Time and Temperature Girl
by M. Paul Rains
The little girl picked up the phone to call time and temperature. She dialed the number and it rang, and after a few seconds, a voice was heard.
“This is Larry.”
The little girl hesitated. Maybe she had dialed the wrong number. On the other hand, maybe they had just changed the person.
“Hello?” the voice said again.
“Uh, could you give me the time and temperature?” the girl asked.
Silence for a moment.
“Why not. It’s 6:45 and, uh, 64 degrees.”
The girl waited.
“Is that all?” said the man.
“What’s the high?” the girl asked.
“Okay … yeah. Well, it looks like 76 degrees,” the man said.
“Is it gonna rain?”
“Is it gonna rain,” the voice repeated flatly.
“Yeah. Mommy told me I had to wear my g’loshes. I don’t wanna.”
“Look, kid …”
Another pause. A rather lengthy pause. The girl waited patiently. A quirk of the new system, she figured.
When the man spoke again, his voice was different. “Little girl, you go tell your mama it’s probably not gonna rain. It’s going to be a good day.”
“Ok. Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
The next morning, the little girl pressed “redial” on the receiver and again the Larry man answered. This time he gave all the looked-for information in one seamless articulation, and again concluded with “It’s going to be a good day.” She called the next day, with the same result. Each morning for the first few weeks, it was the same: time, temperature, forecast, and “It’s going to be a good day.” After a few weeks, Larry began to throw in scraps of advice, such as “Better bring your raincoat” or “Bundle up.” Then one day it occurred to the girl to ask Larry about her broken doll. His repair advice to that query proving effectual, she went on to occasionally ask him about other things, such as how to make a sunny-side egg, how to cut your own hair, and whether dragons were real. This being an intelligent and thoughtful little girl, her questions became increasingly sophisticated. Among her later probes were why people die, whether her hamster would go to Heaven, and how to make someone happy. (This last query was a result of her mother seeming especially sad of late.) But whatever the topic of conversation, for the eight consecutive weeks the girl redialed his number, Larry always ended the call by promising “It’s going to be a good day.” And for the girl, indeed, those eight weeks were a solid run of more or less good days.
Unfortunately, the last morning Larry gave the time and temperature turned out to be the first day he was wrong. The girl’s best friend told her she wouldn’t play with her anymore because she was poor and dressed weird. She went home crying. It was a bad day, unequivocally. She couldn’t wait to take this up with Larry, to tell him how wrong he’d been.
But when the girl pressed “redial” the next morning, her grandmother answered. This sometimes happened when the girl’s mother used this particular phone, which was rare. The phone was only able to redial the last number called. The girl proceeded to dial the time and temperature number from memory, but instead of Larry, the original automated time and temperature voice answered. Only then did she realize that she had had the wrong number on redial for the last two months. She attempted multiple slight deviations from the listed time and temperature number, but all attempts failed to connect her back to Larry. She finally had to leave for school, and the day was a morose muddle.
That night and the next morning, she tried again to accidentally hit upon the right wrong number, to no avail. She would continue to do this from time to time for the next two years, but she was never able to find Larry. She finally gave up calling real time and temperature. It just wasn’t the same.
Years went by and the girl grew into a woman. She moved out of town for college, eventually coming back home for her second job. One Saturday morning, she was on her way to the grocery store when an accident prompted her to take an alternate route she had never driven. After several blocks, she noticed a line of cars snaked in front of a building with a sign in front advertising “Larry’s Donuts.” A sudden strong presentiment caused her to pull into the parking lot and walk in.
“Welcome to Larry’s,” said the teenager at the counter.
“Hi,” she said, pretending to look at the menu. “I’ve never been here before.”
“Our Original is very popular.”
Seized all at once by a feeling of the futility of this errand, the woman told the teenager she guessed she didn’t want to order after all, thanked him, and turned to go.
“Well, enjoy the sun ma’am. It’s going to be a good day.”
The woman stopped. She recalled and analyzed the distinctiveness—the strangeness—of the impression that had caused her to visit a random doughnut shop simply because it had the name “Larry” affixed to it. Whatever the impression was, wherever it came from, she decided she couldn’t accept it as just another vagary. Turning around, she walked back to the counter. “Actually … I don’t know how to say this,” she said, “but I … when I was a girl, I used to call time and temperature, and for a while, a guy named Larry used to give it to me, but I don’t know who he was. And just now I passed this place and wondered if perhaps this was the same Larry, although really I have no reason to … that is, I know it’s a long shot. I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about it.”
To his credit, the teenager—who had never heard of such a thing as “calling time and temperature”—took the inquiry seriously.
“I really don’t know ma’am, but lemme go back and ask. If you could wait over there by that table ….”
The teenager was gone in an instant. After a couple of minutes, she was approached by a young man who appeared to be the owner or manager, and who was holding something in his hands.
“Can I help you?” he said.
She began. “Hi, I’m here because—”
“Wait,” he interrupted. “I’m happy to help you, but first I need to tell you that it’s a quarter to nine and currently 66 degrees. Today will be sunny, with a high of 78.”
The woman stared at him.
“And perhaps you’ll also want to know,” he continued, “that there is zero chance of rain today.”
The woman still looked fixedly at him. “You’re not Larry,” she said.
“No, I’m not Larry,” he said. “But I know about you. My dad told me how you called him out of nowhere one day asking about the time and temperature and rain and then called almost every day for weeks before you abruptly left off. Of course, no Caller ID back then. I don’t know if the phone company could have given him your number. Perhaps he didn’t think to ask. Right before he passed away—”
“Oh, I’m …” She faltered, earnestly dismayed. “I am sorry.”
The man nodded slightly. “Right before that,” he continued, looking down at the small plastic box in his hands, “he gave me some index cards with various instructions and advice. One of the cards in there is labeled, ‘Time and Temperature Girl.’ It says if ever by chance I found you, I was to give you the time, temperature, and forecast before I did anything else. I frankly dismissed such a chance as nearly nonexistent …” He looked up at her and smiled. “But here you are.”
She continued to stare at him. “Yes,” was all she found to say.
“Also, he wanted me to tell you—and he underlined this—that it’s going to be a really good day.”
The woman became all at once bright and fluent. “It’s funny, when I was little I had a bone to pick with Larry about that. The last day I talked to him he told me it was going to be a good day and … well, it was kind of a bad day. Then I lost his number and wasn’t able to take it up with him. And, um … well, I’ve had some more bad days since then, and I guess …” Her beam faded. “I guess I would have liked to tell him about those too.”
“I know what you mean,” the man said. “Maybe he thought you’d say something like that. Near the bottom of this card, he says to tell you that the reason he knows it’s going to be a good day is because you are in it.”
A small tear traced its way down the woman’s cheek.
“Anything else on that card?” she said after at least a minute and a half.
“Do you like coffee and doughnuts?” the man said, grinning a bit awkwardly.
“He wanted to know if I like coffee and doughnuts?” she asked, smiling again.
“No … I mean, I’m asking: would you like some doughnuts? On the house. I’ll join you. I haven’t eaten yet. How ’bout an Original?”
Thankfully, for the woman’s sake, she accepted the invitation, because a day that had begun so well would prove to get even better, and would leave her with a sense that a certain years-long disquietude of soul had been tended to.
And thankfully, for the man’s sake, the woman didn’t refer again to the contents of the “Time and Temperature Girl” index card. For it would be some time before he would be ready to read her the last line written on it: If you ever find this girl, marry her.
About the Writer
M. Paul Rains lives with his wife Jessamyn and their children on Walden Ridge, near Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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