Featured Story

FEELS LIKE

by Cynthia Darwin

I went to school for this, Marilyn thought to herself wryly.   Top of her class in Statistics, a science she came to understand both theoretically and instinctively.  She was able to hone calculations to a razor edge and had a 95% probability of being correct.

Friday night at college was game time for Marilyn and her academic cohorts.  They would gather over beer and pizza with calculators and laptops, perusing the weekly events and feeling the climate of the times.  Each running his or her favorite model, they would write out their predictions for the weekend on a folded piece of paper.   

Monday morning when the different markets opened they would check the news to see if any of their predictions had played out correctly.

Monday evening the person whose educated guess was farthest from the truth would cook dinner for the others.   Marilyn rarely had to cook, which was good since her idea of hosting usually involved heating up take-out.

She missed those days the most.  She enjoyed the excitement of being “most right”, and knew the weekly competitions sharpened her skills.  Overall, it was a game of expertise with a little throw of the dice built in.  Sometimes you hit it dead center, but sometimes you could be way off the mark.

It didn’t matter back then.  It was a game.

Then it became a job.  And her followers’ livelihoods, sometimes their lives, depended on her accuracy.

She wanted to tell them that it’s still always a guessing game.  A recipe that starts with numbers, seasoned with a little experience and a dash of intuition sprinkled in, and the answers would spit out.

“I’m good,” she wanted to say out loud, “but I’m not God.”

These days Marilyn was beginning to think she might have been content with a research career in her field, maybe one that blew her to the far corners, a career where she could play around with numbers that would somehow save the world.  No pressure, there.

But she had chosen this path.  Or it chose her.  And the pressure was high.

She was pretty, they told her.  Television was her destiny.   They would set her up and give her money.  Who could turn that down?  All she had to do is smile. 

And be right.  

And wear red lipstick.   And a short skirt. 

 It was science, yes, but mostly infotainment.

So she dressed the part, put on the red lipstick, cinched in the mid-thigh dress and smiled.  One good call followed another until the number of her good projections accumulated into a daily pattern that people relied on.

Now people are no longer content to just see her projections on a screen.  They want to watch her in person every hour, often accompanied by icons and numbers that swirl and repeat patterns in the background.  

Although Marilyn still concentrated on percentages and indexes, the people wanted a forecast of the truth, and they were basing their lives on her words.  Now followers have her predictions on an app, and they check their phones and computers hourly to see if her guesses are accurate.  It had become much more demanding, this guessing game.

And then there is Abraham, her first.   Her first computer lab partner.  If Marilyn didn’t win the Friday night predictions, Abraham usually did.

Her first stay-over.   Her first husband.  She hoped the only one.

She loved his brain, his runner’s body and his sunny disposition.  Mostly she loved the way he pushed her on all fronts and still was able to mend an argument with a breezy kiss on the cheek. 

When she first began making her predictions on a few public service radio stations, he was amused.  Not a lot of damage to be done there, he would say laughingly, so just throw a dart at it.   Despite that somewhat cavalier take on her career, he was also the first to defend her when a radio co-host once introduced Marilyn by saying, “Next, we hear from the lady who reads tea leaves.”

Abraham rained insults on the guy, insisting he retract the statement and publicly defend Marilyn’s scientific purity.  

Tea Leaves.  That was just one of the ways she had been introduced.  “The woman who is going to ruin your day” was another, along with “our own Wheel of Fortune Teller”  

Abraham had sustained her through those times.  Meanwhile, her followers grew.

It was the TV thing that caused her relationship with Abe to change directions, get a little chillier.  

They were out on the patio, enjoying a crisp Chardonay on an unseasonably warm evening, when the phone rang.   A local television producer asked for Marilyn.  His offer was simple.  Come in for an audition, and if the focus group likes it, we want you on prime time.

“Did he ask for your resume?   Your credentials.  Your track record?”  asked Abe.

“No,” answered Marilyn.  “Just come in for an audition.”

Abe had been upset.  “They just care what you look like?  Not what comes out of your mouth?  Not your success rate on predictions?   You’re a scientist, a statistician, not a Barbie doll.”

“Well, I’m sure they want most of my predictions to be right,” Marilyn had answered.   “I’m sure I can do that.”

“And if you don’t?  Can they live with the pretty girl being wrong?  Then what?”

“Have some faith, Abe.  You are a financial analyst.  You analyze past data.   I use data to make projections, make predictions.  Yes, it’s science, but sometimes there’s a little magic to it.”

Abe sat stunned.  “Did you just say Magic?”

“Well, yes.  Not magic, per se, but people expect a little unpredictability in what I do, don’t you think?  Maybe that’s why they tune in?  For some excitement, to see if what I say actually happens.”

“They tune in for answers!  Marilyn, have you lost your mind? “

“Well, I was the one who was mostly right in college, remember, and we all used the same data.  So maybe there is a special sense I have for, I don’t know, just filling in the blanks?  That will help.”

Abe just shook his head.  “Unbelievable”

The audition had gone well with the focus group, although they did recommend a darker shade of lipstick, more makeup and a shorter skirt.  A station in a larger market picked up her feed and streamed her ever-changing predictions to an even larger audience.   

Now she was nationally recognized just as Marilyn.   Everyone knew who you were talking about.  

“Want to know what’s happening tomorrow?  Check Marilyn’s app.  She’s always right.”  

Well, maybe almost always right, Marilyn thought.

She and Abe had drifted apart emotionally, a dry spell, a far cry from their normally steamy romance.   Was it professional jealousy or personal differences?

 “Am I just the back-up plan?” he said.  “You seem married to this business.”

“That’s not fair.  I just have to spend a lot more time with the data.  I’m getting pressure from higher up all the time.  Pressure to be right every time.  Sometimes it turns my brain into spaghetti.”

“I don’t know, it seems like you’re not using the data like you used to or like you should.  I heard you use the phrase ‘feels like’ on the air a few times.”

“Oh, come on.   That’s still a phrase we use to describe scientific data, just with a little personality.”

“I don’t use it.  Why don’t you just go ahead and say that you feel it in your bones?” Abe argued.  “And where was that magic thing last month when you missed on your prediction in Louisiana?   A lot of people are without homes now down there.  Wonder what they feel like?   I’m just trying to protect you by suggesting you stay with the science.”

“Don’t you think I worry about that every day?  I thought I could, but I just can’t be right every time.  It’s still the same guessing game it always was,” she answered, trying to keep the tears back.  “I just don’t always know. Nobody knows everything that’s going to happen.  Sometimes I do have to use a little intuition.”

“Well, if I were you, I’d stick to the data.  It doesn’t lie.  And it doesn’t cost you your job.”

Tonight the stakes were as high as they had ever been.  Marilyn straightened her off- the -shoulder blouse and took her seat in front of the camera.   Off screen, the anchor introduced her.

“One of the last hurricanes of the season is parked over Cuba outside the Gulf of Mexico, maybe a Category 2?  Here’s Marilyn, our respected meteorologist.  She’s about to let you know which direction you need to go to be safe.   Marilyn?  A lot of people depend on what you have to say.  Do they need to hunker down in Texas?  Where’s this Sandy going?”

Away, she thought about saying. I just wish it would go away.    But here goes.

Marilyn smiled at the camera, hiding her anxiety.  Data or intuition?  She decided and took a deep breath before announcing.

“Most models show the storm landing in the Bahamas later today, then turning north to hit a few southern coastal states before diminishing.  But to me, it feels like Sandy is going to New Jersey.”

Hurricane Sandy became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record that year.  A Category 3 when it made landfall in Cuba, Sandy became a Category 1-equivalent extratropical cyclone that travelled up the Eastern US Coast.  The storm then took an unexpected left hook and moved ashore in New Jersey, causing 158 deaths in the US and damages in excess of $65 billion.  In the aftermath of the storm, meteorologists revised prediction tools and terminology in anticipation of similar weather events.

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WHY I WROTE THIS STORY:

Our community west of Houston took an unexpected, direct hit from Hurricane Beryl this July.  Nobody had been particularly worried because this Category 5 Atlantic storm was supposed to be “just” a tropical storm, “maybe a Cat 1” in places, by the time it came our way.  As we sat having our breakfast coffee, the power went out and large Texas pecan trees came out of the ground by their roots, falling in front of the window with one loud crack after the other.  Eight trees all together. “Didn’t feel like a Cat 1” was heard more and more often as we cleared up the war-torn messes on our properties.  The short story came from a pondering as to how dependent we have become on precise forecasts from our many weather outlets.  As the story came together, I began “sprinkling” it with weather words.  Go back and see how many you can find.  The main character in “Feels Like” will join other women in an anthology of short stories to be launched in 2025 as part of the Cynthia Darwin – Storyteller website.