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The Second Chair
Episode 2 of 3 of A Chance of Dog by Erica Holloway · free to read
The options came as a two-page file with a smiling cartoon cloud on the front, which was how I knew no meteorologist had been consulted.
I read it Saturday in the hallway, under my certificate. The computer forecast came in four voices. One was described as warm, like a neighbor. It was cheaper than me by about the price of a used car.
Next to my certificate, there was a new frame.
Inside it was a sheet of construction paper. A second grader had written Official Weather Dog in crayon and drawn Senator under a sun wearing sunglasses. Marty had framed it to match mine. Same frame. Same height.
Mine was crooked again. I straightened mine.
I left his alone.
In the studio, Senator had a chair.
It sat at the end of the anchor desk, twelve feet from my mark, under the new LEDs. It had a ramp, because Marty was careful with old joints, and a blanket with Senator’s name stitched on it. I did not have a blanket. I did not have a chair. I stood.
“Here’s your rundown,” Jodie said, and handed it to me.
Senator’s segment was now sixty-five seconds.
“Thirty for Senator,” Jodie said. “Twenty for viewer mail. Fifteen for the sponsor. Bark and Bushel, the feed store.”
“Marty sold the dog?”
“Marty sold the dog’s half minute. The dog is not for sale.”
I did the subtraction anyway, because I was raised right.
“A hundred and fifteen,” I said.
“I’ll start counting you down at sixty,” Jodie said. “So you’ll hear me for most of it.”
Marty came in carrying a plastic bin full of envelopes.
“His mail,” Marty said. “You read it.”
“Why me?”
“You have the voice. Also Reggie won’t.”
“I won’t,” Reggie said.
On weekends Reggie also ran the light board, a dimmer panel on the wall by camera two, so Marty had rules for him too, on an index card.
“Rule one,” Marty said. “During his segment, kill the weather wall lights, so he stays in his chair. Rule two.” He underlined it while he said it. “Wherever Senator goes, the camera follows. That’s the magic. You don’t direct a dog. You follow him.”
“Thirty-one years,” Reggie said. “I’ve followed worse.”
Marty paused at the door. “Reggie. Am I on your list?”
“Number six. Election night. You brought a sheet cake.”
Marty looked pleased all the way down the hall.
At 6:41, Reggie killed the wall lights. I stood on my mark in the dark and read Senator’s mail into a microphone.
“Dear Senator,” I read. “Will it snow on my birthday? It is November third.”
I looked straight into the lens. I couldn’t help it.
“Around here, the first measurable snow usually waits until December,” I said. “Plan on a jacket. Do not plan on a sled.”
“That’s not his mail,” Jodie said in my ear. “That’s your forecast.”
“It’s both,” I said, after the mic was off.
Then the sponsor. Then Marty walked Senator to the break room for peanut butter, the only thing he liked more than warm floor. Then me, for a hundred and fifteen seconds, with Jodie saying numbers I could feel in my teeth.
Before he left, Senator had stared across the dark studio at my mark. He had the face of someone whose parking space was taken.
“He wants his spot,” I said afterward.
“That’s rule one,” Reggie said.
Sunday.
I got in at two to look at the long-range models. Reggie looked over my shoulder, which he had never done.
“What’s that?”
“Next Sunday,” I said. “Both big global models. A deep dip in the jet stream, strong winds aloft, warm humid air pulled up from the south ahead of a sharp cold front.”
“Is that bad?”
“A week out, it’s a signal, not a forecast. It’s a loud signal.”
That night I gave it six of my hundred and fifteen seconds. “Something to watch next weekend,” I said. “Not a forecast yet. A reason to check back.”
Marty met me in the hallway afterward. Senator stopped at the frames, looked at his crooked one, and kept walking.
“Big numbers,” Marty said. “The mail did great. The sponsor wants more. So next week we add Senator Says.”
“What does Senator say?”
“I hold up two cards, Sunny and Stormy. Whichever one he sniffs is his call for the week. Twenty-five seconds.”
I didn’t have to do the math. I did it anyway.
“That leaves me ninety,” I said. “Marty, next Sunday might be the night I need the most time all year.”
“Then make the ninety count.” He wasn’t being cruel. He meant it as advice. “Also, the company is coming Sunday. To watch.”
“What if he sniffs Sunny?”
“It’s for fun, Simone. Nobody makes decisions off a dog.”
“Marty, a man called Thursday to ask if Senator thought he should stain his deck.”
He laughed, and patted my arm, and went to find Senator a treat.
I went home and wrote the warning I would give if the models held. I wrote it plain. I cut every word I could.
It ran a hundred and forty seconds.