“I’m just saying. Five minutes.”
“Go home. I’ll be right behind you.”
Bex catches me at the door with a banker’s box under one arm, heavier than a box of paper has any right to be.
“Mail’s picking up,” she says. “A lot of it.” She shifts the box against her hip. “I read some of it. I always read some of it. And lately a few of these are, I don’t know, intense. Personal. People telling you things you’d only tell somebody you actually know. One of them sent a poem.”
“People feel connected,” I say.
“Maybe.” Bex doesn’t set the box down. “I’m keeping these ones separate. The intense ones. Just so you know where they are, if it ever comes up.”
“You think I’ve got a problem.”
“I think you’re famous.” She hoists the box higher and turns for her office. “Probably nothing. I’ll watch it anyway. That part’s the job.”
“That’s what Mira would say,” I mutter as she disappears down the hall. I take one last look at the flowers and then walk out of the studio.
FIFTEEN
An hour before air, Paige comes into the booth with a tripod under one arm.
“Before you say no,” she says, “just look at the numbers.” She sets a laptop in front of me on the booth desk and spins it. Graphs. Arrows going the right direction. A clip of me from last week with a number under it that has more digits than I’m comfortable with. “The audio clips are doing great. But great isn’t the ceiling, Dad. People don’t just want to hear you. They want to see you. Watch your face when a caller guts you. That’s the part they share.”
“It’s radio.” I push the laptop back an inch. “The whole point of radio is nobody has to look at me. A man can ugly cry over a stranger’s divorce in total privacy. That’s why I agreed and the point of the format.”
“That format of being a voice was before the rise of social media, going live and going viral.”
“My format works.”
“It worked.” She pulls the laptop back to her side and starts clipping her phone into the tripod. “You’re not going to reach new people hiding behind a microphone. They’re already on their phones, Dad. You go to them or you wait for them to findthe silver fox they grew up listening to, giving them advice. They want to see you like this.”
“Why did you call me a silver fox?”
Paige lifts her shoulder. “I heard Mom say it to Aunt Katelyn on the phone. I started using it in hashtags. The female demographic is going wild. You should read some of the comments.”
“Only if they’re PG.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not a child, Dad. Whether you want to agree or not, you’re a sex symbol. Sex sells.”
“Says who?”
“My marketing and visual arts teacher.”
Lovely, so this is what my daughter is learning in high school. I know the teacher and Paige are correct—sex sells—but that doesn’t mean I want to be the symbol. Hell, I didn’t even want to do this until my wife convinced me otherwise, and the entire appeal of radio is I don’t have to be physically on. I’m a voice, nothing more.
Now, I’ll have to do my hair and shit.
Behind the glass, Bex leans into the talkback.
“She’s right.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side.” I should’ve known she was listening.
“I’m on the side of the show.” Bex comes to the booth door with her coffee. “The visual adds a layer. People want to feel like they’re in the room with you instead of just hearing the room. That’s not a fad. That’s the whole reason people sit in the front row of your concerts. They want to see you and feel like they’re right next to you.”
Two against one. Three if they asked my wife. I look at my daughter, who has already aimed her phone at my chair.
“One segment,” I say. “One. The back third. The rest stays audio, the way the FCC intended. If I hate it, it’s gone and wenever speak of it again. Also, you don’t ask me to look at the camera. You can film from an angle.”
