So he took me in spirit to a great, high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God . . . The twelve gates were made of pearls-each gate from a single pearl! And the main street was pure gold, as clear as glass..
-John the Apostle, from Revelation 21
CHAPTER ONE
As my prerecorded voice began extolling the virtues of a Posture Perfect Mattress, Gary Ripley, my producer, came through the doorway and shoved a stack of freshly printed hate mail beneath my nose.
"New batch." He dropped the pages onto the desk. "Thought you might want to stir something up in the next hour. The what-to-do-with-Grandma topic is getting old."
I cocked an eyebrow at him, but he only grinned and leaned against the wall, lifting his hands in a don't-shoot-the-messenger pose.
I picked up the first letter, which opened with a string of expletives, then pronounced me the worst excuse for a counselor the world had ever seen. "The advice you gave that woman in Atlanta came straight from the pits of hell," someone, probably a man, had written. "Leave her husband? Marriage is for better or worse, but you want to overturn God's laws and institute your own."
I felt my cheeks burn as I leaned back in my chair. Though I had grown accustomed to vitriolic mail of all types, criticism never failed to sting. Beneath the bluster and bravado I'd adopted as part of my radio persona, I constantly worried that I would hurt someone in a reckless moment of glib patter.
"Gary"-I glanced over my shoulder-"do you remember a woman calling from Atlanta?"
"Yeah." He snapped his gum. "Yesterday. You told her to pack up and run like mad."
"That was the abuse case, right? The woman with the broken jaw?"
Gary nodded. "The husband had put her in ICU the month before. How could you forget that one?"
"I didn't forget." I fingered the edge of the paper as I studied the e-mail. "I just wanted to be sure I remembered it correctly."
No, no cause for guilt on this one. God did want us to weather good and bad in our marriages, but I have never believed he intended women to be used as punching bags. The nameless coward who had sent this note could bluster all he wanted; my counsel in that situation had been sound.
I slid the paper to the desk and glanced at the clock. Nine fifty-eight, so I still had two minutes until the top of the hour, followed by eight minutes of news and commercials. Plenty of time for a break.
I flipped through the remaining e-mails. "Anything interesting in here?"
Gary shrugged. "The usual. People calling you intolerant and a hardhearted witch. Oh, and one calling you a child-abuser."
I snorted a laugh. "Because I told that one woman to swat her kid on the rear?"
"That's the one. The lady says she's going to report you to Social Services."
"She'll have to catch me swatting my kids first." I stood and stretched, then pressed my hands to the small of my back and grinned at my producer. "My kids never need swatting. They're angels."
Gary made a face at that, but he didn't argue. Truth was, my kids were good kids, and he knew it. At eighteen, Brittany Jane's only major flaw was her stubborn refusal to keep food out of the cluttered cave she called a bedroom, and Scott Daniel, age five, was a bundle of pure delight.
Taking advantage of the break, I left the studio as Gary followed. We visited the coffeemaker in the snack area, filled our mugs with liquid caffeine, then stood and drank, enjoying the quiet break while keeping a careful eye on the clock.
Our building, owned by Open Air Communications, housed several radio stations-among them WUBN, the Gulf Coast's hard-rock headquarters; WSHE, soft rock from the sixties and seventies; WNAR, home of the county's best jazz; and WCTY, the voice of new country. At any given hour you could walk down the halls and peer into studio windows of a half-dozen broadcasters, all saying something different on the invisible airways that carried our words, healthy and perverse, across the nation.
Sometimes the thought left me feeling a little dizzy.
Gary took a final sip from his mug, then pointed to the clock. "Time."
I nodded, then followed him down the hall. A door swung open as we passed WCTY, allowing a stream of country music to flow through the hall. I shook my head as the lyrics followed us: I'm so miserable without you, it's like having you here.
As Chad Potter, our sound engineer, punched up the theme music for my show, I slipped back into the air studio and took my place behind the desk.
On the phone, a half-dozen blinking buttons flashed at me; each of them representing someone who had called and remained on hold through the commercials, the news, and the theme music. I would never cease to marvel at the patience of some callers. Most of them would hang on even through the monologue I delivered at the beginning of every segment.
As the theme music faded, I settled the headphones on my head-the better to hear my producer and sound engineer from the control room-and leaned forward on the desk.
"Welcome back, friends and neighbors, to another hour of the Dr. Sheldon Show. You know, some people look for flowers and robins as a herald of spring; I look for the Nordstrom catalog. I know I'll be on the cutting edge of fashion just by perusing its contents, and this year I was not disappointed. Now I know some of you may think it's not possible to be fashionable by osmosis, but I beg to differ. I mean, what is fashion, but clothing that's in one year and out the next? Right now my closet is stuffed with things from when I first got married, so something tells me I'm about to ride the crest of high fashion once again."
I paused to pick up my notepad, then ruffled the pages in front of the mike. "As I flipped through the catalog this year, though, one group of products confused me. I don't know if you've seen these things in the stores yet, but what is the deal with toe toppers and foot tubes? I mean, have you seen those things? I suppose they're for wearing with slides and sandals, but they kind of defeat the purpose. The toe toppers-I know, it's hard to imagine anything with that silly a name being practical-are half a sock. They start at the toe like an ordinary sock, and end at the arch of your foot. Now I ask you, what is that about? Do you wear them with high-heeled, elegant sandals? And have this terrycloth thing hanging out?"
Silently I counted out a beat, then laughed. "And foot tubes-have you seen those? They're like the calf warmers we all bought when that Jennifer Beals movie came out . . . you know, the woman welder who wanted to-Flashdance, that was it. Anyway, these foot tubes are like calf warmers, but they cover only the middle part of your foot. Your tootsies and your heels are still left out in the cold to freeze or sweat, depending on whether you're wearing them in Montana or Florida."
Looking through the rectangular window that opened into the control room, I saw Gary holding a hand over his face. Because he knew women comprised the majority of my audience, he tolerated my female-oriented monologues, but just barely.
"Toe toppers and foot tubes." I breathed a heavy sigh into the mike. "Somebody please tell me this fad will pass."
I glanced up at the list of names on the computer monitor, then pressed the first button on the beige plastic phone. "Carla! Welcome to the show."
"Dr. Diana! Goodness, I can't believe I'm really talking to you."
I cast Gary a didn't-you-tell-her-to-get-to-the-point? look, then shoehorned a smile into my voice. "Have you seen those toe toppers in the stores yet?"
"No-and I agree, they sound silly."
"I think so. But how can I help you today?"
"It's my mother-I mean mother-in-law. She's mousy-I mean mouthy-good grief, I'm nervous!"
"Calm down, Carla. We haven't lost a caller yet." I glanced up at the computer screen, where next to Carla's name Gary had typed MIL insults her constantly. Advice?
Though the woman might be nervous simply because she was on the radio, I knew her anxiety might also have arisen from the fact that her mother-in-law could be listening . . . so I'd have bet my bottom dollar that Carla wasn't her real name.
My caller exhaled into the phone, eliciting an agonized expression from Chad at the soundboard.
"Okay. It's like this-I love my husband, I really do, but his mother is driving me crazy. Everything I do, she has to criticize-my clothes, my cooking, the way I keep house. I have a job, you see, so what does it matter if the shelves get a little dusty? Her son doesn't read books anyway, so what does she care? And lately Joe and I have been talking about having a baby-"
"Joe is your husband?"
"Yes. Sorry, I should have said that."
"And how long have you been married?"
"Six months." She exhaled another deep breath, obviously grateful that I had taken control of the conversation.
Flashing a grin at Chad, I silently tapped the windscreen on my microphone with two fingers, reminding him that I knew better than to huff and puff into his expensive equipment.
"I'm glad you called, Carla, and I'm glad you didn't wait to address this issue. Because if you allow this situation to continue, you will be dealing with the problem for as long as your marriage lasts-which, in my opinion, won't be long past your fifth anniversary. Men who allow their mothers to criticize their wives tend to lose their wives' respect, and respect is one of the most important ingredients in marriage."
I paused a moment to let my words take hold. "Let me ask you this, Carla-do you know much about your mother-in-law's history?"
"Um . . . not really. Should I?"
"It might be helpful. We'll talk about your husband in a moment, but first let me remind you of one of my favor...
