was still on. They would have heard that. She hoped they’d think it was background from the CD. She flipped the switch off and mopped madly with a tissue. She hoped that nothing electrical had fused.
‘No fireworks Lily,’ she muttered to herself. That was a bad sign, the muttering. Last stage mental problems! AAAHHHH. More panic waves, swamping her. She did a silent scream and felt slightly better. At least no-one could see her. What did they do on TV when things went wrong? Add to the Video Bleeper Industry probably.
4 hours, 33 minutes to go!
Until recently she’d been proud of her spot on public radio. She liked the ritual of walking down the brown corridor under the red ON AIR sign and feeling part of the media. The studios were like little pockets of sound and light, behind the glass walls. Now things were changing, and so was the way she felt about being alone in the studio late at night. Instead of pride at being independent, she felt fear, at being alone in an almost empty building. Growing fear.
At least, on the panel all the right lights seemed to be working.
‘Damn you Jamie. Why aren’t you here, when I need some backup?’
Maybe she still had some listeners out there? Maybe tackling HIM outright, on air, was the way to go? Maybe not. A fan- a-tic was not the same as a fan.
‘Think, THEN act!’ her Mum always used to say. That’s why her mother was off volunteering on some third world island, when she could have been here. Acting meant feeling you were doing something positive, instead of just WAITING! Drum. Drum. Drum. Her fingers were drumming on the desk. She stopped. This was serious stress.
‘Sorry, won’t be in tonight Lily. Got my exams. Swat vac.’ Jamie’s writing in her pigeon hole was very neat. Strange for a nerd to be so careful with up-and-down strokes. That pigeon hole had been stuffed with letters recently-not all fan mail. The Stalker was sending snail mail too. Most she filed in the bin, especially since she’d decided not to let him run her life. But she did read it first. That worried her, but nor reading it worried her more.
She checked. Nearly the end of ‘The Catchers’ music. She leaned forward.
‘So, what did you think of that? Hot or what? ‘Lily adjusted her ear-phones. Definitely a presenter with a big head on the earlier program. A bit strange talking to yourself, and never knowing who or how many were listening. The invisible audience was a guesstimate. Bernie reckoned that one phone call meant 100 more were listening. Or ninety-nine plus the one who called in. The stalker was listening, for sure. But was it on a car radio nearby or somewhere else? How close? She didn’t want him to ring in again, especially as he’d left so many messages on the comment line this week, in different voices and names. More worries, like a cloud around her. At least that line was off-air, and she didn’t have to listen personally. Bernie checked the comment line but handling The Stalker on-air if he did call directly was going to be difficult.
‘Hang in with me tonight and we’ll have some hot goss. coming up soon. Heard the latest about Y, lead singer from The Cult and how they’re going into the God Business?’
Talking to a mike was different. Not like talking face-to-face with laughs, smiles or yawns. Did it sound okay? Not too Strine? Not too nervous? No ‘dead air’? Genuine listeners’ feedback showed they loved the ‘hot goss.’ segments and the talkback topics. Youth suicide had pulled a big response.
‘Yesterday was Friday 13 th . Was that unlucky or not? Let’s hear your views on 9.8087804.’
Last week she prepared this topic. So much had happened in-between, but it was too late to change now. Just before Matthew left, she’d been offered the presenter’s job, so that Bernie, the new manager accepted her as part of the scene. He didn’t seem to know that she’d only been there weeks, not years. Jamie had been around for ages, researching or mucking around with the panels, fixing things. But she liked the ‘up front’ stuff. The idea that she could pretend to ‘be’ someone, a ‘personality’ was like a fame game where she was playing a role on the microphone that was more dramatic than the inside Lily.
When she walked into the studio she became Lily on air who was more outgoing than the real Lily Noelle. That’s how she’d ended up asking questions about ‘The God Business’ with the Cult. And why there were problems now. The mysterious ‘someone’ had misinterpreted her questions. How many Jesus-freaks were there?
A light flashed on the board. An incoming call.
‘Hi. This is Lily. Do you want to talk about Friday 13th?’
The three second delay button was on. So she could kill the call, if necessary.
Nothing. An empty line? Or someone just breathing and getting up courage to speak on air? She leaned over the kill button.
‘What’s your name?’
Shy ones sometimes choked up, so it could be genuine.
‘Er, this is William. I’ve had a bad day. So there must be something about 13 that’s bad luck.’
‘And why do you think that, William?’
Lily went into fast mode, scribbling ‘William’ on the running sheet. It was important to use caller names on air, because it made them and the other listeners feel special. Listeners always noticed when you mixed up what you thought were ‘nothing’ names, especially when it was their own. Not Willie or Will or Bill. William.
Reception closed at 8 pm tonight. So she was on her own in the studio. An easy target and feeling a bit vulnerable, even when Max looked in on his rounds. Always shoved a bit of cardboard with a squiggle under her studio door, to prove he’d been there, even when he spoke to her too. Max was a creature of habit.
‘Hate to be in here on my own, Girlie,’ he said the last time. That made her feel SO brave!
‘Thanks for your view on Friday 13th William. A request for “MidnightFunk” and onto the hot goss. next.’
Lily killed William’s ramblings. Obviously, he wasn’t the stalker. But the next caller could be.
Was it only a fortnight? Could so many things go wrongs quickly? She never used to be accident-prone nor forget so many things. Like getting dates and times wrong. Mucking up appointments. Losing her keys. Misplacing messages. It had taken a few days to realise that it wasn’t co-incidence. Someone was orchestrating her life to make annoying things happen. But what made it worse was that the annoying had turned into the downright dangerous.
She was being stalked. And she didn’t know why.
**********************************************************
At first I thought Lily was like her name. Her voice was sort of white-blonde and slim. Her voice was perfect. I imagined that she looked like that too. On air, she had some strong views… not radical feminist… just independent… feisty almost. That’s what I liked.
I used to listen to her in my car. Then I started recording her, so I could listen again, when she was off-air. The graveyard shift, they call it. Great music she chooses, and I even like the hot goss. Although that Y from Cult
