The Sound of Us

Chapter Ten. “There She Goes” by The La’s

CHAPTER TEN

“There She Goes” by The La’s

SKYE

“DO YOU NEVER LOOK AT YOUR PHONE?” Haley yelled at me when I arrived for my last shift at Buttercup on Tuesday morning.

“I was at the gym saying goodbye. Some of my friends on the team didn’t know I’m flying home tomorrow and—”

“If you’d looked at your phone, you would have realized you didn’t need to say goodbye. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for the last hour.” She thrust a piece of paper in my face. “I was at the station this morning to do my show and these flyers were everywhere.”

“What is it?”

“An internship at the radio station for journalism students.” She rattled the paper again, her voice trembling with excitement. “It’s perfect for you.”

I took the flyer and quickly skimmed over the details. An internship/scholarship in broadcast journalism at WJPK radio was being offered as a full-credit course for the school year. Not only would I be paid for my time, but the scholarship would cover my tuition fees and most of my living expenses. It was a dream come true.

I felt a flicker of elation but as quickly as it came, the tiny spark died under a deluge of fear and doubt. I couldn’t apply because applying meant hoping and hoping meant facing the possibility of being crushed under the weight of another dream turned nightmare.

“I can’t.” Better to stay in the shadow of fear, where at least the familiar pain was a known entity, than to risk yet again being what my father had called me seconds before he died—a complete and utter failure.

“The deadline is Wednesday,” Haley said, talking over me. “That’s tomorrow so you need to get started…” She trailed off and frowned. “Wait. What? What do you mean you can’t? Why are your eyes wet? Are you crying?”

“I think it’s the cleaning fumes.” I dabbed at my eyes with my sleeve. “I can’t apply, Haley. I can’t fail again. I’ve got nothing left. I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”

“Seriously?” Haley grabbed the break sign and slammed it down on the counter, calling out to the customers in line that we had to take a five-minute break to fix the espresso machine.

“You’ll get fired,” I protested as she pushed me into the small storage room where we took our breaks.

“I can get another job. You can’t get another opportunity like this.”

“It’s broadcast journalism,” I said, scrambling for an excuse. “I want to do print.”

Haley snatched the paper from my hand. “Are you kidding me? This is perfect for you. Did you even read what’s involved? Pitching story ideas, writing news stories, conducting interviews, booking guests, writing and structuring daily scripts, press release research, social media assistance, investigative reporting… all things they do in print journalism. All things you’re good at and love to do.”

“It also says radio reporting, conducting a radio show, and voice-over talent. The idea of going live makes me sick. What if I mess up? There could be hundreds of thousands of people listening.”

“How is that different from playing a basketball game in front of an audience and missing a throw, or tripping and falling?” she demanded.

“Because you’re part of a team. With this, the failure would be all mine.”

“That’s not how radio works,” she said. “Newbies don’t do their shows alone. They have someone in the next room handling the sound board and ready to step in and catch you if you fall. And so what if you fail? We all fail and get up, and we fail and we get up. That’s what it means to be human. But each time we emerge a little bit stronger. I know you’ve been through hell and it must have been devastating to be cut from the team, but you can’t let fear stop you from getting up again, especially when fate is giving you a helping hand.”

“I’ve already got a plane ticket, Haley. I’ve packed my bags. Mentally, I’ve already gone. It’s easier this way.”

Haley pulled out her phone and waved it in front of me. “If you don’t agree to fill in that application, I’m going to have to pull out the big guns.”

“No. Don’t tell Isla…” I stared at her in horror. There was no resisting Isla. She was a force of nature. The second she found out about the scholarship it would all be over. Knowing her, she’d run home, unpack my bags, fill in the application herself and cancel my flight. I had no doubt she’d even go so far as to show up at the interview and pretend to be me.

“It would be better if the decision came from you,” Haley said in mock sympathy. “But I will not hesitate to resort to dirty warfare.”

“Can I have a minute?”

“Take all the time you need. I’ll cover for you.” Haley left me alone and I pulled out my phone. She’d sent me six increasingly frantic messages about the scholarship as well as a link to the station website, and pictures from the station—a cozy lounge; Haley in front of a fluffy microphone with headphones over her ears in front of a wall painted to look like the cover of Pink Floyd’s The Wall ; a sound booth with a board full of switches; a library filled with old records, CDs, and 8-track tapes; and hallways covered in band posters. On their website, the schedule showed a wide variety of programming, but the predominant theme was… music.

I pulled up the playlist I’d saved from Dante’s show about fear and listened to my favorite tracks—“The Arena” by Lindsey Stirling, “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, “Roar” by Katy Perry, “Unstoppable” by Sia, and “Brave” by Sara Bareilles. I liked that he’d chosen songs by female singers, but even more I liked the way they made me feel. Unstoppable. Empowered. Brave. Strong.

I could do this.

I owed it to myself to try.

“Breathe.” Isla made a sweeping gesture with her arms outside the door to the campus radio station, located in the basement of the student center. I’d managed to get my application in just before the deadline and my interview was in five minutes.

“Big breath in,” Isla continued. “Hold it. Big breath out.”

“I know how to breathe, Iz.” My hands shook, my body vibrating with nervous energy. “I’m good. I’ve had interviews before.”

“It was for me,” she said. “I’m more nervous than you are. I have a vested interest in your success. I could easily find another roommate, but she’s not going to send me fake emergency texts to help me escape bad Tinder or OkCupid dates, or calm me down when I’m wired, or knock on my bedroom door and shout ‘fire’ to get rid of a hookup who has overstayed his welcome.”

Her comments reminded me of the frat party and I groaned. “What if Dante’s there? That night at the frat party was utterly humiliating.”

“It’s been six days since the party and he hasn’t been in touch, so I’m sure he’s moved on,” she assured me. “I thought it was actually very sweet how he insisted on coming with us in the Uber and carrying you to bed. It could have been much worse. You could have puked on him instead of all over the lawn.”

I glared at her. “This isn’t helping me relax before the interview.”

“You brought him up.” She snickered. “Or maybe not. You were kind of out of it when he brought you home, except for the sweet nothings you thought you were whispering to him, but in fact were saying out loud. Something about falling for him… and I think you wanted to lick… was it his tattoos or something else?”

“Isla!”

“Sorry. Forget about gorgeous, tattooed rock-star DJs who come for a booty call and have to leave with no booty because you’re drunk as a skunk.” She gave me a quick hug and then pushed me toward the door. “Go in there and kick some interview ass.”

I took one last breath in the quiet hallway, then opened the door to utter chaos.

People were running, papers were flying, a small drone buzzed overhead. I heard shouts, laughter, and the odd scream. Guns N’ Roses’s “Welcome to the Jungle” blasted through the speakers, and an apple came rolling across the floor.

“Five points!” A guy in a checkered flannel shirt scooped up the apple and disappeared into a maze of wooden shelving.

“Excuse me,” I called after him. “I’m here for—”

“Hi.” A woman in a short green peasant dress, her auburn hair tied up in two ponytails, greeted me with a wave. “You look lost. I’m Siobhan, the assistant manager. Are you here to volunteer?”

“No, I’m looking for Noah Cornell, the station manager. I have a—”

“Noah.” She shouted over the music. “Your lunch is here.”

“I’m not…” I trailed off when she turned and ran down the hallway.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” A short dude in a sweater vest burst out of the room beside me and hammered on a door with a flashing red light beside it. “Florida man tried to rob Target with a transparent bag on his head. I got an exclusive.”

The door opened. A hand emerged, grabbed the papers he offered, and disappeared again. The dude heaved a sigh and leaned against the door.

“I’m looking for Noah,” I said. “I have an interview.”

“He’s around here somewhere. Maybe try his office.” He looked down at his watch. “Damn. I’m late for class.”

“The office…?”

A tall thin person dressed in black leather ran past us down the hallway. Why was everyone running?

“Derek,” the dude called out. “Interviewee for Noah.”

Derek halted mid-stride and returned to join us. “Follow me. I’ll give you the grand tour along the way.”

I hurried after him, breathing in the scents of brewing coffee, singed wires, stale pizza, and old books.

“That’s the prep room,” Derek said over his shoulder as we passed a room I recognized from Haley’s pictures. It was painted bright green and filled with comfy couches, bean bag chairs, and small tables. “That’s where we interview guests and hang out. There’s a kitchen in the back.”

We worked our way down narrow hallways filled with boxes of cords and electronic equipment with Derek naming the rooms we passed: Studio A, Studio B, classroom, production, newsroom, open office, music library… We passed a few closed doors, and then stopped in front of a crowd in the hallway.

“That’s Noah.” Derek nodded toward the tall man at the center of the chaos, then brushed past me and retreated down the hallway before I could thank him.

Noah had shaggy blond hair and a barely there goatee. I guessed his age at somewhere between fifty and fifty-five and his height at around six feet, not including the two-inch heels on his black cowboy boots. He wore a faded pink shirt with a black-and-silver bolo tie and skintight GWG jeans held up with a black studded leather belt. A silver hoop earring glinted in one ear as he turned his head from side to side answering questions at dizzying speed.

“Yes. No. Run it. Move the Jazz Alive show to nine P.M. Rock Stellar to Wednesday at six P.M. Free Radical should be primetime. Find me a jacket for the board meeting. Where’s Chris? He’s live in fifteen minutes.” He looked between two people and frowned at me. “Are you from Skip?”

“I’m here for the internship interview.”

“Not Skip.” His face fell. “I guess I’ll just die of starvation.” He gestured to the open doorway beside him. “If I collapse, tell Siobhan to find Chris. The show must go on even if the station manager is dead.”

“Uh… Okay.”

“Where’s my lunch?” he called out. “Someone go see if the guy from Skip is wandering lost in the hallway. It’s almost one P.M. I can’t hear…” He looked at me and frowned. “Name again?”

“Skye—”

“I can’t hear Skye over the rumbling of my stomach.”

“I’ve got candy,” I offered, digging into my purse. “I always carry it for emergencies.”

“Hit me.” He held out one hand to me and signed a document someone was holding with the other.

I handed him a small packet of gummy bears and he tore it open with his teeth.

“I read your application this morning,” he said, popping a gummy bear into his mouth. “Sports person. Journalism major. Sophomore because you took a year off for medical reasons. You’re planning to go into print.”

“Yes, but—”

“Top three concerts of all time.”

My gaze cut to the group in the hallway, all listening with avid interest. Was this going to be a group interview? I could feel my throat tighten until my gaze fell on the Rolling Stones poster on the wall. Music. It was my jam. “Classics or living legends?”

Siobhan high-fived the dude beside her. Behind them, I saw money changing hands.

“Good answer.” Noah patted me on the back. “You passed stage one. Your prize is a visit to my office where we can have some peace and quiet.”

Noah’s office was no less chaotic than the hallway. Books, boxes, CDs, clothes, papers, and stacks of old magazines littered every surface. Not a single inch of his desk was visible, and the only two chairs were covered with concert posters from the ’80s.

“I’ll get those out of your way,” Noah said, carefully lifting them from the chair. “We’ve got over one hundred shows on the air: news, social voices, critical analysis, cooking, comedy, environment, politics… but music is what we do best. Do you like music?”

“Yes, I—”

“Name a band you think I haven’t heard.”

“Angerfist.” It was still in my brain from the night I met Dante at the bar.

Noah stilled and studied me with interest. “Someone just mentioned that band to me the other day. How curious. Do you believe in coincidence?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” He waved me to the chair and raised his voice to a shout. “Everyone eavesdropping outside my office, disperse. When I’ve picked our intern, I’ll let you know.” He settled behind his desk and put up his feet. “We’re family here. Everyone wants a say when we bring in the new interns. Sometimes they even resort to bribery.” He gestured to an LP on his desk. “1977 The Beatles With the Beatles album. I got it a few years ago from one of my volunteers who wanted me to hire his younger sister. I told him I only take bribes if they are factory sealed, but they don’t influence my decision.”

I laughed, and my anxiety eased as we chatted. I told him about the accident and my failed basketball career, my interest in journalism and my love of music. Noah was chill and easy to talk to, especially when we got onto the subject of our favorite bands. He also had a wide range of knowledge—everything from politics to geology and from sports to international relations. I’d never met anyone who was so laid-back and yet so incredibly informed.

I was feeling hopeful when Siobhan walked in and slammed a handful of papers on Noah’s desk. “Chris is sick. He’s in the restroom puking out his guts. Bad sushi at lunch. That’s his show prep. We’re on in ten minutes and we need someone to take his place.”

“Hmmm.” Noah drummed his fingers on the desk, seemingly unconcerned about the crisis at hand. He looked through the open doorway at the gathering crowd and then his gaze returned to me. “You.”

“Me?” I stiffened in my chair. “I don’t have any live broadcast experience.”

“Don’t worry. Derek will be in the other studio handling the sound board, so all you have to do is talk. He’s not bad. People thought it was funny when he made Siobhan sound like Mickey Mouse.”

“I don’t think…”

“Great.” Siobhan handed me the papers from Noah’s desk. “That’s the show prep. Read it over and put the news stories in your own words. You just need to fill a three-minute news slot.”

I looked at the papers as I stood and a wave of nausea gripped my stomach. After being shuffled through four foster homes as a child, I’d come to believe that there was something inherently wrong with me, that I was just never good enough. Even after I was adopted, I couldn’t shake the fear that unless I was a perfect daughter, my parents would send me away. I carried that fear even after I left home. Failure carried with it the risk of being rejected and unwanted all over again.

“What if I freeze? What if I say something wrong or illegal or—”

“Anything you can think of has already happened on the air,” Noah said. “We’re still here disrupting the radio world, and most of the people who messed up are still alive.” He gave a low chuckle. “Just go with it. Give it your own spin. Make it interesting. But don’t be afraid to fail. We’re a teaching station. No one expects you to get it right your first time out of the blocks.”

“I don’t want to get the station in trouble—”

“I’ll take the board,” said a familiar voice behind me.

I spun around so fast I stumbled and almost fell into Dante, who was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, all cool and casual like he’d been there the entire time. Memories of my mortifying drunk-dial evening flashed through my mind: puking in the bushes, the booty call, and my nonsensical ramblings as he carried me to bed.

“Dante.” Siobhan’s eyes widened and then narrowed into a glare. “What are you doing here? I thought your kind went up in flames if you were exposed to sunlight.”

“I’m also wondering why you’re here,” Noah said, tipping his head to the side in query. “My spidey senses are tingling.”

“You said you wanted me to help out.” Dante shrugged. “So here I am. I can handle all the on-air tests for all the interviewees.”

“Hmm.” Noah’s gaze flicked from Dante to me and back to Dante. “What do you say, Skye? Are you in or are you out?”

I knew what he was asking. This wasn’t just about the broadcast. It was about the job. Did I want it or not? I glanced around the office at the music posters on the wall, and then my gaze fell on Dante. “I’m in.”

“You can’t be worse than Siobhan,” Noah said, smiling. “She sobbed on the air. It wasn’t pretty.

“My cat had just died,” she snapped.

“You don’t have a cat. You’re allergic.”

“I’m allergic to you.” She sniffed and marched away.

I followed Dante down the hallway to a spacious studio painted purple, with thick gray padding on the walls in an abstract pattern. Three swivel chairs had been pushed beneath a wide birch desk that held a laptop, screens, three huge microphones, and assorted equipment. Through the glass in the room, I could see a dude in a floral shirt pushing levers on a sound board as he talked into a huge mic.

“If you’re on your own, you use Studio A,” Dante said pointing through the glass. “Newbs use this studio with someone on the board on the other side.” He gestured for me to take a seat. “We’ll have three minutes after the previous show ends before we start. As a nonprofit, we don’t run commercials, so we add a filler song to give our hosts a chance to change over. Any questions?”

“Has anyone ever passed out from fear before they got on the air?”

“You’ll be fine,” he said, laughing. “I’ll be there to cover for you if anything goes wrong. We pull the same trick on everyone—someone is sick, we need an emergency fill-in, no one is available… Noah just wants to see if you’re willing to step outside your comfort zone and be part of the team.”

With only a few minutes to go, Dante quickly ran through the basics of using the equipment. He would handle all the sound adjustments from the board in the other room. All I had to do was put on the headphones, press the ON button, and read the news.

“Are you okay?” Dante asked.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought I’d break a rib. “Other than feeling like I’m going to be sick? I usually like to plan and prepare for things. Isla’s the one who jumps on a plane and flies out to Denver, or sees a random guy at the bus stop and asks him for coffee, or—”

“Kisses a stranger in an alley? Drunk-dials him from a frat party?” He brushed my hair back, gently tucking it behind my ears before he reached for the headphones. I licked my dry lips, and my heart slowed its frantic beat.

“Yes.” I realized what he was saying and quickly backtracked. “No. I mean, yes she would do something like that, but I wouldn’t.”

“But you did.” He gently placed the headphones over my ears and his voice became muffled. “Maybe beneath the fear, there’s a daring Skye wanting to be free.”

While Dante adjusted the microphone, I quickly read through the show prep, trying to focus on the stories. Arson was suspected as the cause of a fire at a liquor store in Bridgeport. Walmart announced they were closing four stores in Chicago. Twenty sailboats in the south end of Monroe Harbor had been damaged in strong winds overnight, and a local developer had been arrested for drunk driving and got off with a slap on the wrist.

A green light flashed in the studio across from me and Dante left to trade places with the radio host. He gave me the signal and I heard the soothing baritone of his voice before I went live. “You’ve got this.”

And I did.

Until I didn’t.