Chapter Eight
The episode goes live on Wednesday as planned, and the stats look the same as always for the first hour, after which Yael forces herself to stop checking.
By the time she’s done at Kennedy for the day, there are eleven comments on the Instagram post she scheduled to go out simultaneously with the upload.
To her relief, all of them are complimentary.
It’s a gray day, and as Yael is leaving work, it’s raining instead of rainy, so she decides to take the bus rather than walk the nineteen blocks to her apartment. She has to swipe away a Just listened!! message from Sanaa to tap her Hop pass when she boards, and a few more come in quick succession.
The flow is so much better now
Obviously it was a great podcast before and you are smart and fucking hilarious so of course it was but like this is the je ne sais quoi it was missing!!
Not to be all “I told you so” but I TOLD YOU SO. Asking for help is okay and good!!
I love your Fall Out Boy ass episode titles. Unnecessarily long but very funny aka your brand but I really still can’t get over your Podcaster Voice. You sound so different, it’s weird. Like it’s you, but it’s not YOU you
Also lol “Kevin Kissoon.” So formal
Yael recorded a new outro and added it to the audio file last night.
Instead of This has been Elle Rex. Thank you for letting me talk your ear off, she upgraded to I’m Elle Rex.
Kevin Kissoon is on audio editing and graphic design.
The links to our socials and Patreon for early and exclusive content are in the show notes.
And then, unable to resist, rerecorded to add the talk your ear off line to the end again.
Maybe she could’ve just used his first name, but plenty of people don’t read the show notes (judging by the number of emails she still gets asking if she has a Patreon), and leaving them to google “Kevin graphic designer” isn’t exactly going to throw more clients his way.
Yael
I would’ve said you were right unprompted if you hadn’t done the I told you so but now I never will
And yeah I guess it is but I want to credit appropriately
LOML
RE: Fahrenheit 451 Edited Episode
We hit the Apple Podcast Charts!! As of now, number 3 in the Books category and number 162 overall. I keep pinching myself, but as far as I can tell, it’s real.
To: Elle Rex
RE: Fahrenheit 451 Edited Episode
Congratulations. It’s well-deserved.
To: Kevin Kissoon
RE: Fahrenheit 451 Edited Episode
It’s because of you. There was nowhere near this level of interest before.
To: Elle Rex
RE: Fahrenheit 451 Edited Episode
I gave it some polish to get people to click, but you’re why they stay, Elle. Take the compliment.
Yael bites her lip to stop herself from smiling stupidly at her phone, but it’s a losing game. She probably needs to come up with an explanation for her utter glee if she doesn’t want to accidentally out herself to everyone at Kennedy.
The rest of the day, she finds herself unable to stop checking. Like if she looks one more time, SEA will have vanished from the charts. Or she’ll finally be able to believe it.
And by the time book club rolls around, she does. It feels like her skin is buzzing. Like she’s glowing on a wavelength that nobody else can see.
Yael is still cataloging books (her productivity today has been astoundingly low) when Ravi arrives after school. She knows it’s him without turning to look; nobody else would walk in without saying hello.
She can feel the tension radiating off him every book club day. It doesn’t dissipate until the first student walks in, and it’s back in full force the moment the last one leaves. Like her very presence is upsetting to him.
But today she is buzzing, and there’s nothing Ravi can do to stop it. A glance at the clock shows there are still a couple of minutes left, and she uses them to drag the cart of her finished books over to the NEW ARRIVALS shelf and start slotting them into the spots she can easily reach.
When she finally faces Ravi, he’s looking at her like maybe whatever wavelength she’s on is in his visible light spectrum.
“You look happy,” he says simply.
She’s surprised that he notices, because she set her face carefully neutral before turning toward him.
Even more so that he acknowledged it. Yes, and I don’t think even you could ruin it is on the tip of her tongue, but before she can say it, she notices him.
The way the lines of his neck slope casually to his shoulders.
How he sits in what’s become his chair in the circle like it’s the most comfortable place in the world. “So do you.”
He shrugs. “Good day.”
“Me too. Please don’t ruin it,” Yael says, but there’s no real bite in it.
“Sure, okay.” Ravi smiles. “Please don’t ruin mine.”
“When have I ever?” she asks, saccharine.
He makes a show of furrowing his brow in thought. “I don’t know,” he says. “I volunteer Tuesdays and Thursdays, right?”
He’s clearly waiting for her to nod, and she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But she also wants to know what he’s going to say next, so she settles for a quiet hum of assent.
Ravi holds eye contact like it’s a game of chicken. “I’d say about every Tuesday, then.”