Rock Radio (26 page)

Dana told him of her close relationship with her mom and dad.  She drew him into her life with tales of a family life he’d only dreamed of.  Her world was the world he always wanted.  Cody let himself fall safely into her descriptions
, imagining what life would have been like in a family like hers, and wondered if they could create that type of family life together.

“Wow...you made my shift go fast.”  Dana looked at the clock. “It’s time for me to go home.”

“It was great talking to you.”

“A very memorable date.”

“Yes it was.”  Cody’s voice grew serious, “I just can’t wait until I can see you.”
              “We’re almost there.”

“You’re very special, Dana.”

She blushed.

“Okay, no response,”
Cody continued.

“Oh,” Dana was embarrassed.  “I was blushing.  I of all people should know you can’t hear a blush.”  She paused.  “I feel the same way about you.  You have to forgive me for being cautious...I’ve been hurt before.” 
In fact, just today.

Cody sensed her vulnerability.  “This isn’t some fling for me,” he reassured.  “I have some things in my past too...I’m looking for something real.”

Dana was relieved.  “So we’ll see where this goes.”

“Yes we will.”

Yes, I will,
she said to herself.

A shaken Heather came into Jonny’s office the next morning.

“Jonny, my tires were slashed and I found this note.”

Heather held out a yellow piece of paper.  Jonny took it from her.

Stay away from him.

“It’s your psycho wife, I’m sure of it.”

He was perplexed.  “Jill wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Well she’s not going to do it again.  I’m calling the police.”

“Heather, don’t do that, please.”  Jonny pleaded with his voice and his eyes.

“Why?  ‘Cause then she’ll know about the affair?”  Heather pulled the note from him, “Jonny, get real, she already knows.”

“We don’t know that,” he tried to stall for time.

“Are you on drugs?  She knows...get it through your head.  You are not invincible.”

“Well...”

“Well nothing.  I’m glad she knows that you are with me.  The sooner she’s out of the picture, the better.”

“I already told you Heather, I’m not sure that’s how I want this to play out.”

“It’s playing out on its own Jonny.  What part are you not hearing?  Jill knows that she’s been replaced.  She’s just gone off the deep end.”

“Look, I need you to do me a favor.  I need you to let me handle this.  I’ll pay to have your tires replaced...in the meantime, please don’t call the police.”  The color drained from his face.

Heather pondered his request.  “She slashed my tires...what is she gonna do next?  I’m not giving you up and I don’t want to find out what else she’s capable of.”

Not giving you up.
  Her words echoed in his head.  “Let me handle this,” he repeated.  “I’m asking you this favor.  Just bring me the receipt for your car.”

Heather sauntered over to Jonny and snuggled up against him.  “She just scared me.”

“I’ll take care of everything,” Jonny said, not sure what he was going to do.

*

Jill was going insane.

She drove quickly to her meeting at Miami Motors, still shaking from her actions this morning.  The line of dirt on her neatly pressed pink skirt was a reminder of her subversive morning.

She knew it now.

Her husband was having an affair.

She was losing control.

Jill rushed into the meeting late, flustered.

“Jill, so glad to see you.”  Nick Coleman rose from his chair to greet her.  He wore a loud purple shirt and black pants.  His graying hair was slicked back.  “You look a little worse for wear,” he whispered in her ear.

“Long morning.”

Jill took her seat at the round meeting table to discuss the final advertising campaign for the car dealership giant.

Nick was in his element, smoothly taking control.  For the first time, Jill was thankful.  “So we’ll tie in the print ads from Jill’s ad agency with our radio commercials all leading up to the big promotion – a huge remote at your flagship dealership in Miami.”

“Yes,” she added, not wanting to be completely irrelevant, “Nick and I have pooled our resources to ensure a uniform media blitz of your ‘one price, low price’ campaign.”

“Fantastic!”  Hal Jacobs, owner of five car dealerships, smiled broadly.  “I’m giving you a lot of money, this needs to work.”

“It will,” Jill and Nick said simultaneously.

“Good, I appreciate your enthusiasm.”  Hal closed his notebook signaling the end of the meeting.  “I’ll see you next week for the launch?”  It was more of an order than a question.

“Definitely,” Nick said extending his hand.

“Yes and sorry again for being late,” Jill chimed in.

“It’s okay, I know you won’t let it happen again.”

Jill smiled uncomfortably.  She hated being scolded.  She was a professional and liked to present herself as such.  Today, though, she was rattled.

Jill and Nick walked out of the meeting together.

“Are you okay, Jill?  You weren’t your usual put together self.”

“What can I tell you?  We all can’t be as perfect as you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”  He laughed.

“Whatever.”  Jill realized that Nick worked at the station, perhaps he knew something.  She desperately wanted to come right out and ask him, but feared embarrassment if she was wrong.  But she knew she wasn’t.  She had to find out the truth.  “So, Nick, what’s new at the station?”

“Oh, the usual crap, I’m sure Jonny fills you in on all of it.”

“Not all of it...”  She let her sentence trail leaving time for him to jump in.  He didn’t.  “Is there something I should know?”

“Like what?”

This was harder than Jill thought.  Obviously, being coy was not the answer.  “Nick, I need to ask you something, but I want you to promise me your discretion.”

He stopped walking and turned serious.  “Sure, Jill, what’s up?”
              She was shaking.  “Is Jonny involved with someone?”

Nick pulled back.

Jill saw his stunned response and got her answer.

“Naw...why would you say that?” Nick tried to clean up his reaction.  After all, he was usually on the other side of this equation, he didn’t feel right being the one to tell the wife.

“I saw how you reacted,” she said coldly.  “I think I got my answer.”

“Jill I really don’t know anything.”  He did only see a kiss and wandering hands...he wasn’t stupid, but it was still just conjecture on his part.

“Whether it means anything to you or not, I’m Jonny’s wife.  I’m married to him, I’m sleeping with him...I deserve to know if he’s cheating on me.  Could you please, please just tell me the truth,” she begged.

Nick looked at the disheveled woman before him.  The normally put together Jill’s hair was out of place.  Her make-up was poorly applied.  There was desperation in her eyes and sorrow.  Nick hated to see a woman upset.  He placed his hand on hers, “Listen, I’ll tell you the truth.  I saw Jonny kissing someone at the station.  I honestly don’t know what else is going on, if anything.  I’m just telling you what I saw.”

Jill gasped, thinking the truth and hearing it were two different things.  “Was it Heather?”

He nodded.

Tears rose immediately to Jill’s eyes as she heard the truth confirmed. “Oh, God.”

Nick embraced her.  She put her head on his shoulder, welcoming his arms around her.  “I’m sorry.”  He truly was.

She shook with anger and sadness.

Nick leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips.  She responded slowly, kissing him harder with revenge.  Realizing her actions, she quickly pulled away and wiped her mouth.

“I’m not like him...I’m not like that.”

Nick straightened his tie.  “I shouldn’t have done that.  I’m sorry.”

“I have to go.”  Jill began walking away, rushing to her car for salvation.

“Are you going to be okay?” Nick called out.

“What do you think?”  Jill got in her car and sped away.  She picked up her cell phone and dialed the radio station.

“
WORR.”

“Yes, I’d like to speak with Heather, I believe she’s an intern there.”

“Hold on,” Jill heard the operator ask if anyone knew of an intern named Heather.  She heard someone in the background confirm she worked at the station in the programming department.  The operator returned.  “Yes, I’ll connect you.”

Jill waited impatiently.

“Hello, programming, this is Heather.”

“So you’re fucking my husband?”

Heather nearly lost her lunch.  “Is this Jill?”

“Look, I know about your tawdry affair and I want it to
stop.  Leave my husband alone.”

“Oh, honey I can’t leave him alone, Jonny cares about me.”  Heather’s fangs came out.  She’d fight for her man.

“Don’t fool yourself, all he likes is the easy sex.”

“Right, so that’s why he’s paying to have the tires on
my car fixed, you know, the ones you slashed.”

“Look bitch, we are married.”

“If he wants you so bad then why has he been sleeping with me?”

Jill had no response.  Now his affair was really confirmed.

“You got nothin’ to say to that right?  That’s ‘cause you know it’s true.  Give up Jill.  He doesn’t love you anymore.”

Jill hung up the phone.  There was no use arguing.  Jonny was definitely sleeping with Heather.

Their marriage was over.

Heather ran into the studio.

“I just got a call from your wife.”

Jonny was stunned.  “What?”

“She is in a rage.”  Heather leaned on the counter to catch her breath.

“What did she say?”

“She said you didn’t really care about me.  I told her she was the one who was wrong, if you didn’t care about me then why would you be sleeping with me?”

He turned white.  “What did you say?” he croaked.

“I told her we’re sleeping together.”

Suddenly Jonny realized that expecting discretion from a nineteen-year-old was expecting too much.

Heather continued, “I don’t know why you are so freaked out.  We’re a couple Jonny, it’s time she knew.”

“You should not have spoken to her.”  His voice was angry and firm.  “Where was she?”

“I don’t know.  Why?”

He was panicked and angry.  He walked around the console to Heather and grabbed her by the arms.  “Don’t play games Heather, this is my life.  Where was she?”

“Ow, you’re hurting me.”  She wriggled free from his grasp.  “How should I know where she was?  It sounded like she was on a cell phone.  She could be anywhere.”

Jonny released his grasp.  “I have to go home.”  He looked at the clock.  He was still on the air for another two hours.  He figured he could voice track the rest of his show and skip out.  He’d tell Ted he had an emergency.  Not untrue.

“Why are you going home?  It’s good she knows, I feel better it’s out in the open.  Now we can be together.”

“Heather, you don’t get it.  I don’t want to lose my wife!”

His words hit Heather like stones.  She finally realized she was nothing more than a fling to him.  She started to cry.

“Look, I can’t deal with your tears right now.  We’ll talk later.  Now you have to leave so I can voice track and get the hell out of here.”

Jonny’s angry voice scared her.  She sullenly left the studio.

Jonny quickly looked over the playlist and began recording breaks.  An hour later he was done, speeding out of the studio to Ted Reed’s office.

Ted was on the phone.  Jonny interrupted him with two quick raps on the door.  “I have an emergency, I voice tracked the rest of my shift.  I have to leave.”

Ted looked at the frantic man in front of him.  “Is everything okay?  Is it Jill?”

“Yeah, I can’t get into it.  I gotta go.”

“Drive safe,” Ted said, but Jonny was already gone.

He sped home, screeching into his complex.  Outside his apartment door was a pile of stuff.  His stuff.  Clothes, CDs and other personal effects lay strew on the front walk.

Obviously Jill was home.

He put his key in the lock.  It didn’t turn.  He tried again.  She must have changed the locks.  Jonny dialed Jill on his cell phone.

“Hello,” she tearfully answered.

“Jill, it’s Jonny, please don’t hang up.”

He heard her breathing heavily.

“Please let me in.  I want to talk to you.”

“I have no use for you.  Find someplace else to sleep.”  Her voice was terse.