And Now, Back to You — Chapter no 3

CHAPTER 3

JACKSON

I lie face down in the middle of the hallway on top of Delilah Stewart, my pride somewhere on the floor with my coffee.

“Hello, Delilah.” I sigh, trying to figure out if anything is broken or just badly bruised. My glasses are nowhere to be found. Everything is blurry

smudges of color.

“Hello, Jackson.”

She sounds defeated.

“Always a pleasure.”

Beneath me, Delilah snickers. “Something like that,” she says, her voice low and sweet. A laugh, caught somewhere behind her teeth.

Well, I’m glad one of us finds this funny.

Delilah squirms, somehow managing to knock me in the groin and the solar plexus at the same time.

“Please,” I groan, directly into her ear. She smells like my light roast coffee and something sweeter. Strawberry jam, maybe. “Please stop moving,” I beg.

She immediately stills and I drop my forehead to her shoulder. I can’t breathe, and I can’t stand up if I can’t breathe.

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

“Trying not to die,” I wheeze.

She huffs and wiggles again. One hand pats at my rib cage. “There, there,” she says awkwardly. “Easy does it.”

I snort a laugh and some of her hair flutters around my face. Delilah Stewart, Human Disaster, strikes again. Somehow we’ve found ourselves stuck in a loop with each other. Every time I see her, something inevitably goes wrong. We’re the opposite of magnets, blasting away as soon as we enter each other’s force field.

She gives me another pat, then drops her hands to her side.

“I would appreciate it,” she says, her voice muffled, “if you removed yourself from my person now.”

I press up on my knees with no small amount of effort, a heavy grunt at the base of my throat as I steady myself with my hands planted over her shoulders. Without my glasses, I can only see her vague outline. Smudges of color against a pale white floor.

Chestnut brown. Ruby red. Deep emerald green. She must still be wearing her turtle suit.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispers.

“Like what?”

A hand flutters in front of my face. “Squinting.”

“I can’t see without my glasses,” I grind out, grunting when her knee hits the inside of my thigh. I almost go down again. “You know. Those things that are always on my face.”

“Oh.” One arm presses above her head, her elbow glancing along my side. My shirt is wet and sticking to my chest but all I can focus on is the places we’re touching. My knees, pressed between hers. The inside of my left wrist, brushing against her hair. This is the closest I’ve been to a woman in six months and naturally, it’s Delilah Stewart. In the middle of the newsroom floor at the local television station. In the world’s most uncomfortable game of Twister.

Breaking News. Local Man Makes Fool of Himself with Woman Dressed as Turtle.

I’m my worst self with Delilah, and it’s entirely her fault.

“Here,” she says, fingers easing the frames over my nose. She holds them there with her thumb between my eyes, then gives me a bright smile. Now I can see every detail of her face beneath mine. The collection of freckles on either side of her nose. The slight gap between her two front teeth. Her long hair, spilling out beneath her on the floor.

“There,” she says. “Good as new.”

I blink at her. “These are my favorite glasses.”

“And they look great.”

She removes her hand and they tilt crooked. One half of her is blurry, the other in focus. Her hand snaps back into place, holding them steady.

“I can fix them,” she whispers.

“Please don’t.” I’m not interested in whatever that nightmare brain cooks up next. I replace her hand with mine, holding the glasses against my face.

I shift to the side and leverage myself up, extending a hand to help her.

She ignores it, crawling up slowly after me instead, using the wall for leverage. She has a giant coffee stain in the middle of her turtle-clad chest, one side of her hair wet at the ends. I have a stain, too, slowly spreading across my abdomen.

We stand there in the corner of the bustling newsroom, staring at each other. No one pays us any attention, and I have to wonder: How often is Delilah tackling people to the ground?

“So,” she says. “What are you doing over here?”

When I stare at her blankly from behind my broken glasses, her cheeks flush pink. “I usually see you in the parking lot,” she explains. “Not in the

middle of the station.”

“I have a meeting.”

She stops trying to wring the coffee out of her hair. “Here?”

“Not in the hallway, no, but at this station. Yes.”

She frowns. “With who?”

“I’m not exactly sure.” I reach into my wet pocket and pull out the half- crumpled note that was left on my desk at the radio station. Delilah plucks it out of my hand. “Help yourself,” I mumble.

“YBAL offices,” she reads. “Ask for Keith.” Her eyes close in defeat as she slaps the note against the middle of my wet chest. “I think I know

where your meeting is.”

“Where?”

She points wordlessly at the half-ajar door no more than two feet away. I

glance at it.

“Great,” I say slowly. “Thanks.”

I move toward it and Delilah follows. I stop abruptly at the threshold and she bumps into my back.

“Is there something I can help you with?” I’m still holding my glasses to the side of my face. “Want one more shot before we go our separate ways?”

“Fun as that sounds”—resignation firms the corners of her mouth—“I

have a meeting too.”

I point at the door. “In this room?”

She nods. “Yup.”

“With me?”

“It would seem so.”

A prickling sense of awareness creeps up my spine, itching between my shoulders.

I’m not going to like whatever happens in this office. I know it.

“If you have a meeting, why were you walking in the opposite direction?”

“Because I wanted to spare myself the humiliation of sitting in a business meeting dressed as a tortoise.” She gestures at her coffee-stained chest.

“Clearly, that’s no longer a concern.”

We linger at the doorway playing the world’s most awkward game of

chicken.

“Are you going to go inside?”

“I’m really not sure,” I answer. “I’m considering climbing out the window, actually.”

She snickers. “I think it’s too late for that. Our fate is sealed.”

Fate. It rattles around my skull and plunks down to land somewhere in the middle of my chest. A marble in an empty soda can. A tuning fork, vibrating at a frequency I can’t hear.

A silly thing, for silly people. I control what happens. Not some mystical

force.

“Says who?” I ask.

“Says me.” Maggie appears in the doorway. Her eyes flick briefly to where I’m holding my glasses together. “You’re late.”

“I thought our meeting was at the station.” Our station. “I’m here now.”

“Yes, and with quite the stunning entrance.” Her face remains impassive, but delight shines in her catlike eyes. They cut in Delilah’s direction, softening slightly. “Do you need a minute before we get started?”

Delilah shrugs. “It can’t get much worse, can it?”

It can, in fact, get worse.

The four of us sit in silence in Keith’s spacious office. Keith, who didn’t

so much as grunt a greeting when we all finally settled around the meeting table. Keith, who looks more enamored with his extra-large Dunkin’ frozen coffee than whatever it is we’re here to discuss. Keith, who seems determined to make this a power play between himself and Maggie by remaining frustratingly disinterested and silent.

I try to grab Maggie’s attention with a look that appropriately conveys What is happening? and Why am I here for it? but she’s busy trying to disintegrate Keith’s skull with her stare.

This could have, by every definition, been an email.

If it were, maybe my glasses would have survived the morning.

Delilah sits in a corner of the room on a too-small folding chair that looks like it might collapse at any second. Either Keith couldn’t move his chair to make room for her, or he refused to.

Given how this meeting is going, I have my suspicions.

She pinches her turtle top and pulls it away from her chest with a grimace.

I clear my throat and three sets of eyes snap to mine.

“I, uh—” I nod at Delilah, trying to force my face into something polite.

If no one wants to start this meeting, the least I can do is make small talk. I

can try. “I like your suit.”

She blinks at me. “What?”

“The . . . turtle thing. You look nice.”

Maggie immediately stomps on my foot—hard—beneath the table. I suck in a sharp breath through my teeth.

“Be nice,” she whispers under her breath.

What would have been nice is if Maggie didn’t ambush me with a surprise meeting with Delilah Stewart, of all people.

“Oh, um.” Delilah glances down at herself, like she’s forgotten she’s

dressed as a reptile. “Thank you?”

“Do you like turtles?” I ask.

A crease appears in the middle of her forehead. “Turtles are fine.”

“I’ve heard female sea turtles use the earth’s magnetic field to return to the same beach where they were born to lay their eggs.”

Delilah looks at me like I’m the one about to lay eggs. She scratches her temple and adjusts her position on the uncomfortable metal chair. “That’s, um. That’s great?”

My enthusiasm for the conversation, limited as it was, slowly ebbs. Of

course Delilah doesn’t know anything about turtles. She probably tossed on her little costume and headed out the door for her turtle feature without a care in the world for preparation. The same way she approaches the weather.

Suddenly, I feel the need to quote even more turtle facts. It’s imperative that I know more about turtles than she does.

“Did you know that turtles—”

“Keith,” Maggie interrupts, cutting me off with a withering look. “Maybe we should get started.”

“You could have let me finish,” I mumble under my breath.

Maggie shakes her head. “Absolutely no one in this room wanted you to finish,” she whispers. She tips her chin up to Keith. “Shall we?”

“Sure,” he says with all the enthusiasm of a cloud of dust. He swivels back and forth in his chair, one hand perched under his chin, the other curled around his frozen drink. He brings it to his mouth and takes a loud slurp from the orange straw, his bloated cheeks wobbling.

Delilah exhales a short, frustrated sound from the corner.

I know Keith. Everyone in Baltimore knows Keith. He had a successful broadcast career in the early nineties before taking on a senior administrative role with the station. They used to call him the Face of Baltimore, but I’ve always found his face to be largely insufferable. His personality too. He’s arrogant, self-centered, and he uses way too much hair product on far too little hair. Two years ago, he led a one-man campaign to rename the road that leads into the station after himself. The city denied him, and when he tried to petition the public for grassroots support, they denied him as well. He seems determined to hold on to his glory days, despite being almost three decades past.

I have no idea why we’re giving this guy our time. It’s not like Maggie to entertain the antics of an asshole.

“Keith,” Maggie says again, some of her endless patience beginning to slip. “If you don’t mind, we have a broadcast of our own to get back to.”

“Ah, yes.” His smile is condescending, his too-white teeth glinting under the fluorescents. “Your little radio show. Wouldn’t want to be late for that.”

Maggie’s answering smile is as sharp as her response. “Our little radio show has almost three times the organic reach as your little news station. It is the reason, as you recall, we are having this conversation.”

Keith’s eyes flash. He sets his coffee to the side.

“Too right,” he snaps. “Jackson. Delilah. You’re here as part of a new proposed partnership between 101.6 LITE FM and YBAL News.”

“What?” I ask at the same time Delilah blurts, “Why?”

Keith finally turns his head to look at Delilah, his lip curling. “To report the weather.”

“Like . . . together?” She glances at me and points one fin in my direction. She’s been tugging them on and off her hands since we sat down at this meeting. “As in, the both of us?”

“Yes, that is the plan.” Maggie clasps her hands in front of her on the table. She’s in negotiation mode while I’m playing catch-up in the seat next to her. My brain is stuck on the word partnership—as in two people working together toward a common goal.

The only thing Delilah and I have ever been aligned on is chaos. The only thing we’ve ever worked toward together is mutual destruction.

“Jackson,” Maggie says. “What does the Farmers’ Almanac say about February?”

“Um.” I blink away from Delilah and press my glasses up my nose. “It says we’ll see colder than usual temperatures this winter, which has held true.”

“And the storms?” Maggie asks, not looking away from Keith. “What does it say about the storms?”

“It says we should expect historic snow conditions.” I frown. “Though the storms Maryland has seen this winter have been right on par with previous seasons.”

“You just . . . have the Farmers’ Almanac memorized?” Delilah asks.

Her tone makes it clear that rote memorization of the almanac is not something to be proud of. I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s helpful information.”

“For all those . . . crops you have at home?”

“Farmers aren’t the only ones who use that almanac,” I defend. “It has

plenty of helpful applications.”

“Sure.”

“I get a copy every year. It’s—” I huff. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Do you get a copy of the Yellow Pages too?” Her lips lift at the corners.

“Do you have a Rolodex?”

I do have a Rolodex that sits on the corner of my desk at the radio station

where I keep all my contacts. I like writing things down on paper. It makes it easier for me to find them. But over my dead body am I going to admit that to Delilah.

Apparently, I don’t have to. She studies my face for the span of three seconds, then descends into a bright, cackling laugh.

“Oh my god, you do. You have a Rolodex.”

I turn and look at Maggie. “This isn’t going to work.”

Any partnership I have with Delilah will result in us at each other’s throats. I can’t work with someone so fundamentally different from myself.

She probably uses a map and a set of crystals to predict the weather. A Magic 8 Ball.

Maggie pats my forearm gently. “It’ll be fine. Just listen, and we’ll talk through the rest of the details later, okay?”

“What details?” I bite out. “What, exactly, are you suggesting?”

“Is it alphabetized?” Delilah volleys from her side of the room.

I slant my eyes in her direction. She’s practically vibrating in her metal folding chair. “Is what alphabetized?”

“Your Rolodex. Do you keep it alphabetized?”

“How else do you suggest I keep my Rolodex?” I’m not a goddamned monster.

She presses her lips together. “I really can’t tell if you’re joking right now,” she whispers.

I pointedly turn my attention to my boss, who is gazing at the tabletop as if she’d like nothing more than to be absorbed within the wood grain.

“What, exactly, are you suggesting?”

“We’ve pulled together some weather projections and run them by the folks down at the National Weather Service,” Keith offers, somehow managing to sound both smug and stupid in the same breath. “We’ll obviously know more in the coming days, but there’s a snowstorm heading our way that could bring record-breaking snowfall.”

I’ve seen similar markers in the models I’ve been watching, but it’s far too early to tell if it’s a passing low-pressure system, or the start of a massive storm barreling down over the mountains.

Delilah’s amusement evaporates. “You sent in those projections? The ones I gave you last week?”

“By the looks of it, Western Maryland is about to get walloped,” Keith says, not bothering to acknowledge Delilah or her question. She might as

well be a pretty picture on the wall for the amount of attention he’s given her in this meeting. “It’s too early to issue any warnings, of course, but all the ingredients are there. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime storm.”

“When I brought you those projections, you told me they were garbage,”

Delilah says. The legs of her chair screech across the floor as she tries to keep their conversation private. “You said they weren’t usable.”

Keith flicks his fingers. “Because they weren’t. Megan at the National Weather Service gave us usable data.”

“But it was my report you used. I laid everything out. I collected the data and I drew out the projections. I—” She pauses and swallows heavily. “That was my work, Keith.”

“That was the station’s work. I was the one who coordinated everything with the NWS.”

“But it was my analysis. The low-pressure system over the Rockies and the precipitation coming up from the Gulf. I—”

“Used station resources aggregating it,” Keith says, his voice sharpening.

“Have you been waiting for your shiny gold star, Delilah? Congratulations.

You did your job.” He rolls his eyes and shifts so his back is to her, wedged in the corner of the room. Something twists in my gut, even as I try to come to terms with the fact that Delilah apparently doesn’t use a cup of sticks to

predict the weather.

“What model did you use?” I ask.

Delilah reluctantly lifts her eyes to mine. “The European model.”

“Ah,” I say, satisfied that I didn’t miss something. “Okay.”

Her mouth pinches and pink brushes across the tops of her cheeks. “Is there something wrong with the European model, Jackson?”

“The Global Forecast System model is better.”

“Not in the winter, it isn’t.”

“When you’re looking at a lead of longer than five days, your best bet is —”

“The point remains,” Keith interrupts, sounding like he’d rather drown himself in the harbor than listen to us talk about weather models for another second, “a storm is coming and if we hope to maximize engagement for both of our stations, we need to coordinate our efforts now.”

“Coordinate? Why would we coordinate?” I ask. I turn halfway toward Maggie. “Do you see this impacting the radio station’s weather updates?”

“This will be all the region is talking about, Jackson,” Maggie says. “It’s

going to be bigger than the weather update. We hope to dedicate a whole segment to it for the duration of the storm.”

“Oh, that’s fine.” I try to catch Delilah’s eye. “Feel free to double broadcast, or whatever it is you intend to do. No hard feelings from me.”

She blinks at me, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Even though I use an inferior model?” she snipes.

I crack a smile. I like her rattled. “Even then.”

“We had something else in mind, actually,” Maggie hedges. I stare and wait. This entire meeting is twenty questions, apparently. I wish everyone would stop talking in riddles and just explain what the hell is going on.

Maggie must be able to sense my growing frustration because she straightens her shoulders. Fixes me with a severe, unrelenting look.

“The two of you are going to cover the storm with joint broadcasts for the duration of the snowfall. We’re sending you to Garrett County, Jackson.

You’re going to cover the storm live, right where it’s supposed to hit the hardest.” She gestures across the table at Delilah. “And you’re going to do it together.”

DELILAH STEWART: Now, if you look way out west, you can see the whispers of a winter storm beginning to form. The westernmost part of Maryland, Garrett County, will likely be hit the hardest as it’s completely within the shelter of the Appalachians. But if everything comes together over the next couple of days and the storm picks up power in the mountains, the effects could be felt all the way in Baltimore. Stay tuned.