ABBY
The Ireland Today building overlooks St. Stephen’s Green, offering spectacular views of the greenery and the tourists who frequent it. I stroll into the radio station around ten o’clock, grasping a cup of chai tea from a nearby Starbucks.
I love being a radio presenter. There are nights I spend hours replying to some frankly bizarre emails, but I want the women of this country to have a friend in me when they have nobody else. The prospect of aiding the heartbroken or sad, somehow helps validates my own heartbreak. A reminder that it at least served a purpose.
Today’s show is entitled Ten Signs of Infidelity in a Relationship. Titles like this one always provoke a great deal of interest from the listeners.
‘Hey.’ Aoife, my assistant and occasional co-host greets me in the corridor. She’s pale-looking this morning, her shoulder-length brown hair hangs lankly behind her pierced ears. We walk and talk simultaneously. ‘Candice’s looking for you. She has a bee in her bonnet about something,’ Aoife warns me. ‘Like a good bee shagging a flower or more like a wasp hovering around shit?’ I roll my eyes.
‘Neither.’ She laughs at my analogy. ‘More like a bee bursting to get something off her chest. Speak of the devil…’ Aoife trails off as our producer, Candice, approaches our recording studio, one of six studios in the building.
‘Oh my God, girls, wait until you hear what I have to tell you.’ Excitement glints in her topaz eyes. We heavily rely on Candice’s eyes to decipher her mood, because the rest of her face barely twitches thanks to her unhealthy penchant for Botox.
I suppress a giggle as a vivid image of a queen bee, resting leisurely on a luminous sunflower springs to mind. Candice thrives on drama. I wonder who might be having an affair. For a brief second, I hope it’s Sally, but squash that train of thought immediately, not wishing to be unkind.
Candice launches herself into the black leather chair on the far side of the desk, the iMac and recording equipment sits between us. Her short platinum hair’s styled into its usual trendy spikes. Black wet-look jeans cling to her shapely legs, and a tight-fitting pink T-shirt bears the slogan, If You Think I’m Cute, You Should See My Girlfriend. Unethical T-shirts are her trademark. She crosses her legs and picks imaginary fluff from her trousers, drawing out the suspense for as long as possible.
‘Put us out of our misery please.’ It could be lunchtime and we’d be none the wiser.
‘There’s an opportunity.’ She hunches forwards conspicuously, her impeccable eyebrows lift a fraction.
She loses my attention with the use of the single word opportunity, which rings freshly through my mind from less than twenty-four hours earlier.
I take a large mouthful of the chai tea, squeeze my eyes shut tight and count to five.
‘Do your ears need cleaning or what, Queenan? I said there’s an opportunity,’ Candice says.
This is officially creepy.
‘What kind of an opportunity?’ I’m immediately suspicious, not to mention borderline disappointed at the absence of an affair.
‘The powers that be are looking to up the station’s overall ratings. They’ve announced a competition. But get this – the competition is not for the listeners, it’s for the DJs for once.’
‘What? That’s crazy.’ The competitions are always aimed at listeners – prize money, holidays, cars, gig tickets, backstage passes. You name it, we’ve tried it all in an attempt to surpass our competitors.
‘The show that secures the highest national ratings over a three-month period wins an all-inclusive trip for two people to New York. But that’s not the best bit…’
Well, it sounds pretty good to me. I’ve never been to New York, but it’s top of my bucket list.
‘So, what is the best bit then?’ Aoife asks.
‘You won’t believe it. The winner will be the first to interview M.O.D.E.R.N. exclusively.’ The words burst out of her mouth. In her excitement, she forgets it’s supposed to be top secret.
M.O.D.E.R.N. are the latest man band to top the charts in America. With three consecutive number one records under their low-hanging belts, they’ve so far been too busy, or too drunk, to be interviewed exclusively.
The entire music world is alight with curiosity about these four, self-made Irishmen that smashed their way into New York City on the back of a YouTube video that went viral. Word has it that they haven’t been sober since. No wonder their manager hasn’t wanted them too close to the press. Whoever breaks that interview will make a name for themselves that won’t be forgotten. It’s one hell of a prize.
‘Holy feck.’ I exchange a pointed look with Aoife and push the knowledge that Esmerelda had predicted this to the back of my mind for now at least.
‘My thoughts exactly. The rest of the staff will be briefed before the end of the week. Keep it quiet until then.’ Candice manages a wink. She must be due a trip to the salon. ‘I can’t enter, but I’ll give you all the help I can. Anything to make sure Sally No Soul doesn’t win, or we’ll never hear the end of it. She’s after my job, I can feel it in my water.’ She pouts like a child instead of the forty-year-old professional that she is.
I imagine myself lazily stretched out in first-class clutching a glass of my favourite champagne, en route to meet the most intriguing act to emerge from Ireland since U2. We need to win. But how?
During the show, there isn’t a single second free to formulate a plan. I alternate music with the ten key points that have been highlighted for us: Has your partner started to dress differently or act differently of late? Are you noticing extended periods of unexplained absence? Are there unusual or unexplained expenses within your joint finances? Some of them are so painfully obvious I cringe internally as Aoife and I tackle them in a light-hearted fashion. We’re in perfect sync with each other. I wish she’d consider fulfilling the co-host role permanently, but she point-blank refuses, insisting it’s too stressful.
With today’s topic at the forefront of my mind, I wonder for the umpteenth time if I’m the right woman to be doling out advice on this particular subject, given my own past.
Impostor syndrome creeps in before I remind myself that I’m the precisely right woman to be offering advice because of my past.
