Weather Girl(6)
I gesture to his empty coffee mug. “Heading back to the scene of the crime?”
Russell’s in a charcoal jacket that matches the sky outside, a blue dress shirt underneath. He’s a big guy, broad-shouldered and soft-angled, light brown hair usually gelled for the camera, but this morning it’s a little unruly. Probably got caught in the rain on his way to the office.
“I warned you,” he says, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one’s around to overhear us. “How bad was it?”
“They’re children. No, wait, that’s not fair to children.” I pause next to a flyer reminding us to RSVP for the office holiday party this Friday, which will be at a swanky downtown hotel. Already RSVPed, already dreading going without a plus-one. “I have half a mind to go into the kitchen and dump out the rest of her oat milk.”
“She’d just blame Seth.” His mouth tips into a grin. “Actually, maybe we should use this to our advantage. We could probably do just about anything, and they’d assume it was the other person.”
“You distract them, and I’ll take the milk.”
“Deal,” he says, blue eyes bright behind his rectangular black glasses. He has the longest lashes I’ve ever seen. If I had lashes like that, I wouldn’t be nearly as beloved by my local Sephora. “Well—good luck out there.” He motions toward the kitchen, giving me a kind but somewhat muted smile.
“Right. You too.”
Russell and I should share a camaraderie of the both-our-bosses-are-assholes variety, but our work friendship hasn’t evolved much beyond this. He mostly keeps to himself in the Dugout, friendly with his sports colleagues but surface-level pleasant with everyone else. How was your weekend, polite smile, moving on. He ends conversations too quickly, and I’ve never been able to get a solid read on him beyond the fact that he might be as miserable as I am.
Except he has a door to shut it all out.
* * *
? ? ?
“AS YOU CAN see, we have increasing rain and wind in store for your afternoon commute,” I say, moving my hand across the green screen behind me. On the monitor in front of me and in viewers’ homes, it’s a map of western Washington. “Overnight, we’ll be seeing more showers, with temperatures in the low-to-mid-forties.”
Most of my weather hits are thirty seconds, but for this longer one, I have two minutes on the clock. I think of it as building a story: I start with a live satellite view of the region to show what’s happening right now, and then I explain it through air patterns and pressure systems. I always wrap up by talking about the week ahead.
“We’ll be heating up to the mid-fifties tomorrow, thanks to a warm front that’s moving in. Behind that, though”—the graphic shifts to a model that shows what’s happening off the coast—“we have a stronger cold front that will be marching through western Washington on Wednesday that’s going to increase our wind speeds, with gusts of up to sixty miles per hour and possible power outages. We’ll continue to keep an eye on that, so be sure to keep checking in with us as we fine-tune our forecast.”
The screen switches again, this time to this week’s forecast.
“Here’s your seven-day forecast, and as you can see, there’s not a whole lot of variation. It’s going to be wet and windy, with maybe a chance of a sunbreak Friday afternoon. It’s December in the Pacific Northwest, after all.” I bite back a laugh, playing with the audience as I deliver the week’s highs and lows. “And it looks like next Monday’s system could be another rainy, windy one.”
“And you sound positively gleeful about it,” says Gia DiAngelo in my earpiece as I walk over to the anchor desk and sit down, the same way I do every morning with Chris Torres.
“I can’t help it, Gia. I’m a Seattleite through and through.” I hold up my arms, still grinning. “There’s rainwater in these veins instead of blood.”
It’s a running joke that while most meteorologists—most people in general—get excited when sun is in the forecast, I’m the opposite. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t rain here as much as people think. New Orleans and Miami get more annual precipitation, while the Pacific Northwest tends to get more rainy days on average. Still, there’s something about rain in Seattle that’s deeply romantic.
Gia chuckles and faces the teleprompter again. “We’ll hear more from Ari soon. I’m sure everyone wants to know how all of this will affect their holiday plans. Coming up next: a local woman thought she’d found her dream home—but when she started renovations, the police showed up to tell her the house wasn’t actually hers. Kyla Sutherland investigates.”
And cut to commercial.
I’m still buzzing with adrenaline when we go off the air. It almost makes me forget the fact that my boss barely notices I exist, unless she needs me to cover a shift. Just once, I’d like her to say, “Ooh, this really meaty climate story would be great for Ari, go ahead and take the lead on it.”
“Always nice having you here in the afternoons,” Gia says, pulling a compact from her pocket to check that every strand of her glossy black hair is in place. “Even when you’re giving us bad news.”
“Rain isn’t bad news, Gia,” I say in a singsong, switching off the mic clipped to my dress and heading for the newsroom to refill my water bottle during this ten-minute break.