After I had taken a shower and got ready for the day (blow-drying my hair extra straight just in case I wanted to wear it down for the Christmas party tonight), Dex came into the den with good news.
“Doctor Hasselback said we could still air everything,” he announced, walking across the room and sitting down at the computer. I was on the bed trying to re-stick the toe pads into the balls of my devil shoes.
“Oh yeah,” I said mildly. Since our conversation earlier, I was feeling a bit swirly about that still. The show didn’t seem to matter, though I knew in the long run it did.
He spun in the seat and gave me a funny look.
“You OK, kiddo?” he asked earnestly.
I managed to prevent my eyes from rolling.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. Then added, “What about the Spook Factory?”
“That’s just what I’m looking up,” he said, turning back to the screen and clacking away on the keyboard. “He didn’t seem too pissed off about the other show; I guess in the end any publicity is good publicity, but we know for sure that they didn’t get any interviews with the doctor, so maybe we still have a chance of standing out against them.”
“You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?”
He paused. “As I should be.”
He went back to typing and the Fantasy Network website came up on the screen. He scrolled along until he got to the Spook Factory tab.
“No,” he said with relief. “It’s the same old episode as last time. They haven’t uploaded theirs yet. They were bluffing.”
“Or they never found anything.”
“But we did. And we’re going to do this now.”
I pulled my phone out of my purse. It was almost noon.
“Are we going to have enough time before the Christmas party?”
“Christ,” he swore, and focused his attention on the wall. “I totally forgot about that.”
Had he really? I had been thinking about it on and off all day. About how damn awkward it was going to be. Me and Dex. Jenn and Bradley. The rest of the Shownet peeps. I had a feeling something major was going to go down.
“Yeah, well Rebecca texted me a little while ago,” I told him. “She and Emily are going to come over here at six to get ready together.”
He looked at me. “Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious,” I mimicked him with a smile.
“Rebecca, Emily, you…Jenn. All in my apartment?”
“Better get used to the awkwardness now because it’s only going to get worse tonight,” I pointed out.
He chewed on his lip. “God, I hope Rebecca brings some more pot.”
“Yeah, sorry that the wasps got most of yours,” I said.
He tilted his head to the side and a fleeting smile graced his lips. “I can only hope I was worth it.”
“You know you were,” I said.
He nodded, not believing it, and turned back to the computer. “Well, we better haul some ass. I’ll get everything connected. I’m thinking I can run this episode without a score, or perhaps just use a bit from another episode. I could see this using the same stuff I wrote for the Darkhouse.”
“What can I do?” I asked, getting up off the bed and joining him by his side.
His eyes darted to the bookshelf and back. “For one, you can hand me my pills and get me a glass of water.”
I was glad he wasn’t looking at me. The flash of terror would have been totally visible on my face.
“Why, uh, why are you still bothering to take the pills if they aren’t working?” I prodded as innocently as possible.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it could be dangerous if I stopped cold turkey. I’ll just go back to the doctor next week or something and discuss my options or something.”
“Next week,” I repeated slowly.
“Yeah. You’ll be back home by then.”
“Right.” Suddenly not spending every waking minute with Dex was a terrifying thought. I didn’t want to go home now.
“Don’t you have a date with that ‘roid monkey, too?”
Oh man, Brock. He completely slipped my mind, and rightfully so.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Hell, maybe this time next week, you’ll be the one in the relationship and I won’t be. We’ll switch places. Role reversal.”
And at that he looked up at me. His eyes were soft and playful. He didn’t seem bothered at all by the concept of me being in a relationship with Brock.
“Please, the pills, Perry,” he said again.
I nodded, snapped myself into action and handed the book to him. While he opened the cover, I went out to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
As I was filling it up, I heard a familiar buzzing noise. I turned around, the water splashing out of the glass and into the sink. A wasp landed on the fridge and was climbing up it, its little yellow and black body bright against the chrome steel. I looked behind me and grabbed the nearest suitable smashing device, which happened to be the box of Fruit Loops that Dex had left out. I put the glass down and crept closer to the wasp, not wanting to scare it.
“Die, you little bitch,” I muttered before slamming the box into the fridge. The wasp fell onto the floor in a wriggling heap. I picked up a hanging saucepan and brought the flat end down on top of it with a resounding SMASH. I carefully lifted it up. The bugger was squished beyond recognition.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” Dex cried out from the den.
“Just a minute,” I yelled back, and scraped the remains of the wasp into the sink, washing it down the drain. I wondered how it got in the apartment. There didn’t seem to be any other wasps. It was probably the wasp that stung my neck. It must have hitched a ride in my clothes or hair.
I shivered at that thought while I filled up his glass again and brought it to him.
He looked up at me curiously. “What happened?”
I didn’t want to scare him so I just shrugged. “Killed a spider.”
“You know it’s going to rain now,” he said, taking the glass from my hands. He threw the pills back into his mouth all at once and swallowed them with ease.
“I’ll take my chances,” I replied, and focused back on the screen. His editing software was all open and the footage from last night was quickly being downloaded through a USB.
“Can I do anything?” I asked, feeling useless when it came to this part of the show.
“Sure,” he said and handed me the EVP and a pair of headphones. “If you don’t mind spooking yourself out a little bit, you can listen to what we recorded and make notes of anything interesting.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a pen and paper. “Note if the wavelengths on the front monitor change, and if you hear anything, record the time so we can find it easily.”
I was already feeling spooked at my new task, even though the lights in the den were on and the door was open, letting the winter sun filter in through the gauzy curtains of the living room.
I gingerly placed the headphones on my head and before I hit play I told him I was going to listen to it while in the room with him.
I sat back on the bed, getting cozy and making sure there was nothing but the wall behind me. I pressed play and began to listen to what we recorded on Tuesday night. That felt like eons ago.
For most of the recording it was just sounds of us working. It was us talking, our footsteps, the camera. There was nothing on the EVP that wouldn’t show up on the audio from the footage he shot.