The Kiss Test Read Free

wouldn’t like where I’d aim. Now will you be serious? Guess what I got.”
    I heard a cell phone, presumably Chris’s, going off in the background.
    “Can we do this without the twenty questions?” He silenced the phone.
    I sighed. It almost took all the fun out of it. Almost, but not quite. “I just won Best Country DJ. Today’s Country Magazine called during my show.”
    “Damn! That’s pretty huge, isn’t it? Your big mouth finally paid off.” I smiled at the pride in his voice. That was why I’d called him instead of Kevin.
    “I even get to go to L.A. next month to be interviewed. With a stop in Nashville for a photo shoot for the cover. It’ll be in an issue a couple months from now.”
    “Pretty good, for a girl,” Chris said. “I’ll buy on Friday night.”
    “Damn straight.”
    We said goodbye and I pocketed the cell phone again, glad I’d taken the time to call. Kevin I’d tell in person tonight, over Chinese take-out, maybe naked, so we had something to fall back on if our enthusiasm levels weren’t equal.
    I continued down the hall, slowing and moving to the side to let pass a group of tourists being shown around the station by Clement Banks, assistant to Joe Looney, our general manager. Clem was a major dweeb, who spent much of his time kissing ass and pretending to be more important than he really was. The tourists appeared to be Asian businessmen, smiling broadly and gesturing to each other as they moved through the green-carpeted hallway under Clem’s guidance.
    Spotting me, they stopped and bowed and smiled. I bowed back, hoping that was the correct response to their greeting. For all I knew, it was insulting for a woman to bow. Or construed as some sort of sexual signal. No one jumped my bones, so I was probably wrong about the last part.
    “Hey, Margo!” Clem waved from the other side of the group. I groaned inwardly. I’d been hoping to pass without any acknowledgement from him. But Clem wasn’t going to ruin my good mood. “Gentlemen, this is Margo, our morning DJ, just coming off her show. She’s been one of our most popular DJs. Margo,” Clem continued pointedly, “these men are touring the station from the Soon Kim Group of South Korea.”
    Hmm. Maybe we hadn’t been transported to Korea overnight. Maybe we’d been invaded. Not that it bothered me. You couldn’t live in New York without being used to the ethnicity of the city. Still, how many Koreans actually listened to Garth Brooks and Johnny Cash? Did these guys even know “A Boy Named Sue”?
    Smiling, I bowed again at our guests. “Have fun, gentlemen.” I turned away, but Clem called out to me. Oh, lucky me, I thought, turning back and flashing a smile that would only fool someone who expected everyone to smile at him.
    “Margo, someone wants to see you in the break room.”
    A few minutes later, I discovered the entire station waiting for me, complete with flowers and a cake that said Congrats Margo! Best Country DJ!
    Cleo and Ben were there, having circled around the hall to beat me to the lunch room. My friends Katya Steinberg and Adair Lewis from sales, Duane and Yin from promotions, and everyone from engineering and sports were there, too. God, my life is good, I thought, accepting hugs and well wishes from all my closest friends and coworkers, who’d apparently been alerted yesterday about the award.
    Someone had mocked up a cover of Today’s Country Magazine, where they’d superimposed my face over the body of a country star who was much better endowed than I (perhaps I should consider a boob job before my photo shoot), and had inserted the headline Margo Gentry, DJ of the Year!
    I couldn’t stop grinning. I accepted a knife and began cutting the cake and distributing it all around. “Where’s Joe?” I asked the crowd at large, missing our general manager, one of my favorite people.
    “He had a meeting he couldn’t get out of,” our intern, Nigel, said. “He was pretty pissed about missing