Miracle

  “Very cute, very cute. You’ve developed a real smart mouth. Why don’t you put it to good use? Come down to the radio station this afternoon and work. All you have to say is, ‘Good afternoon. The Bulldogs bark for WDIG FM. Rock’n’roll classics, all day, everyday.’ ”

  “Do I have to say that on the air?”

  “No, you have to say that on the phone. They need a receptionist.”

  “Will I get paid?”

  “Are you kidding? The place is a suckhole. Only a handful of people get paid to work there, and even they’re selling their blood on the side to make ends meet. Students don’t get paid. They get valuable work experience.”

  “As a receptionist?”

  “You gotta start somewhere, sugar. You hate business school. You love TV. That means you’ll at least like radio. What have you got to lose? Look, forget about the French doctor, okay? You’re not trying to impress him anymore. Just make yourself happy.”

  Amy sat up wearily and stared at the floor. “I’ll always try to impress him,” she murmured. “Even if I never see him again.”

  “Great. Fine. Impress anybody you want to. Just do something impressive.”

  Amy rubbed her forehead. “Good afternoon,” she muttered. “The Bulldogs bark for WDIG FM, rock’n’roll classics, all day, every day.”

  Mary Beth did her debutante’s tea-party applause, tips of fingers primly patting the heel of the opposite hand. “Quite nice, dear. We’ll be the only station in town with Olive Oyl for a receptionist.”

  “I won’t ever have to talk on the radio, will I?”

  “Nah. There’s lots of work behind the scenes. Maybe that’s what you could do. You just might enjoy yourself.”

  “Mary Beth?”

  “Hmmm?”

  Amy touched Mary Beth’s arm. “Thank you for putting up with me. And for caring. For a heartless slut, you’re a wonderful friend.”

  Mary Beth’s large hazel eyes filled with tears. “You’ve got bad taste. I like that in a person.”

  Amy found, to her shock, that she loved working at WDIG. It was a shoestring operation set up in a tiny old house a few blocks from campus. Parker Poodit, owner, manager, advertising rep, and midmorning disc jockey, lived upstairs. He looked like a leftover from a long day at Woodstock. He was going bald, had a graying blond beard that hung to his collarbones, and favored tie-dyed T-shirts, leather sandals, and turquoise jewelry. There was always a faint smell of incense and Aqua Velva around him.

  Parker was a mellow man; unfettered by union rules and barely within the bounds of FCC regulations, he viewed his one-station broadcasting empire as a center for grassroots rebellion. Rock and roll brought in the ordinary listeners; Parker’s weird commentaries brought in the fringe. He had been the only sports announcer in the history of Bulldog football to come out in favor of gender-identification tests.

  Mary Beth was the afternoon D.J. She became a different person when she sat at the mike talking in her husky, dulcet-toned drawl. Amy saw the tough-talking good-old-girl evaporate; in her place was a serious young woman who knew how to make the news sound solemn and dramatic. Her work behind a microphone was probably the only thing in her life that Mary Beth took seriously.

  Amy progressed quickly from receptionist to general gopher, fetching tapes and albums from the library—a big closet off of Parker’s kitchen—to the studio, typing copy, and eventually learning how to set up program schedules. She even dabbled in the technical end of the work and learned how to edit tape.

  She finally decided to switch her major to communications, with an emphasis on radio-TV-film production, over a pizza at a hangout in town. Mary Beth put a candle in the center of a glob of mozzarella. After she lit it she proclaimed solemnly, “Here’s to the future famous producer. May she be happy and find a new man. Hell, may she find an old man. Any man. She’s spending a lot of time staring at cucumbers these days.”

  Amy shook her head in benign disgust but laughed as if she were having a good time. She’d gone out on a few dates, nothing serious, each one ending with her halfheartedly kissing the guy. She blew out Mary Beth’s candle and wondered, Oh, Doc, how long is going to hurt like this?

  Parker Poodit ran into the station office—a converted living room with much-abused desks and chairs—and screamed, “We’ve got Elliot Thornton! I’m going to interview him on the morning show next week!”

  People jumped up and began asking questions. Amy dropped the program log she’d been filling out and gave Mary Beth an excited look. She had a ticket to one of Thornton’s sold-out shows at the Peach Pit, a big club in town.

  “How’d you do it?” someone asked Parker.

  He slapped his beard happily. “I called his booking agent and told him that we were the only station in town that ever ran an uncensored interview with Hunter S. Thompson. Get this place cleaned up! Somebody get a mop! Take down that poster of Elton John!”

  Mary Beth reared back in a lawn chair, stroked her blond hair thoughtfully, and announced that Elliot Thornton had all the comic subtlety of a geek with a hormone problem.

  Amy threw a pencil at her. “He’s great at visual humor! He can stand on stage and just peel a banana, and people laugh! I’ve seen every appearance he’s ever made on Johnny Carson. He won Showtime’s Big Laugh-Off hands down. And I just read in TV Guide that he’s only twenty-seven.”

  “What are you, the head of his fan club? Geeks for Thornton?”

  “You obnoxious blond terrorist. Elliot Thornton is very all-American, a real guy-next-door type. That’s why he’s so popular. Everybody feels comfortable with him.”

  “Yeah,” Parker Poodit interjected. “He looks like he takes a bath every day.”

  “He’s also sexy,” one of the female staffers noted. “I think he’s adorable.”

  Outnumbered, Mary Beth shot everyone a bird. “Suck some saccharin.”

  Amy laughed. “Well, I want to see him up close.”

  “He’ll eat you alive.”

  “He sounded nice in TV Guide.”

  Mary Beth groaned. “Sugar, his publicist makes sure he sounds nice. Ten bucks says you’re too shy to squeak one word to him. And that if you do, he turns out to be a jerk.”

  “You’re on.” Mary Beth had known that she’d rise to the bait. It dawned on Amy, with a measure of relief, that it was good to feel so much anticipation again. She grasped at the new attitude, nurtured it, and buoyed her courage. She was going to be someone who wasn’t afraid to speak up, even to Elliot Thornton, just to prove she could do it.

  She had no morning classes the day of the interview, so she went to the station around dawn and sat in the booth, playing Beach Boys’ music for the early bird listeners. The engineer, a burly man who wore his hair in dread locks, made lecherous faces at her from the control room, and she mimed absurd reactions of shock. It was a game they’d played before, and it pleased her that she could make him laugh so hard that his hair jiggled.

  An hour later she went to the kitchen, one of the few parts of Parker’s house that had remained in its original form, and brewed a big pot of coffee. From upstairs came the sounds of running water; Parker must be awake and washing his beard for the big occasion.

  Outside the open front door birds sang in the oak trees and cars whispered by on the narrow old street, their tires making a muted whoosh as if the dew had dampened noise. From somewhere came the rude rumble of a different motor; as she poured a cup of coffee she vaguely categorized the noise as a motorcycle.

  It grew louder. Sipping her coffee, Amy wandered to the front door and leaned against the frame. As the motorcycle roared around a curve her hand rose to clutch the front of her white pullover. She watched in horror as the rider braked and the big Harley slid sideways into a curve. It bounced onto the sidewalk and careened across the lawn, while the helmeted rider let out a howl of amusement or terror, Amy wasn’t sure which.

  When the Harley plowed into a towering hedge of red-tipped photinias, the rider sailed into the foliag
e, and Amy ran, tossing her coffee cup onto the ground. By the time she reached the man he had turned over. She looked down anxiously. His arms, inside a faded Michigan State football jersey, were spread wide as if he were lounging on a couch of burnished red leaves. His gold watch, encrusted with stones that might be diamonds, was caught on a branch. He was moaning and chuckling at the same time.

  She peered at the handsome, jaunty face inside the helmet. Blood-shot blue eyes met her gaze, then roamed over her, necessitating a comical craning motion of the head that owned them. They weren’t as jaunty as the face; in fact, they looked a little embarrassed.

  “Baby,” he said solemnly, “I came early to save you from boredom. But I’m afraid I’ve been … am-bushed.”

  Amy was so intrigued that she didn’t have time to feel shy. “Bushwhacked,” she corrected.

  He laughed, the sound charming but sheepish. Shy? Was he shy? Amy wondered.

  He cleared his throat, eyed her sternly, then flipped the chin strap on his helmet. “Get back. I’ve taken the safety off. My head could explode at any minute. Until two hours ago, I was indulging myself at a wild party in Atlanta.” He flung his arms about, warding off invisible people.

  “Better stop flapping. Turkey-hunting season starts early around here.”

  His arms froze in midair. He sputtered in amazement and stared at her closely. “Are you for real?”

  “Real enough. I work here at the station.”

  “Over eighteen?”

  “By three years.”

  “Born with that crazy voice?”

  “Yep. Your eyes look terrible.”

  “You ought to see ’em from my side.”

  “Lee Marvin said that line in Cat Ballou.”

  “What are you—the joke patrol?”

  “Nope. Actually. I’m a big fan of yours.”

  “I think I love you.”

  She rolled her eyes in mock disgust but couldn’t help smiling as she helped Elliot Thornton out of the photinias.

  The Peach Pit was crammed with little tables, and the little tables were crammed with well-dressed students. These were people eager for a future of condominiums and BMWs. Amy studied what she could see of them from her vantage point in the wings of the Peach Pit’s intimate stage.

  “Come to me, baby boomers,” Elliot Thornton muttered beside her, as he checked his blue blazer in a mirror. “I’m your next king, baby boomers, your next king. Come to me. Be mine. Come to me.”

  He spoke the words as if they were a mantra. Amy watched him in fascination. He swiveled toward her, then slicked a quivering hand over sandy-brown hair that was fashionably short but comfortably mussed. “Baby boomers, baby,” he said, smiling at her in a tight, nervous way. “I’m going to own them.” He snapped his fingers in a silent, manic rhythm.

  Elliot Thornton, Kansas City native, childhood asthmatic, Michigan State graduate in education, and outrageously spoiled only offspring of a dentist and a lawyer, was obviously scared to death of going on stage. Amy could see a blue vein throbbing in his all-American cheek.

  He needed her to be his assistant tonight, to hang around with him and soothe his nerves. He’d said so at the radio station that morning, after a crazed, brilliant interview with Parker.

  He’d said so again during a lunch of hotdogs and onion rings at the Athens Varsity. He’d said so once more on the card that came with the pink roses that were delivered to her house after she returned from her afternoon classes.

  She was needed. She was the calm one. She could barely believe it. She was thrilled.

  Amy patted his arm. “What you’ve got out there tonight are Southern baby boomers. Hush-your-mouth-and-pass-the-quiche types. I call ’em Hush Yuppies.”

  A grin cracked his tense expression. “Hush Yuppies, Hush Yuppies. Hmmm. That’s great, baby.”

  “Thank you, baby.”

  “Ready, Mr. Thornton?” the emcee asked, stepping out of a hallway that led to the back of the club. The emcee was a tall black guy who traveled the regional college circuit doing bad impressions of Jimmy Walker and opening for comics who had a much brighter future than his own.

  “Yeah.” Elliot wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “And hey, you shouldn’t call me Mr. Thornton.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Massuh Thornton will do just fine.”

  The emcee grunted like Mr. T. “I’ll chew up your ass and spit it in your ear, white boy.”

  They shook hands cheerfully, and the emcee went on stage. He worked the crowd with professional control, and Amy was mesmerized. She loved watching from this viewpoint; she loved the curious, respectful glances the waitresses gave her and Elliot as they walked past on their way to the kitchen; she loved the undercurrent of anticipation in the audience because of Elliot. She loved being Elliot Thornton’s assistant, for whatever it was worth.

  He was nice. He hadn’t put any moves on her, so even though Mary Beth had voiced the opinion that he was looking more for a piece of ass than an assistant, Amy felt comfortable with him. There was, after all, only one man who had the power to overwhelm her good sense, and she hadn’t seen him in almost three years. He was in France, with his wife. She had dreamed about him again, one of her painful, erotic, desperate dreams, only the other night.

  The emcee finished his routine to respectable applause. Elliot paced back and forth in a space no more than a yard long, practically pivoting in a circle. Amy discovered that her heart was pounding with excitement, as if she were the one going on stage. This was so perfect, being part of the anticipation without suffering the terror.

  “Please welcome Elliot Thornton!”

  As cheers and applause flooded the stage and swept back into the wings, Elliot grabbed her in his arms and gave her a dry, compressed kiss on the mouth. His body was as tight as an overwound spring. “I’m going to be top dog, baby. Wish me luck.”

  “Arf.”

  “God, you’re perfect.”

  He left his real self behind and sent a new persona into the spotlight. It was the Elliot Thornton she’d seen on The Tonight Show and cable comedy shows, the nonchalant wiseguy with hands shoved casually into the pockets of his pants, his mouth set in a confident smirk. “Well, hello there,” he said into the mike, with a look of boredom so grand that people began to laugh. “What we have here is a room full of southern baby boomers. I see a lot of hush-your-mouth-and-pass-the-quiche types. Yeah. Southern yuppies. Hush yuppies.”

  The laughter swelled, mixed with applause. Amy stood in the wings with her mouth ajar. Surprise gave way to delight. He had liked her comment so much that he’d put it into his act! And he’d made it funny!

  Two shows later, tired but giddy with joy, she went to Elliot’s motel room with him and a group that included the emcee, the club manager, and a few students who worked part-time at the club. The manager brought along sandwiches and beer, which he spread on a table. People produced small bags of grass and began rolling joints. Elliot was the first to finish eating and light up.

  Carrying a soft drink, Amy secluded herself on the room’s balcony and pretended to be interested in a dark, deserted parking lot and a hill covered in kudzu. She frowned in consternation. The sweet smell of pot and the burnt-grain scent of beer would always remind her of Pop’s bad moods. She didn’t like what drugs and booze did to people.

  But a part of her craved acceptance from Elliot, and that part remembered what it had been like to stand in the wings with him and then hear him tell her joke on stage. That was the drug she needed, that and the comfortable looniness of his world.

  “Hey, baby, what have asphalt and kudzu got that I haven’t got? I’m smooth and hard. I can grow on you.”

  Elliot stepped outside and swaggered to her, twirling the tip of an imaginary mustache. He didn’t have the joint anymore, and Amy studied him in pensive confusion. “I don’t do drugs,” she said slowly.

  His amusement fadded, and he looked down at her thoughtfully. “You could be good for me,” he said as i
f speaking to himself. His attention shifted outward again, and he asked, “Why don’t you quit school and come to work for me?”

  Amy shoved her soft drink onto the balcony railing then grasped the rail for support. “That sounds great. Thanks. Thanks a lot. But I’ve gotta finish college.” She thought privately, I can’t let Sebastien down. And then, hurting, she corrected it to, I can’t let myself down. “I’m the first Miracle who ever went to college. I can’t quit.… What kind of work?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s time I hired a secretary. Let’s try this. ‘Take a letter, Ms. Miracle.’ ”

  “I’d like a vowel, please.”

  He groaned and drummed a rim-shot in the air. “But seriously, folks—”

  “I want to get a job on my own, without anyone doing me a favor.”

  He grabbed his head with both hands and yelled to the night sky, “Why is she so difficult? Women are supposed to do anything I want them to do now that I’m rich and famous!”

  “You’re not that rich and famous yet.”

  “She’s stabbing me in the heart! My ego is deflating! I’m melting! Melting!” His voice became high-pitched. “Melting, melting! I’ll get you, Dorothy!” His knees buckled slowly and he sank to the balcony floor. “You, and your little dog, too!”

  Amy laughed helplessly. He was one of the few men she’d ever seen who could be ridiculous and yet charming. He was a handsome clown, but a puzzling one. He was six years older than she, but it didn’t feel that way. She felt as if he needed someone to take care of him. On the other hand, she understood this kind of man, she’d grown up with this kind of man.

  “I guess we should just see what happens,” she told him. She wasn’t naive anymore; she didn’t daydream about impossible futures. “I mean, you’re gonna be in town a whole two days. And then you’re going to New York. Might as well admit that I’m a passing fancy, bub.”

  “Her cynical tone of voice wounds me,” Elliot said to an unseen audience. On bended knee he grasped her hands and kissed them. “I honor a mere college student with my affection and she taunts me. Me, the next superstar of comedy. Oh, woe. Woe. Such arrogance.”