Weather Girl(91)

32




FORECAST:

Thick layers of existential fog beginning to clear toward the end of the week

AVOIDING RUSSELL BECOMES a game, and if we were keeping score, I like to think I’d make it to the championships. Aside from our mostly opposite schedules, I’ve become stealthy, coming to the station with a full face of makeup so I don’t run into him in the dressing room, doing most of my work in the weather center, eating lunch at my desk or with Torrance.

Two weeks after the Winter Olympics, we collide in the kitchen. I’m washing out my mug and he’s come in for a coffee refill, his own mug dangling from the crook of his index finger. bring them back, the mug says, along with a logo for the Seattle Sonics. The mug is so Russell that it makes my heart ache.

“Oh—sorry.” He backs away from the coffee maker, which is a full five feet from the sink. “Did you want—”

“No, you go—” I say, both of us stumbling over the other’s words. Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I shut off the water and turn around, letting my damp hands flap awkwardly to my sides. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

Even when we’ve passed each other in the newsroom, I’ve tried my best not to get a good look at him. He’s been a blur, a sketch, a blueprint of a person. But here in front of me, all those details that make him Russell fill my senses to the point where my knees go weak.

He’s in a forest-green blazer and blue button-up a shade lighter than his eyes, a shadow of scruff along his jaw. It doesn’t look amazing. I don’t want to grab the lapels and press myself against him and sniff his neck. That would mean I’m not over him, and I have to be over him. At the very least, I have to be on my way there.

Otherwise, it would mean that he could have my darkness and my sunshine, and despite everything Joanna said, everything Seth said, I want a guarantee he won’t run when it gets hard. I want something I know he cannot give me: certainty.

“This doesn’t have to be awkward,” he says gently.

“I don’t think I got that memo.”

“It was on one of Seth’s latest signs. Garamond, size twenty.” Then he makes a face. “Too soon?”

I match his grimace even as I’m biting back a laugh. “Maybe a little.”

“But . . . you’re doing okay? I saw you on Halestorm on Friday. You were great.”

I try not to think about what it means that he watched it. Probably just that he works here and it’s difficult to ignore, not that he misses me.

“It was great,” I say. He’s jammed my neural pathways so thoroughly that in this moment, I can’t even remember what Torrance and I talked about.

“Great.” Apparently, neither of us knows another adjective. He turns to the coffee maker. “I’m just going to—”

“Right, of course,” I say, and for a few blessed seconds, the sound of coffee grinder covers up our awkwardness. Once it goes silent again and he sips his coffee, I force a smile. “And you’re doing okay?”

The sudden question must startle him because he misses his next sip entirely, sending liquid spilling down his shirt.

I snatch up a paper towel, running it under the faucet before approaching him with it. “I hope that wasn’t too hot. You have to be on camera later, right?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. This is why I always have spare shirts.” He sucks in a breath as I dab the towel against his chest. “I can, uh—handle that.”

“Right. Right.” I pass him the paper towel, taking care not to let my fingertips graze his. I take a few steps back until I bump up against the counter. “Have a good show. I’m sorry about your shirt.”

“Thanks.” He’s halfway to the door when he says, “Ari?”

I turn around. “Yeah?”

“I’m not angry with you,” he says, and I hope I’m not imagining the softness in his expression. “Just wanted you to know that.”



* * *



? ? ?

THAT EVENING, I brave rush-hour traffic to meet my mom at Redmond’s outdoor mall.

If you think it’s weird to have an outdoor mall in a place that’s cloudy 80 percent of the year, so does everyone who lives in Redmond. I don’t remember Redmond Town Center being built, but my mom does, and every time we went there as kids, she’d shake her head as we pulled into a parking spot, muttering, “I don’t know what they were thinking.”

My mother’s already at the coffee shop where we agreed to meet, a place with cushy chairs and enormous pastries and folk music playing in the background. I order a blueberry muffin and take a seat next to her in a corner, beneath some watercolors of the Pacific Northwest on sale from a local artist.

“How was work?” she asks. She’s dressed business casual, tapered black pants and a coral peplum blouse. Her hair is loose and wavy, and she hasn’t dyed out the grays yet. I wonder if she will. “It’s strange to ask that after having seen you on TV. I always thought I’d get used to it, but nope, it’s still surreal to turn to channel six and see your face.”

“You still watch me?”

“Almost every day,” she says, and perhaps this shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.