Page 65 of Under the Weatherman
“Okay,” I said, with a bit of attitude. She’d been rude to me before, but somehow it stung more to get chewed out right in front of Evan.
“Just get back there and stay.” She turned and headed back toward the dumpster fire of the control room, and I stared after her, knowing I should go, but not wanting to jump to her orders like a dog to heel.
“Does she always talk to you like that?” Evan asked.
“It’s been getting worse.”
“You should complain to HR.”
“I’m on probation here, Evan.” I frowned, grateful that he was taking my side but also annoyed that he probably never had to deal with stuff like this. My shoulders sagged. He wasn’t the bad guy. “I’m sorry. Everyone’s just so tense.”
He was across the room in a heartbeat, his hand gently resting on my wrist. “You don’t need to apologize or make excuses.”
I sniffled, and God I felt so dumb, getting upset over nothing. “I just hate feeling incompetent.”
“You’re not incompetent. You’reinexperienced. There’s a world of difference.”
“Tell that to Lauren,” I said, scoffing.
“Okay, I will.” He started to march out of the weather lab like he meant to confront Lauren on my behalf, but I definitely did not want him or need him to fight my battles.
“Whoa.” I hooked his elbow, and he immediately spun to face me, an impish grin on his face that let me know he was being dramatic for an effect. Though I suspected if I hadn’t stopped him, he would have told Lauren to pick on people her own size.
He cocked an eyebrow in challenge.
I laughed. “Don’t be disappointed when I don’t pick a fight with my boss, but thank you for the laugh. I better hurry before she comes back.”
“You’ve got this.” He tipped an invisible hat, like some do-gooder cowboy, then returned to his desk.
I slunk back down to the control room, avoiding Lauren who was speaking in clipped tones to everyone, though with far less insulting language. It seemed like an eternity had passed since this insanity began, but it had only been twenty minutes, and the techs already had the feed ready to go.
Lauren put on her headset and said, “I need you to watch and learn. Do you think you can manage that?” She snapped her fingers in my face. “Focus.”
My soul shrank, and I thought about all the times Chelsea explained to me why having a mean dad had ruined her for men, how the constant belittling, the tone, the walking on eggshells diminished her one day at a time until she cowered at the slightest whisper, like an accusation that she’d donesomethingwrong, even though she didn’t know what. How had she lived like that for years? No wonder she’d built walls two feet thick around her heart.
But she’d come through it tough as nails, and I was still soft as a marshmallow. She’d never tolerate anyone talking to her the way Lauren did just now. My parents had protected me from the thorns, encouraging me to thrive, but somehow I’d disappeared behind my siblings, never learning to fight my own battles, to speak up for myself, to even know what it was I wanted.
I stepped back, into the darkest part of the control room, watching but also not. In my mind, I was picturing that letter to Kate in my drafts folder. Not the one where I resigned, but the other, the one where I laid out my case for a full-time position.
I’d send it tomorrow. What was the worst that could happen? The premature arrival of the inevitable?
The professionals worked modern-day magic, disrupting the evening sitcoms or whatever to warn the public of an imminent threat, and that was the first time it registered to me I should have texted Chelsea. I should have worried about my own danger in the newsroom.
But while we were on air, Eric, our field reporter, announced the perpetrator had been apprehended. With the public menace neutralized, Eric signed off saying, “More on this developing story at eleven.”
And then we were back to business as usual.
Lauren shot me a nasty look as we left the control room. “Come with me.”
What had I done this time? There was a chance she wanted to discuss the rundown for the evening newscast, but as soon as we crossed the threshold of her office, she said, “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“What do you mean?” Undefined shame spiraled through me, and I wanted to curl into a ball until she was done with me.
“We were dealing with a five alarm fire, and your impulse was to go flirt?”
“I wasn’t—”
She held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter now. The point is, I needed you, and I couldn’t count on you.”
