The Ex Talk(78)

* * *



—

Slowly but surely, my producing works its magic.

On Monday, we have a few dozen new Apple Podcasts reviews and dating and breakup stories submitted by listeners.

On Tuesday, we sign a sponsorship deal with a major mattress company. And both Dominic and I get free mattresses.

On Wednesday, someone at NPR emails me back, apologizing for the short notice and asking if they can simulcast our grief episode this week.

That one makes me splash hot coffee all over my keyboard.

“Shit,” I mutter, racing to the break room for some paper towels.

“Everything okay over there?” Dominic asks when I return.

I mop up the spill as best I can. “If by okay you mean, is NPR going to simulcast tomorrow’s episode, then yes.”

He glances up from his computer. We haven’t exactly been doing sustained eye contact this week, and I’ve been immersing myself in the show as much as possible so I don’t obsess over it. As long as I don’t slow down, I don’t have to think about his hands or his hips or his mouth. His scratchy voice in my ear, asking if I’m almost there.

Yes, of course this is healthy.

I tell him about NPR, and then we tell Kent and Ruthie and my mother and Phil, and oh my god. This could be it. This could be the thing that gets us to PodCon, the thing that turns us from cute local podcast to one of those massive success stories.

All we have to do is nail it.



* * *



—

My mother slips on a pair of headphones like she’s worried they might bite.

“You’re going to be wonderful,” I tell her from across the table. “You go onstage in front of hundreds of people every night.”

“Yes, but they don’t have to hear me talk,” she says. “And I’m not being broadcast live on NPR.”

Ruthie pops her head in. “Need anything, Leanna, Phil? Water, coffee?”

“Water would be great,” Phil says on my mother’s other side. “Thanks.”

Dominic is sitting next to me, as usual, and it feels like there’s more space between our chairs than on past Thursdays. Don’t think about the way he smells. Or that he’s wearing your favorite striped shirt. Or that it’s rolled to his forearms.

I wonder if this is how it would feel if we’d actually dated.

It’s easier to reassure my mother than it is to reassure myself. When we chatted with the NPR producer, a woman named Kati Sanchez, she told us not to change a thing about the show. She’d write intro copy beamed out to member stations to use if they air our segment later. All we have to do is classic Ex Talk, be ourselves and all of that. With the knowledge that our listenership will be quite possibly multiplied by the thousands.

Ruthie returns with glasses of water, and Jason counts us down after the top-of-the-hour NPR newsbreak. I pile all my Dominic angst into a box at the back of my mind and nail it shut, determined to leave it there for the next hour.

When Dominic and I introduce ourselves, our voices aren’t as light as they usually are.

“We’re doing something a little different today,” Dominic says. “We’re talking about what happens after you lose a spouse or partner, and more specifically, stories about finding love after loss.”

It feels even worse, lying to my mother on the air when she’s sitting right next to me. But this isn’t about me. Or at least, not entirely.

I take a deep breath and speak as solidly into the microphone as I can.

“This show is especially personal to me because I lost my dad when I was eighteen. My senior year of high school.” I wait a beat—an unplanned beat because even though it doesn’t feel, sitting here, like thousands of people are listening, I know they will be. They are right now, live, and they will later. Losing him again and again. “My dad is the person who got me into radio. He had this store where he fixed electronics. Goldstein Gadgets. Maybe some of you out there in Seattle remember it. And okay, you know my voice isn’t the ideal radio voice”—I expect Dominic to maybe laugh at this, but he doesn’t. I clear my throat and go on—“but my dad, he had this perfect radio voice.”

“So if we’re talking about love after loss, I thought, what better person to have on the show than my mother. She lost him, too—in a different way than I did. Um, Mom . . . thank you for being here. Feel free to introduce yourself.”

Beneath the table, my mother squeezes my leg. “I’m Leanna Goldstein. I’ve played violin in the Seattle Symphony for about twenty-five years. And I’m a Sagittarius.”

This earns a few soft laughs from the room.

“Can you talk about how you met my dad?”

“Dan Goldstein,” she says, and she knew we’d start this way, but nothing about her feels rehearsed. She’s natural but poised in this wonderful way, like she is onstage but better because this is her voice. “We met as his shop. I had this metronome that had been giving me trouble, and I figured it was a long shot, but I brought it in to see if he could fix it. And much to my surprise, he did. And looked pretty damn adorable doing it.” Her expression morphs into panic. “Shoot, is it okay to say ‘damn’ on here?”

I assure her that she’s okay—the FCC won’t come after us for that.