The Ex Talk

“What is?” Dominic asks, a note of irritation in his voice. It’s slight, but it’s there.

“The two of you. Cohosting Shay’s dating show.”

There’s a brief silence before we both burst out laughing. Nothing about Kent’s declaration makes sense, and yet he says it with an air of nonchalance. My heart leaps at the word hosting, but this has to be a joke. Producing, he must have meant.

I chance a look at Dominic, and it might be the first time I’ve seen him look genuinely amused. He’s usually so serious, so stoic, every bit the objective reporter. There’s an openness to this new expression of his.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Dominic says between laughs, and okay, now it’s becoming excessive. He doesn’t need to laugh quite that hard about the show idea, does he? “Is this a joke?”

“Not a joke,” Kent says, and maybe all three of us have lost our minds. “What do you think?”

“Aside from the obvious, like Shay never having hosted a show . . . we’ve never dated,” Dominic says, and though I take some offense at that, he’s not wrong. There are a thousand holes in Kent’s suggestion, but despite the content of the show, I’m not a host. I don’t have the right training or the right experience or the right voice.

“You’ve never hosted a show either,” I point out.

“But I’ve been on the air.”

I don’t want to spar with Dominic in front of Kent, but I can’t deal with his smugness. “You were live for the first time yesterday.” I give him some exaggerated applause. “I guess you picked up everything about journalism in one year of grad school, and then everything about live radio during a single hour-long show. Yeah, that checks out.”

Kent’s grin is terrifying. “See? This is it. This is what I’m talking about. This . . . thing you two have. It’s fascinating. I see the way you two act around the newsroom. I know I spend a lot of time in this office, but I’m perceptive. You two have this great chemistry, this natural conflict. Dominic is all about the news and the hard facts, and Shay, you like the softer, more human-centered pieces.”

I don’t love the way he says softer, as though implying what I like is more feminine.

“Listeners are going to take one side or the other,” Kent continues. “Team Dom, or Team Shay. We could get some hashtags going, really capitalize on the social media angle.”

“But I’m a reporter,” Dominic says. “A damn good one, based on what’s happened over the past couple days.”

“And I know you can do human interest, too,” Kent says. “That piece you wrote in college, that personal narrative? We all read it when you applied here. It was compelling, and it was beautiful.”

He must be talking about Dominic’s most lauded piece, a story about traveling to South Korea and meeting his grandparents for the first time. I didn’t cry, like everyone else in the newsroom did, but I kept a box of tissues next to me. Just in case.

“I think we’re missing the biggest issue here,” I say, too much of a snap to my voice for a conversation with my boss, but I’ve also never talked to a superior about my dating (or non-dating) life. All of this is surreal. “Dominic and I aren’t exes. We’ve never had any kind of relationship.”

Kent waves his hand. “You two are private about your lives at work, which of course I appreciate. And HR does, too. But anyone who’s been around you both wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you’ve been dealing with the aftermath of a breakup. Especially after what they saw in the conference room.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

“We create a relationship,” Kent says, as though it’s so simple. “We create a breakup. And then we create a show.”

Silence. Again.

I can’t wrap my mind around it. The pieces are there, but every one of them seems to belong to a different puzzle. Kent wants us to pretend to date—no, to pretend to have dated. My boss, Seattle radio legend Kent O’Grady, wants to pretend we had a relationship and then talk about dating on public radio.

Someone wants me to be on the radio.

“So we lie.” Dominic folds his arms across his chest. His shirtsleeves are pushed up again, exposing his lean forearms, and he jerks his head toward Kent’s wall of awards. “All of that, and you want us to lie.”

“I’ve got to keep this station afloat,” Kent says. “We need a hit show, and we need one fast. No one wants to listen to career hosts anymore. They want fresh blood, and that might be you two.” He taps the desk between us. “We don’t have the time or the budget to train two new people, or to bring on someone else’s ex. You two have the chemistry. And we’re all storytellers, aren’t we? So we tell the best breakup story. We’re not lying—we’re bending the truth.”

Storytelling. Lying. There’s a blurry line between them.

“Picture it: an hour-long weekly show. A podcast. A hashtag. Branded swag, even. We could make this big.” Kent has become a salesman. “How incredible would it be to have a show with national appeal attached to the KPPR name? WHYY has Fresh Air, WBEZ has This American Life . . . we could have whatever this show is.”

For a moment, I do allow myself to picture it: sitting in the big studio, a microphone in front of me, callers waiting on the line.

“The Ex Talk,” I say quietly.

“What was that?” Kent says.