the camera to give an overview of the nation’s weather, gesturing to a blank blue screen as she talked. Viewers at home saw Jenna’s hand heading toward Arizona.
“And it’s scorching in the desert Southwest where temperatures in Phoenix set a new October record of one hundred fifteen degrees. The average high for them this month used to be eighty-eight.”
She was determined not to say “hot and dry” one more time this year, but it slipped out as she spoke over video of the city’s numerous—and long-drained—fountains. Though she cursed herself mentally, Jenna’s voice never faltered as she took viewers on a snappy tour of the West, still moving her hand over the blue screen, before video of the tornado damage in Arkansas appeared, along with Nicci in her ear: “You’ve got Cindy Clark now.”
Jenna chatted about the damage in Little Rock, noting the huge, ungainly looking gate protruding from a roof. As she talked, Nicci told her the mattress was coming up in “Five, four, three…” Jenna timed it perfectly: “And as you can see here, someone’s boudoir is missing a Beautyrest; but as tornado damage goes, this wasn’t too bad, was it, Cindy?”
“No, Jenna, it wasn’t. Only a few minor cuts and bruises. I’d say that Little Rock rode this one out in style.”
Jenna, still standing on the weather set, casually introduced the country’s chief meteorologist, whose face filled the screen and whose practical advice about thunderstorms filled the air. Cindy Clark’s perky visage was quickly replaced by the flat affect of Sondar Hammerson, the Little Rock Orchestra’s conductor, who was so boring that Marv was immediately in Jenna’s ear saying “Wrap it ASAP. I’m hearing crickets”—millions of viewers clicking their remotes to change channels. “Switch to the roof.”
Jenna cut off Hammerson at the first opening and ushered viewers to the rooftop camera as if that had been planned all along, stifling her own surprise when she saw the sky filled with massively thick clouds. They’d moved into the city far faster than she’d ever seen before, although extreme weather events were beginning to feel routine.
“This is the view from our rooftop garden, and if you think those are thunder clouds that we’re seeing, you’re right. There’s a whopper of a storm brewing out there. Here,” she pointed to the right side of the screen, “you can see the classic anvil shapes of thunderheads. So, New York, get ready, because this monster is marching right at us. We’re already seeing rain on our Doppler. So far it’s evaporating before it hits the ground, but that’s not going to last long. Florida, Texas, California, we’ve got your back, too. Andrea?”
Hanson thanked her and teased Lilton’s imminent appearance as the show’s theme music signaled the first commercial break. Jenna hurried over to Dafoe. Catching his grimace as he looked up from his iPhone, she guessed that he still hadn’t reached Forensia. She hoped the young woman was all right.
Dafoe managed a smile, though, and a whispered compliment: “You were great.”
Viewers could not possibly have heard him—TMS was off the air—but she shushed him anyway: no unnecessary talk anywhere near the set. A moment later she violated her own dictum: “There he is,” she said softly as Lilton loped toward Andrea. The lean sixty-two-year-old—a runner—always presented an effortlessly fit image, which in politico speak translated into “readiness.” And he sported his never-changing attire: dark blue suit, white shirt, red tie. Nothing subtle about the underdog’s campaign duds. Every candidate had a stump speech, but Lilton also had a stump suit.
“Twenty seconds,” the floor director snapped. Andrea shook Lilton’s hand and gave him her familiar smile. Boom mikes hovered over the two of them as they sat down.
“And in five, four, three…”
The commercials ended and the cameras went live. Andrea flipped aside her luscious mane of dark hair, warmly welcomed viewers back, and introduced Lilton. The candidate nodded genially as Hanson leaned forward, gesturing directly at him. Her manner reminded Jenna why Hanson’s numbers had dominated morning television for five straight years: The host could switch from the sweetness of an ingénue to the toughness of a federal prosecutor faster than most people could exhale.
“That witch is haunting you, isn’t she, Senator Lilton?”
“I’m glad you brought that up, Andrea, because the president has been trying to make it appear that someone I knew forty years ago—”
“In the biblical sense.” Andrea conjured her most impish smile.
“I was involved with her forty years ago and—”
Andrea interrupted again: “How did you two end up so much