Slumberland

by Bradley Carter

  From the kitchen, mom wants to know what plans I have for my birthday.

  “They’re still in the works. I’ll probably end up the same place as last year. The Japanese fusion restaurant. Last year was fun.”

  My parents will join as they do every year, but only for dinner. If plans with my friends carry on after that, my mom and dad don’t want to intrude.

  Mom’s excited to show me my birthday cake. Whipped icing over half chocolate and half vanilla cake underneath. Decorated in the icing is a broadcast antenna with squiggly lines as signals.

  Happy Twenty-Ninth Birthday, it says.

  He and Mom bought a present too but tell me it’s well hidden. Which is to say, they have yet to pick it up.

  Dad says he remembers the day I was born.

  March 14th at 1:59 in the afternoon, his little CC came into the world.

  “Pie,” says Mom, setting a slice in front of me.

  She gives Dad his piece and joins us with hers.

  She wonders if I’ll be bringing anyone along tomorrow, someone I might have met recently.

  CC is too hard at work to have guys on her mind. That’s what Dad says.

  “CC’s still young and has her whole life ahead of her. She has her priorities. A career comes before love. That’s the way it should be.”

  That’s sarcasm, by the way.

  He winks at me when I smile. Knowing mom is a hopeless romantic, he’s pulling her leg, making it sound like father knows best.

  She thinks Dad wants me to stay his little CC forever. She thinks he only says what he does so a man won’t come into the picture and take his little CC away.

  This is not them arguing.

  Dad knows she’s right.

  Like I said, he just wants me to be happy.

  He wants everything for his CC to be perfect.

  “That’s all your mother and I have ever wanted for you,” he says.

  He clears his throat and presses his chest with a fist.

  “You can wish all you want,” he adds, “but keep your…”

  Mom’s fork drops to the table and her eyes go wide.

  She gasps.

  Neither of us know what to do.

  "Dad? Should I call for help?"

  Dad puts his hand out and says not unless he falls unconscious.

  He has a bit of indigestion; that’s all it is.

  He takes a sip of tea.

  “I swear, you old worry wart,” he says, to Mom. “I’m fine.”

  If Mom has said it once, she’s said it a hundred times and I have to agree; she would rather call the doctor’s office for an appointment rather than a funeral home for a reservation.

  Dad says it’s only indigestion. The doctor would bill him for the visit and tell him to do the same thing he’s already doing. He points to the bottle of antacids and wipes his mouth and asks what he was saying.

  Then he remembers.

  “Oh, that’s right,” he says. “You can wish all you want but keep your head out of the clouds.”

  the whole point

  6

  Nighttime for me comes just as the sun sets, no matter how early the evening hours.

  As a child my parents would send me to bed early, before the sun would go down. I remember how hard it was for me to fall asleep when my bedroom was still lit from the evening sky. Like the Doctor says, our brains are naturally affected by light. It’s what controls our sleep cycle.

  It’s funny though. As kids, we despised sleep. As adults, we welcome it any chance we get. Still, I try to keep myself up until the sky is pitch black.

  This condo of mine is a bit spacious for only one person. No roommates to pickup after. Just me. You’d expect to take care of a place this size would require a lot of maintenance. However, I don’t find it requires my attention all that much. That’s not to say I don’t spend weekend afternoons mopping the kitchen floors or dusting the furniture, but when there’s only one person in and out of here each night, things keep pretty clean on their own.

  For a single girl turning twenty nine, you might suggest getting a pet.

  But after Bart’s death, I couldn’t bear having another.

  Besides, I’m never home long enough to take care of one. These days, it seems I’m always out doing things and I occasionally visit my home.

  After a warm shower, it’s boy-short underwear and a comfy tank top. Alas, the end of the day finds me here in bed with a warm cup of cocoa and a book to read.

  Everyone would assume for a girl turning twenty-nine, this time of night is too early for bed. Most women my age are on dates, finding someone to share the rest of their life with. But like dad says, managing priorities is the key and patience is a virtue.

  In the mean time, I enjoy the benefit of sleeping diagonally across my queen-size bed. The only one to hog the fluffy pillows and comforters is myself. No one to keep me awake with snoring. No one to wake me when they go to the bathroom. No one to distract me from my restful routine.

  The nights I work, my the television stays off. To watch it doesn’t rot your brain, but its light can fool your brain into thinking it’s time to be doing anything other than settling down to rest.

  The book in my hands is enough to entertain.

  It takes me inside of another world. It lets me experience the story from another person’s point of view. It gets me involved. That’s the whole point. But it doesn’t matter right now; my eyes are too heavy to say focused.

  Through my window, from the tall building across the street, the side of the apartments facing me is all patios. Some of their windows illuminated from people still awake, some flash from televisions inside, late night talk shows. Some stay dark. Sometimes I wonder if those people can see into my bedroom from way over there. I wonder if they watch me crawl into bed, if they watch me reading, setting my phone on the charger, or getting my alarm ready to wake me at 3:00 A.M. There’s the morning weather girl again, they would say, calling it a night.

  My nightstand lamp clicks off, changing the room from a bright white to a dark and shadowy blue. It’s the moon’s light reflecting on the sky that makes things that color. I should close the curtain but I’m too tired.

  Too tired to get up.

  Too tired to move.

  Across at the apartment building, my sleepy eyes catch a glimpse of a small orange dot hovering one of the patios. From that distance, it could only be the tip of a lit cigarette. It fades in bright and then out again. That must be it, but it’s too dark and too far away to see who’s smoking it.

  If it’s too dark for me to see them, I think it’s too dark in here for them to see me.

  I should really take a few seconds to force myself out of bed to close the curtain.

  But it’s too late.

  Lying here each second, my body has become more comfortable.

  My eyelids have become heavier.

  I should get up and close the curtain but I simply cannot.

  My lids close.

  A restful night with pleasant dreams.

  More to come after the break. Stay with us.

  TOO PERFECT

  7

  We news reporters speak a certain talk. We speak with cadence. With inflection in our voices. You’ve heard it before. The way we talk on the air. The way we sound when we’re telling local stories and reviewing sports highlights. It’s how we sound when we give the weather report. We speak using a non-regional dictation. It’s a way of talking that lacks distinct regional or ethnic characteristics. There’s a science behind it. A psychological reasoning, if you will.

  If a news anchor from Lubbock, Texas has air time in Kansas City, where he speaks in his thick southern drawl, the viewers at home are less trusting of what he says. That’s because he’s in a different region of the country where people don’t share that accent. It’s psychological. It would work the same if someone from New York gave the weather highlights on a station in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. To the people listening, that anchor would sound like an
outsider. However, reporters all speak the same and for good reason.

  Things don’t always appear to be what they are.

  Giving my report, pointing to and drawing viewer’s attention to certain parts of the weather map, you see me move around quite a bit. But that’s not a real map. The Chroma key screen is a bright green background that the control room uses to display the weather maps and graphics. If you could see what Mark sees, standing behind his camera, it’s me moving my hand along an empty wall.

  I’m not allowed to wear anything green because I would essentially become invisible to the people watching at home. Today, I wore a tasteful but well-fitted red dress and naturally, being on my feet, what the home audience doesn’t see are my white Chuck Taylor shoes.

  “It seems that Spring is finally upon us. Around the regions of the city, there’s only a mild difference in temperature. Seventy in Saint Joseph. Seventy in Lee’s Summit. Again, an even seventy for Overland Park and Prairie Village. In the big city, however, it will be sunny with a perfect seventy-two degrees…”

  “Not again,” says, Randi, the producer, in my ear piece.

  “…The possibility of rain showers for this week are… this weekend, rather… are likely…”

  “Spit it out, Sierra,” she says.

  “…Rain and perhaps some mild thunderstorms may inhibit your weekend plans but nothing too brash… Nothing that we know of at this time.”

  “Amazing,” says Randi.

  My words wouldn’t fumble so much if she didn’t make me so nervous.

  Now that I know about the opening of the primetime spot, I know everything I do and say is being evaluated under a microscope. Not knowing what Randi is upset about makes everything worse.

  With the weather map still on the screen, I remove myself from the frame. The viewers don’t see me walking back to the desk where the other three personalities are waiting as I finish talking.

  “Right now, a slow breeze out of the Southwest and sunny skies for the rest of your work week.”

  Doug pulls my chair back and with words still pouring into my pinned microphone, I sit and adjust my posture.

  “Stand by, anchors,” says Randi, “Full shot on all four.”

  Mark’s hand goes up and he counts from five with his fingers as the last words of my sentence come to a finish.

  “Thank you Sierra,” says Olivia, with the camera lights changing to show everyone.

  My hands stay folded and my posture straight.

  “And we hear at Channel Six News,” adds Doug, “would like to wish our own friendly forecaster, Sierra Preston, a happy birthday.”

  "Well, thank you so much,” I reply.

  My concern for what I’ve done wrong to upset our producer is masked to everyone else with my bright smile. The music fades in as Doug announces the highlights of the next segment. He doesn’t miss a beat and his hand grips my right thigh.

  It’s possible he’s being himself and caressing my knee with his thumb is his way of telling me what a good job I’ve done. But that’s something he could wait to say when we go to commercial.

  It could be he’s trying to get me to relax because he and everyone else with a headset or a bug in their ear, heard Randi’s comments. If that’s the case, now’s not the time to offend him by pushing his hand away. I can’t think of anything I’ve done wrong, but if there is something, I’m almost certain Doug will take my side.

  Still, under pressure, the rest of the morning broadcast seems to go on forever.

  The station tends to calm down once the studio lights dim and everyone retreats to their work stations. If you’re watching from home, the soap operas are leading into the morning talk shows. I’ve changed to jeans and a light shirt, perfect for today’s outside temperatures.

  As Mark carries his gear next to me, we see Randi in her office with Doug sitting on the edge of her desk. They both glance my direction. Doug waves me to the office. Mark, with his equipment, keeps walking. He’ll be waiting in the SUV, he tells me.

  It’s a good thing I wanted to drive today.

  That’s sarcasm by the way.

  Randi’s office is clustered with folders, papers, and books. More like manuals. Some beta tapes of previously recorded broadcasts and story pieces. CDs labeled with graphics stacked in a pile. Her Styrofoam cup from the gas station sits next to a cigarette case and a pink lighter.

  She’s not dressed like any of us. She doesn’t have to be. No one ever sees her during a show. Doug pushes himself from her desk and walks to the back of the room as I step inside. Randi tells me to close the door. She tells me to have a seat in one of the two wood finished chairs with cushions. The kind people sit in for business meetings.

  Butterflies fill my stomach.

  “It’s your birthday,” says Randi. “Relax. You’re not in trouble.”

  Doug leans against the wall. The producer, Randi, tells me they’ve been discussing the move to the prime-time spot. The weather spot. It’s not technically a promotion in terms of pay or ranking but it’s a move upward from life of early mornings. She and the evening producer have spoken about me for sure. They’ve both agreed they want me for the spot. That is, if I would like to have it.

  “There’s just one problem,” says Randi.

  I’m all ears. Whatever it is, we can fix it. Every problem has a solution and I’m willing to strive hard to solve it.

  “Your weather reports,” she adds, “they’re too…perfect.”

  My eyebrows scrunch toward each other.

  Randi and the evening producer have gone back through hundreds of my weather reports at random. What they’ve found made them go back through all of them individually. Every single one. And they were all the same.

  “Have you ever been around when there’s been bad weather?” she asks. “A thunderstorm? An ice storm? Extreme wind? Snow? Anything?”

  “Sure I have. I’ve predicted lots of bad weather.”

  But she wants to know if I’ve ever been on the air when that bad weather happened.

  “Better yet,” she asks, “have you ever been at work?”

  My shoulders shrug. On the spot, I can’t think of specific instance. I am the weather girl for this news station, I’d assume that means I’ve been here while there has been severe weather.

  Randi, the producer, disagrees.

  She says not one day, not one broadcast, has it been anything but perfect on my watch. Even in the winter, the worst case scenario would be snow on the ground but snow that would have fallen over night or long after I had left for the day.

  No bitter winds, until I’m off the clock.

  No sheer ice falling from the sky, not while I’ve been in front of a camera.

  Randi says I’ve predicted thunderstorms before, but not a drop has fallen when I’m here. I would have been long gone for the day.

  The worst of these gloomy days fall on weekends. As long as I’m in the studio or reporting in the field, a cloud won’t pass by. She tells me the evening meteorologist predicted a significant rain shower one autumn day last year. She says the first drop didn’t hit the ground until a minute after my shift had ended.

  “So what does this mean?” I ask.

  “We don’t know,” says Randi.

  What management has been discussing is the need to see me report weather with some severity as it happens live. Every weather reporter has to manage it at some point or another in their career.

  They have to be on the air and monitoring it closely so people tuning in will know what to expect and when to expect it. When to take cover.

  The job is the most stressful when this happens. You have to be on the spot with the directions, the wind speeds, the updates from the National Weather Service.

  Lives depend on it.

  There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that I can handle it. That’s why Doug is here, to give his opinion. To go to bat for me. Even though he did mention me fumbling my words on the air at the slightest sign of stress from Randi in my
earpiece. But it’s not like I can’t do the job.

  But Randi says it’s a network liability. If I were to go on the air and lead the public through something severe, and I couldn’t handle it, it would need to be dealt with. The network would want to know why the shows producers put someone in charge who had never done a live severe weather broadcast before and if there’s no proof they had, it would look bad.

  “I understand this is not your fault,” says Randi. “You report the weather, you don’t control it. I want to give you the primetime spot. But we will have to wait. With the season changing, this area is bound to have its rainy days when you’re standing by.”

  It sounds fair.

  Who am I to argue?

  If I were to argue it, there’s a good chance I’d ruin the opportunity.

  “Sure! That sounds good to me.”

  it meets in the middle

  8

  Actually, no, it doesn’t sound good to me. Poor Mark has to listen to me go on and on about this. Maybe he should be driving. He says I’m going too fast and he doesn’t want to die. But which is it? Too fast or drive like a grandmother?

  “I believe I’m doing just fine.”

  The sun is bright and our windows are down. The radio’s loud but not too loud where I can’t be heard.

  “I think it’s kind of ridiculous. Dana said it herself, it’s not my fault the weather is always perfect on the days I work. It’s not my fault I’m not the one going on the air when bad weather strikes. The information I get is what I get. Why am I the one being punished for it? What else would they expect me to do?”

  “You’re going to miss it,” says Mark. “Would you pay attention?”

  I turn in the side entrance to the middle school.

  I tell him the brakes needed to be checked, which is why I slammed on them and spun us in to the turn.

  For today’s field report, we will be talking to the eight grade future mathematicians. These kids scored the highest in the surrounding states and will be flown to Washington D.C. next week to be nationally recognized by the President of the United States.

  As I slowly pull into a parking lot, Mark turns down the radio.