, accusations about a cult, and—I look at the clock—a full minute of silence.

I haven’t had this much fun in the booth in months.

The other calls tonight have been our usual dismal fare. One woman called to complain that her husband doesn’t appreciate her potato casserole and another caller listed out the inaccuracies he found in a historical romance he picked up by accident at a library sale. One was a misdial for a cab company.

It’s been bleak.

I’m content to give Maya’s mom as much time as she needs. We certainly don’t have anything better to do.

“Lucie? You there?”

There’s a muffled sound on the other end of the line like she’s pressed her hand up against the phone. “You told him my name?” drifts through my headphones.

Maya told me a lot of things. Her mom’s name. The preferred brand of wine her mom drinks when she sits alone on the couch, binge-watching Deadliest Catch . The way she cries if some of the crabs get stuck in the pot.

I know a lot about Lucie.

“Yeah,” I answer. “She also told me you haven’t seriously dated anyone for the entirety of her life. What do you have against dating, Lucie?”

She makes a pained sound somewhere on the other end of the line. “This is a live conversation?”

I nod. “Mm-hmm.”

“Right now?”

“That’s what this little blinking red light tells me.”

“Oh, good.” Lucie sounds winded. “I was worried this would be embarrassing.”

I grin at my control board. “What do you have to be embarrassed about?”

“You’re right. What could possibly be embarrassing about my daughter calling in to a radio station to discuss my love life?”

“Lack of a love life,” Maya amends.

There’s a pause, a muffled thud of a pillow being tossed across the room, and then bright, bubbling laughter.

A pang of homesickness tugs right under my ribs. I think of my mom with that bag of gummy worms clutched against her chest. The same kind she put in my lunch every day when I was a kid, a handwritten note scribbled on the outside of a brown paper bag.

“Your daughter loves you very much,” I try, aware that there’s probably a silent but intense conversation happening on the other end of the phone. I want to keep Lucie on the line. I want something different. I’m tired of complaints about casserole. For the first time in a long time, I want to see what happens next.

“And is this what love looks like, Mr. Expert? My daughter covertly calling in to a radio hotline and exposing my secrets?” Lucie asks, a laugh in her voice. Her voice is smooth. Honey in a mug of hot tea. The window cracked open halfway, fresh air rolling in. “Because this feels a lot like public humiliation.”

“How about we call it seventy percent love and twenty percent teenage rebellion?”

Lucie laughs and my hand twitches around my coffee mug. “And the other ten percent?”

“Concern,” I answer. “Maya told me she’s worried you might be lonely. She was hoping I could help.”

Lucie goes quiet again. It’s heavier this time.

“You think I’m lonely?” she asks, her voice soft at the edges. There’s a rustle of fabric, a whispered “Yeah, Mom,” and Lucie blows out a breath.

The silence holds.

“How about this?” I glance up at the clock above the door. “We roll to a commercial break and you use the time to decide if you’d like to stay on and talk with me. I’ll answer any questions you have and we’ll go from there, yeah?”

She hesitates for a beat. “On a scale from one to ten, how embarrassing is this going to be?”

“It depends. Where are you currently?”

“A seven, maybe? Hovering closer to an eight?”

“Inconclusive. You’ll have to keep talking to me to find out.” I push backward in my chair, swiveling in my seat to mess with the programming software I’m still terrible with, despite having had this job for the better part of six years. “All right, Baltimore. Stick with me. We’ll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.”

“We will possibly be back after these messages from his sponsors,” Lucie tacks on, sounding grumpy but resigned.

“One of us will absolutely be back after these messages from our sponsors.” I tap a few buttons and roll to the prerecorded ad spots. “Hi,” I say, my headphones still connected with Lucie and Maya while an ad for a tree farm spins in the background. “Apologies for the ambush.”

“You sound real apologetic,” Lucie mutters. A sigh passes from one ear to the other, amplified by my headset. Fortitude and endurance in stereo. “I’m not sure you should be the one apologizing.”

“All the same.” I smack around blindly behind me, looking for the coffeepot. I find it and top off my mug, sipping noisily at it while I can. “What do you think?”

“About what? Spilling my secrets to a stranger while other strangers listen? It’s not looking good, Aiden Valentine.”

“What secrets?” Maya quips in the background. There’s another thump, lighter this time, and a tired puff of laughter. “Seriously, Mom. It’s not a big deal.”

“‘Not a big deal,’ she says, the girl who called in to a radio station to air my dirty laundry.”

“Again, I say, what dirty laundry ?”

“If it makes you feel better,” I cut in, “we only have about twelve listeners.” I lean back in my chair until the back groans. Everything in this studio is duct-taped together, holding on for dear life. “One of them is probably my mom.”

“I’m not sure that makes it any better.” Lucie exhales heavily. I wait as she considers her options. “What are your qualifications? Are you a psychologist or something?”

“No.”

“A psychiatrist?”

“Nope.”

“I can never remember the difference between those two,” she muses.

“I think it has something to do with prescribing medication.”

“Interesting.” She could not sound less interested. “So, what are you, then? A shaman? A love guru? Do you read people’s palms?”

This woman. “No. I do not read people’s palms over the radio. I am also not a cult leader.”

“You heard that, huh?”

“It’s incredible what you can hear when someone says something into a speaker.”

Fabric shifts in the background, the rasp of blankets and pillows moving around. I take another sip from my mug and wait.

“So if you’re not any of those things . . . how are you supposed to give me advice?”

I grin. “Oh, now she wants the advice.”

“I’m just saying. Hypothetically. If I agreed.”

“It’s pretty simple. You talk and I listen.”

“And you fix it?” She makes a vaguely dismissive sound. “Just like that?”

“There’s nothing to fix, Lucie.” The smile slips from my face until I’m staring down at the chip in the top lip of my coffee mug. I drag my thumb over it. “You’re not a toaster. Or faulty wiring. And I’m not a guru or a psychic or a . . . professional . . . in any sense of the word. I’m just a person. A person who likes talking to other people. Who, occasionally, has mediocre advice to give. You’re safe with me, and with the people listening. I promise. If the conversation ever goes somewhere you don’t want it to, just say the word. We’ll call it a night and you can ban television in your household for the foreseeable future.”

Maya offers a grunt of protest in the background. Lucie snickers.

“But I’m not . . . I’m not trying to fix anything for you, Lucie. I’m just going to listen, yeah? We’ll talk and see what happens.”

“See what happens,” she repeats.

I eyeball the clock. “Yup. We’ll see what happens. But you’ve got about a minute to make up your mind.”

“Please, Mom,” Maya whispers in the background. “I think it’ll help.”

Lucie hums, considering her options. “I guess I could always just hang up the phone.”

“You absolutely can,” I tell her, though I hope she doesn’t. There’s a couple of hours left in my shift and I don’t want to spend it trying to flick coffee stirrers into the trash can across the room. The booth gets too quiet when it’s just me, and the quiet gives me too much room to think.

“Promise you’re not a cult leader?” she asks.

“Not at the moment, though I suppose that’s a direction I can explore if the radio thing doesn’t work out.” A mattress ad plays its final jarring notes, something about “comfort cascading to dreams,” whatever that means. “It’s your choice, Lucie. However you want this to go. But we’re about to be back on the air.”

“With twelve listeners.”

“Likely closer to nine, given the late hour.”

“That’s a relief.”

I grin into the microphone and hit the appropriate buttons. “You ready?”

She sighs. “As ready as I can be, I guess.”

Maya gives a whoop in the background and I drag the volume control up, the button jumping like it always does.

“Hey, Baltimore, welcome back. We’re on the line with Maya and Lucie. Maya has called in for her mom, hoping for some relationship advice.” On the other side of the glass window to the booth, Jackson walks by on his way to the small closet he calls an office. I’m not convinced he needs to be here this late for weather updates, but he likes his routine and I occasionally like the company. I lift a hand in greeting and he waves back, stopping and doing a double take when he gets a look at my face.

“I wouldn’t say she called in for me,” Lucie says, dragging my attention back. Her voice is the oddest combination of smoke and sweet. Like the bite of a good whiskey. “She called in spite of me.”

I laugh and Jackson goes bug-eyed on the other side of the glass. He presses his face up against it, nose squished to the window, hands cupped around his eyes to get a better look.

What? I mouth, as Maya and Lucie go back and forth about the true reason for the call.

Jackson forces a grin on his face and gestures to it. He looks like a demented clown. The mechanical ones outside the flea market on Broadway, defunct and broken-down, smiles stretched forever wide in chipped red paint. It’s terrifying.

Stop it , I mouth.

He backs slowly away from the window and keeps walking down the hallway, looking over his shoulder every few steps. He runs into the soda machine, corrects himself, then disappears with one last bewildered look.

I frown and adjust my headphones.

“My mom hasn’t had a boyfriend in a literal decade,” Maya says, voice rushed. It’s like she doesn’t know how much her mom is going to let her get away with, and she’s trying to get it out all at once. “She goes to work and comes home. Sometimes she goes across the street to drink wine with Patty. That’s her friend. Patty. Her only friend. She never goes out out, you know? She’s always here.”

“Apologies,” Lucie says, “for always being in my house. The one I own.”

“Mom.”

“What?” She laughs. “I thought you liked me here.”

“I do,” Maya says defensively. “I do like you here. But sometimes I feel bad when I go out with my friends and you’re alone.”

The laugh disappears from Lucie’s voice. “I like my alone time,” Lucie says quietly. “You know that.”

“Sure, but not, like, all of the time.”

I drag my palm along my jaw, fingers reaching toward the back of my neck. “And you think a boyfriend would solve that for your mom?”

“I don’t know,” Maya says. “I think it might make her happy.”

“Would it?” I ask Lucie. “Make you happy?”

“Absolutely not,” she says without a single ounce of hesitation.

A laugh bursts out of me. “Such passion.”

“Let me ask you a question, Mr. Valentine.”

“Aiden, please,” I murmur. I make sure to drop my voice low, the way I used to when I was in college and trying to do a radio voice .

She makes an amused sound. Something between a laugh and a cough. “All right, Aiden . Are you single?”

I stare at the wall of the booth, surprised. Lucie keeps pivoting left when I expect her to go right, and I’m jogging somewhere behind her, struggling to catch up. “I am.”

“And do you date?”

“Occasionally.”

“How do you find it?”

The last date I went on was probably four months ago and ended in a brief but satisfying roll in her sheets. I stopped on my way home from her place and got a cannoli from the little Italian bakery. I haven’t talked to her since.

I find dating, overall, to be a massive waste of time. But this show isn’t about me.

“I’m more interested in your thoughts about dating,” I deflect.

“Well, I think it sucks.”

I laugh and scrub my hand over my head, jostling my headphones. Static bursts in my left ear and I adjust them, pushing the band farther back. “Why does it suck?”

“I hate it. It’s like everyone is doing some dance that I never learned the steps to. I’m clueless, and I’m not using that as an excuse. I am genuinely clueless. I don’t understand all of the . . . stuff you have to sift through before you can be yourself.” She sighs. “It feels like that dream. You know? The one where you’re walking down the hallway in only your underwear.”

“I don’t think that’s how dating is supposed to feel.”

“Is that your expert opinion?”

“Yeah.” I laugh. “Yeah, it is.”

“I tried a dating app for two weeks,” Lucie confesses. “It was the most embarrassing two weeks of my life.”

“For you? Or for your prospective—”

“Victims?” she questions.

“I was going to say ‘dates,’ but whatever makes you comfortable.”

Another thoughtful sound slips out of her as she takes her time to answer. “How do you package yourself to be appealing?” she asks quietly. “That should have been my first sign, I guess. I had so much trouble with the questions, setting up my profile. My friend had to help me with it.”

“Patty?”

“Yeah.” Lucie laughs. “My one friend, apparently.”

“Maybe you don’t see yourself clearly.”

“Maybe none of us see each other clearly. Not anymore. The whole time I was on that app, I felt like a cartoon version of myself. It felt like—it felt like gamifying my heart, and I didn’t like it at all. I’m so glad so many people have found partners that way, but I couldn’t ever figure out if I was doing it right. It wasn’t for me, and I wish so badly it was. It made me feel like . . . like maybe I wasn’t the right type of person.”

“For dating?”

Her laugh is sharp this time. Not really a laugh at all. “For any of it. Love, maybe. I don’t know.”

My lips flatten into a line. “Did you ever go on any dates?”

“Mm-hmm,” she hums. “I did. Two, I think. And when I decided the app wasn’t working for me, I tried something else. A friend of a friend who knew a guy set me up. All of them—the dates, that is—they were perfectly fine. Decent. But I don’t know. It never felt like something I wanted to keep trying.”

“No sparks.” I hazard a guess. “It wasn’t making a difference for you.”

“It made me feel small. Less connected. Like . . . like all of us in this big, bustling world are just bouncing off one another and I don’t have anyone who wants to grab on. I didn’t feel like myself and I didn’t feel like anyone else was being themselves either.” She releases a breath, low and trembling. I can feel her snap back to awareness on the other end of the line. “I don’t know. None of that makes any sense. I’m rambling.”

“No,” I say, staring hard at the coffee ring I’ve left on the desk. She’s being honest. More honest than anyone who has ever called in to this show. “No, that makes sense.”

How often have I felt like I’m just drifting from one thing to the next? How hard has it been for me to muster enthusiasm for . . . anything? I’ve been caught in a fog and I can’t tug myself out of it.

I’ve been feeling small. Less connected. I know exactly how she feels.

“So I stopped trying to date. I have so much love in my life, I’m not sure I need any more. I don’t want—I don’t want to settle for something just to say I have it. That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway, and here we are.” Her laugh is self-deprecating. “I’ve reached a new level of pathetic. My kid has called in to a radio station because she’s worried about me sitting home alone on the couch.”

“I don’t think that’s what she’s worried about.” I stretch out my legs beneath the desk. “Did she disappear? She’s quiet over there.”

“She’s asleep,” Lucie says gently. I sit in my creaky, broken chair and listen to the sounds in between. The ones that scratch out pictures in front of me. Socked feet against a comforter. A car rumbling by. Wind at the windows and a creak of a floorboard.

For a second, I can hear the shape of her smile. A half moon in the dark.

“Do you think you’ll try dating again? Now that you know Maya wants you to?”

“I don’t know,” Lucie says. “It’s not up to Maya. Even if she means well, I don’t know if I want to crack open that part of myself.”

“What do you want?” I ask. “In a perfect world, would you stay on your couch? Watching Deadliest Catch ?”

“Probably,” she says, a smile in her voice. “But maybe . . . maybe there would be someone with me.” She pauses and I hold my breath. “Maybe I am lonely.”

It’s not the words she says, but how she says them. Quiet. Embarrassed. Like somehow it’s her fault she hasn’t found what she’s looking for yet.

I hum. “I think we’re all a little lonely.”

“Are you?” she asks right away. “Lonely?”

I tilt my head to the side and twist back and forth in my chair. After Jackson left me at the shop the other morning, I sat at that table for another hour, watching people come and go. I had nowhere else to be and it was nice to be surrounded by chatter and warmth. The bellowing from the barista behind the counter and the smell of coffee and books.

“Yeah,” I rasp, staring hard at my cup of coffee. I dig a knuckle into my cheek. “Yeah, I guess sometimes I do get lonely.”

My heartbeat thuds in my ears, a little too fast. I scratch roughly at the back of my head and clear my throat. I need to drag this conversation somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn’t feel like pressing the tender part of a bruise.

“What would make you want to try again? Dating.”

She makes a short huffing sound on the other end of the line. “I don’t really want to try.”

My smile tumbles headfirst into a rough laugh. I swear, it feels like I’ve forgotten how to do it. “That’s all right,” I tell her, still grinning like an idiot alone in the booth. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I don’t want to try . All I do is try. All day long, I’m trying and I’m so tired. Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at? Why can’t it be a thing that just . . . happens? I don’t want—I don’t want to think about what I should say or how I should act or . . . or have talking points in the notes app of my phone for a dinner date at a restaurant that I don’t really like. I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want . . . I want the magic.”

“Magic?” I try to find the part of myself that isn’t so damn rattled by every word coming out of this woman’s mouth. “You’re one of those, huh?”

“One of what?”

“A romantic,” I say. “Sparks. Soulmates. Happily ever after. A shiny gold thread tied between two hearts.”

She scoffs. “You host a show about romance and you’re telling me you’re not a romantic?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. I think I used to be, but that part of me feels fractured. Wobbly. Broken down by a thousand and one callers who have fallen out of love. Who never had it in the first place. Love and romance seem like a fairy tale now, something we tell kids to help them sleep better at night. Something we tell ourselves too.

“Well, whatever you are, don’t laugh at me about what I am,” she grumbles.

I straighten in my seat. “I’m not laughing,” I tell her. “I promise. I wouldn’t.”

She exhales and I relax. I let my gaze drift to the small window at the top of the booth, the one that looks out over Baltimore. Buildings tower like sleeping giants in the dark. Tiny pinpricks of light dance in the harbor. The Natty Boh Tower winks to life on the other end of the city, a warm red glow over the rooftops.

And somewhere out there, Lucie is sitting on her kid’s bed. Talking to me.

“It’s all right if you think I’m being ridiculous. That’s not exactly a new sentiment,” she says, voice tired. “When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.” She sighs, a small, hopeless sound that twists through my headphones. “But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that. And I think I’ve just figured out—I think that’s why I’ve been sitting on my couch. That’s why I’m home all the time. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard at something that comes so easily for everyone else. I stopped dating because it wasn’t working for me and I think I hoped that another option might materialize. Nothing in my life has ever panned out the way I planned for it. And that’s okay. But I don’t want a relationship to be something I cross off my checklist, or something I do because I feel like I have to. I don’t want to be with someone if they’re not giving me something I don’t already have. I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t feel like everything I’ve always wanted for myself.”

“You want a guarantee.”

“No,” she says quietly. “I want goose bumps. I want to be wanted. All this time and I—I haven’t given up. I guess I’m just waiting for it to find me.”

I swallow, curl my hand around my mug, and squeeze. “Maybe you should have my job,” I finally manage around a throat that feels too tight.

Lucie laughs, bold and bright. I want to yank out the headphone jack and fill the studio with it.

“Maybe I should,” she says.

I don’t want to let her go yet. I want to hold on to this feeling for a little longer. But then she makes a muffled sound that could be a yawn, and I glance at the clock, surprised when I see how much time has passed. I haven’t played a single song in an hour. None of the commercials either.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Lucie. I really do.”

“Yeah.” She sighs. Blankets shift and I imagine somewhere in this sprawling city, Lucie is smiling. For one night, at least, the both of us a little bit less lonely. “I do too.”

LUCIE STONE: Did you flip to commercial again?

AIDEN VALENTINE: Yeah. Last run of the night. Thanks for staying on with me.

LUCIE STONE: Yeah, ah. No problem. Hopefully I didn’t say anything too embarrassing.

AIDEN VALENTINE: I don’t think you did.

[pause]

LUCIE STONE: Okay, well. I should be going.

AIDEN VALENTINE: Yeah, yeah. Of course.

LUCIE STONE: Good night, Aiden Valentine.

[dial tone]

AIDEN VALENTINE: Good night, Lucie.