Playing Games. Dianne Drake

Roxy said, her Doctor Valentine drawl slow and Southern, even though she was Seattle-born and raised and didn’t have a drawl, slow, fast or otherwise. “Just calm down, now. Okay? Take a deep breath and pour yourself a big ol’ glass of wine. In fact, why don’t all of you go ahead and do the same.” Roxy nodded at Doyle to cue up the music, then purred into the microphone, “Be right back. Don’t you go away. Valentine’s counting on you.” Settling back into her chair, she took off her headset and gave Doyle the I need a drink in a bad way right now sign—the invisible cup tilting to her mouth, then tilting and tilting and tilting for emphasis. Unfortunately, Roxy’s invisible cup wasn’t filled with wine. Never was on air, hardly ever was in real life.

      “Anything in particular?” Doyle asked from his booth.

      “Anything wet. Other than that, I’m not picky.” Roxy looked at the monitor for the seconds left in this break. A one-minute break already one-quarter gone, meaning she didn’t have time to get it for herself. Or she would have.

      “Told you we needed a wet bar in here, Rox,” he said, grinning through the glass at her. His booth was large, full of all kinds of gizmos and gadgets. Hers was tiny, big enough for a desk and not much else. “A pitcher of margaritas right now sounds pretty good to me.”

      “Yeah, and with margaritas, you get Roxy dancing on the desk. Tap water’s okay.”

      “Tap water…boring. You need to live a little, Rox. I keep telling you there’s more to life than business, and I, for one, would appreciate a good desk-dancin’ from you.”

      “You got it. Tap or ballet?” Roxy laughed. Doyle was so close to hitting the nail on the head about her boring life that it wasn’t funny. Two hours on air was all anybody heard, but she managed her own Valentine publicity, hunted down sponsors, and lately, went cruising for a syndication deal. So her two hours really translated into at least fourteen. And then she slept. Oh, and did some house designing.

      “I was thinking something in veils, or less. Little cymbals on your fingers.”

      Astrid stuck her head into the booth and held up a can and a red plastic cup full of ice. “Hey, Rox. Before you put on your dancing shoes, or veils, is orange soda okay? They’re out of root beer and the tap water’s looking pretty brown.”

      “Orange is just dandy,” Roxy said cheerfully, glancing back over at Doyle for the count. “Sorry. Guess the veils will have to wait.”

      “Promises, promises.” Doyle held up three fingers on his pudgy right hand and made a zero sign with his left. “Thirty. And I ain’t lettin’ you off the hook for those cymbals.”

      Short, a speck on the plump side, with long, scraggly brown hair always hanging out of a Seattle Mariner cap, in the control booth he knew his stuff like nobody else in the business. Like Astrid, he’d been with Roxy from the show’s get-go, grabbed off a sideline grunt job and given his domain on the boards. Roxy, Astrid and Doyle…the three of them together, thick and thin, yada, yada. And Roxy never forgot that. For all her quirks, she was loyal.

      “I’ll put them on my to-do list right after tweaking the master bath.”

      “Not the house again!” Doyle cracked, covering his face with his hands. “Please God, anything but the house.”

      “Like you won’t be parking it out there when I get my entertainment room set up. Big projection TV, a sound system that’ll make you eat your heart out…”

      “And you in veils…”

      “We don’t talk veils until we talk about my house plans, and I got into some new ones today, in case you’re interested.” Which Roxy knew he wasn’t, but he sure liked teasing her about them.” And I’m thinking they could be the ones. Some pretty neat stuff.”

      “Twenty. And I doubt it, Rox. Not with the way you’re killing every single architect in the greater Seattle area who comes within a mile of you and your house plans. Fifteen.”

      Well, maybe she’d fired a few. Two, three? Definitely not more than five. But they couldn’t get it right. She wanted minimal with a homey feel. They couldn’t manage both in the same blueprint, and the homey part always got left out. So she was doing it on her own now, with the help of a CAD—computer assisted design—program and some old Bob Vila tapes. Plus in her spare time she stayed glued to Home and Garden TV, making up a wish list. Her house on her own beach would be nothing short of perfect.” Just cutting through the middle men. That’s all.” And sure, somewhere down the line when she roughed out exactly what she wanted, she’d go architect shopping for someone to whip it into proper form, find the general contractor, and all the rest of it. After she was finished with her own preliminaries.

      “Cutting up the middle men’s more like it.” Doyle gave her the ten sign—ten chubby fingers wiggling at her.” And just when I thought you were working out your control issues. Eight, seven, six…”

      “It’s not a control issue, Doyle.” Well, maybe. But she was working on it. “It’s just that I’m the only one who knows everything all the time.” Grinning, Roxy winked at Astrid, who’d returned to the producer booth, then acknowledged Doyle’s cue. “Valentine McCarthy back with you now, feeling so nice and mellow with a wonderful glass of…” She looked at her orange soda. “Chardonnay. Do you have your glass of wine, sugar?” she asked her caller.

      “Bourbon,” the caller replied flatly.

      Doyle tapped on the window between their booths and she glanced over. Plastered to the glass was a cardboard sign reading Control Freak with a dozen exclamation points after it.

      She stuck out her tongue at Doyle, then without missing a beat went right back to her caller. “Well, whatever works best for you. Make it a double, if you have to, and while you’re doing that let me tell you what I think about your bed-hopping hubby. First, I think his cheating on you is only a fling. Usually is. Just sex. Men don’t leave their wives for older women with kids, unless there’s a whole lot of money involved. So, does she have money?”

      “Not that I know of. She’s a waitress, I think.”

      “Good, that means it’s just sex. He’s simply out for some exercise. And since he’s real busy exercising his male muscle in all the wrong places, you’ve got a decision to make. Unless you want to go through life getting taken advantage of by a bed-buzzing jerk, you can either kick him out or keep him. Either way, you’ve got to learn how to respect yourself so you’ll believe you don’t deserve what he’s doing to you.

      “So like I said, you can dump the bum. Hold your head high, walk out that door, take everything you can get your little hands on, and don’t look back. He’s not worth it. And believe me when I tell you that, because this is an area where Valentine knows what she’s talking about.” Except when Roxy walked out that marriage door, the only thing in her little hands was the iron resolve to do better without him than she’d done with him. It was all she wanted, all she took. He got the three-legged card table, the brick and board bookshelves—no books, couldn’t afford them—and the lumpy mattress on the lumpy floor. A good deal for Roxy all the way around.

      She drew in a deep breath, preparing herself to take the other approach—something she always did since most callers didn’t want advice, but rather validation for something they wanted to do or had already done. “Or here’s another plan that just might work for you. If you love him—and I think you do or you wouldn’t be calling trying to figure out how to fix this thing—and you want to keep him around, I think you should teach him a lesson. Revenge is so sweet. Good for the feminine ego, and if you do it the right way he won’t go wandering off again.” She glanced over at Astrid and smiled. “So which is it?”

      “Keep him, give him another chance.”

      A keeper. Not necessarily her personal choice. “And would you like to get even with him? Teach him a lesson that really counts? One he’ll remember before he drops his drawers anyplace but home?” In the next booth, Astrid was already visibly fretting about the imminent advice. Roxy feigned an innocent shrug.