iSay
written by Stessa.
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Stupid People, Where You Gonna Go, Go, Go.
"Fucking retard!" Carly Shay, age 27, cursed under her breath as she made a right turn pass a corner where a young dude wearing baggy jeans big enough to fit thirty days of crap in them was having a cigarette or something much else with his just as stupid friends. Some people are just enormous jerks, Carly thought to herself as she just barely dug beneath the flying rests of the cigarette which the dude had carelessly thrown across his shoulder in another moment of complete idiocy.
She didn't get how some people could be so rude and unthoughtful. It wasn't like it was so hard to put the stub of the cigarette into the trash can – hell, they were placed with no more than five feet between them on the sidewalk everywhere in the city. How could it be so hard to use them? It would definitely make the world – and in the small picture, Seattle – a better place to live.
Great, I'm starting to think that saving Seattle won't even be doable, Carly continued to muse to herself with that tragic sigh of hers. It's not like she asked for that much most days, but would it be too much if she was able to walk along the sidewalk without getting cigarette stubs thrown in her face? Without stepping in dog crap that people were too lazy and stupid to pick up? Hell, without having to curse at another idiot at the market who stepped into the Limit 10 line with more than ten items?
It would just be so much easier, and so much nicer to live in this world, if people knew how to behave! Those fuckheads, Carly confirmed in her thoughts, as she nodded hello to the doorman in her building.
"Good morning Ms. Shay. Can't wait for the show tonight."
"I hope I won't disappoint you, Herman." Carly smiled, before making her way to the elevator.
It was people especially like that kid with the baggy pants and the cigarette who just really ticked her off. People who didn't care shit about anyone but themselves; who thought that the world revolved around them. It was people like that that she just couldn't stand.
And people like that who made sure she earned her living.
Locking herself into her seventh floor apartment, Carly threw her jacket on the hanger and kicked off her killer high heels. She'd met Spencer for lunch today, but now she really had to get some sleep before she had to be at work tonight. She was meeting Freddie at nine to go over this evening's material, and she could not be late to their meeting yet again.
During a sleepless night in college, she and Freddie had taken over the school's radio and had an all-night show for everyone of their fellow students, who – like them – couldn't sleep. It hadn't been hard for them to find anything to talk about; there'd been plenty of things about school to discuss and classmates had soon started texting them to get them to talk about something else. It was easy because iCarly really prepared them for this and it came natural to them to entertain people.
After that they'd frequently been on air and after college – though Carly had educated herself to become a lawyer for the poor and needy – she and Freddie had been offered their own platform at Freedom 570 KVI right in their home town Seattle, and Carly's dreams had quickly been altered from helping the poor and needy in law to making the world a better place through her own radio show. Since then they'd been on air Monday to Friday, from 12pm to 4am, talking to insomniacs in all of Seattle about this and that – but mostly about those retards that Carly desperately wanted gone from the world because they have no respect for it.
She and Freddie – they were on Carly Says.
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CARLY SAYS.
Freddie: You ready Carly? There's five seconds, four, three, two, one. And we're live!
Carly: Hello fellow insomniacs and whatnot! Some of you are working, and some of you just can't sleep, but don't feel bad, because here at Carly Says, we have the same problem.
Freddie: That is right. Tonight we're going to entertain you with – what exactly are we going to talk about tonight, Carly?
Carly: Tonight we're talking about one of the things I hate the most. Some of you might think, oh no, she says this every night, but to be honest, this really is the top of my hate-the-most list, and I think I speak for everyone here at Carly Says when I say that smoking in public just is not the right thing to do.
Freddie: Oh no. You sound angry, Carly. Do I smell another personal story coming on?
Carly: Sure you do, Freddie. And I'll let everyone know what gruesome thing that happened to me on my way home from lunch with my brother earlier – but first! Let's have a commercial break.
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Give Me That Strange Relationship. Never Felt Pleasure and Pain Like This.
Carly didn't know how it had all happened so fast, but she was pretty contend with the job that she had and the pay check was fine too. The best part of it was the she got to fight for what she believed in: righting the world by taking them out – one retard at a time.
She just had no idea how she ended up here. The only thing in her life was the occasional lunch with her brother and work with Freddie. She slept when most people were up, when the day was busy and light, and she got up to go to work, when most people settled in at home. Her true love was Carly Says and unfortunately it was also her only.
After a long but weird love affair with Freddie through high school and some of college, the two of them broke up because it just wasn't working. There were several reasons for that, most of them which Carly did not even dare to think of, and now they were best friends and co-workers and Carly had barely been on a date since they split.
She liked to blame this on the odd hours, but if she had to be honest with herself – and she did have to; dishonesty was also one of the things she hated the most in this world – work really wasn't the reason. She could meet someone if she really wanted to, but there was always one reason – or was it person? - who really stood in the way of her finding happiness, and it was a person she used to call her best friend.
She just never could get over the way things ended between her and Sam, so quickly and awkwardly – and so painfully.
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CARLY SAYS.
Carly: And we're back here at Carly Says, and if someone is just tuning in on their old kitchen radio, we are, tonight, discussing the horrible habit that is smoking in public.
Freddie: Tell us what happened to you, Carly, you did say that there was a personal story involved in this mess.
Carly: As always, Freddie, there is a story. So. Today, or as it, correctly is, yesterday, I was walking home from lunch with my dear brother Spencer – on another note, you might know who he is, Spencer Shay, the artist – and I was going home to prepare myself for tonight's show. And right as I pass by the corner of Fifth Avenue and Pike St. I get this cigarette stub thrown right in my face, just outta nowhere! Can you believe it?
Freddie: What happened then?
Carly: Well, naturally I wanted to tell the dude in his lame ass pants off, but I actually kept my control instead and maturely mumbled 'fucking retard' beneath my breath.
Freddie: You really didn't tell him off? I thought you at least would have flipped him the finger!
Carly: No way, not even that did I do!
Freddie: Wow, that must definitely have caused you great restraint!
Carly: Sure it did. But anyway, that's not the point of my story, the point is, that there are these trash cans everywhere, and let's face it, they're not there to beautify the streets, they aren't exactly pretty, so why does everyone still keep throwing stubs – and something so much worse on the streets? I guess my question for you tonight, dear listeners, is whether or not I am the only one who finds these cigarette stubs everywhere highly disturbing and if we should do something about it and actually give out tickets for throwing things like that one the street? Please call us at 206-421-5757 and tell us your opinion on cigarette stubs. We'll be right back after a short break.
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Jealousy, Look at Me Now, Jealousy, You Got Me Somehow.
"You're on fire tonight, Carls." Freddie mumbled and handed her a bottled water from the small refrigerator they had in their studio.
Carly unscrewed the lit and quickly gulped down half the water. "I'm pissed off." she mumbled, placing the water on the table and pulling her long brown hair into a high ponytail before she adjusted her earphones. Her hair had a bad tendency of getting caught in the wires and whatnot, so she usually kept it away from her face.
Freddie took a handful of peanuts from the table and threw them in his mouth. "How was Spencer?"
"He's good." Carly replied and kicked back in her chair. This was a rather long commercial break and after that they were playing a song. "He's working on some new sculpture for Denny Park and he's really excited about it."
Freddie offered her a small smile, "How's Monica and the baby?"
Carly made a face. "Good."
She didn't know what was worse – that her brother, who could only be described as rather special, had actually met someone and managed to get married and was expecting his first child before she, or that she was actually jealous because of it. She shouldn't be, should she? She hated that too. She hated that so much, and it was even worse to be jealous towards someone she cared so deeply about.
"Did you really get a cigarette stub in your face?" Freddie questioned then.
She reached for her pen on the table and started clicking it the way she always did when she got anxious. "I ducked." - there was a pause - "But that doesn't mean I can't be pissed off! Those damn kids, I'm telling you Freddie, you and I, we were never that rude in high school. No one we hung out with would ever be rude enough to crowd an entire sidewalk with their friends and throw trash everywhere."
Before Carly could even manage to regret having said those words, Freddie had replied, "Hey, you know Sam would've."
And then the awkward silence rose between them. Every time one of them was careless enough to actually mention Sam, tension rose between the two of them, and everything felt weird. None of them spoke to Sam anymore – that ended in high school. Carly because she just couldn't handle it and Freddie because he supported her as the good boyfriend he was.
Not working things out with Sam was one of the things Carly regretted most in her life. There had been plenty of stupid things done in her past, but splitting like that with Sam was probably the most idiotic thing she had ever done. One of her least fine moments, and she usually lived for good behaviour.
Freddie realized his mistake too late. "Oh. I'm sorry, Carly, I didn't mean to-"
Carly waved her hand at him to stop his apology. It wasn't like he wasn't allowed to talk about Sam, after all, they had been best friends for so long, she couldn't ask that of him, even if she preferred to pretend like Sam had never really existed. And though she never asked him aloud to not mention her, she still hoped deep within that he wouldn't.
Swallowing loudly, she stared into the table and shook her shoulders. "Don't worry about it." she whispered, then looking up at him with a small smile. "It's – in the past. You can talk about her."
Freddie didn't look like he believed her.
She forced on a bigger smile. "Don't worry, Freddie! I'm OK! Let's just... let's just do our show, okay?"
Still not totally convinced, Carly could tell, Freddie grabbed his headset to go on air.
-
Meet Her in the Bathroom. That's What She Said.
"I'm so glad that you tagged along, Spence." Carly mumbled and leaned back in the cushion soft seat at their favourite movie theatre. For a long time she had wanted to see this particular film, but she had no one to go with her. It wasn't exactly Spencer's kind of film, but he'd been kind enough to join her. "Can't believe I have no female friends to go with, huh."
Spencer reached into the big bowl of popcorn she'd had to bribe him with and threw a handful into his mouth. "You've always attracted the more masculine part of the population, Carls."
Carly couldn't help but laugh.
"Oh. You're gonna love this, Carly."
Carly's eyes followed Spencer's and then came to a halt. In a huge mess of lip gloss, hair and high heels came a bunch of women into the room just as the previews started. They were obviously giddy and excited and Carly couldn't stand it. It was those kind of people she hated being at the movies with, because they usually disturbed the entire film.
She glared at the backs of their necks. "If they don't shut up once the previews are done, I'm gonna clunk their heads together until the one brain cell they each have will have destructed itself."
Now it was Spencer's turn to laugh.
Carly glared at him. "I'm not kidding." she told him, though she knew that he knew she wasn't kidding.
Carly settled into her seat and as the previews continued, she kept one eye on those women, because if they didn't keep quiet, she was gonna teach them a thing or two about bad behaviour.
Unluckily for them, they didn't shut up and Carly had to disturb the entire room when she went down there to hassle them, and once she got back up, another person decided they needed the bathroom, and several people slurped their sodas, rattled with their candy's wrapping and chewed too loudly. Over all, it was everything that Carly hated, and once the movie was (finally) done, she had to use the bathroom.
"Because good people wait until the film is finished so they don't disturb everyone else." she told Spencer, as she parted with him and mingled through the throng of people in the hall to get to the restroom. There was an enormous line of course, but she got behind it like any good citizen would do. But as if everything hadn't been bad enough during the movie, now came a mother with a child tripping at its feet.
She looked frantic. "Can we please go in? He has to go so badly."
A couple of people looked away, because they didn't want to answer, while some moron nodded, but Carly wasn't taking this. "Hell no!" she said, attracting the attention from everyone else in the line. "If he has to use the bathroom, he'll have to wait like everyone else here does. We've got places to be and movies to catch as well."
"Relax woman, it's just one tiny person!" the mother quickly defended her son.
Carly was ready to fight. "I bet that everyone here will agree with me that this is not fair. That they have as much a right to go first as your son has."
A couple of people mumbled something it Carly's favour.
A stall became available, and Carly gave the woman a look that said, "if you go in there, I'll maim you!", which effectively made the woman and her son go to the back of the line, but not without a few curses on the way. Carly could easily live with that though, just as long as justice was achieved.
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CARLY SAYS.
Carly: Hi there fellow fighters for good behaviour. If you're doubting whether trying to sleep is a good idea or not, let me tell you, you shouldn't. Instead, you should stay here, because tonight we have some wrongs to right.
Freddie: Hello everyone. I'm Freddie Benson.
Carly: And I'm Carly Shay, and this is Carly Says!
Freddie: Carly says that this will be an eventful evening. So we'll be taking calls all night at 206-421-5757.
Carly: So we will be. Let's start out with a personal story of mine. So yesterday, I' was out with my older brother Spencer – you might know who he is, he's the artist making the new sculpture for Denny Park – and we're going to catch a movie-
Freddie: What film did you see?
Carly: That new chick flick, uhm, the one with uh... Emma Roberts!
Freddie: Oh. That one.
Carly: Yeah. So we're at the movies, and I come to think of a topic that we have yet to discuss here at Carly Says. I'm thinking about how it's appropriate to behave while watching a movie with several other people. Not only are some people rude enough to talk during the actual film, but they also chew their candy too loud, slurp their sodas for every last drop, and they leave at inappropriate places to go use the bathroom!
Freddie: That is not good behaviour!
Carly: Carly says it's just downright rude!
Freddie: And I'm hearing here, that we already have a caller through. What's your name?
Jennifer: Jennifer.
Freddie: Hi Jennifer.
Carly: Hello Jen. Do you have a story to share with us about bad behaviour at the movies?
Jennifer: I do actually. See, I was at the movies with a bunch of my girlfriends a couple of weeks ago, we were watching one of those romance slice comedy films, you know, the ones that always have a happy ending no matter how the story goes.
Carly: Oh I hate those.
Freddie: Can't stand 'em.
Carly: No, it's like they have no purpose whatsoever, because what they show is not real life, and what can we get out of that? Nothing! They're just completely stupid.
Freddie: Why would you even watch such a film, Jennifer?
Carly: Yeah Jen, why waste your time?
Jennifer: Well, we had a girl's night out. Dinner, a movie, drinks, hit the town!
Carly: Oh. Then it's acceptable. Please continue with your story about bad behaviour.
Jennifer: Will do! So. We're at the movies, right, we're five people, me, Rebecca, Samantha, Ashlee and Sarah. The four of us have known each other for ages, but we only met Samantha when she and Rebecca-
Freddie: Your story, Jennifer.
Jennifer: Oh yes. Sorry. So yes, we're at the movies, and we're five people, right? So we get in and we see some spare seats almost at the top, and you know you always wanna sit as closest to the top as possible, right? So we go up there, but when we get closer, we see that there are only four seats.
Carly: Ooh. Suddenly I see where this is going.
Freddie: Me too.
Carly: What happens next, Jenny-benny? I'm scared to hear.
Jennifer: You should be! So yes. We see that there's two spare seats closer to the middle of that same row, right? So I just, I politely poke the closest man's shoulder and – politely – ask if they can scoot over just one tiny seat so the five of us can sit together. And you know what he says?
Freddie: I'm frightened to know.
Carly: What did he say, Jenny?
Jennifer: He said "no"! Can you believe it?
Carly: Oh! That is so bad behaviour. That is the worst thing to do at the movies! That gets a nine and a half on the Carly scale of bad behaviour.
Freddie: But back to you Jennifer – what did you girls do now when you were denied the perfect seats?
Jennifer: Well, this is where it gets tricky, because now my friend Samantha, she starts acting very rudely.
Carly: This is a conflict of interest, I see. So she starts yelling or something?
Jennifer: Samantha is not the nicest person, says it doesn't get her places, but we try to keep her in control most of the time, but yeah... she goes at the man. Nails, spit and whatnot.
Carly: Ouch! That gets a definite ten on the Carly scale of bad behaviour, Jen! You should keep your friends in control, I had more faith in you.
Freddie: Me too.
Jennifer: I know. So naturally, security is called, and we're kicked out of there. Which totally pisses everyone off, especially Ashlee, because she really had to use the bathroom.
Carly: Crap! That reminds me of my story about the movies, because that wasn't just about the rude behaviour within the actual movie theatre, but also within the bathroom in the hall.
Freddie: This doesn't smell good. Tell us what happened, Carly.
Jennifer: Yeah!
Carly: Well, after the movie was done, I had to use the bathroom before heading home with Spencer – you know, he's an artist? ...and naturally there's this really horribly long line, but I get behind it like any other person would. But that's just it – not all people think that lines are for them. Some people tend to believe they are above lines.
Freddie: Did someone try to skip the line?
Carly: Yes! And of course it was a mother with a son who was literally hopping in there, so she tried to used the "he's a kid" method, but I wasn't taking it. She cursed me, but luckily other people seemed to back me up on this, and she had to go to the back of the line.
Freddie: But of course! No one is more important than others. She shouldn't get special treatment. .
Carly: No right?
Freddie: No. What do you say, Jennifer? Anyone get special treatment?
Jennifer: I don't know about special treatment, but I actually have another story to share from that evening, if you're interested. It's about bathroom behaviour.
Carly: We do like bathroom behaviour. What do you say, Freddie? Do we have time for one more story before the commercials?
Freddie: Plenty of time!
Carly: Go ahead, Jenny!
Jennifer: So, we didn't make the movie, but we decided not to let that ruin our night. We still wanted to go clubbing and dancing, so we go to our local dance club and we're drinking and having fun, and sooner or later everyone had to go real bad, so we head off to the bathroom.
Carly: Oh I hate those club bathrooms. They're horribly dirty, with barf and beer everywhere.
Jennifer: I know, I can't stand it either. But yeah, when you have to you have to, right. So we're off to the bathroom and there's a bunch of fucking b-beep-ches in front of us.
Carly: Can't say the b-word on Carly Says.
Jennifer: Oh. Sorry. There's a bunch of very rude women, who think they are something – that good? - in front of us, right.
Freddie: Very good, Jennifer.
Carly: You see Jen, we're giving you a lesson in better behaviour – first step: talk nice about random strangers!
Jennifer: Well okay. So right, we're in the bathroom, right? And there's something you should know about Samantha and Rebecca for this story to make sense. They're both gay. And they used to date.
Freddie: Oh crap.
Carly: We do have a few stories about gayness – that leads to very rude behaviour from very random people.
Freddie: Often it does.
Jennifer: Yes, so they've been dancing, maybe kissing a little, just for old time's sake, you know, right? And those very rude women, apparently, they've noticed that, right? And the first thing they do, they ask Samantha if she hasn't entered the wrong bathroom!
Carly: They did not!
Jennifer: Yup. And one of them has the nerve to say: "There should be three bathrooms. One labelled boys. One labelled girls. And one labelled others."
Freddie: No!
Carly: Nice change of voice in the end, by the way.
Jennifer: Thank you.
Freddie: So what happened?
Jennifer: Well naturally Samantha didn't take that very well either, so she went at those very rude women and ended up having us kicked out of the dance club too.
Carly: This time I understand her.
Freddie: You know, I think there's something about that name – Samantha – it does qualify as a rude-behaviour-name.
Jennifer: It does?
Freddie: We once had a friend, who-
Carly: Freddie! Not now, will ya'?
Freddie: Sorry.
Carly: So what happened to you, Samantha and the others?
Jennifer: Samantha ended up in ER, but the rest of us went home to watch a DVD. Night was ruined for us, right. But of course the incident has affected us a lot, because I've become more aware of the fact that these things happens everyday, every hour.
Carly: That is true. People should be more aware of this. Random people's reactions make teens afraid of coming out of the closet because they don't know how people will possibly react.
Freddie: We should do an entire segment on this here at Carly Says, don't you think, Carls? We'd definitely have some stories to share.
Carly: Perhaps we should, Freddie.
Freddie: Anyway, thanks to you, Jennifer.
Carly: Yup, thank you, Jen, for sharing your stories here at Carly Says.
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Hey La, Hey La, Her Girlfriend's Back and She's Gonna Be in Trouble.
As soon as they were off the air that night, Carly blew up at Freddie.
"Thanks a lot, Fred!" she cursed at him.
Freddie just gave her a small smile. "You can't expect me not to mention her, Carls. Not when the moment is rarely fitting. I know you wish that I don't, but it's just not possible."
Carly crossed her arms determinedly in front of her chest. She almost never acted like a child, but whenever Sam was brought up, everything bad came up in her, even if she tried to suppress it most times. "It's not only that you mentioned her, Freddie. But you decided to do it in front of all our listeners, totally undermining me. You know how I feel about her, you know that I don't wanna talk about it."
Freddie was not backing down this time. "And I know it's about time that you did." he said with his most firm voice.
Carly glared at him. "You can't force me to talk about her and what happened between us, Freddie, you just can't."
"She was my friend too." Freddie whispered. "She was my friend, and after how you treated me because of her, I think it's only fair that I get a say in this."
Carly felt her chest tighten. She knew that she hadn't been fair to Freddie, but to be honest, she hadn't even been sure he'd known the entire story; she hadn't thought he'd noticed, she didn't think he was perceptive enough. "You know?" she softly questioned him.
"Do I know that the only reason you dated me was because you needed an excuse to Sam for not dating her?" he paused. "Yeah, I know. I know that you weren't ready to face your feelings and that's why you started to date me."
"Freddie, I'm so-"
He cut her off. "You're sorry? Of course you are, you're Carly!" he shook his head. "Even I take some of the blame, because I kept hoping, kept convincing myself that someday you'd get over Sam and start dating me for me. Do you know how hard it was for me those years?"
Carly swallowed a huge lump in her throat. "I had no idea you felt like that. I thought that you'd..."
"That I'd just be happy to be with you?" Freddie suggested with a small glint in his eye. "At first, I was. I was so happy that I was fortunate enough to have you be my girlfriend. But eventually even that couldn't overshadow the fact that you were so in love with someone else."
She stared at him for a few moments. She could see that it still pained him after all these years; his face showed that, she knew all his faces. But he also looked contend to be where he was, even more so to get everything off his chest. She was sad that she'd done this to him, even sadder that she'd actually been stupid enough to believe that he hadn't noticed.
She breathed out. "Look. Are we – are we okay, Freddie?"
He shot her that charming smile of his. "We're okay, Carly." he mumbled.
Then they hugged it up.
And when they had said goodbye to each other outside their studio, Carly walked home alone in the chilly morning air, hands in her pockets, ticking about her and Freddie, Sam and what used to be.
Their friendship had ended horribly and quickly. Carly hadn't known how to handle it when Sam had proclaimed that she was gay and totally in love with her. Carly could feel that perhaps she felt something for her too, the touches, the stares, her heart beating fast, it all told her that maybe there was something there. Yet she couldn't deal; she was too scared of what people would say, too scared to find out how life would be as a lesbian, because those horror-stories had really gotten to her.
So she'd done the next-best-thing. She'd kissed Freddie in a moment of clear desperation. And it had been good; nice and comfortable. Freddie was the best towards her, and they had years of friendship to rely on. And that was her excuse to Sam – she was dating Freddie, she wasn't available. She thought that Freddie was the one who she was supposed to be with.
And Sam had said, "Well, call me when you're ready to face up to who you really are."
Then she'd left the apartment. Neither her nor Freddie had seen her since, and it had been strange, and Carly had missed her every single day since then, even if she never allowed herself to think about Sam and the way things ended between them. And she still wasn't ready to face up to who she really was, and even if she was ready, she wasn't going to call Sam anyhow.
Maybe she was stupid, and maybe she was a coward. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't be one of those out and proud lesbians, and she knew that it wasn't an option to be with a man – she wasn't attracted to them, she'd never be able to live in a normal relationship with one, so she preferred to be alone; even if it was a sad life.
When Carly crossed the street to get to her apartment, she duck one hand into her purse to find her keys, but paused when she saw a lone figure sitting on the three-steps-stair outside her apartment building.
It was a vaguely familiar posture. Black and red check patterned jeans, old, worn converse sneakers, a long sleeved shirt and a black vest. Her long curly hair was covered by a bright red knitted hat. Next to her lay a striped over-one-shoulder bag with its contents spilling everywhere: books, pencils, an iPod, a cell phone, tampons, candy, a bottled water and spare clothes. On her other side was a sleeping bag rolled together.
As Carly came to a halt in the middle of the – thankfully – deserted street, she looked up and their eyes meet. She was sure that it could not be a coincidence that she sat there tonight. There had to be a bigger reason for it.
"Hello Carly." she said and stood up, offering her an insecure smile and a funny wave.
Breathing deeply in, Carly stepped onto the rocky pavement. "Hi Sam."
Hello everyone. Thanks for tuning in. It's been a while since I finished my last iCarly story, and has been – for a long time – wanting to write something with them as grown-ups. I hope you all enjoy the concept of this story (credit for that is due to Leslie Schnur, who wrote "Late Night Talking" which have inspired me greatly) because I've been working hard to get the details down and get a good feel of the atmosphere.
Please tell me what you thought of this, and I will try to update as fast as possible, if enough people want me to. Thought I do have a pretty busy life with exams coming up and living alone with my little sister, because my mother has been hospitalized since November.
Oh. And the chapter titles are all from songs. Just uh... altered, perhaps, a little bit :)
Disclaimer; I don't own iCarly or the radio station that I have 'borrowed' from real life. I do not own Late Night Talking either, but I have a very worn copy of it that I am now reading again. I borrowed the concept of the behaviour-radio-show from that book, because I thought it would make a very interesting character contrast between Carly and Sam.