by Cai Emmons
“You wanted me?” she says. Harsh light ricochets off his lacquered desk, forcing her to squint. My workmanship, she thinks.
Stuart returns her steady gaze. He has the same mood-dousing glower of a low pressure front. He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a newspaper folded in half. He slaps it on the edge of his desk. It’s the Portsmouth Reporter, a crappy local rag, full of ads and pseudo news.
“Well—?” he says.
She takes a step closer to see what he wants her to see, but she fails to glean whatever it is. “What?”
He taps a small box at the bottom of the page. Her eyes focus.
BRIDE CLAIMS LOCAL METEOROLOGIST
STOPPED RAIN AT WEDDING
A local bride, Nicole Simms, was disappointed that it was raining on her wedding day this past Saturday, but when one of the guests, local meteorologist Bronwyn Artair, parted the clouds and stopped the rain, the bride was ecstatic. “It was totally supernatural,” the bride said. She plans to honeymoon in Bermuda.
“Fuck.” The word escapes before she can stop it. What was Nicole thinking? What was the reporter thinking? What a stupid, uninformed article.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“Meaning?”
“It was raining and the rain stopped. Right? It has been known to happen.”
“Don’t be snide. You understand how damaging it is to employ a weather reporter who makes a claim like this.”
“I’m not making that claim. That’s Nicole’s wishful thinking. Or something.”
“Or something,” Stuart says.
“No one pays attention to that paper.”
“Plenty of local people read this paper. And they happen to be our viewers.”
Bronwyn looks past Stuart’s head to the lawn and trees behind the station, a patch of beauty and sanity. What a coward she is. If only she dared to embrace who she is publicly, show Stuart what she can do, regardless of how he’d respond.
“We may have to do some damage control. An on-air disclaimer.”
She shrugs. “Why is this my problem when Nicole made the claim? No one interviewed me.”
“Because your reputation is at stake.”
She shrugs. “I’ll say whatever you want me to say.”
“I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again—you’re a great asset to the station. Everyone loves your songs.” He pauses, as if he has handed her a sought-after compliment that is supposed to make her smile and genuflect. She doesn’t need to be a station asset or a feather in Stuart’s cap. So why has she been letting him, a drab nothing-burger, define her identity all these months? It is, of course, so much easier to think these things than it is to say them. Goodbye Stuart. I am sailing to the edge of the heliosphere on the solar winds.
“So, we’re on the same page then?” he says when he sees her attention has fled. “You’re not making any crazy claims?”
“Sure.”
“What’s your song today?”
“We’ll see.”
“There’s no need to be adversarial, Bronwyn. I’m only trying to protect you.”
When she arrives on the set Archie and Larry are both there dusting their cameras. She feels their lurch toward silence and is quite sure they were discussing her.
“It’s me,” she announces. “The Sorceress. Miss Weather-changer. Don’t pretend you weren’t gossiping.” She doesn’t look at them, strides to her bank of computers and logs on, fuming. Why does she allow everyone to make her feel so ridiculous, so feeble and female? She’s quite sure she knows things they have no idea about.
Neither of the men disputes her claim. For a while all three of them stay intent on their activities, though Bronwyn can’t focus. Gwen comes in to record with Larry a brief segment for later airing. When she and Larry leave, Archie ambles over as he usually does.
“You okay?”
She shrugs.
“You’ve got to admit, Saturday was pretty weird,” he says. “You saw the article, I guess.”
“Stuart showed me. No one ever interviewed me for that article.”
“Why are you angry at me? What did I do?”
She thinks. Why is she so sure he wouldn’t believe her if she explained the truth? Maybe he isn’t a skeptic. She hasn’t given him a chance. Still, she has an intuition about how he’d react.
“Stuart is furious because he thinks the article destroys my credibility even though it’s really more about Nicole than me. Her credibility should be in question, not mine.”
“You need to lighten up a little. Try to let it go.” He cocks his head and raises his eyebrows imploringly. Maybe he’s right—maybe she should lighten up.
She does not tie up her hair for the 5:00 broadcast. She leaves it loose, unfettered.
“Your hair?” Archie says two minutes before they’re on the air. He makes an occult preening gesture with one hand.
She shakes her head, no.
“Okay. Just thinking of Stuart, that’s all.”
“I’m trying as hard as possible not to think of Stuart.”
She delivers her report with as much neutrality as possible, thinking of the people who might be watching her and questioning her sanity. She smiles more than usual. A few days of sun and moderate temperatures, she tells the viewers, will be followed by a heat wave moving in from the Midwest and Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures are likely to rise above a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Her closing gambit is the Sheryl Crow song stuck in her brain—about soaking up sun and lighening up.
She knows Stuart will try to read too much into those lyrics, but so what, she’s only doing what he told her to do.
“Did you make up that song?” Archie asks later. She smiles. “Sheryl Crow. I can do a lot of things, but making up songs isn’t one of them.”
13
In taking action she has opened herself to ridicule, and the experience has brought back memories of sitting in those terrible team meetings with Bruce and Jim, her every sentence being met with a hail of silent mockery. She made herself speak, however. She couldn’t stand to let them think they could shut her up. She would bolster herself before each meeting with a specific image of one of the many heretics of science who held fast to theories that were widely reviled. A particular figure of bravery for her was the meteorologist Alfred Wegener who first put forth the idea of continental drift. He froze to death in Greenland after delivering emergency supplies to a meteorological station, and never saw the widespread acceptance of his theory. Perhaps all scientists doing truly original work are heretics. Not that she qualifies as a scientist anymore.
She wishes she didn’t care what anyone thinks, but she hates to be regarded as ridiculous. She must school herself (again) to ignore her detractors—Stuart, Archie, whoever read that newspaper article and scoffed. She would give anything for even a fraction of Diane’s steeliness.
There are things to be done that aren’t trivial. She immerses herself in weather data. This summer it is particularly easy to be fascinated with the weather. Records are being broken across the country. A high pressure system from the Gulf of Mexico has settled twenty-thousand feet over the Atlantic, creating a dome that traps the hot, humid air. A classic Bermuda high with unusual staying power, affecting people from Maine to Florida. Temperatures over 100 Fahrenheit coupled with humidity of 80-85% has made for a heat index often surpassing 130. In the West and Southwest there has been negligible precipitation for months, and the drought is beginning to have severe consequences: extreme fire danger, scarce water for home and agricultural use.
Bronwyn’s attention, however, has settled on the Midwest where the frequency of tornadoes is startling, even to veteran meteorologist Vince Carmichael. Tornado season is usually most severe in the spring, tapering off as summer deepens, but now it is late July and there has been no sign of tapering. Every few days a new twister passes through, and these are serious tornadoes, F3 or F4 on the Fujita scale, with cycling winds reaching past 250 mph,
many over a mile in breadth, advancing with reckless intention, uprooting trees, leveling houses, flinging cars with the strength of Godzilla.
She rehearses in her mind. Heading out across the plains in an armored storm chaser vehicle, someone else at the wheel. Eyeballing the horizon, opening her window to sniff the air, sensing the spinning winds, sussing out the location of the dry line where the supercell builds. She orders the car to stop. Now! And she goes to work. Saving lives in her own way, just like Vince.
Vince Carmichael has noticeably changed since she last watched him regularly. He has aged dramatically. His droopy lower lids mirror the arc of his eyebrows. His forehead is stamped with an orderly row of deep divots. His back and shoulders hunch unhealthily. And yet he still hops around the sound stage with near-Olympian athleticism, leaning into multiple weather maps and radar displays, explaining the Doppler, sometimes lunging forward so quickly he goes out of focus, arms spreading majestically in both directions.
In Bronwyn’s book he is still a weather god, one who appreciates the power of the Earth’s forces as much as she. She used to imagine herself taking over for him when he retired. She would become the female version of Vince, as tireless and energetic as he, surviving on adrenalin and the resultant windfall of feel-good hormones, using her elfin physique as an advantage, not a liability. She would leap from map to map, gesturing flamboyantly, exciting her viewers about the natural forces at large, while reassuring them with the necessary advisories. She still holds this fantasy, though Vince Carmichael has no idea who she is.
But maybe . . . If she . . .
She composes an email. It can’t hurt. They’re kindred spirits, after all, both obsessed in a similar way. She has always admired him, she writes. She would love to meet him. Could she visit his set, see him in the flesh, in action? The rest—the confidences—she thinks, can come later, first a relationship must be built. What a team the two of them could be! Her hand trembles as she hits send.
Kissed by a sudden streak of defiance she chooses “Tornado” for her evening song. She loves its incendiary lyrics about starting a storm, relishes the thought of Stuart’s reaction.
She dresses in pimento-orange, a color she almost never wears as it clashes with her hair and blanches her face to the pallor of a scallop, but hanging in her closet, the sassy color of fire, it demands to be chosen. At work she sits idly at her bank of computers thinking about Vince, wondering how quickly he’ll respond—if he’ll respond at all. Everyone is bellyaching about the heat, but the soundstage is air-conditioned so their complaints seem a bit ridiculous.
Stuart pops in and glances in her direction. The mere sight of him dampens her boldness. Best not be mutinous now. She can’t afford to lose her job. Not yet. In place of “Tornado” she chooses one of her heat songs. Good heat songs haven’t been easy to find because so many of them are ardent love songs, which isn’t right for the evening weather. But when she culls a few lines it sometimes works out.
She belts out “Ring of Fire,” picturing herself descending willingly into spires of flame, going down, down into their devouring circle.
She’s no Johnny Cash, but still her effort earns her a light round of applause. She retires to her post for the rest of the first broadcast. Usually she spends this time checking for updates since Gwen and Brant are reporting the news and she must be quiet. But now she sits idle, fidgeting. She can’t stop thinking of what it might be like to work with Vince, their skills so complementary.
She floats into a reverie. She wonders: Are there others out there who quietly, secretly are doing what she does? Perhaps. Maybe human beings are evolving in such a way that someday her skill will be commonplace. She may simply be one of the first, an anomaly for the time being, but not forever.
She’s been tearing at her cuticle unconsciously. Now she sees it’s bleeding. She digs into her purse for a tissue, doesn’t find one. She’ll have to wait ‘til the broadcast is over. She licks the blood, tastes the lusty strength of her own iron, and is suddenly aware of being watched. On the far side of the sound stage, a man stands near the door, staring at her unabashedly. His thick dark hair tops his head like a beret. His eyebrows are unusually thick too. He doesn’t look away. Embarrassed, she smiles, and he returns a smile that illuminates the entire corner where he stands.
They sometimes have visitors, it’s not unusual, but who is he? She needs to know. She looks away, afraid of revealing her interest, and fists her hand to staunch the blood flow. She allows a few moments to pass before looking up again. He’s still there, still staring. His smile waxes more slowly this time, its radiance undiminished. It is one of those smiles that seems to carry with it a sound. She turns to her computers in a sudden bout of thermal disequilibrium, despite the air conditioning. For the rest of the broadcast she does not allow herself to turn. When it’s over, and she’s free to move again, he’s already gone.
Oh well, she thinks. It’s too soon for that kind of monkey business anyway. And what can you tell of a person from only a charming smile and your own thrumming response? It isn’t enough. Reed comes to mind and she pushes the nebulously unpleasant thought of him away, her mind too crowded.
Nicole comes to the set for relief from the heat. It is cooler in here than at her desk in the foyer. She returned from her honeymoon with her hair shagged and dyed a boot-polish black.
“Can’t you do something about this heat?” she begs Bronwyn, whispering melodramatically.
“Shhh. You promised.” Bronwyn looks around. Larry, the only person present, is cleaning his viewing system. He appears not to hear. Still, it’s bad practice to discuss this publicly, and she has sworn Nicole to secrecy.
“I’m dying. And Mike is dying too. Working construction in this heat is the worst.”
“You’re uncomfortable,” Bronwyn says. “You’re not dying.”
“You could die in heat like this. People do.”
“Sure. Elderly people. Not people like you and Mike. Who was the visitor?”
“Some reporter who wants to go into broadcast journalism. He wanted to have a look. Stuart gave him a pass.”
“He didn’t stay very long.”
Nicole shrugs. “Don’t ask me.” She inspects Bronwyn and chuckles. “Oh, I get it.”
Bronwyn arrives home to find a dead raccoon lying in the grass not far from her front steps. Its mouth hangs open to reveal pink gums and tiny pointy teeth. Why did it die here? There is no blood, no visible injury. Could it be the heat? She knows she should remove the body before decay sets in, but she isn’t sure how, and she’s too hot and tired to figure it out now. She pushes inside. The cabin’s air is thick and hot. She needs to get hold of a fan. She strips off her ridiculous orange dress, and steps into the shower.
In bed she checks her email. No response from Vince Carmichael. Now that she has an idea in mind, a plan of sorts, she feels a terrible impatience for the rest of the world to comply.
She lies in the dark thinking of the man across the studio, the surprising allure and comfort in a human smile. Perhaps a smile’s advertisement is false, but it seems to say: You are who you are and I see what that is.
14
She’s awakened by loud knocking. The clock shouts 9:15. She has slept long, hard, dreamlessly. It must be the heat. The knocking persists. In her year here no one has ever come to the door. Well, once a UPS driver, but that’s it. She leaps from bed, exchanges her boxers for a pair of shorts. From the kitchen window she spots a red Ford Escort parked in the driveway next to her orange Volvo. The person at the front door is blocked from view.
She goes to the porch facing the river and slips out through the screen door. She rounds the side of the cabin and peers at the visitor from behind the azalea bushes. It’s the guy from yesterday, the reporter with the electric smile. She sees him more clearly now: dressed informally, he is short and lean, with the sinewy bow legs of a soccer player. He turns to leave, spots her, laughs. “You’re ambushing me,” he says.
She f
eels silly. “Aren’t you ambushing me?”
“It’s my specialty.”
An awkward silence drapes the lawn between them.
“I saw you yesterday on the set,” she says.
“Yes, you did.”
“I’m Bronwyn. Bronwyn Artair.”
“I know who you are. I’m Matt Vassily.”
She nods.
“Do you have a minute?”
She hesitates. “I’m sorry, I’m not awake yet. I’m not much good until I’ve had coffee. Come in while I make it.”
Inside she excuses herself to wash her face and brush her teeth. She takes off her sleep camisole and replaces it with a fresh tank top. She swipes her armpits with deodorant. Marginally better. When she re-emerges he’s in her kitchen making the coffee himself. She watches him from the living room. His movements are economical, as if he’s used to being here, but what hutzpah to appropriate someone’s kitchen and make coffee without being invited to do so. She could use more of such forwardness.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says.
“I don’t mind.”
She joins him in the cramped space and takes out mugs, aware of the pallor of her bare arms reaching up to the cupboard. She sets out milk and sugar and spoons. They move around one another as if they’ve been doing this for years.
“Your place is beautiful,” he says.
“I wouldn’t call it beautiful inside, but outside I love it. Shall we take our coffee out to the river?”
They sit on the riverbank, silenced by the purr of the coursing river. Occasionally its surface is breached by what might be a fish. An invisible warbler sings from a nearby tree. Beneath them the grass has gone brown from the heat. The coffee is dark and strong, just as she likes it. Later today the sun will be monstrous, but now its temperate heat, striking one side of her face, is exquisite. Matt’s eyes dart about, taking it all in. A bird swoops low over the water, maybe a petrel. She has no idea why he’s here, but she doesn’t care; his presence lifts and suspends her as a good vacation does.