"Another night, another party Bella. Are we trying to break a record here?" Alice took another sip of her coffee and leaned back in her chair.
"Well Alice I seem to recall not so long ago that you were at a lot of these parties with me. And excuse me but why, people," I glanced over at Rose, who was pointing at her watch and spinning a 'hurry up' finger in the air, "is it okay for men to party seven nights a week but when a woman does the same it's an issue? Are we that different? Speak to me Seattle. We'll be taking your calls after this word from Mattresses At Home…"
I flicked the switch to play the ad, "thanks Alice. Again."
"Come on, the listeners love Party Bella," she grinned.
"And the ratings are only costing me my dignity. I think I liked this gig better when we were both in the same single-girl boat."
The ad finished up and Alice swung her mic back to her, "well Bella, it looks like the city has a lot to say about your social life. Let's go to our first caller," she glanced at her screen, "Lance in Haller Lake…"
"Hey Bella, you wanna party with me?"
"This is exactly what I'm saying Lance. Just because a grown woman enjoys a night out every once in a while does that make her fair game for the sleazeballs? A drink or two and you think you - a creepy random stranger - can call up and proposition me? In public no less. Would a man be treated like a piece of meat because he's single and enjoying himself?"
I hit the cancel button on creepy Lance's call, "Let's go to Gina, where you calling from Gina?"
"Hi Bella, I'm calling from Junction,"
"Home of Bar Code, one of my girl's favourite pick up joints!" Alice whooped, earning herself a middle finger from across the desk.
"Go on Gina from Junction."
"The way I see it women are held to a higher standard than men. We're expected to settle down and have kids while men are programmed to sow their wild oats."
"So what you're getting at Gina is that it's all down to our genes? That being born with a penis gives someone the God-given right to party hard but if you're not blessed in the trouser department you've got a genetic obligation to be sensible?"
"I think," Alice chimed in, "what Gina is saying is that your ovaries are gonna shrivel and die if you don't settle the hell down."
"But then how does a woman get her ovaries on the job without sampling what's on offer out there in the big wide world? If we stay home baking cookies those wild oats will have no place to be sown."
We hung up on Gina and moved on to the next callers, as usual most of them had nothing of much interest to say, only wanting to hear more dirt about my love life - or should I say sex life. Same ol' same ol' for The Morning After.
When we started the show Alice, Rose and I had great plans to explore women's issues in a smart way, use our influence to really speak to KSXB's listeners. But, as with anything the three of us got involved in, the show devolved from intelligent debate and news analysis to smutty jokes about each other's private lives. Ratings went through the roof as our standards slipped and the bigwigs loved it. Rose rebranded Women's Talk and we were strictly limited to affairs of the heart and vagina, watercooler TV shows and celebrity gossip. It was actually a lot easier than talking highbrow at 6am and a whole heap more fun. For the most part at least.
But then Alice got a boyfriend and The Morning After turned into The Sound Of Bella's Shame. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled for Al, but as soon as she and Jasper got serious she turned into a judgemental pain in my ass, especially when we were on air. I wouldn't have minded so much if there wasn't so much damn hyperbole involved. I mean, yeah, I liked getting out there, meeting guys and enjoying myself but thanks to corporate's insistence that we stay 'sexy and relevant' and Alice's fear that Jasper wouldn't understand that the show is 50% act, I was left out there high and dry, carrying the load that we'd previously shared.
"Bells," Rose's perennially bored sounding voice came over the intercom, "please try not to refer to the callers as 'sleazeballs'."
"Even if they are?"
"Even if they are sweetie," she gave us a countdown as the traffic report ended and we welcomed our listeners back, turning the talk to last night's TV.
"Well, if there's one thing I can say for being single Alice it's that, unlike a lot of those boring coupled up types, I wouldn't know who...what was she called?"
"Teresa Giudice."
"Okay. I wouldn't know who Teresa Giudice was if she came up and bit me on the ass."
Alice shook her head at me, "that's because you're too busy getting your ass bitten out there on the streets of Seattle."
I glared at her angrily while she continued to bang on about a bunch of women who seemed to be mostly famous for arguing with each other.
An hour later we wrapped the show and I grabbed my bag from the control room, kissing Rose on the cheek and stalking off down the corridor towards the elevator which, I prayed, would just this once take less than half an hour to arrive. I pressed the button three times because, as everybody knows, the more you hit the button the quicker the elevator comes.
"Bella!" I'd bargained on getting away before her but there was Alice, skipping - literally skipping - towards me with a huge grin on her face, I thumped the button again for luck but she reached me before the doors could shudder open, "Jas just called. We're getting lunch and I really think you should come with."
I sighed, knowing exactly what she was up to, "really Alice?" I deadpanned, "why do you really think I should come with?"
"Just come. Pleeeeeaaaase?" she wheedled, hustling me into the elevator and attacking me with a hairbrush and lipstick.
"Do you have a tissue please Al?" she rooted around in her pink shoulder bag, handing a Kleenex over. I wiped the disgusting lip gloop off. Alice just rolled her big brown eyes and shrugged.
Half an hour later - just long enough for Al to buy two new dresses and a pair of shoes between the KSXB studios and the restaurant she had hilariously described as 'chichi' - we were sliding into our seats next to Jasper and...some guy.
Jasper stood up, sweeping his long hair out of his face and laying an inappropriately passionate kiss on his girlfriend. They were still in that disgusting honeymoon phase that meant they had to eat each other's faces off instead of using the time-honoured tradition of a 'hello' and dry hump their goodbyes. It was great. No, really, I loved it nearly as much as I enjoyed the audio extravaganzas that were the trademark of Jasper's late night visits to the apartment I shared with the girls. Rose and I had talked seriously about changing the locks while Alice was out following a particularly rough weekend of headboard banging.
"Hey Bella," he drawled, releasing himself from Al's boa constrictor grip just long enough to peck me on the cheek, "this here is Jake, he's with Wolfhowl," he looked at me expectantly, as if I'd know who or what Wolfhowl might be.
"We're touring with Jas and the guys," Jake stood up to shake my hand. Woah, but the guy was tall. I felt as if I was reaching upwards just to meet his huge paw. He had long black hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his thick, sinewy neck and every inch of him was pure tan muscle. He was clearly hot as all fuck but, as Alice should have known when she roped Jasper into setting us up - I had that girl's number - he was not in the least my type. I liked my guys kinda geeky and...well, averagely sized. In some departments at least.
"Nice to meet you," I smiled, settling down in my seat and grabbing the menu, "pick what you like Jake, Alice is buying."
He followed my instruction and ordered what seemed to be most of the menu, filling me in on his band between huge mouthfuls of steak, prawns and gulps of beer. I nodded and hmmed as he gave me the lowdown on Wolfhowl's long years playing seedy bars and clubs and how they were on the verge of splitting and taking up boring day jobs until The Confederates - the band Jas played bass guitar for - scooped them up for a support slot.
"It's a great opportunity for us," he said, nodding at Jasper, "just gotta make sure we don't fuck it up."
"I'm sure you won't," I placed my knife and fork parallel on my plate, "your band sounds great."
I was only being polite but Jake didn't pick up on my total lack of interest in him and his drums and enthusiastically invited me to the show they were playing that night at The Showbox.
"I don't know...we have pretty early starts at the station."
"That doesn't normally stop you," Alice smirked, "oh, go on Bells. I'm going, it'll be great fun."
I struggled to think of another excuse so I agreed to tag along with her 'just this once' before making a big deal of yawning and stretching, declaring my great need for a nap and running out of the 'chichi' restaurant just as fast as my legs could carry me.
"Hey, are you that chick from the radio?"
"Sure am," I smiled, readying myself for another fan selfie, "my partner in crime Alice is somewhere around here too…"
The guy's grin got even wider. Ever since they plastered huge billboards with our gurning mugs we'd got a whole lot of attention whenever we left the apartment. It definitely had nothing to do with our six foot high cleavages looming over half the main roads in the city. Or y'know, maybe it did.
Alice appeared at my elbow just then, handing me a plastic cup of warm beer, "who's this Bella?" she asked with a beatific smile.
"Mike," he introduced himself to my boobs, "I'm a huge fan of the show. Listen every morning on my way to work."
I waited for him to ask for a photo or autograph but he looked kind of tongue tied, "er...thanks then." I grabbed Alice's arm and started to lead her away.
"Could I get a photo with you guys?" the Mike guy blurted just as we turned our backs. We merrily squeezed him into a KSXB Morning After sandwich and pulled out our standard selfie pouts. Now his colleagues would believe he's met us and might even buy that one of us had given him a BJ in the loos. It wouldn't be the first time someone had pulled that one. Men were strange.
Jake's band walked on stage just then and broke into their opening number. It wasn't bad, a little bit hardcore for my tastes but I could tell they were good at what they did. Jake's drumming was insanely fast while the lead singer strutted up and down with his guitar looking as though he might bite somebody in between shouted verses.
"Where are these guys from and what the hell do they put in the water there?" every one of them was as huge as Jake and what my mom would call 'strapping'.
"Hot right?" Alice yelled in my ear. I shook my head no and mouthed 'nice try'.
When the set was over Alice led me backstage, flashing a pass to gain entry to a pretty scummy looking dressing room that the two bands shared. Jasper laid another inappropriately intimate kiss on his girlfriend before stalking out of the room followed by the dicks he called bandmates. I wasn't sure how Jas could be such a nice guy when he was surrounded by a trio of complete douches, nor how Alice, tailing them out to her spot at the side of the stage, could bear being around them so often.
"Hey!" Jake drawled, "you totally came."
"Yep, I did totally come," I took him up on the kind invitation of a spot next to him on the grubby sofa, immediately regretting it when he threw an arm across the back of the seat and shuffled closer, breathing beer all over me.
"So, whaddya think?" he was wasted, slurring his words and struggling to focus on me.
"Yeah, you guys were...great."
He introduced me around the room and I fell into an easy conversation with the Wolfhowl boys. They all seemed sweet apart from Sam, the lead singer who kinda believed his own hype and played the mean, moody artist part to the point of parody, swigging Jack Daniels straight from the bottle and snapping at his friends over the dumbest things/
As Jake became even drunker he started to get handsy and I found myself repeatedly removing his meaty hand from my thigh and placing it firmly back on his before it snuck its way back to its desired destination. A few years ago, back when Alice, Rose and I took our careers less seriously and our cooches more so I might have gone with it. Jake seemed a nice guy, he was hot, in a dumb muscle man kind of way, and he was into me which, then, would've been enough for me to welcome his advances. But as we got older and the radio thing took off, sending us from a mid-week middle of the night shift only enjoyed by taxi drivers to our current flagship spot, we realised that we'd have to be more selective in who we flirted with and, even more so, who we took home or risk getting a reputation that might land us in a newspaper that our parents might read. I, for one, didn't fancy Charlie rocking up to stand guard outside our place, pointing his gun at every male who dared to darken our door.
Leaving a message for Alice with my new over-familiar friend I made my excuses and left, going home to our apartment and resisting the urge to tidy away the cereal bowls, discarded dresses and the box of tampons that was, for some reason, spilling its contents over the living room floor. It wasn't that hard to control myself - you might imagine that three girls well into their twenties might have moved beyond living like students but...no.
I cracked open a tub of Ben and Jerrys and settled onto the sofa, toeing a red bra, sadly missing its pantie partners, out of the way.
"Hey," Rose entered stage left, "room for another spoon?"
"I didn't know you were home. Help self."
We snuggled up under a blanket, filling our faces with Karamel Sutra and indulging in our weird obsession with teleshopping. We couldn't get enough of that diamante dazzle.
"So your date with the band guy didn't work out?"
"Uh, you knew about that? Why didn't you warn me Alice was up to something?"
"You left the studio like your ass was on fire. He was a dud huh?"
I shrugged and took another huge spoonful of B&J, "he was...fine."
"Fine or fine?" she waggled her eyebrows suggestively to emphasis the secondary 'fine'.
"Just your everyday, run of the mill, not my type fine. I wish Alice would get the hint, I don't want to be set up. just because she's got Jas doesn't mean I've got to be loved up too. She's pissing me off."
"Want me to have a word?"
I shook my head and went back to the infomercial for something that sloughed dry skin off your feet. Jesus, it looked absolutely foul, "yuk. Maybe I should get on board with Al's dating service or I could end up an old cat lady spending Saturday nights grating my gnarly old tootsies."
"I won't let it come to that," Rose hugged me into her side, "if we don't find you a guy by thirty I'll lez it up with you."
"Lovely."
"Seriously Bella, there's a guy out there for you. You don't need to order a Ped-Egg just yet."
I sighed, frustrated, "honestly Rose, I don't want to find a guy. I'm happy just me and The Gosling."
"I wish you wouldn't name your sex toys," she stuck her tongue out in disgust.
The enthusiastic television presenter started up the hard sell on a weight loss shake system and I called it a night, answering the siren call of my bed before I was talked into losing thirty pounds I didn't need to shift.
I slid open my bedside drawer, grabbing my nightly pill and throwing it back with a gulp of water. The Gosling winked up at me from it's spot between a bottle of cough syrup and some ripped stockings, "don't listen to her," I cooed, "she doesn't know you like I do." Talking to your vibrator Bella? I mentally slapped myself round the back of the head, maybe you do need to find a guy...
A/N: *nervously peeks out from behind the door* soooo? I'm fearful about introducing Jake before our beloved copper haired friend. Don't hate me.
Speaking of Eddy boy, here's an amazing EQ fact, only just realised: I grew up in a wee London suburb called Barnes, which you Pattinson aficionados will have doubtless heard of.
Sadly I've got three years on the guy so we never played doctors and nurses together. But maybe we fed the ducks at the same time or something.
See, now you know that you can't stay angry and should probably review, if only to berate me for not spending my childhood seeking out future sex-haired stars.
EQx