Tony Partly Cloudy (16 page)

“Josh, enough with the legs! What I’m asking is, is she, you know, seeing anybody?”

“Oh!” Josh said, finally getting the picture. “Well, yeah. She’s got a boyfriend, I’m pretty sure. He was at the Christmas party last year, and now and then I’ve seen him come by here to pick her up or drop her off.”

Tony’s heart was sinking fast. “Are they, you know,
serious
?” he asked.

“Shit, man – I don’t know.” Josh took another swallow of beer, and then scraped the bowl in front of him for any residue from the pretzels he’d just devoured. Licking salt and crumbs off his fingers, Josh said, “But based on what this guy looked like, I think it’s safe to say that a guy like me couldn’t get anywhere with a girl like her. And – no offense – I can’t really picture a guy like you hooking up with her, either.”

Tony bristled. “A guy like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dude, calm down. But let’s get real here, okay? I mean, look at her, and look at us. She’s got that whole Midwestern hot-but-wholesome thing going on – you know, the farmer’s daughter out on her own in the real world. Me, I’m a college punk with bad hair and a nose-ring. And you – you’re like this big guido from New York. I mean, the way you look, the way you talk – it’s like you just came off the set of the Sopranos or something. You’re like Central Casting’s idea of a Mafia goon.”

Seeing the look on Tony’s face, Josh suddenly stopped talking, realizing that A) Tony outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds, and B) maybe Josh’s candor was more the product of liberal applications of Budweiser than it was of friendship and good judgment. Liquid honesty could be a dangerous thing.

Reaching out to pat Tony’s arm, Josh said, “Hey, man, I’m really sorry – I don’t know what the hell I’m saying. I didn’t mean anything by that. I mean, who the hell am I to criticize you, when I look like Bozo the Clown with a ring in his nose? Seriously, I—”

Tony stopped him with a look. Ignoring Josh’s apologies, he said, “So this guy, this boyfriend. What’s he look like?”

Josh shook his head sadly. “Like a damn movie star. Perfect hair. Perfect teeth. The big jaw, the broad shoulders. Like his name should be Rex or Lance or something.” Going into a stagy macho voice Josh said, “Hi, I’m Rex Manly – damn glad to meet you!”

This drew a laugh from Tony. “Got it. Jeez, I hate guys like that.”

“Me too,” Josh commiserated. “Guys like that make it that much harder for guys like us to get laid.”

“Guys like
us
?” Tony asked, giving Josh a taste of his own medicine. “You think
I
have something in common with a... a pierced clown like you?”

“Touché,” Josh said, raising his beer mug in a peace offering.

Tony clinked his mug against Josh’s. “Touché yourself.”

“So,” Josh said, “now that you live here, are you a Bears fan?”

“Get out of here,” Tony said. “You think I’d betray my heritage? Forget about it! Giants all the way, man. The Bears suck!”

Safely steered down a new, less incendiary path, the conversation went where most beer-fueled discussions between men in their twenties go, to be largely forgotten the next day.

“A FREAKIN’ WEATHER BALLOON?”

Tony was livid. He stood up and began to pace in front of Chip’s desk, while the chief meteorologist spread his hands placatingly.

“I mean, come on, Chip – I’ve been here more than a year, I’ve got a bachelor’s in meteorology, almost five years with the National Freaking Weather Service, and you’re putting a freakin’ weather balloon on the air instead of me?”

“Tony, Tony – nobody’s disputing your qualifications. You’re a terrific meteorologist, and a hell of a weather producer. That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what the hell is it about?” Tony demanded.

Chip lowered his voice, hoping by example to coax Tony into doing the same. He’d never seen Tony angry before, and as anybody who’d ever witnessed Frankie B’s wrath could attest, the sight of an angry adult male Bartolicotti was more than a bit daunting.

“Look, it’s not about your abilities as a meteorologist. It’s a matter of using somebody with more on-air experience. Hell, she’ll be reading
your
forecast.”

Tony let out a sharp, indignant breath. “And that’s somehow supposed to make me feel better?”

Chip shrugged. “Tony, I really don’t see why you’re getting so upset. You’re just being asked to do your job like always. And that job is to support the person giving the weather forecast. Same as always. This just happens to be an instance where that forecaster won’t be me, Deena, or Ron.”

While the three meteorologists usually covered for each other, taking over each other’s shifts when illness or vacations required it, this was the first time when none of the three meteorologists would be available. Chip was leaving momentarily for a speaking engagement in Chicago, Ron was fogged in at Logan Airport in Boston, causing him to be late in returning from his vacation, and now Deena had what appeared to be food poisoning. Which left the Ten O’clock news without a weather anchor.

“And frankly,” Chip continued, “you’ve never expressed any interest in doing any on-air work.”

Chip had him there. Although Tony did daydream about forecasting on TV, he’d never mentioned it to his coworkers. He had been too shy, too fearful of being ridiculed for his ambition. But now it was time to take a stand.

“I know, Chip. I haven’t talked about it, but, yeah, I
would
like to try my hand on the air. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

Chip began to speak, but Tony held up his hand.

“Let me finish. I don’t kid myself that I should be on the air on a regular basis here. With the three of you here, you’ve got all the shifts covered – I understand that. I know that’s how it works.”

Tony realized his pacing might be distracting, so he sat down again, making a conscious effort to control his voice.

“Look, the fact that this station has a whole team of actual trained meteorologists is a big part of why I came here. We both know it’s not always like that, particularly with stations this small. But with us, even the morning and weekend weather anchors are pros. It’s like we got a – I don’t know – a
tradition
of only using real meteorologists to do the weather slot.”

Tony leaned forward in his seat. “So what I’m thinking is that WEFQ should keep that tradition going, and
always
use a real meteorologist to do the on-air forecasts. And with the three of you out of the picture for tonight’s show, you still got one left. Me. That’s all I’m saying.”

Chip sighed. He took a sip of his coffee, stalling for time. Then he carefully placed the coffee mug back on his desk, and turned his gaze to Tony.

“Tony, how do I put this? There’s a... a bigger picture here. Are you a qualified meteorologist? Absolutely. But that’s not the only set of qualifications you need. That’s the part that may be hard for you to grasp: it’s not necessarily the most important qualification for doing on-air forecasts. There’s a whole different set of skills involved. You know, public speaking skills. Diction. Making eye contact. Knowing which camera to look at, and how to time your forecast to fill the time slot. Tony, people train for that stuff, too. They get broadcast journalism degrees, telecom degrees, they go to those radio schools. You simply haven’t had that kind of training, have you?”

“Well, no,” Tony said. “But what about you? I mean, I know Deena did stuff like that in school, but as far as I understood, your training was more like what I got.”

Chip nodded. “Yes, as far as what I learned in school, that’s true. But I also took it upon myself to learn those other skills. So did Ron. So does anybody who does on-air work. And this stuff takes practice. All of us worked our way up in the weather game, practicing like crazy, putting together audition tapes, learning and analyzing how we look and sound on the air.”

Chip gave Tony a hard look. “Have you done any of that?”

Tony hung his head. “No.”

Chip was relentless. “Do you have any related experience? You know, drama club in high school, DJ-ing at parties, weather forecasting on college radio – anything like that?”

With a halfhearted smile Tony said, “Well, Josh did get me to sing
Volare
once, on Karaoke night at the Pickle.”

Chip smiled sadly. “Yeah, well, make sure you add that to your resume, okay?”

Chip reached forward, adjusting the position of the coffee mug on his desk. “Look, Tony. I know you’re disappointed. But realistically, there’s a whole ‘nother side to TV weather, and it’s a side in which you have no training or experience. Unless that changes, I can’t really see you expecting to do on-air work, here or anywhere else. Do you see what I’m saying?”

Tony felt like an idiot. “Yeah, I guess so. I guess I need to look into getting some training in that stuff.”

“Only if you really think you want to work on the air,” Chip said. “And you need to be realistic. I mean, with the size of our team, we’ve got enough redundancy that this situation we’re facing tonight has never come up in the nine years I’ve been here. So I don’t want you thinking you’ll have another shot like this any time soon. But if this is something you want to pursue, say, at another station, then yes, you should get some training. But...”

Chip paused, apparently finding it necessary to readjust the coffee mug’s position by a millimeter.

“But let me say a couple more things, Tony. I like you, and respect you, and don’t want to set any false expectations.”

Tony sat silently while the coffee mug was again realigned.

“First of all, I’d hate to lose you. You’re a valuable part of this team, and everybody here likes you. Everybody. And that’s a rare thing. Seriously, I don’t know of anybody else here – myself included – that
everybody
likes. But they all like you – you’ve got a great way with people.”

Tony squirmed in his seat, aware that he was blushing.

“Secondly,” Chip said, “you need to take a hard look at yourself. Tony, this is awkward stuff to talk about, but you need to ask yourself if you’re really on-air material. Let’s face it – not everybody has the right look for TV, or maybe they don’t have the right voice. I mean, you’re not going to see somebody like Josh delivering the news without a serious haircut and a... a nose-ringectomy.”

This drew a smile from Tony, encouraging Chip to continue. “Or Darby, with his
cool mon, Jamaica mon
way of talking – that’s not the kind of language that anchormen use.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed to a squint. “So what are you saying? I’m not – what did you call it – on-air material? I got a freakin’ college education, I get my hair cut every three weeks, I dress nice, I wear Florsheim shoes, I got half a dozen good suits. So what’s the problem?”

Now Chip was the one squirming in his seat. The kid just wasn’t getting it. “Tony, I think you’ve got a terrific personality. But the way you look, and the way you talk – all of which are perfectly fine, I hasten to add – they just may not fit in with the way this industry wants its anchors to look and sound. Does that make sense?”

Seeing no change in Tony’s expression, Chip continued.

“Look. In Europe, they’ve got what they call
BBC English
– that’s the style of English they want their broadcasters to use. It’s like this generic English accent that they try to use as a standard for how all the on-air personalities should talk. We don’t really have as official a term for it here – I’ve heard it called
standard American English
, or
broadcast English
, or
non-regional dialect
. But whether it has a name or not, it’s real – that much I can tell you. I mean, you must have noticed that everybody in the TV news business talks pretty much the same, haven’t you?”

Tony shrugged. “I guess I never paid that much attention to it. I mean, I know I sound like I’m from New York, ‘cause everybody always razzes me about it. But I’m still speaking English, aren’t I?”

Chip sighed again. “Yes, Tony. You’re speaking English. Look, I’m not trying to pick on you. Like I said, I respect you, so I’m trying to level with you. It may not be fair, but it’s the way things are. The way you look, the way you talk – well, they just doesn’t really fit in with what the industry is looking for. I’m not saying that the way you look and talk is
bad
, it’s just not what’s currently...
in style
.”

Chip snapped his finger. “In style,” he repeated. “Tony, maybe this will make it clearer. You know who Marilyn Monroe was, don’t you?”

“Sure I do,” Tony said, not sure where this was going.

“And do you think she was attractive?”

Tony’s eyes grew wider. “Are you freakin’ kidding me? She was awesome! Man, I just saw her in one of those old movies – I think it was
Seven Year Itch
or something. She
killed
me. Jeez, what a knockout.”

Chip smiled appreciatively. “I’m with you. I think she was one of the sexiest women of all time. But you know what, Tony? If she were here right now, twenty years old and looking like she looked, she’d have a hard time getting arrested in Hollywood. Because these days, all the women on TV or in the movies are these bone-thin six-footers with boob jobs. Marilyn would be considered too soft – hell,
too fat
– to be employable. Can you believe that?”

Tony shook his head. “Get out of here! What are you talkin’ about?”

“Think about it Tony. Who on TV is built like that nowadays, all soft and lush? Hell, today you can count every rib on these girls – they’re all borderline anorexic. And yet, you ask any red-blooded guy, and he’d still kill to get within a mile of a woman who looked like Marilyn.”

Chip tapped his finger on his desk to emphasize his points. “
That’s
how show business works.
That’s
the reality. Even though anybody in their right mind knows she’s drop-dead gorgeous, she doesn’t fit the current industry mold.”

Now Chip’s voice was getting loud, so he took a breath and resumed at a lower volume. “That’s where you are in this picture, Tony. You’ve got the goods, but you don’t fit the current mold. Does that make sense?”

Tony tried to lighten things up with a joke. “So you’re saying I’m the Marilyn Monroe of meteorology?”

Chip laughed out loud. “Now
that’s
a disturbing metaphor.”

Tony smiled resignedly. “I guess I see what you’re saying. I got some re-thinking to do about this stuff, apparently.”

Chip leaned forward. “Tony, this discussion makes me wonder: are you happy here? I mean, I thought I set your expectations about what a WEFQ weather producer’s responsibilities were, didn’t I? But if you came into that job expecting to do anchor work—”

“No, no,” Tony said. “I understand the job description, and didn’t come here with some...
agenda
or nothing. I like it here, and I like my job. Sure, in the back of my mind I might think about doing anchor work, and who knows? Maybe that’s something I can try to do later in my career or something. This thing tonight just brought the issue to a head for me. I’m sorry I came storming in here.”

“So you’re all right with Felicia doing the weather spot tonight?”

“Absolutely. I’ll get the graphics ready, and write her a roadmap.” Weather anchors didn’t read forecasts verbatim from teleprompters. Instead, they worked from notes and had to wing it, often while turning and pointing out details on maps and diagrams for their viewers. Tony would create the notes Felicia – who usually did fashion or human interest features – would be working from.

“That’s what I want to hear,” Chip said. “There’s not much happening weather-wise today anyway, so she should be able to get through tonight fairly easy. Just don’t use too many big words.”

At this Tony shot a look at Chip, who had cocked a snide eyebrow. Felicia was gorgeous and perky, but not known as a rocket scientist.

“Chip, you’re killing me here,” Tony said through gritted teeth. “But don’t worry. I’ll set her up, and it’ll be fine.”

“I knew I could count on you, Tony. Thanks.”

“Forget about it,” Tony said. “And thanks for, you know, being frank with me. That was stuff I hadn’t really thought of, you know?”

“I know. And as hard as it was to talk about it, I felt like
somebody
had to talk to you about it sooner or later.”