Icicle is driving the winding road—the famed M-22 highway that dips and bends along the lake and bay, the road that literally transports summer tourists into another world of picturesque wineries and orchards, unique resort towns, beautiful beaches and stunning water—as if he’s a kid playing with Hot Wheels, and the highway is a plastic track.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I am clutching the side of the van, holding on to the door handle as if I might—at any second—need to keep it from flying open or jump for my safety. My legs are straight out in front of me, and I keep pantomime pressing the brake to slow the van down.
“Can you slow down just a bit?”
The kid looks at me and tilts his head.
“I grew up driving these roads,” he says.
“That doesn’t matter,” I say.
My voice is trembling, and I will tears from springing to my eyes. Icicle slows the van immediately.
“Sorry,” he says.
“I’m not used to this,” I say, lying to cover the truth.
“Sonny likes the sun, right,” he says with a laugh.
“Right,” I say.
“Boy, is this going to make good TV. Lisa was right about that.”
At fifty, my career is a joke. My life is as dicey as the roads. My future is as dire as the long-term forecast. My mind is littered with more dangerous memories than this road is with winter-created potholes.
I look out over the bay. A front is approaching. The wind is picking up, the tree branches bend, and in the distance, I can see a curtain of snow falling over the water. Half of the world is still draped in sunlight, half of the world is now cloaked in darkness.
The irony.
The bay is iced over a long way out. I can feel the tires of the van slide just a little on a patch of frozen road.
I shut my eyes to gather myself. I touch the buckle on the seat belt…eight, nine, ten… It doesn’t shut out the past.
Can you come pick me up? I can hear Joncee say.
I’m busy, I say, impatiently twirling the phone cord. I was always busy. With a boy. Or my friends. Cheerleading or a club.
Puh-leeze, she said in that way only a kid can say, drawing out a single syllable into a heart-wrenching plea.
I’m busy.
“It’s busy.”
I open my eyes.
Icicle is staring at me.
“It’s really busy,” he says again.
Traffic is at a standstill in downtown Suttons Bay. I mean, if you call a dozen cars a standstill. A police officer is standing in the middle of the road, as people run around willy-nilly through the street.
Icicle rolls down the van’s window—that’s how old my new news station’s van is—and calls out, “Hey, Trent.”
“Hey, Ice.” The police officer lifts his head up and yells, “News is here! Make me look good!”
Icicle laughs. “Where should I park?”
“Where they won’t eat ya! Ha!”
“What is going on?” I ask. “What am I doing here?”
“Oh, we got a newbie,” Trent says. “Doesn’t look like she’s got much meat on her, though.”
“Excuse me?” I say.
They both laugh, and Icicle follows the sweep of the officer’s hands into a marina parking lot.
I pull on my boots before stepping out of the van.
“You’re a quick study,” Icicle says, laughing.
I laugh. “Quick like a turtle,” I say. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you like everyone calling you Icicle?”
“That’s my name,” he says, pulling his equipment from the van.
“No, your name is Ron. Like your dad.”
He looks at me, then puts his hands on his hips. On the barren landscape, his long, lithe body resembles one of the frozen trees. “I never thought of it like that,” he says.
“It’s a matter of respect,” I say.
“But your name is Amberrose, not Sonny,” he says.
“That’s TV,” I say. “TV folk are like Hollywood actors. We change our names all the time to reinvent ourselves, to make us seem like something else in viewers’ eyes.”
Icicle stares at me like I’m a hole in a wall, and he can see right through me. “What’s your mom think of that? I mean, isn’t that a matter of respect to her?”
My heart suddenly twinges like a bad guitar string.
What does she think of that? What do I think of that, all these years later?
“I don’t know,” I say. “I never asked.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I bet you do.”
I look at Icicle. “Wow, you are a good journalist. Vic Victor, my mentor at WGN, urged me to change my name.”
“Vic Victor?”
I laugh. “See what I mean? Vic was a great guy, but he was old-school, and he believed simple, memorable names—like those old-time movie stars—resonated with viewers. ‘Listen up,’ he told me the first week, ‘Amberrose Murphy sounds like the girl you barely trust with your coffee much less your weather.’ Vic credited his name change as a big reason for his long-term popularity.” I look around, scanning the barren landscape. “I went on vacation to Palm Springs to escape the winter and fell in love with the desert. I knew that’s where I wanted to work. There’s an area in Palm Springs called Sunny Dunes. It’s spelled differently, but it stuck in my head. That’s when I knew. But I really did it for myself. It was a way for me to have a clean break from my past, a new start. I thought I could be a different person, reborn, but it didn’t really turn out that way. I actually ended up living dual lives: half as Amberrose Murphy and half as Sonny Dunes.”
“I get it,” he says. “Maybe you—maybe we—just need to merge the two again.”
Who is this kid? I think.
“Maybe. Sooo,” I say, changing direction. “Are you going to tell me what I’m doing here? I’m supposed to meet Mason Carrier. Why do you need a camera for that?”
“Oh, we’re filming a local winter festival,” Icicle says. “Just a little filler between news segments. Follow me.”
I happily turn away from the wind coming off the bay. My eyes water, and I wipe them with my gloves, and follow Icicle into Suttons Bay.
I forgot just how quaint this adorable little resort town is, even in winter. The town of Suttons Bay, quite literally, sits on Suttons Bay, sort of an ice-cream scooped bay that flows into Grand Traverse Bay, which flows into Lake Michigan. The town is all brightly painted little wooden storefronts and historic cottages that have been turned into retail stores, restaurants, wine bars, art galleries, gardening stores and ice cream shops. It still has its old movie theater, with the original marquee, that shows one movie at a time. Small Town Theater! World Class Cinema! a sign on the building says.
I used to come here to see movies when I was girl, especially in the winter. I loved going to the movies here: the old-time seats and the popcorn drenched in butter. Mostly, I loved dreaming of running away from here, to the magical places shown on screen, where the sun always shined, the sky was blue, the grass was forever green and love was just a mistaken-run-in-with-a-stranger-on-the-beach away.
It is spitting snow, and the only color pops from the painted shops. The storefronts remind me of tulips that implore Michiganders to remain hopeful even when it’s still snowing in May.
I turn. I’ve lost Icicle in the snow.
He should be easy to spot, since he’s like a walking lamppost.
“Icicle!” I yell, immediately feeling like an imbecile for saying that out loud.
I spin left and right, and then step into the street to get a clearer view. I turn toward the bay, thinking he perhaps forgot something in the lot. I squint my eyes.
What in the world?
I see something large, white and amorphous, moving toward town. At first, I think it’s a cloud of snow that’s been lifted off the ground, but it keeps getting bigger and bigger. As it grows closer, I can hear it.
It’s grunting!
And that’s when I can finally discern the white figure in all the white snow: a giant animal—a groaning beast—is charging me.
I scream, so loudly the entire town seems to stop and turn.
No one moves.
All anyone does is grab their cells to record my death.
I stare at it, paralyzed. Its eyes are yellow, its hands like tiger paws, its fur matted, its teeth like razors.
I think of running, but the beast is in full sprint, its dirty breath puffing out of its mouth like smoke from a train.
As it nears, I finally realize it’s not a ten-foot-tall behemoth running on all fours with drool flying, but a person in a costume.
Suddenly, that seems even more terrifying than a wild beast. Why would someone be charging me in a rented Halloween costume? And why is no one trying to stop it?
That’s when I remember taking a self-defense class as part of a news story. I square my body, and when the beast is nearly upon me, I knee it squarely in its nether regions.
“Ow!” it cries.
The creature is bent over, groaning, walking in circles.
It reaches up with its awful paws and pulls off its head.
“What’s going on?” I yell. “What kind of bad joke is this?”
“Got it all!”
I turn, and Icicle is standing beside me, the camera directed on me.
“What the…” I start.
The person turns. The beast now looks a lot like Tom Brady, albeit at fifty-five: piercing cornflower blue eyes, a dimple in his chin deep enough to plant a good-sized tomato plant, dusty blond hair gone silver at the temples that still looks remarkably good after being flattened in a snowman costume. His cheeks are ruddy, and his nose looks as if it may have been broken and then healed at an adorable angle, and he has a scar on his forehead that tells a secret. In short, he’s one of those men who looks amazing without even trying, so unlike the California guys—and especially the TV anchors—whose faces have been lifted and tucked, skin has endured Botox, filler and dermabrasions, whose bodies are so perfect they resemble rectangles, men who are pretty but not handsome.
“Are you okay?” he asks once he’s recovered from my knee. “Are you in shock?”
I realize I’ve been staring, blinking, for way too long.
“You’re not abominable at all,” I finally say.
A booming laugh spills forth, one that sounds like the elusive thunder snow in Michigan.
“Thank you,” he says. “Neither are you, Sonny.”
“How did you know my name?”
“I’m Mason Carrier. Lisa wanted us to meet.” He extends his hand.
“Wait a minute,” I say, the lights finally coming on in my head. “You mean this was a setup.”
He nods.
I turn toward Icicle. He lifts one hand as a sign of a truce. “Hey, this was all Lisa’s idea,” he says. “And, from this footage to introduce you to viewers, she’s going to love it.”
“Welcome to YetiFest,” Mason says.
“YetiFest?”