Page 22 of Crazy Little Thing Called Love
For the next half hour, she fielded calls from the lovelorn and confused, her voice a soothing balm that betrayed none of her inner turmoil. She shifted in her chair, tucking one leg beneath her and letting the other dangle, her Ugg slippers sitting on the floor in front of her. It was as far from glamorous as a woman could get, which was exactly how Faith liked it when she was working.
Tonight she’d twisted her unruly hair up with a pencil, securing it in a makeshift bun that threatened to collapse with each tilt of her head. It was her secret rebellion against the polished image her growing fame tried to impose on her—that and the bag of chocolate-covered pretzels she’d smuggled into the studio despite Lucy’s constant lectures about the dangers of crunching near a live microphone.
Lucy caught her attention through the glass, pointing to her watch and then holding up two fingers. Two more calls before the break. Faith nodded, suppressing a yawn as she adjusted her headset. Her body was here, her voice was working, but her mind kept drifting back to a moonlit kiss beneath autumn leaves.
“Smitten in San Francisco, you’re on the air.”
“Um, yeah. I have a question about women.”
“Okay. What about women?” Faith had no idea where her patience had gone, but for some reason it had deserted her tonight.
“Well, it’s just they’re so confusing. How am I supposed to know what my fiancée wants when she says one thing but means another? And then she gets mad because I don’t know what’s wrong. What should I do?”
“It sounds to me like the two of you have some communication issues to work out. Do you always tell your fiancée what you’re feeling?”
“No, but that’s different. Guys aren’t supposed to do stuff like that.”
“Maybe you’re both building your relationship on misconceptions, and it won’t be long before it crumbles to the ground. Your fiancée obviously believes you should know her well enough to read her mind, and you feel because you’re a man, it gives you the right to keep things bottled up inside. I want you to both make a list of everything that bothers you about each other, no matter how small, and then I want you to make another list of the things you love about each other. Read over each other’s lists and then talk about how the list makes you feel. These are things that need to be said before you say I do. Otherwise, several years and a couple of kids later, the things will come back to blow up in your face.”
Faith looked at the flashing lights on her control panel and then at the clock. She was going to go insane sitting here for the next two hours. Why hadn’t she had the courage to tell Jake that she was afraid? Afraid of losing her heart to someone who was bound to break it? She couldn’t go through the pain of betrayal again, of being a noose around any man’s neck, as Steve had so often liked to remind her. She’d had enough pain in her thirty years to last a lifetime. She took a quick sip of water and rolled her head from side to side, trying to loosen the knots that had formed during her realization.
“Determined in Fort Worth, you’re on the air with Dr. Hartwell.”
“Hi, Dr. Hartwell. I really enjoy your show. I enjoy everything about you,” he said, giggling. “You see, I’ve got a serious problem. I hope you can help me out.”
The hair on the back of Faith’s neck tingled at the man’s voice, a singsong voice that told her some silverware was missing out of his top drawer. It had the same unsettling quality she’d felt from the doctor in the haunted courthouse, that same crawling sensation on her skin. “What’s your problem?”
“There’s this woman that I’m madly in love with. She’s real smart, a doctor. I’m determined to get her to love me back,” he said, his voice hard and then softening once again to a childlike quality. “How should I do that?”
Faith’s throat was as dry as dust, and she looked at Lucy through the glass. It made her feel marginally better that Lucy’s finger was already on the disconnect button, but she shook her head slowly, telling her to wait to sever the connection. She wanted to hear what the man had to say. She remembered the note that lay wadded at the bottom of her purse and the silver charm bracelet hidden in her desk drawer.
She’d had secret admirers before, and it always helped to have as much information as possible before going to the police. And the man didn’t sound dangerous, just fixated.
“Have you told her how you feel?”
“No,” he said. A high-pitched laugh slithered across her skin. “I’m just at the watching stage. I watch her all the time, even when I’m supposed to be at work. I told you I’m in love with her. Do you think I should try to get her attention?”
“I think you should go about your day-to-day routine, including your job, and if she notices you and shows interest, that’s when you should try to get her attention.”
“Now, I can’t do that, Dr. Hartwell. She’d never notice me. She thinks she’s in love with someone else, but that’s just because she hasn’t gotten to know me yet. I think I’ll just have to make her notice me. By the way, Dr. Hartwell, I really like your house. It has a lot of…character.”
Faith cut to commercial immediately and put her head between her knees. He knew where she lived. Great. Now she’d have to watch out for a crazy admirer on top of everything else that was happening in her life.
“We’ve got the call data logged in the system,” Lucy said, laying a comforting hand on Faith’s shoulder. “I’ll send it to station security and they can forward it to the police. Though he probably used a burner phone or one of those VOIP apps that mask the real number. These creeps are getting more tech savvy.”
“It’s all right. I’ll just keep my eyes open. This has happened before. I know the drill.”
Faith sipped from the steaming mug of tea Lucy had pressed into her hands—chamomile with a generous drizzle of honey, Lucy’s standard remedy for anything from colds to hysteria. The warm liquid soothed her throat but did little to calm the unease that had settled between her shoulder blades. She’d spent the four-minute commercial break pacing the small confines of the studio’s break room, mentally reviewing her home security. Security system? Jake had arranged for one to be installed in the upcoming week. Self-defense classes? She’d signed up for those years ago after her first overzealous fan.
She had done everything right, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that this time was different.
Faith straightened in her chair, forcing her hands to remain steady as she adjusted her microphone. This wasn’t the first unsettling caller she’d dealt with, but the timing—coming so soon after the bracelet—left her rattled in a way she wasn’t accustomed to.
“Welcome back, listeners. We’re talking about the essential ingredients for a successful relationship. Trust, communication, respect, and yes, love—they all play vital roles. But perhaps what matters most is honesty, both with your partner and with yourself.”
Faith took another call, grateful for the distraction from her own troubled thoughts.
“Skeptical in Salem, you’re on the air with Dr. Hartwell.”
