sounded friendly enough: Elsie the cow, right? Reassuring. So was the lowered volume of his voice. Which was good because she needed to focus on the live update, now less than ninety seconds away. She pulled weather data up on her laptop screen, then checked temperatures for the region; this was a story on the Northeast drought, so she didn’t need to worry about the entire country on this go-round.
Pulling a tissue from her pocket, Jenna patted her face; sweat and dust stained the tissue when she was done. Or was that tan stuff makeup? She’d applied it during the flight, after all. Opening her purse, she drew out a small mirror in a sleek black leather case that looked like a notebook, and gazed at her face. The little case was a discreet way to check her appearance without reinforcing the narcissistic TV talent stereotype. The headphones had messed with her hair, but she straightened and fluffed it, then noticed that her eyes were red from the dust. Murine emergency.
Andi peered through her viewfinder, then snapped together a wireless microphone and clipped it to the inside of Jenna’s blouse. The camerawoman kept eyeing the farmer and his border collie. Jenna understood the concern: Loonies were known to mess with live shots in the city. But you’re not in the city, she reminded herself a second time. And the dairyman didn’t look like a loony. Actually, he looked kind of handsome, but she had to put aside his presence and turn her thoughts to the work at hand, though in truth she figured that she could do an update in her sleep. And given the schedule of a meteorologist on The Morning Show—up at 2:00 A.M., on at 7:00 A.M.—she probably already had on numerous occasions.
Besides, what she would say would play second fiddle to the split screen that the show planned to use as her backdrop: empty, dusty reservoir cheek by jowl with old footage of the lake brimming with cool water. The sweet “then,” the sour—and scary—“now.”
Cued, Jenna chattered to the camera, alternately smiling and turning serious as she boiled down the update to “hot and dry,” the daily mantra since a high-pressure system had settled over the region five weeks earlier. The stagnant weather had shown no more inclination to move on than a two-ton boulder plopped on a trail.
She engaged in snappy closing patter with Andrea Hanson, The Morning Show’s visibly pregnant host, a darling of viewers and a mainstay of morning television for the past five years.
The dairy farmer and his furry pal watched Jenna sign off. She felt a familiar sense of relief when the camera went dark, then noticed that Andi was back to keeping a wary eye on the guy with the guns.
“Is the drought making dairy farming tougher?” she asked in her most empathetic “the weather really sucks” voice, hoping to charm away the tension. She unclipped the mike and handed it to Andi, who pocketed it before heading back to the helicopter. Nicci had already boarded.
“We don’t need a drought to make dairying tougher, but the cows are okay. They’re just moving a little slower.”
“They free range?”
“That’s chickens around here. Only thing free range these days are the roaches. They love the heat. Ever been to Puerto Rico? Cockroaches big as your fist. They’re getting that way around here.”
Who did he remind her of? Somebody appealing. Tall as she was, wiry, with smooth skin and sharp features. “What’s your name?”
“Dafoe. Dafoe Tillian.”
“Good to meet you, Dafoe.” He shook her hand, and she knew that she had, indeed, charmed him, but try as she might, she could not place his face.
The rotors whirled faster. Jenna climbed aboard and belted herself in. Dafoe hurried away from the dust storm whipping up from the lake bed, then turned around so quickly that even through a hurricane of dust and heat he caught her staring at his retreat. She wanted to look down, peel her eyes from his; but her body wouldn’t obey, and a smile betrayed her even more.
As Bird flew them over the barren bowl, Jenna felt herself sink back to earth: He’s a farmer, for chrissakes. You left that life.
She closed her eyes, catnapping till Nicci asked her to join a call to The Morning Show’s executive producer, Marv Balen, or “the twit,” as the two women called him in private. “He texted us a few seconds ago.”
Up ahead, the city’s skyline poked through the low-lying smog like quills through a