When I reach my car, my cell begins to ding repeatedly. I reluctantly free it from my pack, take a seat in my car, opening all the windows to cool the interior.
“Amberrose? It’s Mom. Call me. I’m worried.” Pause. “But do not send a video. I repeat. Do not send a video.”
You’re a hoot, Mom.
“Sonny, it’s Cliff. Call me.”
“Hi, it’s Eva. Are you okay, honey? Call me.”
I scan my texts.
Oh, no.
I open a link one of my friends has sent. It’s a clip from Hollywood Gossip, with that annoying, overly dramatic, staccato music and a headline that screams, Are Sonny Days Behind Her?
It’s the video of me from this morning, running toward the paparazzi in the bushes, no makeup, hungover, an enraged look on my face. I grab the camera, and the video shakes. Then my voice yelling, “I have a breakdown. Angry. I drink too much. Go away!”
That little sleazebag, I think. He not only didn’t erase anything, he edited it to make me sound even worse.
The cell rings. My mom.
“This day can’t get any worse,” I say.
“Well, good day to you, too, sweetheart.” She laughs at her joke. She always does. She pauses. “I’ve been worried about you. Why didn’t you call me? How are you?”
I take a deep breath and will myself not to cry.
“Not good,” I say. “I went for a hike to forget about everything and returned to see that I’m trending as a psychotic drunk.”
“You never could handle your alcohol, dear.”
We both make jokes to deflect our pain. Always have, always will.
“Mother. You’re not helping.”
“Why don’t you come home for a little while. Rest. Recoup. I’ll cook for you. You can hide out while you figure out next steps.”
“Isn’t there a blizzard right now?”
“It’s a little snow. And it’s so beautiful, honey. The whole world is white. Coated in magic dust. You used to love the snow.”
I don’t answer.
“It’s almost Christmas. I always come to you. Why not come back here for a change?”
Don’t say it, Mom. Don’t say it.
“And there’s no reason for you to be there right now. We can have a white Christmas in Michigan.”
She said it.
“No holiday parades for you to host. No work. No Christmas specials.”
And she keeps going.
“I’ll think about it,” I say to stop her.
“Do,” she says. “Nothing more magical than the holidays in Michigan.” I can hear my mom take a deep breath. “I miss you, honey. Desperately. And I’m sick with worry. Come home. Please.”
This is real. Too real.
“I have to go, Mom.”
“You can’t run from this forever.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
I hang up and put my head on the steering wheel. I bang it once just for good measure. My cell rings again, and I bang my head once more.
Pause. “Is this Amberrose? Amberrose Murphy?”
I look at the number.
“Yes? Who is this?”
“Lisa Kirk. From college. Remember?”
Kirk the Lurk? The girl who always sat in the common room alone watching movies. The one who ordered Domino’s nonstop as a way to bribe girls to join the university news station? Or march for the environment? The girl who made T-shirts for everyone on the fourth floor of Allison Hall that read, Alli’s Pallys?
“Lisa? It’s been a long time. What can I do for you?”
“I’m the news director at TRVC now, in Traverse City. I saw what happened yesterday.”
Everyone wants a story. This time with the local girl gone crazy.
“Listen, Lisa,” I say. “It’s been a rough couple of days. I’m not interested in doing any interviews about what happened.”
“I’m actually calling about a job,” she says. “We’re looking for a new meteorologist to anchor our nightly newscast. I’m trying to build something special here. The area is booming. I want a station that mirrors that growth and spirit.”
“Are you joking?” I ask. “Did you see the video? I humiliated myself. No one will want to hire me.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“I just have a gut feeling about you,” she says. “I think you’ve changed.” Lisa hesitates. “The hometown girl returns. Sonny turns snowy.”
“I’m really not interested, Lisa. Thank you, though.”
“May I ask why?”
“I just—” my head spins “—can’t.”
“Well, you have my number,” she says. “I’ll be filling the position within the next week, so if you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” I cut her off.
“Okay, well, it was nice to talk with you, Amberrose,” she says. “I mean, Sonny.”
“Take care, Lisa.”
“Oh, and I’ve forgiven you,” she adds.
My heart lurches.
“For what?” I ask, playing dumb.
“You don’t remember college?” she asks. “Kirk the Lurk? All the pranks? Ignoring me? I sure do.”
“That wasn’t me,” I say.
There is a ringing in my ears.
I can picture the first snowfall on campus. I am trudging through the newly fallen snow, which slides into my too-low boots. Even though it is bitterly cold, the wind is whipping, my backpack weighs a ton and the snow is still falling, I head to Lake Michigan and stare into it for what feels like eternity. I am at college. Away from home. Nearly an adult. But still tethered to my past by this water and this winter.
“Are you okay?”
I turn, and Lisa is standing there, a mug of hot chocolate extended in her hand. “For you,” she says.
I stare at her without saying a word.
“You looked like you were going to cry in class,” she says. “Just staring out the window, like you wanted to run away. I thought you could use a little pick-me-up.”
Just like Joncee. Always reading my emotions. Always there to make me feel better. Always there in the snow with a hot chocolate and melting marshmallows.
“I don’t want your hot chocolate,” I can hear myself saying. “I don’t need your pity or your friendship.”
A raven’s wings flap overhead. I am back in the desert, back in the present.
I am not lying to Lisa. It wasn’t me.
“Oh,” Lisa says. Her voice has changed. “You’re right. I’m forgetting. That was Amberrose. Not Sonny. Take care. Bye.”
I hang up, my mind racing, and immediately call my agent.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mata Hari.”
“I’m not that infamous,” I say.
“Really,” Jo says. “You were breaking news on CNN. Scrolling red ticker tape and everything. I mean, Sonny. C’mon.”
“Isn’t bad publicity good publicity?”
“Not in this case,” she says. Jo takes a deep breath and then a sip of something I’m pretty sure is whiskey instead of water. That’s how Jo rolls. “Let me break it down for you. Weathermen…”
“Meteorologists,” I correct.
“Whatever,” Jo says. “You’re the person people trust. Think of Willard Scott. Ginger Zee. You’re the best friend. The one people call when they need advice. You’re spun sugar. The pretty girl next door who always waves at the neighbors when she leaves the house. You can’t go on TV blind drunk, pretend to flash your goodies and tear down half the studio. It’s not a good look.”
“What are my options?”
“You have no options,” she says. “Well, you have one. Did that news director from somewhere in one of those flyover states call you?”
“You knew about that?”
“I gave her your number.”
“Why?”
“Because you need a job.”
“I can’t take that job.”
“Take the job, Sonny. Now. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Do a good job.”
“I can’t go back there.”
I do not state this. I am pleading my case.
A gust of wind picks up as it so often does in the desert. A current will sweep along the slopes of the mountain and gather steam until it becomes a heaving sigh of dry air and dust. The dust swirls in mini-tornadoes just like the snow does when it sweeps across the lake. I look again, and I can see my little sister in her stocking cap and little mittens turning when she hears me trudging through the snow. She takes off running as soon as she sees me, arms extended, calling, “Amberrose is home! Amberrose is home! What should we do first in the snow?”
“I can’t go home,” I tell Jo again.
I already know I am pleading my case with the wrong person.
“Then start looking at a different career path. Like Starbucks.” She doesn’t laugh. “Take the job, Sonny,” Jo says very slowly, drawing out each word. “At least for a little while. Then you can head west again…or maybe even to a bigger market once you prove yourself again. America loves a comeback story. Girl gone bad goes home and does good. I can sell that. But you have to start over again somewhere.”
The world around me spins, like the tornadoes of dust.
“Want me to call and negotiate?” I don’t answer. “I’ll get you the best salary I can, I promise. And bonuses if their ratings soar. But it won’t be what you were making here.” She stops. “Then after a while, I can start selling your comeback story to different stations.”
“You expect me to move back and live with my mother?” I ask, my voice raspy and weak.
“You’re a grown-ass woman,” Jo says in her Jo-way. “You can afford your own place. You don’t have to live with your mother.”
But I do have to live with my mother. I can’t return to Michigan and leave my mother alone.
Again.
My sister and father are gone. I am gone. I can’t do that to her. And what if I were to move into a condo somewhere and be surrounded by people I knew from childhood that I couldn’t avoid every day? My past in my face, every single day.
But then I picture my childhood bedroom…and Joncee’s down the hall.
But can I do that to myself?
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
“You can,” Jo says, her voice like steel. “And you will.” Silence. “Honestly, the whole scene sounds very sweet. Just don’t expect me to visit. Especially in the winter.”
She hangs up, and I place my head on the steering wheel.
This time I bang it really hard.
When I look up, as if on cue, the sun slides behind a cloud.