The three of us gather around the memories of those we lost and those who remain, and smile.

“Perfect,” Mason says, showing us the photo.

And, despite all the imperfections, it is.

The knot in my stomach doesn’t tighten—not even driving snow-packed M-22—until I arrive at work. I head to Lisa’s office and knock.

“Shut the door,” she says, ushering me in.

I take a seat.

“So?” I ask.

Lisa sighs. My expectations deflate along with her body. I already know the answer.

“I talked to my bosses, and then I talked to Polly Sue. While we didn’t like the stunt she pulled, Polly Sue did make the point that she is currently the chief meteorologist…”

“Interim!” I say.

“Interim chief meteorologist, and as such, she disagreed with your forecast. She stated that she believed you were in error with your prediction, and she didn’t want to alarm viewers for no reason.”

“No reason! Did she give you a scientific reason why she disagreed with my forecast? Or did she just disagree with it because she hates me? I mean, that has to be the reason because The Weather Channel is now forecasting it! I was right!”

“Sonny.” Lisa starts calmly, talking like any boss would to an employee who’s about to cause a scene.

“She didn’t give you a reason because she doesn’t know a low pressure system from a can of beans.” I stop. I realize I sound just like my father. What other gems are next out of my mouth to confront Lisa? Were you raised in a barn? If you keep making that face, it will freeze that way? Don’t make me turn this car around?

“We did give her a warning. Management agreed.”

“That’s not enough. We need to get this on air now, so at least we’re first with the forecast here.”

Lisa walks around her desk and takes a seat beside me.

“I believe you, Sonny,” Lisa says gently. “I do.”

“Then overrule this. Do something.”

“My hands are tied.”

I look at her, shaking my head.

“Do you want to know something I finally realized?” I ask. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

A surprised look covers Lisa’s face. “Now Sonny…”

“I haven’t. Could I have acted like I’m supposed to act? Act like ‘an adult’ is supposed to act? Act like I’ve done my whole life? Which means running from situations, hiding my emotions and acting like everything is okay?” I look at Lisa and take a deep breath. “I think that’s the reason I’m here right now, sitting beside you. Because, for once, I confronted what is in front of me. I addressed the internal and external conflicts in my life.” I turn to face Lisa. “I was an integral part of the number one news team in Palm Springs and was replaced by a computer-generated Barbie doll simply because I was a woman of a certain age making too much money. I was fired by a rich, spoiled brat who knew nothing about the news but wanted to play news director. Why? Because he was running from his past, too. I ask you this—why shouldn’t I have gotten mad and done what I did? Stand up for myself? Cause a scene? Men do it all the time and are praised for it. I got ostracized. And then I come here and am suddenly the victim of vicious online slander. Has that happened to any of the men who came here before me?”

Lisa shakes her head.

“Why would someone do that to me? And who did it? What is so wrong with getting angry about the injustice and confronting it? Who’s going to stand up for me if I don’t stand up for myself? It’s like putting a popcorn kernel into hot oil and not expecting it to explode.”

I continue. “I’m so sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you. I didn’t intend to do that. But I’m no longer sorry for defending myself. I haven’t been too good at that my whole life, and I’m kind of learning to love it.”

A tiny smile cracks Lisa’s face.

“I will honor my contract, do what I can to help you and the station, and then I will leave.”

“Sonny!”

“It’s okay. Maybe I’ll work for the state, or a university. Do research. I’ve actually remembered why I wanted to become a meteorologist in the first place, and I have you to thank for that.”

Lisa takes my hand and squeezes it. “You’re not going anywhere, Sonny. I want you here. Got it?”

“Then my upcoming forecasts have to include my prediction about a polar vortex because I know I’m doing the right thing. And I’m sick of second-guessing myself.”

I get up and walk to the door.

When I pull it open, Polly Sue is standing just outside, her head near the frame, a hand around her ear.

“Hi, Mrs. Kravitz,” I say. “Eavesdropping again?”

“Who?” she says, literally laughing in my face. “You wish you were that important in my life, Amberrose. Lisa wanted to talk to me. Probably about dropping the ‘interim’ from my title.”

I start to say something, but shut my mouth. It isn’t worth it.

“Oh, Amberrose,” she says. “Make sure to use your pointer on the air to point out that nonexistent polar vortex.”

I start to tell her she’s going to need a search party to find that pointer when I’m done with her, but then I see Icicle down the hallway waving madly as if he’s trying to flag down a taxi in the first rainstorm of the year in Palm Springs.

“Have a lovely day,” I say instead.

“You should sit down for this.”

“I am sitting. Are you okay?”

Icicle is nervous. As nervous as a dorky kid working up the nerve to ask the prettiest girl in school to prom.

He takes a seat next to me. He’s sweating profusely. Even though it is chilly in the station—it is always chilly in a TV news station, downright cold on set so that we don’t perspire—his white shirt is stuck to him and his hair is slicked across his forehead.

“I feel like I’m in Mission: Impossible and you know there’s a bomb strapped to me that’s going to detonate in a matter of minutes,” I say.

He doesn’t laugh. “Something like that,” he says, his voice thick with panic.

“Stop it right now,” I say. “Tell me what’s going on. Out with it. Why have you whisked me away to the broom closet turned green room where we only send guests who train wild animals?”

“I have something to show you,” he says.

“You are totally freaking me out right now,” I say.

He cracks the door, peeks outside, craning his long neck left and right, then locks the door and turns out the light.

“So,” Icicle finally says in a barely audible whisper. “I couldn’t come to grips as to why Polly Sue didn’t use the news segment last night to talk about the polar vortex. I mean, you’re handing her a gift. I watched her yesterday, and she didn’t do any additional research on her own. I asked if she needed help fine-tuning the graphics we provided or needed additional assistance, and she just waved me off. Then when I watched her last night, I knew.”

“Knew what?” I ask.

“I ran for student council treasurer my junior year in high school,” he says. “I ran against a really popular guy, Ramey Johnson. He was a football player, everyone loved him even though he was as smart as a rock. I mean, a regular, old rock was smarter than him.”

“Okay, where are you going with this?” I ask.

“I promise this will make sense.”

I nod.

“So anyway, I knew I was going to lose to Ramey, but I still ran because my parents pushed me to do it. I also knew that even though this was an important position—I mean, Ramey managing a budget? He used to make bets to see how many hot dogs he could cram in his mouth!—high school was all a popularity contest. I put up posters like everyone else, and the week before the election, some of them were defaced. ‘Ron Lanier for Treasurer’ was Magic Markered to read ‘Ron is Lame for Treasurer.’ Not real clever, but it hurt. So I hid in a custodial closet one night and waited. Sure enough, I saw Ramey defacing my posters, or pulling them down.”

I sigh with all the patience I can muster. “Where are you going with this, Icicle?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “I thought, why would he do this? He knows he’s going to win anyway. What’s the point of hurting me? I went home and tossed and turned all night. I woke up at dawn, and it hit me: Ramey was the one who was scared. He knew, deep down, he shouldn’t be treasurer. He knew, deep down, he didn’t even deserve the status he had. Ramey knew all of this would come crashing down on him after high school because he didn’t have the smarts, talent or drive to make something of himself. It was all handed to him simply because he could throw a football. And Ramey believed the only way to keep his status was to cheat.”

“Icicle, I have to get ready for my segment.”

“I’m about done, I promise,” he whispers, his voice shaking. “I stayed here late last night after everyone left, just like I did in high school because I knew.”

“Knew what?”

Icicle pulls out his cell, and the light illuminates his face. It is pained.

“Everything clicked,” he whispers, as if to himself. “I went back through all the footage I shot of you when you first arrived, from when you went cardboard sledding to when you went snowshoeing. Hours and hours of footage that we edited for your Sonny in the Winter segments. Then I checked my browser history. All of those files had been forwarded to Polly Sue.”

Icicle plays the viral videos of me cardboard sledding and yelling at the family.

“Polly Sue is the one who edited that footage and sent them out to everyone,” he says. “Polly Sue has fake social media accounts where this all started, and I can trace them all back to her because they were started under Magic Merle’s old accounts here. And I also called my friend Bill, who runs the security firm that has all the cameras around here. He sent me hours and hours of video. It shows Polly Sue stealing the footage. Includes some great audio, too.” He stops. “Do you get it now? Polly Sue is Ramey. She’s scared. She knows everything has been handed to her and she doesn’t deserve it. And she’ll do anything to protect her status.”

My mind shifts back in time to what Hollywood Gossip did with that footage of me in Palm Springs.

Why didn’t I think of this?

I stand and hug Icicle with all my might.

When I let him go, he says, “What do we do?”

“I already have a plan,” I say. “Just act cool for a while.”

He shifts his body, and the light from his cell again illuminates his face. He looks pasty and panicked.

“You’re going to need a way better poker face than that, though,” I say.

“I didn’t think you’d show,” Lisa says.

“I’m part of the team,” I say with a big smile.

Lisa gives me a wary glance.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” she says. “We’ve never won the Annual Snowball Fight before. Big competition this year, not only from the other stations but also from all the restaurants and shops in town.”

“I bet you’re going to be good at this.”

I turn. Mason walks up with a big smile.

“You have no idea,” I say. “A few unresolved issues and a touch of hostility make me throw a snowball a lot harder than normal.” Lisa eyes me. I raise my hands as if I’m surrendering. “All good. You just have no idea how much I want to beat those other stations. They haven’t particularly been nice to me since I arrived in Michigan.” I flex my muscles, hidden under a fitted running shirt and zip-up jacket along with about two pounds of my mother’s home cooking. “These arms are ready for business.”

We are standing in the middle of the high school’s football stadium. It is bigger than I remember any high school football stadium being. State-of-the-art scoreboards flank the end zones and flash the logo for the Annual Snowball Fight.

“So, how does this work?” I ask.

“This is my pride and joy,” Mason says. “It’s sort of like dodgeball in the winter.”

I think back to my days of dodgeball and grimace. I was not the most agile at ducking out of the way of those hard dodgeballs or throwing one with enough power and arc to strike someone on the fly. I could cheer, yes, but agility, no. I think of falling in the snow here over and over again.

“I was always great at dodgeball,” I lie.

“Really?” Mason asks.

“You sound shocked.”

“Just surprised,” he says with a smile. “So, each team gets a turn throwing snowballs at the other team. Each team picks a person to start, and everyone gets a chance to throw and be thrown at, until the teams of four have each had a chance to go. The team being thrown at has a one-foot snow wall to duck behind. Gives them a little better chance and makes it a little harder for the throwing team. Each person must be standing when the snowball is thrown, but they can dive, go low, juke, dart, run, whatever, to avoid a snowball, just like in dodgeball. Winner moves on to face the winner of the next bracket. I have it set up as TV versus TV, restaurant versus restaurant, retail versus retail, school versus school in the beginning, sort of like regions in the NCAA tournament. Then winners of those divisions meet until there is a snowball champion.”

“Wow. Impressive,” I say.

“We’ve never made it past our region,” Lisa says. “We always lose to the Channel 2 News Team because they stack their team with former athletes. All of their reporters played baseball or football.”

“Where’s the rest of our team?” I ask. My heart is already beating rapidly.

“They’re coming,” Lisa says, her voice ominous.

I turn.

Polly Sue strides across the field, hair ablaze, wearing all red.

Beside her is Chance LaChance, a name even more invented than Sonny Dunes. He is already a main nightly news reporter who is salivating—and publicly campaigning—to be a weekend anchor. At the ripe old age of twenty-three.

“Sonny,” Chance greets me, saying my name slowly like an evil cartoon cat toying with a fish in a bowl.

“Chance,” I mimic.

“I’m surprised to see you today,” he says.

“Oh, I’m full of surprises today,” I say with a big smile. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

Polly Sue ignores me.

“Would you help me with my coat, Chancey?” she purrs.

Chance helps her remove her red coat, and then the two kiss.

Well, kiss is the PG word one might use. Make out would be another. Put your tongues away might even be more appropriate.