Weather Girl(65)

I want to ask about therapy. I want to make sure she’s taking her medication.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned about depression, it’s that it is an intensely personal journey, one that never really ends.

“Do you think I could come over sometime soon?” I ask when the conversation starts winding down, the static warping the sound of my mother’s yawn.

“Ari.” There’s an odd tone to her voice, and I worry for a moment that I’ve ruined the conversation. “You don’t have to ask.”





22




FORECAST:

A new front promises severe weather and severe anxiety

TORRANCE AND SETH aren’t exactly back together—not yet, she tells me at lunch on Monday.

“It’s still complicated,” she says between spoonfuls of green curry at a Thai restaurant a block from the station. “We’re taking it slowly, and we have a lot to talk about. Isn’t that completely bizarre, though? I’m dating my ex-husband.”

I don’t miss the new expression on her face when she talks about him, calm with a hint of a smirk. Or an old expression, rediscovered. The station has become considerably more peaceful, too, to the point where my coworkers have started asking me if I know what’s going on with Torrance.

“I can’t believe he changed his mind about that,” Avery Mitchell said to me this morning, when Seth aired Torrance’s crab story.

“Did I just see Torrance and Seth holding hands on their way in to work?” Hannah Stern said last week.

And I just shrugged, biting back a smile. Trying not to smile—that’s a new one.

I’m not sure what to expect when Torrance calls a spontaneous meeting the next afternoon, and even people who don’t directly report to her are curious enough to show up.

“I have something exciting to announce,” she says, standing at the head of the small conference room table. She’s in one of her power dresses, a form-fitting deep red with three-quarter sleeves paired with knee-high black boots.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of people at the station over the course of this week,” Torrance continues, “and it’s come to my attention that some newer staff feel like they aren’t getting the support they need. I’ve discussed this with Seth and with Fred, and we’ve decided to launch a mentorship program.”

A wave of chatter spreads around the room, as though the words Torrance Hale and mentorship program used in the same context do not compute.

She goes on to explain that it’ll be a three-tiered program: a senior staff member matched with someone who’s been here for a few years, who’s then matched with an intern or a student. The whole time she’s explaining it, I just stare. I love this idea, and the fact that she came up with it as a result of what I told her during our girls’ night . . . I’m incredibly touched.

Her boots click across the floor as she walks over to my chair, dropping a hand on my shoulder. “And Ari, who helped give me the idea for this program, is going to be my first protégé.”

The rest of the staff looks like they’re not quite sure how to react, but eventually Hannah starts clapping and everyone else joins in. Torrance gestures to me, as though wanting me to say something.

I clear my throat, completely unprepared. “Thank you. I—I’m really excited about this, and I’m honored to be mentored by Torrance.”

When the meeting’s over, Torrance catches me before I leave, promising she has one more thing she wants to discuss with me in her office. Despite having worked here for three years, I’ve mainly been in Torrance’s office to turn off her lights and tidy up. Times I’ve been invited? Not even in the double digits.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” she says once she drops into her chair, pushing aside a couple empty coffee mugs, maybe in an attempt to make her desk look like less of a hellscape. “But if I’m going to be your mentor, which I’m really looking forward to, then I can’t be your boss, too.”

“Are you . . . firing me?”

“Firing my first mentee? No, definitely not. I just want to reorganize the weather team a bit. Make us feel more like a team instead of a hierarchy. Your new boss would be Caroline.” Caroline Zielinski: our assistant news director.

“I like Caroline.”

“Great,” she says. “We’ll start the transition Monday.”

It’s almost too much good news to process in so little time. At least, until I leave her office and notice the sign on the inside of her door. Garamond font.


Your smile is my favorite thing in the world. Especially when I get to see it first thing in the morning. —SHH





* * *



? ? ?

“USUALLY IT’S A little . . . stormier.” My interview subject gives me a pointed look, as though it’s my fault the weather isn’t cooperating.

It’s a calm, almost windless Thursday at a beach in Lake Stevens, about thirty-five miles north of Seattle. My forecast yesterday called for the opposite.

“You know what they say about meteorologists,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “We’re never right.”

“Patience is an important quality for a storm chaser to have,” says Pacific Northwest Weather Chasers president Tyler “Typhoon” Watts—really. He insisted that be on his chyron. He strikes me a bit like someone preparing for an apocalypse, and he’s one of the more oddball characters I’ve interviewed: a thirtysomething dressed all in black, shaggy dark hair and shaggier beard, equipped with a tool belt and a massive backpack that isn’t doing his posture any favors. Getting him mic’d up was a Process. “It’s a lot of hours spent in the car driving. Sometimes you can’t even take a bathroom break—you can’t give the storm a chance to chase you.”