Love on the Air(33)

But if it was keeping up appearances she cared about, he was giving her that in spades. He chatted and laughed his way through dinner, barely aware of what he was saying. Detachment. It was an old sur vival mechanism. It was how you got through an air shift the night after your wife left you. It was how you avoided getting seriously involved with anyone in all the years after that. Until the one woman you had absolutely no business getting involved with came along and-

"My first live broadcast," he said, "was for this little station in Lancaster. A Fourth of July fireworks display. And the entertainment before the fireworks-I swear I'm not making this up-was an eight-year-old boy in a gold lame Elvis suit ..."

He wasn't the only one looking at Christie. Rob was doing it too, although Rob's eyes always got around, date or no date.

"...the kid's lip-synching to songs on a CD boom box..."

Rick threw another quick glance at Christie. She didn't seem to notice Rob's stare, but she wasn't looking at Rick, either. Or eating her chicken.

"...so of course the power goes out on the boom box..."

Out of the blue, Yvonne asked, "Is that a new fashion statement, Rick?"

He looked at her blankly, then glanced down. The little pink blossom, now slightly crushed, was still tucked into the buttonhole of his lapel. Across the table, Christie looked aghast, as if Yvonne had pointed out a bleeding corpse on the floor at Rick's feet.

"Just a souvenir from outside." He shrugged. "They're growing all over the place out there."

But he left it in his lapel for the rest of the night.



'Tis the season to...work like a dog.

Before I make up the schedule for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I'm looking for fulltimers and part-timers willing to volunteer for some of these hard-to-fill shifts. I'm hoping to fill as many slots as possible on a volunteer basis before I'm forced to do the dirty work of assigning them.

Those who volunteer will be rewarded, not only in the next life, but also with a comp day off. And I promise, I'll remember you when it's time to make up the next holiday schedule.

Thanks in advance. And Merry Christmas. Rick

Christie wondered if the "Merry Christmas" was meant to be sincere or satirical. She also wondered if she was trying to be a martyr when she signed up for the Christmas Eve shift.

She stepped behind the counter in the on-air studio, ready to trade sides with Rob the way they always did. Tonight it felt different. "We're doing this at the wrong time," she said. Rob had taken the afternoon shift on Christmas Eve day, while Christie had signed up for 6 P.M. to midnight.

Rob looked up at the ceiling. "Too bad there's no mistletoe in here."

"In your dreams." If he only knew the trouble she'd let herself get into, without any mistletoe.

"Oh, well. Merry Christmas." Rob started to move past her as usual, then paused. "You're not sad, are you?"

He wasn't as shallow as he looked. "A little," she said. "Just trying not to feel pathetic."

He really wasn't so bad. In the course of their fiveminute nightly encounters, Christie had actually come to like Rob quite a bit. If she'd ever taken him up on one of his lighthearted passes, she still wasn't sure what he'd do, but he never pushed it. It was more of a running joke than anything else.

"I know how you feel," he said. "Sometime it's tough being single at Christmas when you don't have any family in town." He put his jacket on over a bright red sweater.

"You're on your way to a party, aren't you?" she said.

"Yeah, well. No point being miserable alone."

True to his word, Rick had added Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" to the play list, along with a healthy helping of traditional carols. And from 6 P.M. on, Christmas music was all they were playing.

Christie took a few phone calls from people to see how they were spending their Christmas Eve, but the calls were sparse, and most of them were from people who were alone. Those were too depressing to air. She did have some fun doing something she'd always wanted to do: broadcasting updates of Santa sightings in the sky as he made his way toward California from the East Coast. But there was no denying that working on Christmas Eve was a proposition ripe for self-pity.

She hadn't seen Rick since the party. She'd made sure of it. It was easy enough to do, just by sticking to her normal, assigned work schedule. She hadn't seen him, but she'd had endless one-sided conversations with him in her mind. Sometimes she blamed him for everything. Sometimes she admitted to her part in the kiss, but before she knew it, she was admitting to a whole lot more, and they dissolved into another heart-melting clinch. Telling him off was safer, even if it wasn't any more realistic. But no matter what scenario she chose, Christie could never quite imagine what Rick would say, aside from pointing out that they hadn't killed anyone.