She was almost certain a cloud was forming in her closet. Soft lion footsteps wouldn’t stop it. At night, she could hear the hot platelets of moisture form, worrisome and round, behind the latticed slats of her door.

Her therapist said she suffered from anxiety and panic. She didn’t find this to be so, especially since the pink pills were working. Moreover, the humidity from the storm were doing wonders for her complexion. Her face became milky and dewey. Her friends said she never looked better: darling, are you in love?

No, she said, I witness night storms. They rolled their eyes a bit, thinking she spoke in innuendos, thinking there might be a slight boy in the picture, they wouldn’t be surprised, really. What with all the drawings she did in her trapper-keeper, her pale brow furrowed into deep v’s.  Little did they know she was keeping track of the modulations of temperature, dew points, like red bite marks etched into her loose-leaf. She fancied herself a meteorologist. She made tornado beds as part of her night toilette ritual, cast ships to fail in her bathtub. When she ran her fingers through her hair, small lightning rods erupted.

Maybe one day she would wear glossy pumps to work, have a pressed navy suit, eat cheese sandwiches and wait for the red button to light up to tell her she was on-air. She loved that term on-air.  She would live to be “on-air.”

Right now, her curiosity seemed in some sense, a neurosis. The adults thought so and she didn’t know what to think. Maybe someday she would understand her own fascination. Until then, the sound of a trapped wind comforted her.