Weather Girl(37)

“Better to know as soon as possible,” Torrance says. “Reminds me of my first husband.”

I have to fight to keep my jaw from dropping. “You were married? Before Seth?”

“Only for a short time. We got it annulled after three months. It was a Vegas wedding—we’d gone there for some friends’ joint bachelor-bachelorette party and drank a bit too much. This was back when I was still an intern. Anyway, when we got back, we thought, ‘why not try to make it work?’ But he didn’t like that I was so buried in the station.” A wicked smile. “Sometimes I think of him seeing my face all around the city and on TV as my revenge. He can’t get away from me.”

I have to laugh at that. “I had no idea.”

“I don’t talk about it because, well, there’s not much to talk about.” She curls and uncurls the edge of her towel, staring down at her French-pedicured toes. “Seth and I were friends when I was with my ex. Nothing happened between us, but we were close, and it wasn’t long after my annulment that Seth and I started seeing each other.”

There’s something in her tone that I’m stunned to realize might be nostalgia. This love for Seth, this thing I’ve been told used to exist but I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around.

Summoning all my journalism instincts, I stay quiet, letting her speak. What someone says after a long pause is often the juiciest information. That probably goes double when the person’s just had an aromatherapy massage, loose limbed and hopefully loose-lipped. I focus on the heat in the sauna, trying to relax as much as my brain will allow.

Sure enough, Torrance keeps talking. “Seth was my favorite thing about work, and after a while, I realized I was looking forward more to coming in to work and seeing him than going home to my ex. But. You know. Then that ended too, and I realized the only person I could ever truly rely on is myself. Other people only let me down.”

“How did he let you down?”

She snorts, a very un-Torrance-like sound. “Oh god, how didn’t he? You don’t really want all my dirty laundry, do you?” She doesn’t even wait for a response, clearly eager now to spill. “We were interns at a medium-sized station in Olympia. We were both interested in the weather, and we had similar backgrounds. And, well, I got called up to fill in first when their regular meteorologist was sick. I’ve never been so fucking nervous in my life.”

I can’t imagine Torrance Hale being nervous. Even though it happened years ago, it humanizes her—a little.

“I had this natural talent that people really responded to,” she continues. It’s not bragging—she’s simply stating a fact. “We didn’t want to compete against each other. Seth wanted to be on the air, but he was also drawn to the managerial path. So that’s what we did. He went that route, and I stayed on camera. He followed me around for jobs when I got promoted to bigger and bigger stations. Eventually, I landed this job in Seattle, and we settled down and started a family.

“He got jealous of the fame. I was earning more than he was, even when he became a manager, and he felt frustrated that he couldn’t provide for me. For our family. No matter how many times I told him that he didn’t have to be the one providing, that maybe that was how it was for our parents, but it didn’t have to be that way for us,” she says. “First, he was passive-aggressive about it, little barbs here and there. Once he even said, ‘I’m not saying you’re famous because you’re a hot blonde, but I’m not not saying it.’ And I’d remind him that I was a scientist, first and foremost, until I realized, fuck that, I didn’t need his toxic masculinity. Jealousy has this way of simmering beneath the surface. When you don’t talk about it, it builds and builds until you think it might even be part of your DNA. We could be fighting about unloading the dishwasher, but it was never about unloading the dishwasher. It was about how Seth felt inferior, and he couldn’t handle it.”

I don’t have any tolerance for that kind of toxic bullshit, but there’s no hope for humanity if we can’t grow and evolve, become better versions of ourselves. Bad choices and bad behavior don’t doom someone to a lifetime as a bad person. I want to believe people can change, and while I don’t want to redeem murderers or anything like that, how Seth acted—that’s fixable. It has to be.

It’s not naivete—it’s hope.

“I don’t want to cross a line or anything, but . . .” It kills me to say that, knowing how wrong it is. But we’re getting somewhere.

“Ari. We were just lying naked a few feet from each other. I don’t think lines exist anymore.”

“Fair point,” I say, laughing. “Did you ever try therapy?”

Torrance doesn’t seem at all bothered by the question. “I wanted to. For a couple years, I insisted we should talk to someone, but Seth was too proud. He didn’t think we needed someone else knowing our private business. He thought we could figure it out on our own. And obviously, we didn’t.”

“I’ve always thought people can change.” I want to tell her Seth went to therapy, but that’s not my story to tell. “The signs have stopped, right? And I saw you two dancing at Century Ballroom.”

“Before we get much deeper, I should make sure you take my insurance. Do you charge by the hour?”