Sophie's Playboy (8 page)

She'd just about given up—and given in to the restlessness that had started to build again—when she got called into the program manager's office.

"The show's gotten a little flat." Stevie seemed to have been elected to give her the bad news. Sophie sat in a chair facing Stevie, the station manager, and her producer, and tried to act professional. Her first canning. She'd only made it two months.

Make them say it
, she thought, though her motor mouth wanted to make excuses or beg for another chance or just say thanks for the memories and lead her body out the door.

She waited.

"You're fine," Stevie said, holding a hand up in her direction. "Don't get me wrong, you still have a rapport with the listeners. But the last couple of weeks haven't lived up to the expectations the listeners have developed since the show started."

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"What expectations?" The only thing different was that they interwove the rant and rave.

Stevie started to speak, but Melina stopped him with a hand on his arm. She leaned forward. "There is a spice that has been lost. We think we know how to get it back. But for it to work, it must be done on the air. We just didn't want to blindside you."

"What, another puppy?" Sophie threw her hands in the air.

"Maybe we should just have a 'Surprise Sophie' feature every month." She stood. "Is that all? Until the big surprise? Can I go get ready for my show now?"

They nodded. The station manager remained as stone-faced as he'd been since the meeting started. Heck, since she'd met him. Stevie seemed trepidatious, though that was common for him.

Melina, who held the door for Sophie as she walked out, had the look of a woman helping her friend get ready for a hot date. Sophie gave her a "what is going on?" glare, and Melina just tilted her head and smiled.

Sheesh. She'd had no idea radio people could be so mysterious.

Luckily, she didn't have long to wait for her surprise.

Halfway through that afternoon's show, the call volume had dropped and Sophie had begun ranting about an article she'd clipped from the paper. A woman had caught a burglar in her kitchen, about to escape through the back door with a television. Weaponless, the woman had grabbed the sprayer from the kitchen sink and sprayed the ceramic tile under the crook's feet. He'd slipped and fallen. She'd called the police.

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The next day he filed suit against her.

"The jerk is suing for half-a-million dollars.
Half-a-million
dollars
, folks. For herniating a disc in his back while breaking the law. Maybe he should have purchased workers'

compensation insurance."

The door opened quietly, but she didn't look up from her article. Stevie often came in to give her announcements or teasers for the hourly news. She was so engrossed in her papers and argument that she didn't notice a pair of hands slipping the extra headphones from their stand, then adjusting the microphone.

"The evil attorney—and I know, that's a redundancy—has been quoted as saying his client was not stealing the television, but relocating it. Relocating it where? Out the door? I swear, our litigious society is due to one thing. Too many lawyers. Remember five or ten years ago they kept saying we had more law students than practicing attorneys?

Well, those students are practicing now, and they don't have any work. They can't make the big bucks they dreamed of in law school. So they find new ways to get it."

She heard the click of the switch that turned on the second microphone and jerked her head up.

"Come on, Sophie, you can't put all the blame on the lawyers. They wouldn't pursue a case they couldn't win. Juries have to have some culpability."

Sophie stared at the man on the other side of the console.

Her surprise was a partner. A foil. Someone to argue coherently when her listeners failed her. It was perfectly clear, and a great solution to the "flatness" of the show.

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She doubted the station had realized just what a surprise they were giving her, though. Satisfaction welled right up there with excitement as he kept talking. She'd been right.

The voice coming over her headphones was Parker.

The man in front of her was Biff Cornwall.

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CHAPTER 5

"Stupid people," she murmured, still staring. He grinned back at her, clearly pleased with his effect.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Sophie snapped back to herself. "Sure, juries give big awards for ridiculous lawsuits. I have a theory for that, too.

Too many stupid people. That's what a lot of problems boil down do, actually. Stupid people." She watched the board, lit up with calls. "None of my listeners are in that category, of course." A few of them went out, and she winked at Parker.

"So you think juries are stupid?" he asked.

"Well, think about it. Attorneys don't want to pick people who will think for themselves. They want people who are easily swayed. People who will listen to what they tell them, and that's all. Ignorant people. Uneducated people. Stupid people."

"You're harsh, Sophie."

"Well, there's one reason juries are equally to blame."

"What's that?"

"They hope to set a precedent so when they steal someone's TV and hurt their back, they can get lots of money they're not entitled to, too. After this commercial, we'll see what
you
think, listeners. 555-3246. Call now."

She closed her mike and leaned back in her chair. Melina was busy screening calls for the next set, so Sophie beckoned to Stevie through the observation window. He slipped in the door, but kept his hand on the knob.

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"How on earth did you find him?" She waved a hand at Parker. Biff. "And what do I call you?" She glowered at the guy she supposed was her sidekick. Great. Now she couldn't date him. She wasn't breaking
that
rule again.

Stevie tugged at his shirt collar. "Well, we had to search—"

"That's not important, Stevie," Parker interrupted. He didn't look at the poor guy when he dismissed him. "Sophie and I had better settle a couple things before the break's over." Stevie slipped back out.

Sophie stared at Parker. Biff. Whatever. "You are so arrogant." She would never talk to a boss as if he were an underling, and at the station, Stevie was their boss.

Biff had the nerve to look surprised. "Arrogant? About what?"

"Never mind." She waved her hand between them. "What the hell do I call you?"

"You can call me Parker."

"Where did Biff come from?"

Melina tapped on the glass and motioned five seconds.

"I'll explain later." Parker/Biff slid his headphones back on and Sophie prepared to take the first caller. As soon as the show was over—one of the best Rant and Raves ever, Sophie grudgingly admitted—she dragged Parker/Biff to the empty break room. Her show ended at seven and the offices were mainly deserted by then. Thank God.

"Okay. Biff. Parker. What is going on? Start with your name—which is driving me
nuts
," she said through gritted teeth, "and go on from there."

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He somehow managed to maintain his air of arrogance even while he dropped change in the soda machine, then sat on a dirty plastic chair and set his arm and Coke can on the matching dirty plastic table.

"My name is Parker Cornwall. My father was Biff Cornwall, and passed the name on to me. Everyone calls me Biff, but I didn't want you to know who I was the first time I called."

Sophie sat next to him. She was still frowning, and Parker wanted to kiss the furrows in her forehead. That tendency toward tenderness was new, and kind of scary. It flowered when Sophie looked at him with sympathy instead of the frustration she'd flashed his way all afternoon.

"Your father is dead?" she asked.

The question seemed to come out of the blue. Parker forgot his contemplation of her sleek eyebrows. "What? Dead?

No."

"You said he
was
Biff Cornwall."

"Oh. We're not that close."

"So, should I call you Biff or Parker?" She tilted her head at him, the frustration back but tempered—he hoped—by excitement. Or anticipation. He thought they could make a beautiful talk show together.

And maybe more.

"Parker," he said, deliberately injecting intensity into the word. "I want you to call me Parker."

* * * *

Sophie shivered every time she remembered Parker saying his name like that. Like calling him Parker was special, so 74

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Sophie
calling him Parker was special. Which made her special.

"Stop it," she ordered, marching up the steps to the station. "You can't go in there mooning over the guy."

She, Parker, Stevie, and Melina were meeting to discuss the changes that would be necessary to incorporate Parker into the show. What the station expected from them. What leeway they could have.

That dating was out of the question.

Sophie doubted that one was on the official agenda. If anyone else had thought about it, they wouldn't care one way or another as long as the ratings went up and stayed up. But there was no way she was dating someone she worked this closely with.

Not again.

The other three met her at the top of the stairs and turned her around.

"Am I late?" She glanced at her watch as they went down the steps and headed toward a diner down the street. She wasn't late. "What's going on?" She felt ganged up on. She hated being ganged up on.

"We thought it would be easier to talk at the diner," Melina explained. "Parker was here already to finalize his contract.

It's quite a madhouse in there today. New advertiser."

"Ah." Sophie got it. When a big new advertiser came on board, everyone turned cartwheels to keep them happy. The production booth ran constantly, recording promos and commercials. The talent practiced saying company names and taglines so they wouldn't flub them. The salesperson 75

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responsible for the account grabbed a team to brainstorm ideas for spending the client's money. They definitely wouldn't get anything done in there.

The diner, however, was quiet between the lunch and dinner rushes. They ordered coffee and pie and started to talk.

"Make sure you don't talk over each other," Stevie cautioned. "Give each other a little space verbally, or the listeners won't hear either one of you." He consulted a list.

"There's a lot of heat between you, so don't forget to take calls when you go on too long. Melina, you're in charge of that."

"We need a new hand signal," she joked. "Break it up."

She pantomimed breaking a stick in half.

"Never insult the listeners, Parker, that's one of Sophie's rules." Stevie's thin lips curled up at her in what she figured was a smile. "Though you came close with the stupid people bit."

"One of my biggest pet peeves," Sophie said. "You'll hear it a lot, I'm sure."

Parker turned his attention to her. Sophie suddenly felt like she was sitting in direct sunlight, downtown, in August. She was glad she hadn't sat next to him, with the amount of heat he generated.

"Why do you care about insulting the listeners?" he asked.

"All the big names do it, and other listeners love it."

"I want a little higher-class audience than the so-called 'big names.' And the listeners are our bread and butter."

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Remembering his reputed worth, she amended, "My bread and butter, anyway."

"We have a promo to record for one of the clients," Stevie went on. "They love your banter, and as soon as they heard Parker was in the studio, they called and booked air time." He cleared his throat. "We think this is indicative of the nature of your chemistry, and how to make the show successful. So we want to build on it."

Uh, oh. "Build on what?"

Cough
. "Well, on the theme, so to speak, of the nature of the advertiser's, uh, business."
Grunt, cough
. Poor Stevie must have a bone caught in his throat, Sophie thought.

"What, exactly, is the nature of the advertiser's business?"

Stevie flushed, then named a local hotel famed for its getaway weekends. For couples.

More than uh, oh,
Sophie thought. "And the nature of the ad we're recording?" She was certain Melina, sitting next to her, was holding back laughter. Sophie had told her the night before about her no dating rule. Melina didn't think it stood a chance. Sophie feared her producer would do everything in her power to get her and Parker together.

Stevie shuffled his papers and avoided her gaze.

"Stevie. The ad?"

He sighed and slapped his papers onto the table. "The anniversary of your first date."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "If we just met, it can't be the anniversary of our first date."

"Well, it wouldn't be the real Sophie and Parker, you'd be acting," Stevie argued.

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Sophie finally agreed to do the ad—and there would be more, Parker was sure—as long as on the show she could counter the impression it would leave.

"Sophie, the audience heard Parker courting you over the phone," Stevie argued. "They know he gave you a puppy.

They'll expect it to continue."

"But he's been quiet for two weeks!"

"I was out of the country," Parker said. "I couldn't time things right to call."

"The listeners won't notice it," Melina said. "They won't realize it's been two weeks."