17 #2
‘Okay, Melbourne,’ she managed, half-laughing.
‘Reminder for the people in the back: check your bloody coffee lids. Especially if you’re wearing white.
And You’re welcome to our social gal Britt, who will be excitedly cutting up the studio footage of me just spilling my morning coffee all over myself for your reel enjoyment. ’
The phones were flashing.
Mack, still on the floor, dragged himself upright just enough to point at her chest and gasp, ‘Can we get back to when you had a sex life, Blake?’
She gave him a look.
‘Perfect,’ she said, deadpan. ‘We are absolutely nailing this transition.’
Blake was still pressing paper towel against her shirt when Mack jumped back in like nothing had happened.
‘All right,’ he said, wiping tears from his eyes and grinning like an idiot. ‘Back to business, Melbourne. Fourteen-sixteen-twelve.’
Behind the glass, Britt gave the signal. Phone lines full.
‘Our topic this morning,’ Mack continued, ‘inspired by Blake’s extremely damp confessional and her one-week whirlwind with Euro Leo, is this: how long did you make your hot date wait? First date? Third? Never? Fifteen years and a wedding march?’
Blake coughed, choking on her own laugh.
‘I swear, Mack,’ she said into the microphone, ‘if you say seal the deal or I see you wink again I will pour the rest of this coffee on your head.’
‘The greater threat would be if you wrung that shirt out over my head,’ he replied. ‘Now, let’s go to the phones.’
Sam tapped the first line.
Mack leaned into the mic. ‘Line one, we’ve got Cheryl in Greensborough.’
A bright voice crackled through. ‘Oh hey guys! Yeah, I made my now-husband wait six weeks. He thought I was a nun. I told him I don’t throw the cat until at least the third Sunday roast.’
Mack howled. ‘That is my new favourite line, throw the cat! Thank you, Cheryl.’
Sam pushed the fader up, sending line two live. He pointed to Mack to introduce the next caller.
Mack nodded. ‘We’ve got Keegan from St Kilda.’
‘Mate,’ Keegan began, ‘we were five minutes into date one. I brought the good hummus. Say what you will, but dips get it done.’
Blake spat her second sip. ‘Good to know,’ she said. ‘Next time I’m being courted, I’ll check for tahini.’
Line three.
Mack grinned. ‘Janine in Melton, you’re on.’
‘I made him wait nine months. We didn’t even kiss for the first four. But when it happened, it was like ripping the foil off a yoghurt lid. Messy but satisfying.’
Blake wheezed. ‘That is…horrifyingly vivid.’
‘I love our listeners so much,’ Mack said.
Blake raised a hand in mock surrender, giving up trying to dry out her shirt while live, still clutching a half-wet napkin.
The phones kept flashing. The energy hadn’t dipped, not for a second.
Blake was still damp, smelled like a McCafe, and she was still trying to work out how sex and a yoghurt lid were connected.
Line four was lit.
‘Let’s go to Helen in Toorak,’ Mack said.
There was a silence on the line. Just long enough to register as…something off.
Then, ‘Hi,’ Helen said, clipped and clear. ‘Long-time listener. And normally, I enjoy your show.’
Blake’s smile twitched. That tone. She knew that tone.
‘But I have to say, this has really crossed the line,’ Helen continued. ‘This morning’s segment, this whole story, really, it’s disgusting.’
Mack shifted back in his chair.
‘I mean, honestly,’ Helen went on, ‘talking about your sex life on public radio? About one-night stands? About sleeping around and not knowing who the father is? And your daughter…Has anyone thought about her? What kind of message are you sending, broadcasting this filth?’
Blake’s throat tightened. The paper towel felt hot in her hand.
‘She’s a teenager, isn’t she?’ Helen continued. ‘She’ll be at school, listening to this. Listening to her mother brag about being knocked up by some musician she can’t even name.’
Blake opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
‘She’s not a prop for your career. She’s a child. And if you cared more about being a mother than being famous, maybe she wouldn’t have to grow up watching you act like such a…’
Behind the glass, Chelsea was typing on the screen: Hang up on the bitch.
But it was too late.
The last word cut through the line just before it dropped: ‘Whore.’
The call went dead.
The studio fell silent. No sound but the faint hum of the desk and the static of open mics. The ON AIR light continued to burn red above them.
Mack sat frozen. Sam stayed still at the panel.
Blake blinked. Hands frozen around her cup. Still wet with cold coffee, and now something else. She forced air into her lungs. Pressed the paper towel tight to her ribs. Found the mic.
‘Well,’ she said, voice level, even. ‘Helen won’t be getting the hummus.’
The joke landed in dead air.
The silence stretched, uncomfortable and raw.
Blake could feel her pulse in her throat, could taste the bitter edge of humiliation.
She kept her eyes on the desk, refusing to look through the glass to where she knew Chelsea would be watching with that protective fury that made Blake feel both safer and more exposed.
Mack shifted in his chair, the squeak of it unnaturally loud in the quiet studio. Then he found his voice, trying to mop up the damage.
‘Blake’s one of the best mums I know,’ he said, his voice softer than usual. ‘She’s not doing this for drama. She’s doing it to find the father of her beautiful daughter…’
Blake’s entire body went rigid. Time slowed. The air in the studio crystallized.
He wouldn’t say her name, would he?
‘Morgan.’ The name hung in the air. Clear. Unmistakable. Irrecoverable.
Blake’s chair scraped back. ‘Dump!’
Sam’s hand was already slamming down on the button.
Music crashed in.
The ON AIR light died.
Mics dead.
But it was too late. The name had gone out. Blake knew it. She could feel it in her bones, in the way the studio air seemed to vibrate with the aftermath of something shattered.
Across the desk, Mack’s face drained of colour. His eyes went wide, mouth opening and closing like he was trying to pull the word back.
The studio door burst open. Chelsea stepped in, phone still in one hand, the other gesturing like she’d just missed the punchline.
‘Why are we on the back-up tape, did you just dump? Catch me up, I was still on the phone with her,’ she said. ‘That Helen bitch. I let her have it. What’s happened?’
Blake stood frozen. Her pulse hammered in her ears. The studio lights felt too bright, the air too thin. She was burning from the inside out.
‘Check the logger,’ she said, voice barely above a whisper.
Chelsea blinked, confused. ‘What?’
Blake’s voice cracked, louder now. ‘Check it. The show logger. Go back and listen and tell me if we dumped in time or if her name went to air.’
Sam’s eyes flicked to Chelsea, then back to the panel. Mack sat frozen in his chair.
Chelsea crossed the room and began typing, still unsure why. She hadn’t heard it. Mack said it, Blake heard it, but maybe Sam had dumped in time.
Eleven years on air with Mack. Telling stories. Breakfast shenanigans. Owning her flaws. Every intimate detail. And never once had they said it. Not even hinted. Not even close. Morgan’s name was not fodder for the public.
And when this search began, when Morgan cautiously allowed her to talk about it, the one thing she’d asked was simple: Don’t say my name on air.
Not even once. She wanted to stay invisible.
Stay safe from the cruelty of the twelve-year-olds who’d make her the girl with the missing dad.
The girl whose mum was hunting for her father on breakfast radio.
Blake knew kids. She knew how fast gossip travelled through school corridors. How one overheard conversation could become ammunition for months of torment.
She stared down at her hands, jaw clenched so tight her teeth ached. The studio felt too small, the walls were pressing in. When she finally looked at Mack, it was with the kind of stillness that precedes hurricanes.
‘You said her name.’
The words dropped like stones into water.
‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘We don’t say her name on air.’
Blake’s voice broke completely now, raw and ragged. ‘That was my one promise to her. This whole thing, the search, the story, the mess. She made me promise.’
The weight of it crashed down on her. Morgan at school right now, maybe getting ready for home room before the bell, maybe already hearing the whispers starting. Maybe her phone lighting up with messages. Maybe Lucy Pemberton already planning her attack.
Blake looked over to the producer’s bay. Was that caller, Helen, right? What was she doing?