"Here you go darling," I plonked a cup of coffee in front of Alice and smiled sweetly.
"You never get the coffees Bella," she said, narrowing her eyes, "and you definitely never call people 'darling'."
"Okay girls, we're on air in five, four…" Rose finished her countdown silently using her fingers, her index going down into her palm as I pulled my chair up to the mic.
"Good morning Seattle!" Al cried her usual 6am greeting, "welcome to another Morning After with me Alice Brandon and my trusty sidekick Bella Swan."
"It's time to get out of bed, hit the shower and get yourselves ready for another soul destroying day behind a desk."
"Oof," Alice laughed a fake laugh accompanied by a frown, "why so cynical Ms Swan? Another morning getting out of the wrong side of the wrong bed?" I gritted my teeth and glanced over at Rose who shrugged through the soundproof window.
"As it happens listeners I had a wonderful sleep last night, in my own bed I hasten to add. We can't all be out til the wee hours gallivanting with rock stars," eyes wide she gave me a throat cutting motion across the desk.
Alice and Jasper had been keeping their relationship on the downlow. Jas was well known enough to make any relationship fodder for the gossip pages and he was keen to keep out of the spotlight. Despite his job, not to mention his life-and-soul-of-the-party choice of girlfriend he was a pretty reclusive kind of guy.
"Coming up later on the show we'll be talking to Rowana Landry of the Seattle Storm women's basketball team about getting more girls into sport. If you have any questions for her you can phone, email or even tweet us," she gave out our contact details, "but before then...actually I don't know what's before then...Bella?"
"Well, today we're talking about something very close to Alice's heart…"
"Shoes?" she chimed in, "Ooh! Channing Tatum's chest?"
"Channing Tatum Alice? Really? No, today we're talking matchmaking. Have your friends tried to hook you up with anybody? Or are you your friends' very own dating service?"
" in human form," with no choice but to join in Alice looked slightly panicked, sinking lower in her seat.
"Alice, you know plenty about matchmaking don't you?" I asked with a sly smile, "I say that because my good friend here has been trying to fix me up for the past few months."
"We spoke about your shrivelled ovaries yesterday Bella," she soothed, "they're curling up at the sides as we speak."
I chuckled but ignored her, "so what I'm wondering folks is: matchmaking your buddies, right or wrong? Would you trust a friend to pick a mate? Call in on the usual number to speak to Producer extraordinaire Rose…"
She clicked herself in, "always at your service ladies."
"...and she might just put you on air."
We went to the damn mattress guy with his one hundred miles an hour gambit 'vi-sprung, feather topped, memory foam, whatever your needs Mattresses At Home.'
"Bella," Alice hissed, earning herself my very best 'I don't know what you mean' look.
We went on with the show, making sly digs at each other - business as usual, it was all part of the act. At least it was normallypart of the act, today I was gunning for her and, with the help of Rose and a good 75% of our callers, texters, tweeters and emailers Alice was getting put in her place. Victory.
Rose and I had re-planned today's show - we'd usually get an outline together a couple of weeks in advance, slotting in news stories and other time sensitive subjects nearer to air. But that morning Rose had cornered me in the kitchen as we both grabbed our breakfast.
"Did Alice come home last night?" she'd asked. I'd told her that I was pretty sure I heard her stumble in about an hour ago. Rose lowered her voice, "I was thinking about your dilemma."
I took a bite out of my flapjack, "what dilemma?"
"Non-fine Jake and the others." The others included a sound engineer with a pimp limp and a belief he could rap like Eminem (he couldn't) , a roadie with a serious personal hygiene fail and a sweet, charming bartender who had ended the night aggressively, wetly licking my face like an enthusiastic puppy and not in an endearing way. And those were the best of Alice's choices.
She'd pulled her clipboard out of the deep Mary Poppins-esque bag that held everything from a lifetime supply of pens to a hairdryer - it might sound crazy but that hairdryer had saved the three of us from the just-licked-by-a-bartender look on more than one occasion. Praise be Rose's bottomless bag. On the clipboard was the all important schedule for the day and she took out a promotional Mattresses At Home pen to strike through the pre-plans, hurriedly jotting down notes while taking the occasional glance back at Al's still closed door. As it dawned on me exactly what Rose was up to I felt a grin spread across my face.
"This is mean," I smirked.
"Not really," Rose scribbled something else in her curly handwriting, "you want her to leave you alone right?"
"Sure."
"Then let's go," she thumped loudly on Alice's door, "get your ass out of bed Brandon, you've got five minutes."
In the studio I sidestepped another proposition from Lecherous Lance from Haller Lake. Did the guy really think he'd wear me down by repeatedly propositioning me live on air? I made a mental note to ask Rose to stop putting him through - who knew, maybe one day I'd be tempted by his oh-so-delightful come hithers and wind up imprisoned in a creepy basement as Lecherous Lance's sex slave. Before I could conjure up any more scenarios in which Lecherous Lance ate my vital organs with a nice Chianti or made me follow him around on a leash Rose sent through our next, anonymous, caller.
We often had no-name callers, with sex and relationships such a huge part of the show it made sense that some folk didn't want their identities made public. As it happened the anonymous callers were usually our favourite and most entertaining guests, as well as the most popular with listeners, because they had the juiciest tidbits and used us as on-air agony aunts. There had been callers having affairs and callers who suspected their partners were cheating on them, girls wanting to know whether they should ask guys out and guys wanting to know what a kiss in the office elevator meant. We'd even counselled a woman in love with her sister's husband and a guy who didn't know how to come out to his wife. There were probably qualified psychiatrists all over the city who cursed us.
"Good morning," anonymous caller greeted us and his voice, like butter, melted over my skin. I immediately felt warmth in my cheeks and found myself unable to say anything…my reply stupidly caught in my throat.
"Oh Anonymous," Alice, seeing my idiotic impression of a goldfish, stepped in, "are you perchance British?" she spoke in her best Eliza Doolittle accent. Her best being absolutely terrible. More Dick Van Dyke, less Her Majesty.
He chuckled, another womb-clenching sound, "I am indeed."
"I should warn you that Bella has quite the weakness for British men."
She wasn't wrong. I blamed Renee - my mother's contribution to my literary education had been to force feed me Jane Austen adaptations. Jeremy Northam as Mr. Knightley, Greg Wise as Willoughby and the daddy of them all, the true owner of my heart, Mr Darcy himself - they were the be-hatted, horse-taming, lake-swimming men of my dreams.
"Can I just clarify, before my co-host collapses of the vapours, that you are not Colin Firth."
"Absolutely not," he stated, "although Mr Firth and I do share a number of mutual friends."
Alice mouthed an 'OMG' before returning to the conversation, "I believe Mr Friend of Firth that you're anti-matchmaking? Which is a shame as I think I may have the perfect woman for you right here…"
"Alice…" I warned in a low voice and she cleared her throat asking him why he was so determinedly in the anti-matchmaking camp.
"I believe very firmly in letting things happen naturally."
"But setting someone up on a date is a gentle push in the right direction isn't it? I mean," Alice began warming to her subject, "why should starting a relationship with a little help from a good friend with your best interests at heart be any different from setting up a date with someone you just ran into at the store?"
"Have you often dated people you meet at the store?" I'd finally loosened my imaginary corset and found my voice, reminding myself that Anonymous might be more Ralph Fiennes in Harry Potter than Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient. He's just a voice on the end of a phone you lunatic.
"No," Alice countered, "but that's hardly the point…"
"I think it is," Anonymous Caller to the rescue, "most of my married friends already knew each other before they began a relationship, they went into it with eyes open and no pressure from meddling acquaintances."
"That's an excellent point," I agreed, "nobody likes to feel like they've failed at dating."
I could see Alice getting frustrated across the desk. She always clenched her fists and pursed her lips like a toddler having a tantrum when she didn't get her own way, "have you ever been set up by a friend Anonymous Caller?"
"As it happens I have Alice," he answered darkly, "I have a good friend who takes great pleasure in trying to correct my status as a perennial singleton. In fact I have the dubious honour of meeting another of his finds tonight."
"I take it you're not looking forward to your date?" I felt irrationally jealous of the woman due to spend an evening listening to him speak.
"I've no doubt that the lady in question will be lovely, it'd be unfair to judge her in advance. However I can't say that my friend's previous attempts to set me up haven't been especially successful."
"Could you give us any examples?" I asked.
"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell Bella," my stomach lurched at the way he said my name, stretching it out into its component syllables. Just a voice…
"How about I show you mine and you show me yours? One of my first blind dates was with a guy who took me go-karting - I'm not kidding go-karting."
"Good lord," Anonymous Caller chuckled, "if we ever inadvertently find ourselves on a blind date together I can assure you there will be no safety helmets involved."
"Funny you should mention safety…" Alice giggled.
"Yes, listeners this guy was so competitive he took me out during an overtake. I ended up in hospital with three broken ribs. Not that my wonderful date stuck around to find out after he dropped me off at the kerb outside the emergency room."
"Okay, okay, he wasn't my finest choice," Al admitted.
"So go on Anonymous Caller…"
He sighed, "alright then. My friend set me up with a woman who brought her dog to dinner...a teacup something or other I believe. Anyway this dog had to have its own chair at the table, and a steak brought to it on a china plate. Needless to say I did not kiss either of them goodnight."
"Here's hoping that tonight's date is a cat person," I choked out through my giggles.
"Will you call back and let us know how it goes Anonymous?" Alice asked, prompted by Rose who had that 'we've got a big one' look on her face. Rose could spot a ratings winner at a hundred paces.
"That would depend on how well it goes," I could almost hear him smirking.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Seriously Bella, I thought you were going to pass out," Alice, Rose and I were sprawled across the huge corner sofa that dominated our lounge space, sharing a bowl of popcorn and ignoring the movie we'd taken forty five minutes to agree on.
"It wasn't that bad."
"It really was," Rose threw a kernel of popcorn in the air and deftly caught it in her mouth, "I thought I was going to have to call Marcus."
"Marcus?"
"He's designated first aider."
Alice pulled a face, "I never want him to resuscitate me. If something happens I'll take my chances waiting for an ambulance."
Marcus was one of the fact checkers for Newstalk - hence his nickname, The Newstalker. Alice wasn't kidding, the guy was truly disgusting and it wouldn't be beyond him to slip you the tongue during mouth-to-mouth, in fact there was a good chance he took the first aid training just to get some action because, seriously, you'd have to be totally comatose not to fight him off. Ugh.
"So what's the deal Bells?" a piece of popcorn, this time launched by Alice, hit me on the cheek.
"What?"
Rose reached for the remote, turning the volume down on Russell Crowe, now there was a man with a bad English accent. "I think she's asking what you're going to do about Mr Rochester?"
"Rochester?" I scoffed, "are you kidding me?"
"He's one of your dark and brooding literary hero types isn't he?" Rose asked and I laughed, imagining a tousle-haired Byronic hero on a cell phone, "so what are you going to do?"
I gave them both my best 'are you mental?' look. What did they expect me to do? Call a random English dude with no name on the strength of his accent? And the fact he was kind of charming? And shared friends with Colin freaking Firth...okay so that was as good a reason as any to hook up with a man without a face. Still, they were clearly crazy and I told them so, tapping Alice on the side of the head in demonstration, "they should lock you both up."
The truth of the matter was that I did kind of feel some connection to the guy, whoever he was, there was something in the way he spoke - and I don't just mean his accent - that I was drawn to. I accused my friends of being mad but maybe it was me that was losing it after all. First I was having conversations with sex toys, now I was fantasising about some dude on the end of the telephone. I hadn't had sex in months...it was probably my ovaries trying to tell me that they needed something to keep them from the threat of shrivelling. Who cares if he's a serial killer? my reproductive system cried.
"I have his number," Rose shrugged, "you know, if you did want to call him."
"Rose! I thought you were on my side. I do not want to be set up with anybody. And it doesn't sound like Rochester wants to be either."
She snickered into her beer, "you called him Rochester."
"Shut up!" I grabbed the remote and turned Russell Crowe full blast. I'd take his crappy Robin Hood over these bitches if I had to.
We watched the rest of the movie in uncomfortable silence. I could sense Alice throwing the side of my head concerned looks but I studiously ignored her. Irritating little pixie that she was.
The credits rolled and we each shuffled off to get an early night - hosting the breakfast show wasn't really conducive to late nights so we had a pact to be in bed pre-ten at least three nights a week. Not that any of us kept to it but still, we tried.
I was scrubbing at my teeth in the bathroom that Rose and I shared when she entered, wearing ridiculously sexy nightwear. I mean, who the hell wears lace and silk to bed when there's nobody to see it? Come to think of it who wears lace and silk to bed when there is? She picked up her own toothbrush, a pink Disney princess themed thing that Al and I had given to her as a joke, and gave my reflection a small smile.
I spat and rinsed, "do you think he'll call back tomorrow?"
"Rochester?" she asked through a mouthful of foam, "I thought you weren't interested?"
"Fuck you Rose," I grumbled. Throwing my toothbrush down I stomped to my bedroom and ignored her attempts to apologise through her laughter.
"I hope he doesn't call back," I yelled before slamming the door behind me.
A/N: thanks to all those who have followed and favourited so far...hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm going to try for at least weekly updates but real life is a bit insane right now EQx