“You don’t look like a malcontent,” he said. “You look like a suburban housewife. Which I guess is subversive--lite in its own sad little way.”
Her hackles began to rise. “What’s that supposed to—-”
“All that to say I didn’t realize who you were,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the anti--Beatles girl.”
This one--line biography irritated her almost as much as his appearance. He had a Van Dyke beard and wore a cardigan and scarf, even though the temperature was in the high eighties. Seeing him, Nessa knew she’d been born too late. She longed for the old days when -people meant what they said and weren’t ironic, intoning everything with quirked eyebrows and figurative air quotes. But she was grateful because his douchebaggery was just what she needed.
She pointed at his get--up. “You warm enough?”
This threw him off, but only for a beat.
“How old are you?” he said, ignoring her question.
“Excuse me?” She hated the old--fashioned “how dare you ask a lady her age?” tone in her own voice.
“You’re in your thirties, right?”
“I’m twenty--five. And how old are you? Gonna go to prom next year?”
He tilted his head. “Do you want my honest opinion of your show?”
“Meh,” she said in her most bored voice, looking at her phone and scrolling through emails she’d already read.
“It feels like you’re trying too hard.”
She pocketed her phone, crossed her arms, and smiled. “Is that right,” she said.
“Your desperation to seem relevant is embarrassing.”
She shrugged. “Here’s the funny thing, junior. I didn’t try to get this show. They came knocking on my door. So the fact is I ain’t tryin’ at all . . . all the way to the bank.”
Otto’s face turned a gratifying shade of puce.
“You don’t deserve to have this show,” he hissed.
“Oh? And who does, princess? You?”
Otto punched up his glasses and sat straight. “I graduated from the journalism school at K--State in May after toiling away for four years. I spent hundreds of hours at the campus radio station. I interned every summer for free at shitty little radio stations like this one. I busted my ass. I’m up to my neck in debt, but I can’t find a job now.” He stabbed the air in front of him with each point he made. “All I can get are hour--long freelance production jobs for minimum wage. And then I find out that before your appearance on WBEZ you’d never been on radio at all. You didn’t even major in broadcast. You tossed off some little blog post about hating the Beatles and now you get to be on Sound Opinions? Who the fuck do you think you are? You haven’t earned this.”
Nessa’s temperature rose to a high, rolling boil. Otto had no concept of what she’d gone through to get here, how she’d put herself through college at Metropolitan State University of Denver working in a record store and waitressing, living on ramen noodles and American cheese. She’d earned a bachelor’s degree in communications. She had just as much right to be here as this pasty--faced tool. Probably more. She’d clawed her way out of LA with nothing. With less than nothing, doing things he’d only ever read about.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Nessa said, her animosity sharpening her senses. “And what I do has nothing to do with you. So if you’re going to whine like a spoiled little bitch, you can get the hell out of my studio.”
“It’s not your studio,” he said.
“It is from midnight to four every Monday and Thursday.”
“This should be my show.”
She allowed a slow, sincerely cruel smile to spread over her face and gave him a lazy shrug. “Life’s not fair,” she said. “Is it?”
According to the countdown clock, she had less than thirty seconds to air, and she didn’t have a water bottle or her tissue box set up, and now she wouldn’t have time.
“Your blog isn’t that interesting,” Otto said. “It’s hacky and precious.”
“So don’t read it,” she said.
“You’re a poseur,” he said, using the French pronunciation.
Incredulous, she said, “I’m a poser.”
He nodded at her.
“Let’s see.” She ticked items off on her fingers. “Pretentious facial hair. Check. Doc Martens. Check. Horn--rimmed glasses. Check. Hipster helmet. Double--fucking check.”
“On in five . . . four . . . three . . .”
He pointed at her. She felt razor--sharp and alert like she hadn’t in ages.
Her theme music played in her headphones along with the intro voiced by some guy on the coast with balls the size of boulders, his voice deep and rich and rumbling.