The Voiceover Artist Read Online Free Page A

The Voiceover Artist
Book: The Voiceover Artist Read Online Free
Author: Dave Reidy
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only the hem of her blanket touched me. Brittany didn’t like to be touched while she watched television. “I can’t concentrate if there’s touching,” she’d say.
    On the old Panasonic box I’d purchased at a Carbondale garage sale, a woman in an orange jumpsuit was bemoaning her imprisonment for a capital crime—the murder of her former lover—that she swore she hadn’t committed. The frizzy ends of the woman’s ponytail whipped back and forth, punctuating her denial. Brittany leaned her head over her knees, hanging on the woman’s every word.
    I had decided in the show’s first five minutes that I agreed with its producers: this woman had killed her boyfriend. But I kept watching and kept my seat. Near the end of a dinner of spaghetti and jarred tomato sauce, I’d agreed to put off until after the show a conversation about Connor’s visit to Carbondale the next day. I knew that Brittany’s doing what I planned to ask of her became less likely with each passing minute, so I wanted to be with her when the credits rolled. And even without touching her, sitting close to her made me excited for what lay ahead for us in Chicago.
    After some difficult conversations on the matter, Brittany had finally decided to move to Chicago with me. We would share an apartment and try to turn our longtime professional dreams into careers. I’d look for representation as a voiceover artist, and Brittany would scour estate sales and auctions to build her stock of the rare books she hoped to buy and sell for a living.
    We had money saved, though Brittany had much less than she’d expected. By the time her father was indicted, the balance in her trust, once more than four hundred thousand dollars, had been reduced to nine thousand. To preserve what capital remained for her entry into the rare-books business, she’d forsaken the heavy financial burden of a private-college education for the low tuition and renowned rare-volumes collection of Southern Illinois University.
    Both of us blamed our fathers for the fact that our lives were less than what they might have been. But Brittany had started out at a higher station than I and fallen further—if her father hadn’t defrauded her, Brittany and I never would have met.
    My radio-ready voice and years of experience as a busboy had helped me land a job as a server at The Nile, Carbondale’s finest restaurant, a white-tablecloth establishment frequented by local professionals and visiting university trustees. For almost two years, I’d worked five dinner shifts per week and, with scholarships and grants covering most of my tuition and fees, had saved almost $ 11 , 000 . I offered my savings for our living expenses so that Brittany could use what remained of her inheritance to buy the right rare books. I wanted her to have her dream job, despite the damage her father had done. I wanted the same for myself.
    As the woman on TV attempted to express to the unseen television interviewer how much her murdered lover meant to her, and convince the audience she never could have harmed him, she sucked her lips into her mouth and shook her head, trembling.
    â€œOh, Jesus,” Brittany said, sitting back. “She had me until the fake crying.”
    â€œShe did it,” I said.
    â€œYeah,” Brittany said over a sigh. “She did.”
    As the prisoner pinched the bridge of her nose in tearful silence, Brittany found the remote in a blanket fold and turned off the television. She leaned against me and pressed her lips to mine as consolation for the touching we’d forgone while the prisoner told her lies.
    Then Brittany laid her head on the far arm of the couch and stretched out her long legs, putting her feet in my lap.
    â€œSo why did your brother wait until a month before graduation to visit you?” she asked.
    â€œHe doesn’t have many free nights,” I said. “He’s always doing
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