Page 41 of Under the Weatherman
But as the red light came on the camera, I swallowed down the rising doubt. What if I made a fool of myself?
Chapter Thirteen
Elizabeth
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
Hamlet
I hid in plain sight at my desk, unable to concentrate on the never-ending news. My emotions were in complete turmoil.
I shot a text off to Chelsea.There’s a new weatherman at my job. How am I supposed to avoid a coworker?
In the week after we first met, I would have been over the moon to run into Evan. But then he’d ghosted me. When he finally called me, his reasons became clear, but that only made me feel ten times worse.
My phone vibrated.Just leaving work. Can you get free?
God, I wished. There was never enough time. Lauren’s patience with me had run out after my first day, and I still needed to finalize the rundown. I shot off a self-pitying text.Can’t. Manacled to my desk.
My phone buzzed again.Let’s whisk off to a man-filled island this weekend.
That was always her solution, like I could fuck my feelings away, quite literally. I’d never understood the expressionfight fire with fire. I couldn’t see how fucking some new hookup was supposed to help me forget the last one. The way I figured it, I’d end up doubling my sorrow.
I typed:I think I just need to go into witness protection.
She shot back:Thoughts and prayers.
That was code for: I can’t help you if you won’t let me. But there wasn’t anything to do right now. Short of quitting, I had no options for avoiding Evan.
I wiped my eyes to clear them so I could futz with the rundown script until it was good enough. Nobody expected Sandra or Kent to lay down a Shakespearian soliloquy.
The next hour passed in a blur of activity as the final news stories were chosen, but when I looked around the newsroom to flag Lauren for her approval, she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she trusted me enough to do the job without constant supervision finally.
“Lauren’s tied up with the hot weather dude,” Gigi said.
I pushed my chair back and rolled the kink out of my shoulders. It was fast approaching six.
Tom popped his head out of the control room and waved at me. “Lauren’s busy. Can you take over?”
I swallowed. I’d seen Lauren lead production for the past three nights, but I wasn’t nearly prepared. “Shit.”
“Come on," he said. “I’ll give you a hand.”
In Lauren’s seat, I put on her headset, nuclear butterflies trying to claw through my stomach. “What do I do?”
“Just watch that clock,” he said, “Make sure everyone’s in place, then count it down to the pre-show teaser. Easy peasy.”
Right. How hard could it be?
“Talk directly into the mic. Everyone will be able to hear you.” He laughed. “Don’t say anything inappropriate.”
His advice was counterproductive: telling me not to say something inappropriate was like asking me not to think about elephants. Or dick jokes. Bad idea.
I stared at the clock as if it were tied to a bomb that needed defusing. Panic set in. Never mind the red wire versus the blue wire, could I count backwards from five? Was it too late to quit?
Tom pointed at me, and I said, “Here we go.”
The monitors came on, and there stood Evan, without his glasses, shaved, and wearing an expression that could only be described ashey girl.
