Weather Girl(38)

I wince. “Sorry, sorry. We can talk about something else.”

“I’m messing with you. You’re making it way too easy for me.” Torrance becomes pensive, stretching out her legs that remain golden-tan even in the winter. “When we worked, we really worked,” she says, sounding wistful. “I’d give anything to get those moments back. Maybe we were both too busy, or maybe it was something that happened naturally after being married almost twenty years. I don’t know.” A long sigh, and I wonder if she really means it: that she’d give anything to get those moments back. “The people who love us the most have the power to hurt us the most, too.”

The sauna timer goes off, which is probably a good thing, since I’m beginning to feel light-headed.

“We should get going before this thing burns us to a crisp.” Torrance gets to her feet, pulling the towel tighter across her chest. “What do you think, facials next?”



* * *



? ? ?

    AFTER I’VE BEEN plucked, tweezed, buffed, and exfoliated within an inch of my life, I change for our all-staff welcome dinner. I’m starting to think this retreat is more R & R than work, but I guess I can’t blame Torrance for wanting a break from it all. An escape.

It’s possible I spend a little longer than usual deciding what to wear. Russell’s room is right next door to mine, as luck would have it, and once I’ve slipped into my favorite dark jeans and a burgundy sweater over a cloud-printed button-up, I knock on his door, assuming we’ll go down together. When there’s no answer, I knock again. Nothing.

I’m on my way to the elevator at the end of the third floor hallway when I spot Torrance and Seth sitting together on a sectional in an alcove next to a fireplace. Their faces are bent close, their knees touching.

It’s definitely not a casual pose.

For a few moments, I’m frozen. I could head back to my room, wait until they’re gone. I could walk by, risk interrupting them.

Or . . . I could stay here, next to this column, in case I can overhear anything they’re saying.

They look so cozy that I can’t help wondering if whatever’s going on here is a result of the conversation Torrance and I had in the sauna. And that’s what draws me closer, until I’m pressed up against a second column, trying to breathe as quietly as I can.

If there’s a line I haven’t already crossed, I am aware that this, hiding behind a column and kind-of sort-of spying on my bosses, might be it. But it’s not that I’m curious in some voyeuristic way. It’s that I genuinely want to know if they’re getting along. The way they’re seated, the way they were dancing last week—all of it makes me think they might be able to get back the good parts of what they used to have.

Maybe after all my talk about wanting to improve the station, what I really want is to see the two of them happy.

“. . . sure it’s a good idea?” Torrance is saying.

“It’s worth a try,” Seth says.

And then something terrible happens.

I shift positions to stretch out some lingering tension in my back, and my boot lets out a high-pitched squeak on the polished wood floor.

Their heads whip my direction as I spin and bolt down the darkened hallway, cursing these new rain boots, furious a favorite article of clothing betrayed me like this. Shit, shit, shit.

They’ll think I was spying on them. And—okay, I was, but for a good reason. They’ll know why Russell and I have been asking so many questions, and they’ll report us to HR and realize they really do hate each other after all. With a single uncontrollable action, I may have ruined our entire plan.

I’ve spiraled so deep in my head that I miss the sign at the end of the hall that says WET FLOOR.

And then I miss the staircase.





13




FORECAST:

A torrent of secrets and at least one questionable decision

“CAN YOU BEND your wrist a little more?” asks the X-ray technician.

“This is about as far as I can go,” I say, grimacing as a sharp pain shoots from my wrist to my elbow. “Am I bending it at all?”

“Nope. Here, let me help you.”

He tries to bend it for the X-ray, and holy fucking shit, it hurts more than my IUD insertion. I hiss out a string of colorful curse words, followed by an apology.

“Not to worry,” he says. “I’ve heard worse. I’m told to go to hell a few times a week at least.”

He tells me to hold it there for five seconds, during which time I learn that when you are in this much pain, five seconds can feel like an eon, until the machine clicks. The way my body is contorted must be undoing every bit of the massage.

The actual fall is blurred from my memory. All I remember is my foot catching air at the top of the staircase and then how hard I landed, the surge of fear when I couldn’t move my left arm. The way Torrance and Seth and eventually Russell appeared in front of me and sat with me, helped me to my feet, asked the lodge staff for some ice. I remember holding the melting ice pack to my left arm as Russell helped me into an Uber, grateful when he slid in next to me, silently freaking out because I couldn’t move any of my fingers.

I’ve never broken a bone, never twisted an ankle or sprained a finger or chipped a tooth. So of course, at the age of twenty-seven, I manage to topple down a flight of stairs and likely fracture my elbow.