“Do you want to get a cup of coffee?”
“Nah.”
I don’t lift my head to look at Icicle.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
I hear the door shut, and I sigh.
I am hunched over a computer in “the cave,” my term for the dark, tiny room where the weather team is housed. I am as bleak as the weather. I have taken my agent’s advice to heart: just keep my mouth shut and do my job.
I hear the door squeak open again.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!”
There is silence for a second, before Icicle says, “You don’t sound fine.”
I spin in my chair, and Icicle’s eyes grow big as a satellite dish. I take a deep breath and say as calmly as possible, “I said I’m fine.”
He looks at me. “You don’t look fine.”
“Sit.”
He does.
“You wanna know something? The snowplow guy came before dawn this morning, and I got out of bed to watch him. It’s something my sister and I used to do.”
“How old is he?” Icicle asks.
“It’s a mystery,” I say. “His name is Phil, and I realized this morning that he’s been doing his job without much praise his whole life. No matter the weather, he shows up and performs. And when he’s done, I—like so many other people he’ll never really know—will be able to go on with my day. It finally dawned on me that my job is a lot like his. And that I should be like Phil. Show up. Shut up. Do my job. Help as needed. Go on with my day. Sonny got used to having a lot of attention and celebrity. Sonny got used to great ratings and big bonuses. Maybe Sonny needed to learn a lesson and grow up.”
Icicle narrows his eyes and scrunches his face. “Why are you talking about yourself in third person? It’s kinda weird.” He stops and looks at me, his face now serious. “You tripped at the end of the race.” Icicle shrugs. “You were tired. It was an accident. It happens.”
“Have you seen the viral videos lately?” I grab my cell. “Here’s one titled ‘How Far Can Sonny Fall?’ Here’s one that shows me falling that’s set to music: ‘Free Fallin’’ by Tom Petty. And this one? ‘Fallin’’ by Alicia Keys. Oh, and this one to that ’80s song ‘Catch Me I’m Falling’ already has over a hundred thousand views. They added a sound effect at the end when Polly Sue hits me on the head that makes it sound as if she’s thumping a bad melon.”
I hit play. Icicle laughs. Hard.
“Yeah, that was a good one,” he says, before putting a hand over his mouth. “Sorry.”
I play it again.
“It is funny.”
I put my cell down and look at Icicle. He’s all dressed up for the weekend shift—in a cute, skinny 1950s tie and tie clip and a vest, looking very Fred MacMurray, though he wouldn’t have any clue who that is—although there’s only a winter skeleton crew here covering local-yokel news of fundraisers and council meetings.
I’m part of that crew. Over a quarter century of experience, and I’m working Saturdays again. I might as well be at the Gap.
“You want to know the really funny thing, Icicle? I’m pretty sure I didn’t trip. I don’t know what happened. I was running really well. I felt strong. There was nothing in my way.”
“Maybe someone dropped something on the ground over where you had to tag Polly Sue?”
I shake my head. “I was so focused. I mean I can still picture the road in front of me. It was clear as a bell.”
“I would tell you to shake it off, but my dad always says that to me, and I hate it,” he says. “I guess it’s what athletes say to one another, but it’s really just a way of saying, ‘Ignore what you feel. Bury your emotions. Keep going for the sake of the team.’” Icicle looks at me. “I was never really part of a team. Until now.”
I smile. “You’re a good person, you know that?”
He shakes his head as if he either can’t believe it, or has rarely heard it. “You are,” I say. “Believe that.”
He looks away. “Thanks, Sonny. Are you sure you don’t want a coffee?”
“You twisted my leg,” I say. “Which is already twisted from my fall. Make it my usual, with an extra shot. Long day here alone. Thanks.”
“Back in a sec,” he says.
I spin around in my chair and return to the tools of my trade: radar images, monitoring weather patterns, checking out NASA satellite images.
Winter pattern. Same ole, same ole.
I yawn. I pick up my cell to check how many views the viral videos have gotten—being a meteorologist, it just seems right to put a number to my humiliation—when I notice something from NASA. I look again. My heart races. I lean closer to the screen.
No! Could that be a polar vortex forming?
What most people don’t realize is that there is always a polar vortex. Actually two of them, one in each hemisphere, north and south.
I close my eyes. After going to Northwestern and working in Chicago, I can actually quote The National Weather Service’s definition of a polar vortex word for word, even after all these years away because I was still fascinated by the winter weather in Michigan even though I lived on the other side of the country. I pull up the NWS site and smile. They explain it so perfectly to laymen, which is how I must do it for viewers.
“One polar vortex exists in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere, which is where we live and where the weather happens. The other exists in the second-lowest, called the stratosphere, a shroud of thin air that gets warmer at higher altitudes.
“The polar vortex is a large area of low pressure and cold air surrounding both of the Earth’s poles. It weakens in summer and strengthens in winter. The term ‘vortex’ refers to the counterclockwise flow of air that helps keep the colder air near the Poles. Many times during winter in the northern hemisphere, the polar vortex will expand, sending cold air southward with the jet stream, something that often occurs during wintertime and is often associated with large outbreaks of arctic air in the United States.”
I click on my computer to pull up the radar again. I bend even closer to study it.
If both of these polar vortexes align, Michigan—and much of the U.S.—will be akin to that forgotten bag of ice-covered peas you discover in the back of the freezer in the garage, covered in layers of impenetrable cold.
I bend even lower.
The windchill in northern Canada is currently seventy below zero.
I sit up. I check the area’s record low temperatures.
I sit up even straighter.
If that were to come here, we could be looking at the coldest temperatures in history. And not just here, but as far south as St. Louis and Indianapolis.
My heart is thumping in my chest. On the palpitation level, I’m somewhere between personal panic of what this could mean for Michigan and meteorological excitement for possibly discovering something that has yet to be discovered.
I search my laptop, looking to see if anyone has yet to predict this.
Nothing.
My heart beats even faster.
“Here’s your coffee.”
“Come here!”
“Your mood has changed, and you haven’t even had any caffeine.”
“Look! What do you see?”
Icicle hands me my coffee and then leans over to look at the screens.
“Polar vortex?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure?”
“I think so,” I say. “A huge one. My mentor, who spent his career working for WGN in Chicago, explained a mega polar vortex event to me this way, which I saw explained the same way in a recent Washington Post article. He always said to imagine the tropospheric polar vortex as a backyard full of dogs, and the jet stream is a fence. The dogs are always trying to escape through gaps in the fence. Sometimes, a few of them manage to get out and cause a little damage, like when they get into your garbage can, a couple of days of very cold weather. But on occasion, the fence collapses and the dogs run wild. That is when historic cold occurs. The entire fence is collapsing, Icicle. And these puppies aren’t just cold, they’re historically cold.”
He looks at me. “What if you’re wrong?”
“What if I’m right?” I ask. “That’s the challenge of being a good meteorologist. Matching science with your hunches. What if I don’t forecast this, and it happens? Think of the good people around here, their homes and animals. Think of our farmers, their crops and livestock. Think of the orchards and their fruit. Think about towns like Leland and its Fishtown shanties along the water, and what a massive buildup of ice coupled with the winds could do to those historic structures.” I stop. “My career is pretty much in shambles already. I’d rather be wrong than risk not being right.”
“You’re a good person, Sonny,” he says, echoing what I said earlier. “Believe that.”
I smile.
“You always wanted to be a weatherman, right?”
He nods excitedly.
“Study this. Find out everything you can. I’m going to talk to Lisa.”
“You two are talking?”
“We actually resolved our issues, I think. I decided to be honest.”
“Honesty is the best policy,” he says.
“Did you just come up with that?”
We laugh, and then I pick up the phone to call Lisa.
The Big M, where Lisa has asked to meet me, is a Michigan sports bar filled with U of M and State memorabilia and fans. I spot Lisa already at a table for two and take the seat opposite her.
“Hey!” I say.
“Same ole, same ole,” Lisa says, shaking her head at the large screen TV behind us. Northwestern is playing Michigan State in basketball. The Wildcats are being mauled by the Spartans.
A waitress comes by to take our order. She is young and peppy. I feel old and tired. I think of what my father used to say: “I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.”
“I think you’re the only Northwestern fan in here,” she says to Lisa, who is dressed from head to toe in purple.
“Make it two,” I say. “I went to Northwestern, as well.”
The waitress is wearing a formfitting, green long-sleeve T-shirt with the image of an angry-looking Spartan on the front.
“Oh, my gosh. You’re Sonny Dunes, aren’t you?” She looks at me like she has just been slapped. “You’re famous.”
“You mean infamous, right?”
“No,” she gushes. “Not at all! My grandma and grampa live in Palm Springs. They adored you when you were there. Watched you every night. Said you were the best weather person they’d ever seen. And they’ve lived in New York, LA, Dallas, Detroit. I started watching you when you came here. They will absolutely die when I tell them I met you. Can I get a selfie with you?”
I nod my head, and the waitress grabs the cell from the pocket of an apron tied around her waist. She leans in and snaps a photo.
“What can I get you?” she asks. “On the house.”
“Surprise me,” I say. “And if it’s on the house, make it a double.”
She laughs. “Back in a sec.”
I look at Lisa. “That’s the type of reaction I was hoping for a couple of months ago.” She scans the bar. People are looking at our table. Some are whispering. Some are taking photos. “Not that.” I pause. “As I mentioned, I need to talk to you about something important.”
“I’m so thankful you were able to share so much with me the other day, and I’m beyond grateful we resolved our personal differences, but I just want you to know right here and now that I cannot give you your job back, Sonny. You’re still on thin ice with the advertisers.” She winces. “And, yes, I know that was a terrible analogy for this time of year.”
I smile. Lisa does, too.
“At least that broke the ice,” I say.
“Ha-ha.” She takes a sip of her very dark beer.
“But that’s not what I wanted to discuss, if you can believe it.”
“Oh, really? Now I’m intrigued. You know, that’s why I asked you to a public place. I knew you couldn’t cause a scene if you asked for your job back, and I declined.”
“Sneaky,” I say. “It’s like breaking up with someone. You do it in a public place to minimize the potential drama.”
She nods. “I’ve been broken up with a lot in my life.”
My heart sinks for her. It has to be hard to be that girl who always tries so hard to be liked and yet friendships never come naturally or easily. The more certain people try, the more those around them sense it and turn away from them. It reeks of desperation. I’ve seen it my entire life, from grade school to the news station. The strong avoid the weak. The pretty stick with the pretty. The jocks stick with the jocks. We stick with those most like us, not because they necessarily make the best friends, but because we don’t want to give any indication to others that we may be weak or vulnerable, too.
“Here you go.”
I look up, and our waitress is holding a glass filled nearly to the brim with red wine.
“Now that’s a big pour,” I say.
“I called my grandparents in Palm Springs just now, and they told me they remembered how much you liked good wine,” the waitress says. She looks around and then leans down and whispers, “We’re not really known for our wine at this bar, but my boss does keep a few really good bottles hidden in the back for special guests.”
I try it. My eyes widen.
The waitress looks as if she’s holding her breath.
“It’s really good,” I say.
“Whew.” She sighs. “I’m so glad. The rest of the bottle’s for you.”
I look at my glass. “There’s some left?”
She laughs.
“I don’t want you to get into any trouble,” I say.
“It’s fine,” she says, wiping her hands on her apron. “I’m moving to Chicago in the spring for a new job. My parents and grandparents would kill me if they sent me to college and I spent my life serving beer and wings.”
“Casey!”
The waitress turns when she hears her name. “Gotta go.”
I take a sip from my overflowing glass before holding it up toward Lisa. “Cheers!”
She clinks my glass. “Now please tell me what we’re cheering.”
“I think we’re going to have a record-shattering polar vortex.”
Lisa looks at me. “That’s something to celebrate? What? When?”
“Within the next few weeks,” I say. “I was studying the radar today, and I can see it happening, Lisa. It’s going to be bigger, longer and colder than anything we’ve seen in decades.” I stop. “And no one is forecasting this yet.”
Lisa narrows her eyes at me. “Is this your way of fooling me into giving you your job back?”
“No! No!” I realize I am shouting, and people are looking over. I think whenever anyone looks at me anymore, they think, “Here she goes again!” I lower my voice. “Lisa, I honestly don’t care who the chief meteorologist is right now. I don’t even care if Polly Sue gets all the credit for this. I just want to be sure people have time to protect their families, farms, orchards, homes and towns.” I reach into my purse for the printouts and forecasts I’ve already developed.
“Wow,” Lisa says, looking them over. “You’ve done your homework.” She looks up at me. “This is why I really hired you, you know? There’s no better meteorologist than you.” She takes a drink of her beer. “But—let me just throw this out there for your sake—what if you’re wrong? This could be your last straw in management’s eyes.”
“I’m not wrong. And what have I got to lose?”
“But the station’s reputation is on the line. My reputation is on the line.”
“Just blame me if I blow it, Lisa. You can say you fired me for…” I stop and laugh. “I think you already have a laundry list of reasons.”
“And if you get it right?”
“I just want to do my job, Lisa. This is making me remember why I got into doing this in the first place.” I stop. “If I can save one person from losing a life…”
“Like your sister?” she asks.
I nod.
“I’ll talk to the station manager, and I’ll talk to Polly Sue.”
“Thank you, Lisa.”
Lisa polishes off her beer, glances at the score of the game—which is not good for Northwestern—signals the waitress for the check and pushes her chair back as if she’s ready to leave.
“Tell me about your childhood, Lisa. Tell me about your life.” I look at her. “I mean, if you want and have the time.” I look away nervously. “I shared a lot the other day. And I know I should have asked a long time ago.”
Lisa looks into her empty glass. “Thank you,” she says, finally looking up at me. “For asking.” And then she pulls up her chair again, points at her glass and yells, “Casey! I’m gonna need another beer, and she’s gonna need the rest of the bottle.”
When her beer arrives, Lisa takes a sip and says, “I was best friends with my father growing up. We were each other’s worlds. When I was ten, my parents told me they were getting divorced, and I was devastated. Less than a year later, my dad married the woman he was having an affair with, and they started a new family. They had three children in four years, and it was like I didn’t even exist anymore. My whole life has been spent wondering what I did wrong, why my father didn’t love me, and how could I earn his love back. I did everything right, Sonny. Everything. I was top of my class in high school. I was top of my class at Northwestern. I run my own news station. And it’s still like I’m a ghost, like my father’s life before his new family was a mirage.”
Suddenly, everything falls into place. The desperation I sensed in Lisa was all because of her father.
I reach out and take Lisa’s hand. “I’m so sorry I never asked you. I’m so sorry for all you went through. And I’m so sorry for how I treated you in school. I only saw my own pain, no one else’s, and that was very selfish on my part. You didn’t cause your parents’ divorce or your father’s abandonment. We both just have to learn to forgive ourselves.” I shake Lisa’s hand like my mother does mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong. And you never have.”
“Thank you for listening,” she says. “You’re so good with people.” Lisa takes another drink of beer. “Well, most of the time.”
She laughs for way too long.
“Okay,” I say. “That’s enough laughing.”
“Even our waitress. People are drawn to you, Sonny. They always have been, even in college.”
“You know, it was a facade I perfected. If I could ingratiate myself to people, then they were more likely to take me at face value and less likely to go deeper. My friends were too often props in my life and too often not people I needed to help me. Coming back home has taught me a lot.”
“Thank you for sharing that,” Lisa says. “Thank you for sharing so much lately.”
“Took a while.”
“Well, you should teach me some of those skills,” Lisa says. “Even the way you stand up to people. It may drive me nuts as your boss, but I have to admit I respect your gumption on a personal level. You’re a fighter. People respect that.”
“Northwestern sucks!”
A drunk man with a Grizzly Adams beard stops a few feet from our table. He wobbles on his feet.
“Northwestern sucks!’” He points at the television. “Scoreboard!”
Lisa looks at me. Her eyes are wide. She looks as though she wants to flee.
I wink at her. “You got this one.”
“Did you play ball at State?” Lisa asks.
“Huh?” the man asks.
“I didn’t think so. See, I went to Northwestern for the education. It’s one of the world’s top universities. I went to study with the best professors, the smartest, most diverse student body, in the most current facilities, with the most incredible job opportunities and networking. I didn’t go there for the sports programs, though I am proud of what Pat Fitzgerald and Chris Collins have done to turn around the football and basketball programs. Northwestern doesn’t suck. Your childish behavior does.”
The man gives Lisa the finger and yells, “Scoreboard!”
“That’s all right, that’s okay, you will work for us one day!” we both chant, our hands in the air.
“Well, not you,” Lisa yells, turning toward the man. “I would never hire you!”
We high-five.
I point. People are recording Lisa’s outburst.
“Well done,” I say. “And welcome to the club.”