Lucky Caller(32)

“What was that?” he replied. “Are your parents radio hosts too?”

“They’re accountants. Hey, maybe next time, don’t force me on-air without my permission just because you’re annoyed at Nina.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he did look genuinely sorry. “I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. I just knew Nina’s answer to the favorite sports question would be really boring. That was good, though, right? As far as winging it goes?”

“It was good,” I said. “It was actually really good.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Joydeep replied.

“You sounded totally normal,” Jamie said, and paused, considering. “Maybe your problem so far has been that you’re talking to no one. As soon as someone else is there, you’re good at it.” He turned to Sasha. “And you’re really, really good at it.”

“At what? Answering questions?”

“Hosting. Being on-air. You’re a total natural. Why didn’t you want to host in the first place?”

Sasha shrugged. “I don’t usually like that kind of thing. But … this was pretty okay.”

“It was way better than okay,” I said. “You know, Mr. Tucker did suggest we have a co-host.”

Sasha and Joydeep shared a look.

“What do you say?” Joydeep said. “Will you take this audio journey with me?”

“I don’t know how I feel about it when you put it like that,” Sasha said, fighting a smile.

Joydeep adopted a serious expression—too serious, which turned it back into funny. “Sasha Reynolds … will you be my co-host?”

Sasha considered it for a moment.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, a smile breaking out. “I’m in.”





29.


ROSE PICKED JAMIE AND ME up after the show, and when we were situated in the car, instead of heading right off, she looked over at me.

“Mom’s with Dan, and Sid is at rehearsal. Do you guys want to get food?”

I glanced back at Jamie. “Okay with you?”

A look of surprise passed briefly across his face, and he nodded.

We went to Sawasdee, a Thai place on the west side that Mom loved. It had the best decor—colorful satin tablecloths, flowers everywhere. The waiters wore brightly patterned shirts, and the spicy soup you got with every meal was Rose’s favorite.

It was quiet after we ordered. Jamie was fumbling with his napkin.

“How was the show?” Rose asked.

It wasn’t terrible, in fact. Sasha joined Joydeep on-air for the rest of the links. Jamie was right—she was a natural. And somehow, even when Joydeep was reading PSAs or the weather or whatever, having Sasha there to make offhand comments or to react to stuff made Joydeep sound way more relaxed.

“Surprisingly okay,” I replied. “How was class?”

Rose shrugged. “It was fine.”

That could mean anything. Rose was pretty tight-lipped about school these days. I never knew how to approach it. I was still the only one who knew how things had really gone last semester.

It was last November when I found Rose in our room going through her portfolio. Mom and Sidney were out at a movie with the Dantist.

Rose very rarely got upset—or at least she very rarely showed it. So when I walked in that night and she looked up, eyes red and ringed with mascara, I knew not only that something was wrong, but also that the something that was wrong had reached critical mass.

“What is it? What happened?”

She looked up from the portfolio, from the various scattered pages around her, and shook her head. “I’m just … not good at this.”

“Are you kidding?” Rose had never seemed to suffer from a lack of self-confidence before. “You’re great at art. You know that.”

“I’m not good at studying it,” she amended, voice hoarse. “I’m not good at being a student of it. Nothing is … It’s not at all like it was in high school. It’s not…” She shook her head. “It’s not what I thought it was gonna be, and I’m not good at it.” She swallowed. “I’m failing at it, actually.”

“For real?” Rose failing a class was inconceivable. Any of us failing a class was hard to imagine—I wasn’t the best student in the world, but Mom hammered the importance of decent grades into us from coloring outside the lines age. We were all at least average or better in school, and Rose had always been the best.

But apparently that wasn’t the case for Rose in college. She had nodded mournfully, looking back down at her portfolio. “I don’t know what to do.”

Right now, across the table at Sawasdee, Rose contemplated Jamie.

“Are you planning to go to school next year?” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah. I got into Butler.”

“Nice.” The waiter set down the soup in front of us, and Rose reached for her spoon. “Nina’s going to IUPUI, has she mentioned?”

“I haven’t gotten my acceptance yet,” I clarified.

“You’ll get in,” Rose said.

“But there’s still financial aid stuff,” I replied. “If it doesn’t work out, I might go to community college.”