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.
Torrance is in her office, gleefully feeding a stack of Seth’s signs through a paper shredder.
Instead of allowing it to get to me, I square my shoulders and stop by the cluster of intern desks in the draftiest part of the newsroom, telling them how glad all of us at KSEA are to have them here, and if they ever have questions about broadcasting or about the weather, they can feel free to ask me any time. Their strange looks are worth it for the way the tension eases in my chest, ever so slightly.
“Does anyone know how to fix a paper shredder?” Torrance yells.
They say don’t meet your heroes. Don’t work for them, either.
3
FORECAST:
Take shelter and brace for Hurricane Torrance
“WELL . . . THEY TRIED,” I say.
“Did they, though?” asks traffic reporter Hannah Stern, pushing aside a tree branch.
We lean closer to inspect the Christmas tree in the hotel ballroom—more specifically, the single menorah ornament, dangling in all its blue-and-silver glory behind a surfing Santa carrying a red bag. Seems like an inefficient way to deliver gifts, but okay.
“It’s one more Jewish decoration than last year,” I say, searching for a positive. And because beaming out a compliment always seems to help, I gesture to Hannah’s gold T-strap heels. “And I’m obsessed with your shoes.”
This Jew is not backing down from a Christmas party, especially since it took me three hours to get ready. I straightened my hair before worrying it looked like I was trying too hard, so I spritzed it with water and scrunched to bring back the waves. Then I took out my flat iron to add more curl to the ends, burning my palm in the process and rushing to the kitchen for an ice pack. All I found was an overpriced Amy’s ravioli I’d been saving for a special occasion. It’s quite sad, how much I’ve been looking forward to that ravioli, which I bought during my first post-Garrison grocery trip. My life may not be on the right track if the sole bright spot is a box of frozen pasta.
Maybe that billboard really was an omen.
The hotel ballroom is decked with garlands, snowflakes, and multicolor lights, a band onstage playing “Jingle Bell Rock.” Our holiday party is Seattle black tie, which means you can get away with wearing jeans. I tried on no fewer than four outfits before settling on the black lace dress I wore for my engagement party. I’m giving it new life, freeing it of its association with my ex. To further sell that to myself, I swapped my usual lightning bolt necklace for a vintage pin Alex found at an antique shop and gave as a birthday gift one year, a little gemstone-dotted cloud. It was missing half the jewels, so I scoured Etsy and Seattle bead shops to fix it and strung on a few blue crystals for rain. I am nothing if not tragically predictable. That repair mission grew into a full-fledged hobby, one that takes up half my kitchen table, complete with an entire drawer unit and all kinds of tools I wouldn’t have known the names of a year ago, and relaxes me when the world is too much.
I’m doing great! is what this outfit says, only I’m not exactly sure who it’s declaring it to. Maybe I’m trying to prove it to myself.
Hannah and I are the only two Jews at KSEA, though because Hannah works afternoons, we don’t often cross paths. As a result, we haven’t broached the gap between work friends and outside-of-work friends, which is starting to feel like a pattern with me. Maybe I’m the common denominator, which would require a whole lot of self-reflection I’m not sure I’m ready for.