Seattle Girl (11 page)

Fortunately for my bank account, Diane had been to Harborside with her folks a couple of times during University of Washington parent-studio weekends and she told me about some casinos out on the waterfront. So early on my first day at the station, I applied for a cocktail waitressing job at a floating casino.

It was only five minutes from the station, and the shifts worked out perfectly. I could work at the station from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and then close-out my night at the casino by 10 p.m..

It wasn’t too hard to get the job — I don’t think they looked too far beyond the fact that I didn’t have any arrests on my record — and I walked out with my new, regulation thigh high skirt and bustier in hand.

Plus, I figured it would irk my mother even more that not only was I working at a radio station, but I was also working at a bar. In a gambling casino of all places!
 
Bam—two birds with one stone. Rationally, I knew I needed to spend less time and energy working to aggravate her, but lately I just couldn’t help myself.

* * *

My internship at XTRA was to consist of the usual duties—filing, making copies, going through the mail. Your basic do shit work for no money to get the experience job. Interning is just about as close as you can get to slave labor in Seattle. That and grape picking. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Frankly, I was thrilled to be in a real radio station, working with real DJs all day.

Quasi-real DJs anyway.

As far as I could tell, among the various talk radio hosts, only a couple stood any chance of making the big time jump to syndication: Lola Singer and Steve Jacobs.

Lola, a Harborside version of Dr. Laura, had a counseling show in the afternoons. You know, the kind of show where a bunch of losers call in and they all have a really hard time explaining why they’ve split with their boyfriend, or how their mother-in-law is stealing their husband away, or that they’re dreaming of doing their boss. All of which, if you ask me, goes a long way in saying just why they are losers in the first place.

Lola — just Lola, not Dr. Lola, but didn’t she wish! — would listen patiently through her callers meandering, pathetic story, gently clear up their problem for the rest of us, and then resolve the issue in under five minutes. On the air, she came across as sugar-sweet. She was the mom you always wish you had, who never got angry at you, no matter what you said.

What a scam. Right off the bat, the first time I ever spoke with Lola, it was clear to me what a huge, desperate fake she was. And from the minute we met, she made it crystal clear that she was going to go out of her way to make my life hell.

Joey, the Station Direction, brought me into her office for introductions. “Lola, I’d like you to meet Georgia, our new intern. She’ll be helping you with your show.

Lola looked me up and down, clearly disgusted by what she saw. All she said was, “Her?”

I gave Joey a look of dread that clearly said,
Oh shit! She hates me on sight. Now I’m screwed for four whole months. Please get me out of here and fast!
 

Of course Joey was totally clueless to any bad energy circulating around the room. I think it’s a prerequisite for Station Directors to pretend there are no personality conflicts among their DJs, all of whom have huge ego’s and are wildly opinionated.

Cheerfully he replied, “I know Georgia is going to be a real asset for you.”

Suddenly Lola’s eyes turned appraising. I felt like she was planning how to fatten me up for the kill. Smiling in the phoniest way, she nodded her agreement.

“Yes, Joey. You know what? I can see exactly what you’re talking about. Why don’t you leave us to get acquainted with one another?
 
I just know we’re going to be great friends.

Oh no! This was getting worse by the second. I was looking at Joey with pleading eyes, trying to telepathically send him the following message:
Don’t leave me with her! She’ll skin me alive!
I was already trying to figure out what he was going to tell the University of Washington intern program about my sudden, inexplicable demise on the first day of my internship.

As soon as Joey left the room, Lola got up from behind her desk and planted herself way too close to me. Clearly, she wanted to intimidate me by invading the twelve inches of personal space that are mandatory in any conversation outside of the bedroom.

I was scared shitless, but I had no intention of letting her know it, so I stood my ground and made sure to hold her gaze.

Leaning in really close to my face, she said, “Let me make things perfectly clear to you. You do what I want, when I want. And if you ever fuck up even the littlest thing — say, you bring my coffee
 
too hot and I burn my tongue or you patch the wrong name through when I’m taking calls and you make me look bad — I will have you thrown out on your fat ass. Got it?”

I was glad she was such an incredible bitch, I was glad she had committed the ultimate crime of telling another woman that her ass was fat, because instead of just being scared, now I was scared
and
mad. I considered just flipping her off and getting the hell out of there, but I really wanted the job. If I was going to have a great career in talk radio, I needed this experience. I would have to play her game, on her turf. But right at that moment, I had an epiphany.

Georgia Fulton cowers for no woman!
 

Refusing to be intimidated by her threats, I took one small step closer to her — which, by the way, she really didn’t like — I said “Thanks for being so clear with me on my first day. It’s going to be great working with you, Lola. I just know I’m going to learn so much from you.”

Her eyes narrowed at me suspiciously, but I knew I had won round one, because instead of continuing her threats, she turned around and went back to her desk. “Get me some coffee.”

Inwardly, I smiled. I was going to learn something from her, alright. I was going to learn all the things that I should never, ever do if I wanted to succeed in the radio.

* * *

Steve Jacobs was the other great DJ at the station. He did a 9am to Noon open-talk spot. He had come out of Chicago morning radio, hoping that Harborside would put him one step closer to the fortunes of LA radio.

Steve was good at what he did. He possessed a warm, resonating voice and a sense of humor and empathy that really gripped listeners.

Perhaps more importantly, though, Steve was cute. His ears were a little too big and they sort of stuck out from his head, but he had a beautiful smile and a great pair of hands. When the station ran an advertising campaign to get more listeners and better advertisers, they put his face on the sides of buses and ski lift chairs.

Lola was super pissed off about not getting her face on the ad. She thought she would have been a way bigger draw for the station. She had even bought a slutty top that she was hoping to wear for the shoot.

But she was wrong about her allure, and everyone at the station knew it. Lola looked like a python waiting to strike, whereas Steve had the kind of easy good looks that made women and men tune in for more than the traffic reports. He was like your favorite roommate at school — the one you could share a beer with and talk about anything from the Lakers to VD. You knew he wouldn’t judge you and that he was seriously interested in what you had to say.

All around, Steve seemed like a really good guy.

Could I have been any more wrong?

* * *

Let me stop for a moment here to make it perfectly clear to you that I didn’t go to Harborside looking for a relationship. I was focused on my internship. I was getting an education in radio and that was that.

Yeah, right.

The station director, Ken, was a nice older man, who, once he realized my devotion to a career in talk-radio, was happy to give me the opportunity to learn as much as I could. He even hinted that he might give me a little air-time here and there if his regular late night DJs got sick or didn’t show up to work.

I hate to admit this, but I wanted to get on the air so bad that I pretty much wished and prayed for the other DJs to get sick. Even though I felt really wicked and awful and knew that God would strike me down one day, I hoped that the other DJs would get flat tires or have to quit because of drug problems.

Anything to get to sit in the driver’s seat. Anything to live my dream.

Ken suggested I spend my time working with Steve in the mornings, Lola in the afternoons, helping out where I could.

Right off the bat, working with Lola sucked. Never before had I endured three more painful hours. I swear she was totally bi-polar. Her mood swung in five minute chunks, going from angry to guilty to megalomaniac to weepy. The other weird thing was how she would periodically dash out of the room during commercial breaks. I wondered if she was crying in the bathroom, or something.

I do have to hand it to her, though, considering how unstable she was in person, somehow she managed to keep it together when she was on the air with callers. If I closed my eyes and pretended I didn’t know her, I could almost believe she was the calm, wise, motherly figure she pretended to be.

My first day with Steve, on the other hand, was a piece of cake. He hardly asked for any help — just simple things like background research on his upcoming guests — so I tried to blend into the woodwork so that I could pick up on all of his tremendous skills. I wanted to figure out how he maintained his equanimity regardless of the subject; how he knew just when to cut off a caller and when to string them along; if he ever got nervous when he was interviewing a big star.

I didn’t think Steve even noticed me in the room the first week, so I was surprised when he asked me to lunch one day.

I was wearing one of my more daring outfits, going for the tough-chick rocker look. Leather pants, lace-up boots, and a kids Harley T-shirt that barely made it to my belly-button. I wasn’t sure if I could pull off the outfit – even though Diane swore on her diamond bracelet that I was 100% babe material as I left the apartment that morning - but I guess I did because next thing I knew we were drinking iced tea on the back terrace of the Christy Hill Restaurant, overlooking the bay.

A ski boat whipped by and suddenly I wanted to cut through all of the small talk to get to know more about him.

Feeling bold and wise and womanly I said, “Tell me, Steve, what’s your biggest secret?”

He looked both ways, as if he was about to cross a busy street, leaned over the table and whispered, barely above the sound of the motorboats, “I’m falling for you, baby.”

It should have sounded really cheesy, but it didn’t. Not coming from him anyway. It was the sexiest thing anyone had ever had said to me. The old Georgia, the Georgia in the baggy clothes who could disappear into the corner of any room, would have never been on the receiving end of such a delicious declaration.

But this Georgia Fulton, the new me in leather and a baby-T, was basking in it from head to toe. My heart starting beating too fast and I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds.

Steve laughed that great laugh of his, and then leaned back into his chair. “Apart from that, minor stuff. Felonies. Drugs. You know, the usual.”

Finally catching my breath, I said, “Wow. That certainly was unexpected.”

I wondered, how do you say to someone — “I’m a virgin but we could change all of that if you want to” — over iced tea?

You just don’t. So, giving him what I considered to be my most mysterious look, I turned my head to the water, and leaned back into my chair. “So, what are you going to do about your big secret?”

From the corner of my almost shut eyelids I saw him lick his lips.

He looked a little out of his element for a minute. “That depends. How old are you?”

“What? You don’t want any more felony charges brought against you?”

“You got it.”

“Don’t worry. I’m legal,” I said without opening my eyes.

I was trying to act nonchalant about the whole thing, but really I was breathing in everything about the moment. His cologne, the diesel fumes from the ski boats, the sun beating down on my skin. I was about to be asked out by a guy who was probably ten years older than me – heck, he might have even been in his mid-thirties - and I felt so grown up. I felt like I had arrived.

He seemed relieved and relaxed again. “Oh good. Have you been out to the Bay dance club yet?”

“Nope, why?”

“Maybe we could meet there on Friday night?”

I thought about it for a few seconds and then sat back up in my chair, and slipped my sunglasses on so he wouldn’t see the thrill in my eyes. “Sure. Actually, I work at their floating lounge until 10:00 p.m. How about we meet up after my shift?”

He looked surprised. “You work another job?”

“Sure,” I said, before picking up my burger to take a bite. “Gotta pay rent with something.”

“Nice outfits there.”

I swallowed my bite on a laugh and found the most shocking things falling from my lips.

“Yeah, they’re not too bad. At least the skirt covers my ass. My boobs popped out of the top once, but it was no big deal. I figure all’s well that ends well. In fact,” I said with a mischievous glint in my eyes, “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to have it happen again. By accident, of course.”

“You have not!” exclaimed Steve.

“Oh yes,” I said, laughing in what I hoped was a seductive way. “The tips were so much better that night. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“I sure would,” he said as he stared unabashedly at my chest.

It took everything I had not to cover my arms over my chest. And, much to my embarrassment, my nipples chose right then to get hard and started to poke out from beneath my Harley T-shirt.

Steve finally looked up from my chest. “I did a show on casino outfits once. Women were pretty bitter about being exploited and the men, obviously, had no trouble with exploiting the women as much as possible. What do you think? I mean, you actually have to wear what they tell you to wear.”

Doing my best to ignore my nipples and their traitorous reaction, I said, “It’s true, insulting doesn’t even begin to cover it. They’re like really cheap ice skating uniforms. I do have a theory, however, about why some women are perfectly willing to wear the trampy outfits on the job.”