Just Listen(29)

Mallory made a face. "Great," she said sarcastically. "Another afternoon at the store."

"Your parents own this place?" I asked.

"Yes," Mallory grumbled as Owen picked up her phone from the center console, giving it back to her.

"It's so unfair. Here I am, obsessed with clothes, and my mom has a clothing store. But it's all stuff I wouldn't ever wear in a million years. Not even if I was dead ."

"If you were dead," Owen told her, "you'd have bigger problems than what you were wearing."

Mallory looked at me then, her expression grave. "Annabel, seriously. It's all, you know, natural fabrics and fibers, Tibetan batiks, vegan shoes."

"Vegan shoes?" I said.

"They're awful," she whispered. "Awful. They're not even pointy ."

"Mallory," Owen said. "Please get out of the car."

"I'm going, I'm going." Still, she took her time gathering up her bag, undoing her seat belt, and unlocking the door. "It was really nice to meet you," she said to me.

"You, too," I said.

She slid out, shutting the door behind her, and started into the store. As she pushed the door open, she looked back, then waved at me excitedly, her hand blurring. I waved back, and then Owen was pulling away, back to the main road. Without Mallory, the car seemed smaller, not to mention quieter.

"Again," he said, as we slowed for a red light, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I told him. "She's cute."

"You don't live with her. Or have to listen to her music."

"104Z," I said. "All the hits, with less of the lip."

"You listen to that station?"

"I have before," I said. "Especially when I was in middle school."

He shook his head. "It would be different if she had no access to good music. If she was deprived of culture. But I've made her tons of CDs. She just won't listen to them. Instead, she chooses to fill her head with that pop crap, listening to a station where they pretty much just play the occasional songs between commercials."

"So on your show," I said, "it's different."

"Well, yeah." He glanced over at me, shifting gears as we headed back onto the main road. "I mean, it's community radio, so there aren't commercials. But I think you should be responsible about what you're putting out there for people to hear. If it can be pollution or art, why wouldn't you choose art?"

I just looked at him. Clearly, I had really misjudged Owen Armstrong. I wasn't sure who I'd thought he was, but it wasn't this person sitting beside me.

"So where do you live?" he asked me, switching lanes as we approached a stoplight.

"The Arbors," I said. "It's a few miles past the mall; you can just—"

"I know it," he said. "The station is just a couple of blocks from there. I have to stop in there for a second, if that's okay."

"Sure," I said. "That's fine."

The community radio station was in a squat, square building that had once been a bank. There was a metal tower beside it, as well as a somewhat droopy banner hanging across the front entrance,wrus it said in big black letters,community radio: radio for us . There was a big window in front, on the other side of which I could see a man sitting in a broadcast booth wearing headphones and speaking into a microphone. There was a lit-up sign in the corner of the window that saido air: apparently, the N was burned out.

Owen pulled into a space right up front, then cut the engine before turning around in his seat to pick through some CDs on the floor. After gathering up a few, he pushed open the door. "Back in a sec," he said.

I nodded. "Okay."

Once he disappeared inside, I started checking out some of the handwritten names on the CD cases, none of which I recognized:the handywacks(assorted), jeremiah reeves(early stuff), truth squad (opus) .

Suddenly, I heard a beep, then turned my head to see a Honda Civic pulling into the spot next to me.

Which wouldn't have been noteworthy, really, except the driver had on a bright red helmet.

It wasn't the kind football players wear, exactly, but something a little bigger, with more padding. The guy wearing it looked to be about my age and was dressed in a black sweatshirt and jeans. He waved at me, and I waved back, tentatively, and then he was rolling down his window.

"Hi," he said. "Is Owen inside?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. His eyes were big, blue, and long-lashed in the small cutout of the faceplate, and his hair was past his shoulders, pulled back in a ponytail that was poking out from under the helmet. "He said he'd be back in a second."

He nodded. "Cool," he said, sitting back in his seat. I was trying not to stare at him, even though it was kind of hard. "I'm Rolly, by the way," he said.

"Oh. Hi. I'm Annabel."

"Nice to meet you." He reached down to his cup holder, picking up a paper cup with a straw poking out of it and taking a sip. He was just putting it back when Owen came out of the building.

"Hey," Rolly called out to him. "I was just driving by and saw your car. I thought you had to work today."

"At six," Owen told him.