Lucky Caller(14)

“Who is this that gets a ballad?” Mom said, appearing from the hallway.

“It’s me!” Sidney screeched. We were still jumping.

“She didn’t tell you?” Rose said.

“She did—I just like hearing it again.” Mom flung her arms in the air, started jumping too. “My daughter gets a ballad!”

“I am the most talented sister!” Sidney bellowed.

“Do we have to endorse that?” I asked.

“Today is Sidney’s day,” Mom replied with a grin.

“Today, you are the most talented sister!” Rose chanted, and we all chanted it back.





7.


Conrad: 100.2 The Heat. Got some news this morning of a personal nature.

Will: Oh my god, Conrad … are you dying?

Conrad: It’s about my family. Geez.

Will: Ah. Got it. Boring, but let’s hear it.

Conrad: My little girl is gonna be a star. Or, star of the junior high musical, at least.

Nikki: Awww, that’s awesome! What show are they doing?

Conrad: Some millennial thing that one of the teachers wrote. It’s about bullying, or the environment, or something like that. They basically, like, Weird Al’ed a bunch of fair use songs for some theme … Don’t do drugs. Stop at stoplights. That kind of thing. Anyway, bottom line: Sid is starring in it. She will be singing her own ballad— All: Ooooooh.

Conrad: Appropriate group reaction—thank you. Yeah, so she’s got the ballad, she’ll be doing her thing, and I’m just, uh, so psyched. I’m gonna be there in the front row.

Nikki: Are you?

Conrad: Absolutely. Just booked the time off. So if you’re just tuning in and you hate my guts, you can look forward to at least one Conrad-free show in April. You’re welcome.

Will: Conrad’s gonna be that dad standing in the aisle with the video camera.

Conrad: You bet I am. I’m totally going to be that guy, like, shushing everyone and taking a thousand pictures. Huge bouquet of roses—like so big you can’t see over it. Just so obnoxious.

Tina: Sounds about right.

Conrad: Heyyy!

Nikki: Did you guys ever do school plays?

Tina: No, I was way too self-conscious for that.

Nikki: Will?

Will: Nah. That stuff’s for the geeks, right?

Conrad: And my daughter?

Will: Oh yeah. Forgot that part. [laughter]





8.


NEXT WEEK BROUGHT OUR 1991 episode. Joydeep’s hosting hadn’t altered much from our first show—it was still wooden and awkward.

“You know, you could try actually talking about stuff when you get on there,” I suggested after our second You are listening to the Sounds of the Nineties, and here is a song type of break.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, just like … conversational stuff. About your life.”

“Conversational how? I’m just talking to myself.”

“You’re talking to the listener.”

“I don’t think the listener cares about, like, what I had for breakfast or where I’m going for college and all that.”

Sasha looked up from her laptop. “Do you know where you’re going?”

Joydeep nodded. “Pomona.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s one of the Claremont Colleges in California. My brother Vikrant goes to Harvey Mudd. They’re, like, incredibly selective.”

“And you already got in?”

“Early decision.”

“Why’d you pick it?”

“’Cause my brother’s there,” he said, like it was obvious. “My uncle lives out there too, there’s this whole West Coast branch of the Mitra family. They’re in Anaheim, though, so close but like, not too close, you know?”

“You could talk about that on-air,” I said.

“The West Coast Mitras? That would be weird. And why do you care anyway?”

“About the West Coast Mitras?”

“About the show. Why does it matter what I talk about?”

“I’m the producer,” I said. “I’m just … trying to produce.” Though the question was apt—why did I care? The bare minimum would carry us through this. But for some reason I had a weird feeling of wanting to iron out the wrinkles, as Jamie had put it. And he was doing his part, putting the playlists together and in a thoughtful way, not in a random, just search the year and press shuffle kind of way that Joydeep originally suggested. And Sasha had come in today and shown us the social media accounts she had started for Sounds of the Nineties, all of them branded with a logo that she designed herself. They looked pretty legit—substantially more so than the actual show seemed to warrant at the moment.

“Let’s just go with the flow,” Joydeep replied, and that was annoyingly hard to respond to. Like, what can you say to that? Disagree, let’s go against it. Let’s walk this thing upstream.

It was quiet after that. In between links, everyone did their own thing. Sasha worked on content to post. Jamie sat on the couch, a notebook open in his lap, working on next week’s playlist. Next to me, Joydeep was on his phone, typing furiously. Every couple of minutes he would pause, shake his head, tap the screen a couple times, and then begin typing again.