CHAPTER 2 DELILAH
DELILAH
Just keep smiling, I say to myself as I stare at the tiny red light on the camera. You’re almost there. A few more minutes. Just keep smiling.
Mark, our beleaguered and bearded cameraman, holds up his hand and counts down from five. When his thumb finally tucks in, the little light goes dark and I release my pent-up sigh, pushing my turtle helmet off my forehead.
“You got it?”
He grunts, which is Mark for Yes, well done.
Your finest broadcast yet. I’m so proud of you.
He communicates mainly in monosyllabic sounds, hand signals, and vaguely apathetic looks.
I have to fill in a lot of the blanks with Mark, but it works for us.
After three years of partnership, I’ve almost cracked that hard exterior.
Almost.
“Great.” I try to shimmy out of the shell strapped to my back. It’s February in Baltimore, but the turtle costume is hot and the shell is heavy. I’m sweating bullets underneath this thing. I have no idea where Keith—my boss, and apparent turtle aficionado—even found it.
The University of Maryland? Did he steal it from Testudo himself?
I unclip my helmet and glance at Mark. “Are we heading back to the station or does Keith want me to interview the turtle?”
I’m only half joking. My assignments have been steadily increasing in absurdity.
Two weeks ago, Keith had me attend the Toilet Races at Hampdenfest. Usually, I wouldn’t bat an eye at reporting on the Baltimore-beloved tradition—especially in my own neighborhood—but he had me sit on an actual toilet for the duration of the broadcast.
It was hard to smile that day.
I want to be taken seriously. It’s hard to be taken seriously when you’re sitting on toilets and wearing turtle shells.
Mark doesn’t look up from his phone, flicking across the screen with his thumb. I’m pretty sure I could be hit by a city bus and he wouldn’t notice. For a cameraman, his attention span is very limited.
“Mark,” I try again. “Are we done?”
He nods, not bothering with eye contact. “Yeah. You’re due back at the station.”
I try to shimmy my other arm out of the turtle shell strap, but it’s twisted. I turn, around and around, like a dog chasing her tail. “I know. The weather report is in, like, thirty minutes.”
“Not for that,” he says. “Leon is doing the weather this morning. Keith wants you in a meeting.”
I stop trying to chase my strap, my heart sinking like a stone. “But I always do the morning report.”
The weather is what I want to be reporting on. But somehow, I’ve landed in quirky feature hell instead. Toilets and turtles and an empty warehouse Keith said was a historical renovation but really turned out to just be a dumping site.
Mark finally looks up from his phone, his face twisted into something vaguely sympathetic. “Not today. Today I’m supposed to drop you off at Keith’s office as soon as we’re back. No excuses.”
I bristle. “What? Are you my chaperone? Am I a flight risk?”
“I’m not your chaperone, although—” Mark’s mouth turns up at the corners. “You did fail to show up to the staff meeting where we reviewed your Pimlico coverage.”
I sniff and avert my attention to the glistening water of the harbor. The sun is bright today, not a cloud in the sky.
“Yes, well, my car wouldn’t start.” I also didn’t feel the need to watch the footage of me slipping and face-planting in the mud at the racetrack thirteen times over.
We rarely review footage of past features, but for some reason Keith demanded that the entire station gather to take a look at that specific coverage.
He probably had the moment I slipped and fell live on air recalibrated in slow motion and set to some ridiculous song.
I bet it’s the screen saver on his computer.
Me, at the racetrack in my sunshine yellow derby hat, covered in mud from my chin to my shins.
I don’t know when Keith started explicitly taking joy in watching me humiliate myself, but it’s been a slow slog through hell.
I’m tired. I’m so tired of him scraping the bottom of the barrel and assigning me whatever he dregs up.
I’ve reported while standing in the harbor next to a half-submerged shopping cart.
I’ve reported live from Fort McHenry while wearing a colonial dress, two sizes too big.
I’ve reported with an actual monkey on my head.
And while I’ve never had a problem looking ridiculous on camera, it’s starting to feel a little mean-spirited.
This was supposed to be my dream job, not my living nightmare.
“I’m really not doing the weather today?” I ask Mark again.
“Not today.” He pauses in his collection of camera equipment and squints up at me. “Sorry.”
God, it must be bad if Mark is saying sorry. He once whacked me in the head with a mic boom and told me it was good for my overall constitution.
“It’s fine.” I slip the fins off my hands and shove them under my arm. “Hey, did Luna try that recipe I gave you?”
Mark’s whole face brightens at the mention of his daughter. “Yeah, you really saved the day with that, thanks. It worked great for her science experiment.” He scratches at his jaw. “Why did you have a recipe for slime lying around anyway?”
Because I was a nerd of a kid who turned into a nerd of an adult. “Do you not have slime recipes lying around?” Mark blinks. “Okay, well, your loss.” I push my sleeve up and glance at my watch with a sigh. “We should probably get going, huh?”
Mark’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Yeah, we should.”
“Back to the station.”
“Back to the station,” he agrees, his entire being basically the dictionary definitions of confused and alarmed.
I bet he was prepared to toss me in the van and hightail it back, me kicking and screaming the entire time. But I don’t have the energy. I could fight Keith on the whole bullshit assignment thing, but I’ve never been much of a fighter.
I always thought if I just did a good job with the tasks assigned to me, then I’d be able to climb the corporate ladder. But the corporate ladder has turned out to be a bottomless pit from which there is no escape, lorded over by a man with a severe superiority complex.
“Where did you park the van?” I ask.
Mark loops our stash of wires over his shoulder. “Down by the dolphin fountain.”
He’s watching me like I’m about to make a break for it. Like I’m going to sprint down a Baltimore side street in full turtle costume.
“Great. I’ll meet you there.”
“You better.”
The threat is unnecessary. The walk to the van is as uneventful as a walk through a busy downtown area in a turtle costume can be.
Cars slow down and honk. A guy on a bicycle yells, “Fins up, bro!” as he speeds past. Someone bellows, “AND NOW, BACK TO YOUUUUUU,” from one pier over, his hands cupped around his mouth.
I laugh and wave cheerfully at the attention, a bit of my Keith-inspired dread slipping away.
I love this part. I love connecting with my community.
I love making people smile. I love knowing that somewhere on the other side of the city, my grandpa is sitting in his favorite spot on his favorite couch, watching me on his television.
No matter how silly the story, there’s always a part of me that hopes I’m brightening someone’s day.
I grew up in Baltimore, watching the news on a staticky television in my grandpa’s cramped living room. The live, local, and late-breaking has been the backdrop to every major event in my life. I’ve always wanted to be a part of that magic.
I just never thought it would be dressed as a turtle.
The news van is right where we left it, tucked between an out-of-service ice-cream truck and a dumpster.
I finally manage to get the shell off my back and fling it inside, grabbing for the duffel I left just behind the passenger seat.
I unzip it while muttering under my breath about slime recipes and Keith and turtles named Domino, all while wishing desperately that the ice-cream truck would slide open its doors and deliver me a strawberry sundae.
I rummage around in my bag. Two empty water bottles. A police scanner. A flyer from a Christmas tree farm on the Eastern Shore and a postcard from some antiques shop in Annapolis. A compact, my favorite ruby red lipstick, and a brush with a broken handle.
Not a single sweater to be found. Or the navy blue slacks I could have sworn I packed last night.
“No,” I breathe, digging through the bag like a secret compartment might open up and reveal a wardrobe decision that isn’t a turtle suit. “No.”
Mark tosses his cord collection in next to my shell, then his camera case. “Ready to go?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t find my clothes.”
His eyes flick down and up again. “Are you not . . . wearing clothes?”
I stop trying to turn my bag inside out. “This is a turtle suit, Mark.”
“And yet, there are pants.”
I stare down at my feet. My flipper-covered feet. “These are turtle pants.”
“I don’t see the difference, to be honest.”
“I don’t—” I huff, rolling my lips together. “You know what? Never mind. I need a change of clothes. Can we swing by my house on the way to the station?”
Mark gently pinches my bicep between his thumb and forefinger and guides me around to the front of the news van. He deposits me at the passenger-side door and pats the top of my head. Of course, my side is the dumpster side. “We don’t have time. You need to go to your meeting.”
“I am not going to this meeting dressed as a turtle, Mark!”
He rounds the front of the van. “I’m telling you, they don’t look like turtle pants.”
“They have fins!”
“Is that what those are?” He jams his key into the ignition. The van rattles to life beneath us. “Huh.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “You can drop me off at the station, but I am not going inside dressed like a turtle.”
Thirty minutes later, I am standing in the front lobby of YBAL News, dressed like a turtle.