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Cal: Hey! How are the preparations for the restaurant going?
Cal: Hi. Just checking in. Miss you.
Cal: Hello. I just wanted to thank you for the studio you rented out for me. Very unexpected. I’ve been recording and editing like crazy. I’ll send you the first episode when it’s ready.
Cal: Hi. Saw you on TV today! So cool. You’re doing another season of Chef’s Kiss! Just don’t go around kissing anyone for real, HAHAHAHHAA.
Cal: Not that you can’t, obviously.
Cal: You don’t owe me anything.
Cal: Not that I have been doing any kissing or otherwise any…mouth things with people.
Cal: Speaking of mouth, excuse me while I shove a foot into mine. I’ll stop bothering you now. Hope you are having the best start of the year <3.
CAL
“You Get What You Give”—New Radicals
If you’d ever wondered how long it took to produce a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute podcast, the (unlikely) answer was seven and a half hours.
Yup. Four days later, I finally did it. I recorded and edited a full true crime episode of Hot Girl Bummer. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I made jokes, I got serious when needed, and I dished out some not-so-known facts. During the production, there were tears, screaming, and a lot of breaking points. Tom the producer’s, mostly, but that still counted. He called me an anal-retentive perfectionist.
It was done, and it was great. Not to toot my own horn here, but I would listen the heck out of it. I was proud of myself. Proud of my achievement.
“Listen, I don’t want you to get bigheaded or anything, but I’ve edited and produced a lot of podcasts.” Tom sat back in his chair, stretching lazily. He had the whole gamer vibe down to a T. Bearded, with glasses, a baseball cap tugged on backward, and a Zelda shirt. “Yours takes the cake.”
“Really?” I clapped my hands together. “Why?”
Was I fishing? Yes. Was I in the right to? Also, yes. I’d never received any kind of feedback about my podcasting skills. Never had a chance to hone them. And I was celebrating two victories—not only had I finished a podcast, but I’d also worked on it with a man in the room. Just me and him. Zero freak-outs. No meltdowns. It wasn’t that I was trusting men more. It was that I trusted myself now. I felt safe because I knew I was with me. And I would never let myself down. Not anymore. I had my back.
“You’re a natural.” He hitched a shoulder up, laughing. “You manage to make it interesting and serious, but also know when to lighten things up. I mean, I had no idea the Scotland Yard were such badasses. The way they hunted the murderer down…” He shook his head. “Crazy.”
I darted up, licking my lips and looking around me. I had grown to love the solace of the soundproof recording room. The cool of the air-conditioning, that tangible smell of expensive equipment. “So…what now?”
“Now, I’m going to email you the finished episode, and you can post it whenever you’re ready.” He grinned. “Oh, and obviously, you need to implement everything I taught you about producing your own show, unless you wanna hire me. I charge two hundred and fifty dollars an hour.”
“Hmm. Thanks, I’ll remember that for when I can afford anything beyond ramen and tap water.” I gave him a thumbs-up.
He laughed. “Now go share the link to your episode with your loved ones! You killed it, Cal.”
I slipped out of the studio, waving goodbye to Kathy at the reception on my way out. “Bye, Kath!”
“Bye, girl-who-is-sleeping-with-the-hottest-man-alive!”
We still had to work on her nickname for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her Row and I were no longer an item.
As I poured myself out onto the streets of Manhattan and made my way to the subway, my phone pinged with a new email.
From: Tom Rossman
Subject: Hot Girl Bummer, Ep1 (file attached).
My heart missed a beat. I thought about Tom’s words, about sending the podcast to the people I loved the most. Dylan, obviously. And Mom too, even though murder talk wasn’t exactly her love language. Then there were some friends. Colleagues. The neighbor down the hallway who always gave me sugar cookies. And they were all great. They were. But…
They weren’t Row.
The one person whose opinion I wanted about this was Row’s.
