CHAPTER 1 JACKSON #2
I’d know that voice anywhere. In the dark. In the startling light of day. In my very limited sleep. In my nightmares. Clear and bright and infused with an unflagging sense of optimism, it is my own personal harbinger of doom.
I try to grab the phone, hell-bent on tossing it out the window, but Penelope shifts to the left without bothering to look up. Adeline moves with her, plucking the phone out of her hand and giving me her back, neither of them turning away from the broadcast on the screen.
I sigh in defeat. “Why are you watching Delilah Stewart?”
“Because of the turtle,” Penelope says. “And because I like Delilah Stewart.”
“You do not like Delilah Stewart,” I say, irritation making my throat feel tight. It’s one thing for all of Baltimore to be in love with the reporter from YBAL News. It’s another thing entirely for my sisters to fall under her spell.
Adeline fixes me with a look. “You’re still on that kick, huh?”
“It’s not a kick.” A kick implies something fleeting. My stance on Delilah Stewart has been long-standing and consistent. I scarf down the rest of my cruffin and chew aggressively. “She has no respect for the weather.”
“What does respect for the weather look like?”
“She uses too many puns,” I say. “And props. No self-respecting weather reporter uses props.”
Delilah Stewart approaches the weather report like a kid in a candy shop. Everything is wonderful. Nothing is an inconvenience. Unexpected thunderstorms? Not a problem. Humidity so thick it feels like you’re walking through Jell-O? Delightful.
She appears on the six o’clock news with her pretty, chestnut-colored hair and sunny smile and no one even cares if she’s right or wrong.
I bet she doesn’t get six-page-long emails from Cathy over in Dundalk about how a misguided weather report caused her Buick to flood because she didn’t close the sunroof.
Never mind that Cathy in Dundalk never should have left her sunroof open in the first place.
I have a perfectly justified, professional dislike of Delilah Stewart and her methods.
“I think you’re still mad Delilah spilled pudding all over your favorite shirt,” Penelope offers, not looking up from the phone. “And because she scratched your car door.”
“Yes, she did do both of those things.”
In addition to her slapstick weather coverage, Delilah Stewart is an absolute disaster of a human being.
The television broadcast studio is right across the street from the radio station.
We share a parking lot on what the city affectionately calls Broadcast Hill.
I tend to see Delilah three to five times a week, and it almost always ends with the destruction of something in my possession.
A scarf. My favorite green shirt. The passenger-side door of my car.
“Is that why you hate her?” Penelope asks.
“I don’t hate her,” I grumble.
I don’t understand her. I find her irritating. Abrasive. Chaotic. I’ve never done well with messy, and Delilah Stewart is a hurricane wrapped in delusion draped in mismatched pastels with a stain from whatever she had for lunch smack-dab in the middle of her chest.
“She’s a lot,” I add.
Penelope and Adeline exchange a look.
“What?”
“Are you still leaving Post-it notes on the window of her car?”
I hesitate. “Only when she parks over the line.” Which is Tuesdays and Wednesdays and—oddly enough—every other Friday. Her chaos does seem to follow a pattern. If you squint. “I’m nice about it,” I defend.
“You leave passive-aggressive Post-it notes on the window of her car, Jackson. How is that nice?”
“I could leave aggressive-aggressive notes on the window of her car.”
Adeline gives me another unamused look. “I think you’re just jealous she doesn’t turn into a rambling encyclopedia of weather whenever she’s in front of a camera.”
I drag my hand over my face. This morning has completely deteriorated.
“Yeah, that’s probably a fair point.” I grab the phone out of Adeline’s hand. “Why is she wearing a turtle costume?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? There’s a new turtle at the aquarium.”
On the tiny phone screen, Delilah beams at the camera, ignoring the people behind her who stop, stare, and point at the oversized shell she has strapped to her back.
It reminds me of the broadcast she did for Orioles opening day, where she was dressed like a giant jar of relish.
Where does she manage to find these outfits? Ridiculous.
“That doesn’t explain why Delilah is reporting on it.” I bring the phone closer to my face. “She’s supposed to do the weather.”
Penelope snatches her phone back. “She’s been branching out. Last week she did a story on how they’re trying to make the Inner Harbor swimmable by the spring.”
A laugh coughs out of me. The last time I was down by the harbor, there was an entire shopping cart floating off the edge of the Bond Street dock. “That’s a real thing? I thought it was a joke.”
They both ignore me. “And the week before that, she did a cool story about the arboretum. She’s more than the weather, Jackson.”
Yes, apparently, she’s got a soft spot for turtles named Domino and thematic costumes.
“Okay, well, we are going to be more than late if we don’t get in the car right now.” I check my watch and sigh. I’m barely going to make school drop-off. I’m almost certainly going to be late for Maggie’s last-minute meeting.
Maggie’s last-minute, panic-inducing meeting.
An uncomfortable itch settles at the back of my neck. “Give me your phone, please.”
I’m hit with the full force of two matching pouts, but they relinquish the phone without any additional commentary. They wander down the hallway away from me, collecting the things they need for school, probably grumbling under their breath about what an overbearing asshole their brother is.
I go to darken the screen, but I’m distracted by Delilah Stewart instead.
She waves one finned hand at the camera, a crooked smile so wide it makes her eyes squint shut.
She looks absurd standing there at the edge of the pier, her curled hair falling in loose waves over her shoulders and her round cheeks pink from the cold.
Her turtle shell keeps slipping off her left shoulder, and there’s a group of teenagers taking turns sprinting through the frame about ten feet behind her.
But she smiles in the face of all of it. Perhaps in spite of it.
“Domino could have ended up anywhere, and yet he’s here with us.
Set to arrive at one of the top rehabilitation facilities for marine life in the country.
All because he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.
It looks like fate took a hand in delivering this new shell-ebrity”—I roll my eyes—“to his forever home.”
I blink at the screen. Fate. A ridiculous concept meant for ridiculous people. Teenage girls and whimsical weather women, hell-bent on turning science into a circus. I snort and finally darken the phone.
What a bizarre woman.