Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(3)
“Wow. So…” I’m pretty surprised, honestly. Delia isn’t what you’d call a go-getter. Her grades suck. She skips class a bunch. Starting this show was the most motivation she’s ever displayed. Tracking down a long-lost dad is very proactive for her.
“Yeah. But talking about it is making me nervous. I’m not a TV natural like you. I gotta concentrate.”
A few seconds of charged silence tick by.
“Speaking of doing TV professionally, get this: my mom tells me she’s been in touch with this friend from law school who works for Food Network, and apparently they have offices in Knoxville, and she told her that she could get me an internship.” Even as the words leave my mouth, I regret them. Just because a segue is natural doesn’t mean it’s a great idea. That’s probably a good thing to keep in mind if I want to make it in TV.
Delia stares at me. “When would you…?” She trails off.
“I don’t even know if I want to do it. It’s TV and it might be a good start to my career, but I’m not sure about Food Network.”
“So it would be—”
“During the school year.”
“But aren’t you still planning on going to UT Martin?”
“Yeah.” I feel a strange twinge of something as I say it. I can’t quite identify what it is. Like I’m lying, but I’m not.
“But you still haven’t committed to UT Martin. Like formally.”
“I have. But I also committed to UT Knoxville.”
“Is that even allowed? Committing to two schools?”
“I mean, I think it’s definitely frowned upon. But the deadlines were coming up and my mom wanted me to see what she could do with the internship thing before I really committed to a school. So now I have until fall to cancel on one of them.”
“If you don’t go to school around here, we can’t do the show.”
“What if you came to Knoxville with me?” I should cut this off. I can sense Delia’s panic. This is a terrible time to be discussing this. Not that there’s a great time.
“We already know Knoxville public access isn’t into the show. We’ve tried like fifty times to get them to syndicate us.” Her voice is rising and brittle.
“What if I came home on breaks and we recorded a bunch of episodes?”
“No way would Arliss be up for that. And my work schedule wouldn’t allow it.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence.
“We’re a team,” Delia says. “We’re way better when we do the show together. I need you.”
“Okay, I told you. I’m going to UT Martin. Don’t freak out.” I’m pretty sure I’m not lying to Delia, but I’m not 100 percent sure. More like 95 percent. Or 94 percent. Or 94.7 percent.
“I’m not freaking out.”
She is unequivocally freaking out.
The light turns green. I give the driver next to me a curt nod before driving off. He stares straight ahead.
And now I’m kind of freaking out on top of my stressing over the PI. Thinking about even the slimmest possibility of Josie leaving is exactly the thing I don’t want to be doing right now. And…
“Oops.” I clap a palm to my heavily made-up forehead.
“What?”
“We gotta stop at Dixie Cafe and get some chicken livers for Buford’s segment.”
“DeeDee.”
“I forgot! I was preoccupied with the PI thing!” And more recently with the best friend possibly betraying me by leaving thing.
“That is in the opposite direction. If we’re late…”
“I have no idea if the twins’ friend’s dog will cooperate without the chicken livers.”
“You know Arliss.”
“I know Arliss.”
Josie hits the brakes and makes a U-turn, drawing a honk. “We need some energetic bongo music to play when we have to drive really fast because you’ve forgotten something.”
“I’ll text Arliss and tell him we’re running late.”
“Because he’s super good about checking texts.”
“I’ll tell him we’re bringing him dinner.”
“You’re paying,” Josie says.
We drive with the chicken livers like they’re going to be transplanted into several very important chickens, barreling up to the TV Six studio—Jackson, Tennessee’s only truly local television station.
Arliss Thacker stands outside the back door of the studio, smoking. He squints at us like we pulled up on a parade float celebrating the word moist, hitting your funny bone, phlegm, and leaning your seat back on airplanes. He consults his watch with conspicuous deliberation and concentration.
“He hates us so much,” I murmur.
“Do you blame him?”
“Oh, I one hundred percent do not.”
Josie fumbles with her sticky seat belt. “We’ve only brought him misery.”
“Probably.”
“No, I definitely know because he told me. He literally said to me once, verbatim: ‘You two have only ever brought me misery.’?”
“Sounds right.”
Josie gathers the lacy black skirts of her gown and gets out, whistling for Buford to follow her, which he does with the resigned reluctance of a man going to a public colonoscopy, waddling behind her flappily. She carries the Styrofoam container of pulled pork, squash casserole, and fried okra that we got Arliss.