The Ex Talk(4)

“Fuck,” Ruthie says.

“Say something,” I mutter into his ear. I wave my arms, but he’s completely frozen.

Well, if he destroys my show, at least he’ll go down with it.

“Dominic,” Paloma prompts, still perfectly cheery. “We’re so happy to have you with us!”

Then something kicks in, as though the adrenaline has finally reached his bloodstream. Dominic blinks to life and leans into the mic.

“Thank you, Paloma,” he says, rocky at first, but then evening out. “I’m thrilled to be here. Yours was actually the first show I listened to before I moved to Seattle for this job.”

“Wonderful,” Paloma says. “What do you have for us?”

He straightens. “It started with an anonymous tip. And I know what you’re thinking. Sometimes an anonymous tip can be complete hearsay, but if you ask the right questions, you can find the real story. This one, I had a feeling—call it a reporter’s intuition—that it was right on. I investigated something similar about a faculty member when I was at Northwestern.” A dramatic pause, and then: “What I found out is that Mayor Scott Healey has a second family. And while his private life is his business, he used campaign funds to keep it quiet.”

“Shiiiiiit,” Jason says, spinning in his chair to face Ruthie and me. Behind the scenes, we’re not exactly FCC compliant.

“I knew there was a reason I didn’t vote for him,” Ruthie says. “I didn’t like his face.”

“That—that is a big one, Dominic,” Paloma says, clearly shocked, but recovering quickly. “We’ve had Mayor Healey on the show several times. Can you tell us how you figured this out?”

“It started at a council meeting last month . . .” He launches into the story—how he found the financial records and tracked where the money was going, how he eventually convinced the mayor’s secret daughter to talk to him.

Two minutes go by. Three. As we approach five minutes, I try to signal Paloma to switch segments, but she’s too focused on Dominic. I start to wonder if it’s possible to sever a mic cord with my fingernails.

“I can’t keep up with the phone lines,” Griffin’s voice says in my ear.

I press the button to talk directly to him. “Take down their questions and tell them Mary Beth will get to the ones she can.”

“No—they’re about the mayor. They want to talk to Dominic.”

Oh. Okay. Gritting my teeth, I hop on our show chat.


Calls coming in, is D open to ?’s?



“It looks like we’re getting a lot of questions,” Paloma says after peeking at the screen. “Would you be open to taking some calls from listeners?”

“Sure, Paloma,” Dominic says, with the ease of a seasoned reporter and not someone who played with a digital recorder a few times in college and decided why not go into radio.

When his eyes lock with mine through the glass barrier, all my loathing for him burns hot in my chest, turning my heart wild. The cut of his jaw makes him look more resolute than I’ve ever seen him, like he knows how badly I used to want this. His mouth tilts upward in a triumphant half smile. Delivering live commentary: another thing Dominic Yun is instantly perfect at.

Kent bursts through the door. “Shay, we’re gonna have to reschedule Mary Beth. This is good motherfucking radio.”

“Ruthie,” I say, but she’s already halfway out the door.

“Great work, everyone,” Kent says, slapping Jason on the shoulder. “I’m glad we were able to get to this today.”

I jostle my glasses as I rub at the space between my eyes where a headache is brewing. “This isn’t right,” I say after Kent leaves.

“It’s good motherfucking radio,” Jason says in a singsong, imitating Kent.

“It feels invasive.”

“The public doesn’t have a right to know that the mayor’s a shady piece of shit?”

“They do, but not on our show.”

Jason follows my gaze, glancing between Dominic and me. Jason and I were hired within a couple weeks of each other, and he knows me too well not to realize why I’m upset. “You hate that Dominic is so good at this,” he says. “You hate that he’s a natural, that he’s live on the air a few months after he started working here.”

“I’m—” I start, but stumble over my words. It makes me sound so shitty when he puts it that way. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. I have no desire to be on air.” Not anymore, at least. No point in wanting something I know will never happen.

Ruthie comes back in, cheeks flushed.

“Mary Beth’s pissed.” She clamps her headphones over her ears. “She says she had to cancel a private training session with one of Bill Gates’s kids to be here.”

“We’ll send a groveling email later. No—I’ll call her.”

“I don’t have enough lines,” Griffin says in my ear.

“Ruthie, can you help Griffin? I’ll pitch in if I need to.”

“On it.”

“Thank you.”

Dominic reads off each illicit payment one by one. The numbers are staggering. It’s not that this is a bad show—it’s that somehow, it’s become Dominic’s show, and I’m no longer in control. He is the star.