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front desk.”
    Chantel laughed. “Sort of?” she mocked. “I’ll say.”
    Irina strikes again! I bit back a sigh. Irina is our beautiful blond receptionist from Sweden. She manages pretty well in English, but jokes and double entendres go whizzing right by her. Cyrus, in one of his typical cost-cutting moves, decided that Irina could double as a copywriter, churning out radio copy in addition to handling the reception desk.
    I knew it was time to talk to Cyrus again about hiring a real copywriter. Someone who understands the English language. This was getting ridiculous. A few more bloopers like this, and the FCC would pull me off the air.
    Vera Mae ran a promo for a Cypress Grove celebration for the next sixty seconds and muted the sound. She opened her mike, and her voice floated into the studio.
    “I can’t believe it. Barney was a dog! A show dog!” She grabbed her midsection and chortled. “I have to tell you, Maggie, I never saw that one coming.”
    “Barney was a dog,” I mused. “I was sure he was her boyfriend. I was really blindsided by that one.” I turned to my guest. “How about you, Chantel? I guess Sylvia caught all of us off guard.”
    “She didn’t catch me off guard, not for a second.” My guest was playing it cool, inspecting her bloodred nails. They looked phony, like acrylics. Her fake-violet eyes glittered with amusement, and she ran her hand through her gypsy curls. I wondered whether they were fakes, too, maybe extensions?
    “You mean you knew ? How did you figure it out?”
    “I didn’t have to figure it out. I knew it from the first word out of Sylvia’s mouth.” She gave me a nasty smirk. “And don’t forget—I saw Barney in the studio. Apparently you didn’t.” She threw a meaningful glance over my left shoulder, but I refused to take the bait.
    I smiled at her, but I didn’t turn around. No more head trips, Chantel!
    She wrinkled her nose like Samantha does on those Bewitched reruns. “Poor Barney, I think he needs a bath because he’s got a major case of doggie odor.” She waited a beat to see whether I would react. I didn’t. “You know he’s still with us in the studio, right? He’s standing right behind your right shoulder, Maggie. He’s moved a little closer.”
    Liar, liar, pants on fire.
    I swear I caught a puff of hot doggie breath on my shoulder just then. And a faint whiff of liver treats.
     
    “Well, that was a doozie of a show,” Vera Mae said later. “Holy moley, that call about Barney was the worst.”
    “I thought the caller who wanted to talk to her dead cat was the worst.”
    “Damn straight. I halfway expected Chantel to channel Mr. Whiskers for her, but you notice how she sidestepped that one by saying we’d be doing a whole segment on departed pets next week. Pretty clever, the way she gets some promo for herself.”
    The show was finally over. Chantel had left the studio, blowing air kisses to the staff, and I was going over programming notes with Vera Mae in my tiny office. It’s really more of a cubicle than an office, with piles of books and papers scattered everywhere, along with newspaper clippings for show ideas, and stacks of correspondence.
    You’d be surprised how many publicists send me press packets, jammed with tricolor foldouts and head shots. Either they think we have a bigger market share than we really do, or they just send out mass mailings to convince their clients that they’re covering all the bases for them.
    As the show’s producer, Vera Mae is the one who’s really responsible for booking the guests, and she combs through all the big south Florida papers, the Miami Herald , the Sun Sentinel , and the Palm Beach Post , for story ideas. But a lot of locals feel they know me because they tune in to my show every day, so they send the material directly to me. It’s always hard to say no to someone who’s a faithful listener of On the Couch , but the truth is, I have to refuse most of them. The trick is to do