Weather Girl(3)

A human trash can I’ve barely been able to stop thinking about since the breakup five weeks ago, when I moved out of our spacious Queen Anne rental and into the studio apartment just big enough for me and my feelings. Our friends felt like they needed to pick sides, which is why these days, my sole confidants are my brother and a precocious preschooler. At least now I can say Garrison’s name out loud without wanting to curl up inside one of those nest pillows Instagram is always advertising to me. I think they’re meant for dogs, but I can’t be the only person who desperately wants one. The algorithm must know I need it.

“Absolutely not. Not until you’re ready.” Alex reaches for another sweetener packet. “At least you hadn’t put any deposits down. Silver linings, right?”

“Mmm,” I say noncommittally. Wedding planning was another one of those excitement-anxiety knots for me, though most of the time, anxiety had been winning. Whenever we started talking about it, I’d freeze with indecision. Spring or fall? Band or DJ? How many guests? Even now, it’s enough to make me itch inside my cable-knit sweater.

But what Alex said sticks in my brain. Because silver linings—they’re kind of my thing. Any time I sense negativity beginning to simmer inside me, I force it away with one of my practiced TV smiles. Leap right over that murky puddle. Keep myself dry before I risk sinking deeper into the darkness.

“We should have these donuts more often,” I say, even though it’s an entirely unremarkable donut.

Alex must be able to tell I’m not eager to dig up more history because he launches into a story about Orion’s determination to lose his first tooth.

“He was trying that old string-and-a-doorknob trick,” Alex says. “Only, he completely missed the doorknob part, so I found him sitting in his room with all this string hanging from his mouth, waiting patiently for a tooth to loosen up.”

“And why didn’t you send me pictures immediately?” I ask, and he remedies this.

Once we’ve both moved on to our second donuts, my phone lights up with a notification, and I tap it to find an email from Russell Barringer, sports.

If he’s emailing me, it can only be about one thing.


Weather girl,


Seth put up new signs today. Torrance found one on her oat milk and she’s livid. Just wanted to let you know you might be walking into a hurricane.



“I should get going,” I say to Alex. “Or, we should get going so you can drop me off.”

“Something with your boss?”

I do my best to temper my sigh so it doesn’t sound as long-suffering as I feel. “Isn’t it always?”

We’re about to get up when a thirtysomething guy with a soaked umbrella stops in front of our table and stares right at me. “I know you,” he says, wagging a finger at me as rain drips onto the linoleum.

“Oh, from the news?” I say. It happens on occasion, strangers recognizing me but for the life of them unable to figure out why. Usually they’re disappointed I’m not my boss, and honestly, I’d feel the same way.

He shakes his head. “Are you friends with Mandy?”

“I am not.”

My brother waves an arm out the window at the billboard. “Channel six. She does the weather.”

“I don’t really watch TV,” he says with a shrug. “Sorry. I must have been thinking of someone else.”

Alex is shaking with silent laughter. I elbow him as we head to sort our trash into its proper bins.

“I’m so glad my pain is hilarious to you.”

“Gotta keep you humble somehow.” Before we leave, Alex waits in line to grab a few dozen donuts for his fourth-grade class. “Guilt donuts,” he explains. “It’s state testing week.”

“It’s a wonder some of us make it out of school with only minor psychological wounds.”

He gives me a half smile that doesn’t quite touch his eyes, and then he lowers his voice. “You’ll text me if you’re feeling down or anything this week, right?”

It’s so easy to joke around with him that sometimes I forget I can do more than that. “I will.” I glance down at the time and tap my phone. “If you can get me to the dressing room in twenty minutes, I’ll make Nutella rugelach for Hanukkah next weekend.”

“On it,” he says, reaching for his keys while I balance his boxes of donuts. “You could really use that extra time.”

“Hey, I am very fragile right now!”

With his chin, he gestures outside one more time. “Fine, fine. You look just as good as your billboard.”





2




FORECAST:

Showers of shredded paper moving in this afternoon

WHEN I WAS little, I wanted to grow up to be Torrance Hale.

I watched her every night on the evening news, mesmerized by her smooth confidence and the way her face lit up when sun was in the forecast. The way she looked at the camera, looked right at me, one corner of her mouth hitched in a quarter-smile as she joked with the anchors—there was something electric about her.

As a baby science nerd, I’d been fascinated by the weather since an April blizzard shut down the city for two weeks when I was in kindergarten. Of course, I’d later learn that this was not normal and in fact a very scary thing, but back then, I wanted to experience as many weather phenomena as I could. Living in Seattle made that tricky, given how mild it is year-round. Still, I saw enough to keep me curious: record-breaking summer heat, a lunar eclipse, a rare tornado that touched down in Port Orchard when my family was on vacation.