"Don't thank me yet. I don't hire off a tape. I'm gonna be in the Cities in March, visiting my sister in Bloomington, and I'm gonna listen to you live. A real show. No editing, no dubs, no picking your best hour. Your little station reach Bloomington?"
"On a clear night with the wind right."
"Then pray for wind." Artie laughed, a sound like a truck downshifting. "March eighth. That's a Saturday. I'm not staying up till one in the morning, kid, I'm fifty-three, so you get your guy to give you an evening slot. Seven o'clock. Show me what you got."
Augie hung up. He stared at the phone. March the eighth.
Behind the counter, Gordy, who never asked follow-up questions, raised one eyebrow so high it nearly left his head.
"Chicago," Augie said.
"I heard." Gordy went back to pricing. After a while he said, without looking up, "It's a good thing. You've been in that basement too long." And then, after another while: "She's going to say the same thing, you know. That's the trouble with good ones. They always tell you to go."
---
The second call was for Frankie. It was from her brother Stan, who lived in Duluth with his wife and three boys and a dog named Kowalski, and who called every Sunday night at precisely seven o'clock, after 60 Minutes, because long distance was cheaper after five.
"I talked to the Lutheran home up here," Stan said. "Lakeview. It's nice, Frankie. Real nice. It's on the hill, you can see the lake from the dayroom. And it's four hundred a month cheaper than St. Casimir's."
Frankie was under the kitchen table with the cord. She closed her eyes. "Stan."
"Her savings run out in April. You know that. I know that. I've been looking at the numbers till I'm blue in the face. You're already paying what you can. I'm paying what I can. And up here, me and Carol, we could see her every day. The boys could see her. Instead of just you, driving over there every night after work like some kind of—"
"Like some kind of what?"
"Like a nun, Frankie." His voice was gentle, which made it worse. "You're twenty-seven. You've been doing this for a year and a half. You don't go out. You don't do anything but fix pinball machines and sit in that room."
"I go out," said Frankie. "I'm seeing someone."