The Ex Talk(86)

And I immediately know something’s wrong.



* * *



—

The show only gets weirder from there. Onstage, everything goes smoothly—Dominic seems at ease, maybe a sliver less confident than he is in the studio, and our guests, including a food critic who fell for a chef after writing a scathing review of her restaurant, are perfectly charming. But some audience members leave in the middle—just get right up and walk out, though I think this is some of our best material. Others continue scrolling through their phones, like it’s not the rudest thing you can do at a live event like this.

Earlier, Dominic and I decided we’ll announce our relationship at the very end. We’ll say we spent all these long days together working on the show, it reminded us what we liked about each other. And that we appreciate our listeners’ support but we want to try as best we can to keep our current relationship status separate from the show. Now I have no idea how the audience will respond.

By the time we invite the audience up to the mic to share stories and ask questions, the knot of dread has climbed up my throat, and Dominic’s hands are visibly shaking.

One woman springs up from her seat in the third row, stalking toward the mic like she’s on a mission.

“Yeah, I have a question,” she says. “Did you think it was funny to deceive your listeners like this?”

A wave of murmurs rolls through the crowd. The woman is unfamiliar, a thirtysomething in a Welcome to Night Vale T-shirt. Dominic looks about as lost as I feel.

“Sorry, what?” I ask, my voice quaking. I hope she doesn’t hear it. I hope none of them do.

She holds up her phone, gives it a wave, though of course I can’t see the screen from here. “It’s all over social media. Your little trick. You two were never actually dating—you were just coworkers who teamed up for a cheap gimmick.”

It’s a mad dash as the audience members not already on their phones dive for their bags and dig through pockets, hundreds of people now furiously swiping.

Never actually dating.

Just coworkers.

A cheap gimmick.

I grip the arms of the chair. If I don’t, I’m worried I might bolt. I have to anchor myself, have to tell her it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not—

“We—uh—” Dominic tries, but he can’t get out a full sentence. All the breathing exercises in the world couldn’t have prepared us for this.

How the hell did this happen?

I look to the wings, to Ruthie. Our steadfast producer. I wait for her signal. I wait for her to tell us what to do, the way I signaled Paloma Powers so many times when we were hit with a hostile caller or a boring guest. But she looks stricken as she stares down at her phone, and I realize that whatever’s out there, whatever’s just exposed us—she’s finding it out for the first time, too.

The audience is in chaos now, others storming toward the mic. The first woman, clearly pleased after her public takedown, returns to her seat.

A guy who appears to be in his late twenties steps up to the mic next. “I have a question, too,” he says, and I relax a little, some ridiculous part of me preparing for a legitimate question, like maybe there’s still a way to salvage this. “I’m curious, was it for money? Or was it some kind of messed-up social experiment?”

The audience goes wild again.

Kent.

It had to be him. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what he did, but the only other person who knows is Ameena and, by extension, TJ. Even if we’re not currently on speaking terms, she would never do this. And as far as I know, Dominic still hasn’t told anyone.

“If we could just, um, get the questioning on track,” I say, but no one’s listening to me. They’re talking at us, but they’re not expecting answers. They want the controversy, the outrage—but not the explanation. It’s scary, watching them turn on us.

“And we fell for your lie,” the next person says, “about being private on social media. And about how you were both so scared about starting a new relationship.”

“That’s true!” I say, wondering if this means I’m admitting the rest wasn’t.

“So what if they bent the truth?” the next girl at the mic is saying. “It was good radio, right? It kept us entertained for an hour a week, helped us forget for a while that the world is on fire.”

Yes, random person, thank you.

“We bought into the show because of them and their relationship,” someone else says. “Can you imagine finding out that Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark weren’t really friends?”

I can’t take this. I can’t have them control the narrative.

I wrench my mic off its stand and charge to the center of the stage. “Okay,” I say. “Okay. You’re right. Before we started working on this show, we hadn’t actually dated.”

When I turn to Dominic, his face is ashen. He’s pinned to his chair, unable to make eye contact. Help me, I plead, but it doesn’t reach him, and I can’t help thinking not just about his stage fright but about his journalistic morals, the ones that the past few months have steamrolled and pulverized. This has to be his worst nightmare.

I take a slow, shaky breath. If I really am meant to tell stories, maybe there’s still some way to spin this.