In the Air, On the Air: Tabor Heights

By Michelle Levigne

Riley knows how Clark Kent felt about Superman, when Gina seems to like his radio alter-ego, Whit, more than him. What's a mild-mannered DJ to do to win the girl of his dreams?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ye Olde Dragon Books
• Release date: Apr 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781952345951

Michelle Levigne

On the road to publication, Michelle fell into fandom in college and has 40+ stories in various SF and fantasy universes. She has a bunch of useless degrees in theater, English, film/communication, and writing. Even worse, she has over 100 books and novellas with multiple small presses, in science fiction and fantasy, YA, suspense, women's fiction, and sub-genres of romance. Her official launch into publishing came with winning first place in the Writers of the Future contest in 1990. She was a finalist in the EPIC Awards competition multiple times, winning with Lorien in 2006 and The Meruk Episodes, I-V, in 2010, and was a finalist in the Realm Award competition, in conjunction with the Realm Makers convention. Her training includes the Institute for Children’s Literature; proofreading at an advertising agency; and working at a community newspaper. She is a tea snob and freelance edits for a living ([e-mail] for info/rates), but only enough to give her time to write. Her newest crime against the literary world is to be co-managing editor at Mt. Zion Ridge Press and launching the publishing co-op, Ye Olde Dragon Books. Be afraid … be very afraid.  www.Mlevigne.com www.MichelleLevigne.blogspot.com @MichelleLevigne

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Ye Olde Dragon Books

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www.YeOldeDragonBooks.com

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Copyright © 2023 by Michelle L. Levigne

ISBN 13:  978-1-952345-95-1

Published in the United States of America

Publication Date: April 1, 2023

Cover Art © Copyright 2023 Ye Olde Dragon Books

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Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination, or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents or persons – living or dead – are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

Chapter One

Sometimes I feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Riley complained to Byron Pierce, the evening shift engineer at radio station WEGL.

Yeah, but they're both British, and you're only British when you pull out your Whit persona, Byron mumbled through a mouthful of burrito. He nodded toward the console, where the timer flashed out how many seconds Riley had until the current song ended. He grinned when Riley cued up the next song without even looking at the board.

Do people really like Whit?

Our listener feedback says the audience has grown since you came on as the midnight to 6 man. I think he's a hoot. What's not to like? He grinned at Riley and sauntered back down the hall to his side of the control booth.

The grumble growing in Riley's throat died in a burst of laughter when Byron appeared in the window between them wearing a Sherlock Holmes-style deerstalker cap and sporting an enormous, neon green plastic meerschaum pipe. For good measure, he blew bubbles from the pipe as he settled in at the control board.

Riley was still chuckling when the second song ended and he opened up the mic. His throat actually hurt as he mentally slipped into the British accent he had learned at his grandmother's knee. Jon Whitcomb-Riley once again submerged into the on-air personality of Whit, forsaking the painstaking efforts to shed his accent in favor of the flattened Midwestern semi-drawl of his mother's Illinois ancestors. He reached up to the shelves next to his chair at the console and pulled out his oversized cap and sunglasses, part of his costume when he did remote broadcasts as Whit. Props always helped him remember who he was supposed to be at that moment.

All right, ladies and gents, we are back. It's that time of the week. No, not time for the weekly bath, although anyone who feels the need to indulge, please, do so. No, indeed, it is time to open up the phone lines and let the ten of you who are still awake at this—goodness, nearly 1 a.m.—awake at this time of the night, to chime in and let your feelings be heard. Right now, I'm reading a splendid book about dating. He pressed the first cued sound effects button and had to bite his lip to avoid a burst of laughter when the shrill shriek made Byron jump.

No, let me reassure you, I am not heading into the matrimony marketplace. Was that a sigh of disappointment I heard filtering through the night air? I'm flattered. But not to fret, I'm simply satisfying my curiosity. Why do we date? And more importantly, why put ourselves through the uncertainty and torment? This book discusses the idea of letting go of the hunt, stopping the search, and waiting on God to bring the right person into your life. When you sit still and you stop crying out to God to bring Mr. Right or Ms. Perfect to you, there's a chance you'll actually hear God trying to tell you His will for your life. And you might just realize your soul-mate, your God-designed partner for life, has been there all along, just waiting for you to slow down and listen.

Riley grinned at the phone banks as three lines lit up. Thank you, my fine ladies and gents. I see all three of tonight's listeners want to chime in. Let's take line number one. He punched the controls in and cued up the feed from the phone lines. Remember, folks, this is a Christian radio station, and even if it is the midnight hour, keep your vocabulary to something safe for the whole family, shall we?

He pressed the last button in the sequence. You're on the air. What do you think about dating for Christians, and letting go of the whole struggle and giving it up to God?

That's the whole problem—thinking that young people have enough experience and enough smarts to pick out their partner, a gravel-voiced man blurted, as if he had so many words that wanted to get out, he couldn't make the effort to be intelligible. "Why should guys go through the suffering? Girls saying no, their parents giving the guys a hard time, the third degree, all that? Whatever happened to the good old days when a guy saw a girl he wanted, he paid her parents, and she had to marry him whether she wanted to or not? No more divorce options, either. Divorce is for cowards and lazy bums who don't