Back Talk (3 page)

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weekends were always a welcome break from the frenetic pace they normally operated under. “Ed, are you busy?” she asked over the speakerphone.

“Never too busy for you, Anne,” Ed answered, his gruff voice laced with an unnatural sweetness.

Anne smiled. “Ed, you’re so full of shit.”

He laughed. “I am. What do you need?”

“A new Webmaster,” she said, scrolling down through the Web site. This stuff is good, she thought.

“Gee, is that all?”

“Come see this Web site,” Anne said.

Ed groaned. “Like I need some exercise.”

“Ed, come on.”

“My doctor will thank you,” he said. Anne could hear the squeak of his desk chair as he hoisted himself out of it.

When he arrived he peered over her shoulder. “Now, that is a good site.”

“Whose is it?” Anne asked, leaning back in her chair. Her shoulders ached and something in her neck cracked. It was time to go to the chiropractor and have him straighten her out again.

“It’s Hilton’s.”

“Whose?”

“She’s an intern,” Ed said, digging his hand into Anne’s candy jar. He pulled out a sour apple Jolly Rancher, unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth.

“As in, unpaid intern?” Anne queried. This was going to be easier than she thought. Over the years she had become a pretty good headhunter, unscrupulously appropriating the best help from wherever she found it. In the radio business there wasn’t time or resources to be frittered away on waiting to get what you wanted.

You had to go out and grab it.

“Yep, how they get people to do that I’ll never know. You couldn’t get me to pick up a paper clip without a paycheck.”

Anne watched as he maneuvered the candy in his mouth. “Did you get that tooth fixed yet?”

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“No, that would require going to the dentist. I’ll just wait until it abscesses and I’m in incredible pain and then I’ll go.”

Anne laughed. “Good idea. I mean, prevention is so banal.”

“I can get Hilton in here if you want to talk to her,” he offered.

That was one of the things Anne liked about Ed. He knew how to read her and could almost sense her motivations before she had them.

Ed dug in the candy jar for another Jolly Rancher.

“I could be interested in talking to her,” Anne said coyly.

“Yeah, I bet you would.” Ed winced and looked around. Anne pulled her waste can from under her desk. Ed plucked the candy from his mouth and deposited it.

“Sometimes we have to acknowledge our limitations. I’ll get Gummy Bears next time and you can swear off hard candy. It won’t make you a lesser man.”

Ed smiled. “For the guy with bad teeth.”

Anne laughed. She liked Ed. He was one of the few people who didn’t pity her or think it was intrinsically her fault that her ex-husband left her for a swank uptown lawyer named Phil. Ed had simply said, “It’s his loss.” Ed looked like a Franciscan friar with his graying ring of hair and his shiny bald spot on top on his round head, but his brilliant blue eyes and sleek nose gave him the air of an aristocrat. He was capable of speaking in high Latin and the latest street lingo. If he wore a frock instead of khaki Dockers and a blue oxford with no tie he could have walked out of the
Canterbury Tales
with complete credibility.

“I’ll call her.”

“Ed, it’s Saturday.”

“The Web site is her baby. She’ll come. Do you know who she is?”

“Hilton, the computer whiz kid?” Anne ventured.

“Hilton Withers,” Ed said.

Anne could tell he was waiting for her response but she didn’t have one. She raised her eyebrows in anticipation and waited.

Ed gave up. “Senator Percy Withers’ estranged, lesbian, pickle heiress daughter.”

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“What the hell is she doing here?”

“Rumor has it she likes your show.”

“I’ve got a shoo-in then,” Anne said, scrolling through the Web site again. She felt her mood improving. She liked getting her way and now she knew Ed was going to help her. This was even better.

He didn’t always go along with her ideas but when he did they usually turned out for the best. Ed was her thermometer when it came to her career, telling her what was hot and what ran cold. She supposed program directors were supposed to have a knack for that but Ed seemed to have more than that. He appeared to be gifted in that department.

“I’d say so, but wait until you meet her. She’s an odd duck.” Ed picked up the phone and then rummaged around in his pocket for a small tattered notebook where he kept all his secret numbers. He could get ahold of anyone at anytime. Anne wasn’t certain how he got this information, whether he threatened the removal of toenails for private cell phone numbers and pagers or if he refused to hire you if you didn’t give him complete access to every phone line in your possession. One corner of the pad looked like it had been dipped in ketchup, and all the edges had what Anne referred to as finger juice, that oily grime that too much contact with skin gave to inanimate objects. He began fingering through it until he found what he was looking for.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, first off, there’s the dog. If you hire her, her dog, Shannon, comes with.”

“To work? Isn’t there some building code against that?”

“Actually not. Ever heard of Petsmart?” Ed said, smiling.

Anne gave this some thought. Her insurance agent brought her cat to work. So it must be all right. Anne could tell he was waiting for her to pull out. It was probably some little fluffy thing that liked a biscuit now and then and slept the rest of the day. “We all have our little idiosyncrasies.”

“Hilton takes the cake.” Ed dialed the number.

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Twenty minutes later, Hilton Withers and her dog were standing in Ed’s office. Anne sat casually lounging in Ed’s waiting room while he told Hilton what was going on. The fluffy little thing Anne had envisioned turned out to be a massive white dog with a head as big as a soccer ball. She did appear to be well-behaved as she sat quietly by Hilton’s side. He had led her to believe there was something up with the Web site and now Anne could tell Hilton was not happy about the turn of events. Ed’s office had a picture window on one side. Hilton’s back was turned so she couldn’t see Anne. Having spent years behind a glass partition doing the radio show had given her the ancillary gift of reading lips. Anne was reading Ed’s lips. Hilton, it appeared, didn’t feel properly dressed.

She was attempting to straighten out her wrinkled white shirt by tucking it in a pair of faded camouflage shorts. She pulled her shoulder-length hair back into a ponytail.

Hilton was a very pretty young woman with perfectly straight blond hair and blue eyes. She was thin and looked younger than her twenty-something years. So she’s rich and pretty and thin, Anne thought. In the eyes of the world this meant she had everything, not to mention she was smart. It doesn’t get any better, Anne smirked to herself.

So Hilton was uncomfortable. She would put her at ease. Anne enjoyed making people squirm, using others to do her dirty work so that she could come in and become the breast of comfort.

Anne knew just when to make her entrance. She walked into Ed’s office nonchalantly.

“You must be Hilton,” Anne said, extending her hand. Hilton looked startled.

“Yes, Ed was telling me that you liked the Web site.” Hilton shook her hand.

Anne noticed that she only made eye contact for a brief moment. This meant she was shy and shy people were seldom arrogant, Anne thought.

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“I absolutely love it. Have you seen my current one?”

“Well, of course,” Hilton said.

Shannon was sniffing Anne’s shoe. Hilton snapped her fingers and Shannon reluctantly returned to her side. She let out a heavy sigh.

“What do you think of it?” Anne asked, leaning on the corner of Ed’s desk.

Hilton looked over at Ed as if looking for clues. “Tell her the truth,” he said. He folded his arms across his chest and grinned big. Hilton must have taken this for a sign.

“Honestly?” Hilton asked. She reached down to pet Shannon, who had been nuzzling her.

“Please,” Anne said. She stuck her hand out so Shannon could smell it.

“It sucks.”

Anne and Ed both burst out laughing.

“What I mean is that it could use some work. Your show is so vibrant and funny and the Web site is so bland in comparison. Bart is not your man.”

“Boy, you can say that again,” Anne said. She rubbed Shannon’s ears and Anne could tell being nice to the dog scored big points with Hilton. Anne liked dogs. She’d had them growing up and then once college and career came along there didn’t seem time to care for one.

“Anne was thinking that you might like to give it a shot,” Ed said.

“Really?” Hilton asked.

“Really. Have you had breakfast?” Anne said, liking that Hilton was excited.

“No, I just got up, like, twenty minutes ago and it’s only eight-thirty.”

“Let’s go eat and we’ll talk,” Anne said.

“That’d be great.”

“Does Shannon have a favorite place?” Anne asked.

“McDonald’s,” Hilton said.

“That sounds wonderful, and then we’ll take it to the park,”

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Anne said, knowing for certain dogs were not allowed in restaurants.

Shannon obviously had a vocabulary because she barked and jumped up on Hilton, nearly flooring her.

“Whoa, girl. Yes, we’re going.”

They walked past Anne’s studio on the way to the elevators.

“Hey, do you want to see the studio?” Anne asked.

“Sure,” Hilton said.

Anne unlocked the door. Her boots made noise on the wood floors. Shannon went over and sniffed the leather couch that lined one wall. Two chairs and a coffee table finished off the reception area. To one side was a semi-circular desk. “That’s Veronica’s area.

She’s our producer.”

“Nice studio,” Hilton commented.

“And this is the control room,” Anne said, leading her into the large glass booth that housed the equipment necessary to run the program. It had an octagonal desk with the control board in the middle, a switchboard for the phones on one side and computer desk on the other. “I thought we could put you here. That way you could observe the show and between you and Dave, our broadcast engineer, work something out with the Web site.”

“That sounds great,” Hilton said. “Wow, a D-eight-hundred.”

She touched the control board.

“So you know a little more than just the computer stuff,” Anne said.

“Not really, I’m just fascinated by electronics.”

“I’m sure Dave will give you the rundown on everything.”

They exited the control room. “And then over here is my booth,” Anne said. She watched as Hilton went to one of the two large windows located on both sides of the soundproof booth.

“Great view,” Hilton said.

Anne came over and took it in with her. The earlier drizzle of the day had cleared up and she could see the Space Needle and just barely perceptible was the tip of Mount Rainier. “Boy, you don’t see that very often.”

“No, it’s gorgeous.”

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“Is this acceptable?” Anne asked. She could tell Shannon liked it. She was sprawled out on the wood floor underneath the slow-running overhead fan.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Let’s go get breakfast then.”

Shannon stood up immediately. Anne smiled. She liked the dog.

Later that afternoon, Anne was sitting on her back patio gloating over her latest success at headhunting. Hilton had eagerly jumped at the chance to become a paid Webmistress for Anne’s show. It wasn’t much of a theft because interns came to radio stations in hopes of finding full-time employment. The sister station where Hilton worked would easily find a replacement as the list of applicants for internships was endless. Hilton needed at least a week of just observing the program before she went to work reformatting the Web site. Anne poured herself a glass of horribly expensive Pinot Noir. Sometimes it felt good to be her.

She was still gloating when Gerald let himself in the back gate.

There were times when it bothered her that he still felt so free to wander about her house, but she supposed she could handle it. He had lived there for five years, been responsible for the decorating and landscaping and then given it all to her when they divorced.

Still, it was an invasion of privacy, and what if someday she was spending the afternoon doing a little hanky-panky with a new heartthrob. It would be embarrassing if her ex-husband came cruising in. She could change the locks but somehow that seemed an act of hostility and she didn’t want that. There wouldn’t be any liaisons anytime soon, so what did it really matter?

“I thought I’d find you out back,” Gerald Parsing said, flopping his six-foot frame into the yellow wooden chair. He brushed his errant brown forelock out of his eyes and looked at her inquisitively.

“I was just relaxing.”

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“And?” he asked, picking up the bottle of wine Anne had sitting next to her. He examined the label. “We must be celebrating something.”

“As a matter of fact we are. I just snagged a really good Webmistress who’s going to do wonders for my new site.”

“Doing a little headhunting?”

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Did you want a glass?”

“Sure.”

Anne went into the kitchen and got him a glass. It was Waterford crystal and had been one of their wedding presents. She really had walked off with the store. She went back outside to find him plucking some of the dead leaves off one of the rosebushes he had laboriously planted alongside the patio.

“The roses are coming along nicely.” He sat back down and took the glass of wine she offered him.

“Why don’t you take some home for Philip?”

“That would be nice. He would take it as a peace offering,”