Page 23 of You Spin Me

“So, how’s the weather there in Boston right now?” Joe finally asks.

“Oh, yeah. It’s cold.”

“Probably not as cold as in Ottawa.”

“Right, yeah. You guys are Canadian. The Great White North, eh? You like those guys? Bob and Doug?”

“Yeah, we don’t really talk like that.”

“Right.” Feeling like a total idiot, I search for a question that isn’t insulting. “So…”

“Yeah, so we’re playing at the Paradise…”

“Right. The Paradise. Great venue.”

“Yeah, we’ll be there tonight.”

“At, uh… nine o’clock. So be there or be square.”

“Yep. Okay, I gotta go man, but, uh… thanks.”

“Thank you, Joe. Oh, whoops, I forgot to introduce you. That was Joe Berg, front man for Why Not Happiness.”

“Okay, gotta go.”

“Bye, now.”

He hangs up, and I just sit there, the dial tone thunderous in my ears. That could not have gone worse. When the booth door squeaks open and Jones steps in the room, all I have is, “Well, that sucked.”

He shakes his head with a wince. “I don’t think we can salvage it. The weather? Seriously, Cal. You didn’t even ask him about working with Todd Rundgren.”

My head, heavy as a cannonball, drops into my palm. “I’m an idiot. I forgot… everything. My mind went blank.”

Jones sighs. “I guess we’ll have to come up with another kind of gimmick for you.”

You can’t sayI told you soto your boss, even if he is your friend. “Yeah, I guess we will.”

The words of the band’s hit single, “We’re All Adults Now,” mock me the entire way back to my apartment. Am I? Am I really an adult? Jury’s definitely out on that one.

When Jess calls Thursday night,I’ve prepared a few stories. I may have lost out on being a talk show host, but I am not going to lose her. On our Wednesday call, I was still in a funk from the interview failure, and I don’t want her to get bored with me.

I’d be happy to listen to her talk about the weather. Or read the phone book. Just the sound of her voice is entertainment enough for me. A mellow caress when she recites Shakespeare, a sharp prick when she’s moved by a friend’s troubles. When she imitates members of her family or other actors in her play as she tells a story, she never fails to make me laugh.

That’s something I’ve done more in the past couple weeks talking to her than I have in years. I’m determined to do the same for her with the stories I’ve saved up.

“So, since tomorrow’s Friday the 13th, nobody’s releasing anything new, but I called over to Fort Apache studios in Cambridge earlier and talked a guy I know into getting us a copy of a single from the album that Throwing Muses is releasing next week.”

“Oh, I think I heard you play that.”

“Yeah, it’s a great track. I’m looking forward to hearing the whole thing. Anyway, when the bike messenger dropped it off a couple hours ago, he accidentally let a few people in, and they’ve been partying in the station offices since then.”

“You didn’t hear them?”

“They’re at the other end of the building. Talia—the night producer, you’ve talked to her—”

“Right.”

“Anyway, she went to get a soda, and there they were, sprawled all over the cubicles where the ad sales people work. They’d broken into the vending machine and made a huge mess.”

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