Lucky Caller(21)

I blinked. “I thought you were headed somewhere.”

“I was following you.”

“Oh.”

“I actually have class back in the gym,” he said.

“Oh,” I said again.

He smiled a little, still awkward. “So … I should probably—”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“See you.”

“Bye.”

My class was back in that direction too, but it was too awkward to announce that, to have just said goodbye and then walk together in the same direction.

So I lingered and looked at the school directory like I hadn’t been wandering the halls of Meridian North for the last three and a half years, like I wasn’t acutely aware of the location of my next class, and I listened to Jamie’s footsteps shuffling away.





15.


Conrad: This is 100.2 The Heat. We’re giving away tickets to our Birthday Bash in just about ten minutes here, so stay tuned. We’re going to play one of our favorite games, which is …

Will: Ancestry Quarrel. [pause] Because Family Feud is, you know, copyrighted or whatever.

Conrad: Yeah, no, that one doesn’t get better with age. But anyway, we’re going to get a couple people on the line here in a minute, but in the meantime, we’re talking about—what are we talking about?

Nikki: Do you ever pay even a little bit of attention to what’s going on here?

Conrad: You know, I have faith that my amazing team will keep me informed.

Tina: We’re talking about first love.

Conrad: Oh. Blech.

Nikki: What? Why?

Conrad: Why what?

Nikki: That, like, disgusted sound.

Conrad: It wasn’t disgusted, it was just—why are we talking about that?

Nikki: Because of Tina’s news segment earlier! You weren’t even listening!

Tina: The story of the woman with the locket from her first boyfriend? She saved it all that time? They got together again twenty years later?

Conrad: I was checking Twitter.

Nikki: Conrad!

Will: Booooooo.

Conrad: Will, you were on Twitter too!

Will: Uh, yeah, reading through all the stories of first love from our listeners.

Conrad: Yeah, right.

Nikki: I can vouch for him. I can see his screen from here.

Conrad: You never vouch for me, Nik.

Nikki: You never give me anything to vouch for.

Tina: Tell us about your first love, Conrad.

Conrad: Nah, I don’t believe in all that.

All: Booooooo.

Nikki: How can you not believe in first love? It’s not like ghosts or something, I think it’s generally accepted as being a real thing. If you’ve been in love even one time, that’s your first love.

Conrad: I just don’t believe that it’s, like, this huge thing. Like, where do you even count it from? I thought I was in love with Jennifer Watts in first grade. I loved this girl Kelsey … Valenti? Valencia? Kelsey Valencia—that was it—from math class in seventh grade. I loved Alicia Silverstone in high school. Got nowhere with her, FYI.

Tina: Shocking.

Conrad: So which one’s the first one? What makes it first love?

Nikki: It’s the first one where they actually love you back.

Conrad: Well, then. Maybe I’m still waiting on it.

Tina: You’ve got three kids, Conrad!

Conrad: [sputters a laugh] That’s true. How about that, then? They’re the loves of my life. My little girls.

Will: Aren’t they in college?

Conrad: Excuse you. Only Rosie is in college. Nina is a senior, and Sid is in eighth grade.

Tina: Wow, you’re like really old.

Conrad: Yeah, you guys don’t remind me of that nearly enough.

Will: Gotta keep you grounded.

Conrad: Excuse me, who is the show named after?

Will: See, that’s exactly why.

Conrad: All right, all right. We’re going to get some folks on the line for our game, so give us a call now. In the meantime, here’s one from Megan whatsit—the country crossover one. What’s her name?

Tina: Megan Pleasant.

Nikki: You’d know that if you weren’t so old.

Conrad: 555-1002. Give us a call if you want to play. Or if you want to work for me. I’m currently hiring an entirely new team.





16.


THAT WEEKEND BROUGHT MY FIRST official night of training with Pipers at the Eastman. There was a wedding in the Mama Bear ballroom (the Crystal Room, if we’re being technical)—the midsized of the three reception spaces.

The wedding was pretty formal—along with the usual dress shirt and slacks, we had to wear vests and black ties. I had tied mine really poorly, even after watching a variety of YouTube videos on the subject, before Rose got home and tied it perfectly.

All of the other catering staff members were older than Jamie and me—a few college students, some actual adults. Jamie seemed to fit right in with everyone, though—talking animatedly with one of the guys as they filled water glasses, pausing at the bar stand to say something to the bartender that she responded to with a wide smile.

I shadowed a woman named Celeste, who showed me the staging areas where the food was kept (there were no event kitchens at the Eastman, apparently, so the food was prepared offsite and trucked in; I had never thought of it much except for the big signs at the back of the building that said DO NOT BLOCK PIPERS LOADING ZONE), and outlined the general tasks for the evening. We weren’t always responsible for setup (it was often done the day before, for the first wedding of the weekend), but were instrumental in cleanup both throughout and after the event. We would have to deliver food, fill drinks—general waitstaff-type stuff, I think, though I’d never done any of it before.