Lucky Caller(68)

“Me too.”

The sitcom guy spilled a cup of coffee on himself, and the audience exploded into hysterics again.

“And I’m glad Dan showed up on your online dating algorithm thing,” I continued. “Because he’s nice. And I like him.”

Mom smiled. “I like him too.”

It was quiet for a little while after that.

“What show were you trying to see?” I said eventually.

“Sorry?”

“The tickets. On the radio, when you called Dad. What concert was it?”

“Oh.” Mom paused. “Well, I called in a lot, to be honest, but I think that time…”

“What?”

“I mean, I was young, keep that in mind.”

“What was it?”

“I was, uh, twenty-two at the time?”

“Mom.”

“It was tickets to see *NSYNC. The No Strings Attached tour. I was gonna take your aunt with me and we were going to get Joey Fatone to fall in love with one of us.”

“Wow.” I bit back a smile. “I’m sorry we deprived you of that.”

“I can find it in my heart to forgive you,” she said with a grin.





66.


Joydeep: You’re listening to 98.9 The Jam, the voice of the Meridian North Bobcats, and this is Sounds of the Nineties.

Sasha: Hello to all the new listeners out there. There are … definitely a lot of you, which is very cool.

Joydeep: Very very cool. And guess who’s definitely not stuck paying for everyone’s prom tickets?

Sasha: Who would that be?

Joydeep: This guy. For the benefit of the listeners out there, I’m pointing to myself.

Sasha: Thanks for clearing that up.

Joydeep: You see, I had this bet going with my friends— Sasha: Should we really be getting into that right now?

Joydeep: No, probably not. But anyway, thanks very much, listeners!

Sasha: So tonight we’re going to be playing a recording from our recent live event, with special guests Dr. Dan Hubler and Lucas Kirk from This Is Our Now.

Joydeep: Yeah, so if you missed it, you can hear how it went. I think it went pretty well, personally.

Sasha: I think so too.

Joydeep: You did a great job interviewing.

Sasha: As did you.

Joydeep: You know, this is nice. This is a nice feeling in the studio right now.

Sasha: [laughing] Okay.

Joydeep: I like this for us.

Sasha: Let’s just play the recording.





67.


JOYDEEP REFERRED TO THAT EVENING’S show as our “victory lap.” We filled the remainder of the time with Existential Dead songs, in tribute. It seemed only right.

When we were packing up, I noticed a text from Rose: Running late at work! Be there soon!

So I took my time gathering my stuff. Sasha bid us all goodbye and headed out, but Joydeep lingered, shouldering his backpack and looking between Jamie and me. “Hey, did you guys happen to listen to Cat Chat this week?”

I shook my head.

“Oh. It was a pretty good episode. I mean, not good good, since it’s Cat Chat and all, but … There was one interesting question. I downloaded it, and uh, you guys should listen to it before you go. I got it all queued up, just have to—” He reached over, tapped a key on the keyboard, and Colby’s voice filtered into the room.

“—so I guess I’d say, it’s not the best idea ever, but it’s probably worth a try?”

“See you guys,” Joydeep said with an enigmatic smile, and then he headed out.

“We’ve got another question here,” Sammy was saying, “from someone who calls themselves a longtime listener, longtime question asker. Dear Cat Chat. I have two friends—”

“Wow, good for you.”

“Colby!”

“Sorry.” His voice came close, like his lips were right on the mic as he whispered, “Not sorry.”

“I have two friends,” Sammy began again, louder, “who are obviously into each other.”

Something in my stomach swooped. I locked my eyes on the soundboard.

“Something happened between them when they were younger—I don’t know what. All I know is that one of them is always looking at the other when they think they’re not looking. They both think no one else has noticed, but literally everyone around them notices. They get along really well. They both have the same weird sense of humor. Or at least, maybe different weird senses of humor that are compatible with each other.

“These days, they look at each other with extra sad eyes, and it’s really annoying. I’ve encouraged each person to talk to the other, but they don’t. They talk to me instead, and even though I’m undeniably brilliant—” She snorted. “There’s only so much I can do. How do I get these two people to admit to each other that they want to—” Sammy cut off, made a strange noise.

“You have to say it,” Colby said.

“I don’t think I can say that on-air.”

“‘Bone down,’” Colby said, enunciating very clearly. “It says ‘bone down.’”

“Colby!”

“It says it!”

A heavy sigh. “Signed, Sick of the Lovesick. P.S. Thank you, Cat Chat, for providing advice to students and the community at large. Your show is, if I had to say it”—Sammy’s voice flattened—“not that terrible, or whatever.” A pause. “Gee, thanks.” Another pause. “So what do you think?”