Russell appears by my side, shaking his head. “Like clockwork,” he says before his gaze shifts to Torrance. “I’ve never seen her like this. I’ve never seen either of them like this.”
“I think they’re happy.”
“Happy, or high on cheap grocery store cake?”
“Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Eventually, we’ll have to do real work, and there’s a lot of work waiting for me in the weather center this afternoon, but this is such a welcome shift in the station atmosphere that I can’t tear myself away quite yet. I’m dreaming, too, of the sledding Russ and I have planned later today at the huge hill near his house.
I’m taking my turn in paper clip relay—a contest to see which group can straighten a paper clip the fastest, and you can only start after the person in front of you finishes—when Torrance approaches me, twirling a whiteboard marker between her thumb and index finger.
“Ari, do you have that press release from the city about their new snowplows? I think they sent it back in January. My inbox is a mess right now.”
“Oh—yeah. Of course.” My computer’s on the other side of the room, so I tug my phone out of my pocket, search for the original email, and forward it to her. Then I turn back to the game, fingers poised on the wire of my paper clip. In front me, Hannah Stern is about to finish. Russell’s on the other team, headed up by sports anchor Lauren Nguyen and undefeated, and I’m not about to let them win.
“What’s this?” Torrance’s voice has turned colder than the temperature outside.
“It should have all the info in it,” I say. “Though we may have to make some calls to the city with everything going on today.”
“No. Not that.” She shows me her phone just as Hannah whirls around, signaling that it’s my turn.
When I read what’s on the screen, I drop my paperclip.
“Ari?” Hannah says. When I don’t respond, she grabs my fallen paper clip and thrusts it into the hands of another player.
I didn’t forward her the original email. Because the original email, I’d forwarded to Russell with a joke about how to scheme Torrance and Seth back together.
And that’s the one currently in her inbox.
Re: City of Seattle Snowplow
Idea: trap T and S somewhere during a snowstorm. Reunite them through forced proximity + the beauty of Mother Nature.
Hannah’s team lets out a collective groan. Lauren Nguyen remains undefeated. Or at least—I think so. I can’t process anything except the words on Torrance’s screen, and even those are starting to blur.
I stagger backward, away from the games and the sweets and my cheering coworkers, this scene I never thought Torrance and Seth would be part of. It’s too much. Too loud. I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating on my breathing. No. No, no, no, no, no. They were finally making progress. Finally happy. If she finds out what we did . . .
It’s entirely possible I’ve never paused to consider the consequences, and now that they’re chasing me out of the newsroom and down the hall, weighing down my legs and tightening my lungs, I’m deeply, thoroughly terrified of them.
When I open my eyes, I’m hunched against the wall across from the kitchen, right beneath a photo of a thirtysomething Torrance accepting an award for excellence in science reporting from the American Meteorological Society. I’ve walked by this photo hundreds of times, and it’s an award I’ve always hoped I’d have a shot at one day. With a single click, I may have shattered that possibility.
The real Torrance, the mentor I’ve wanted so desperately to be proud of me, followed me out here, and I have never felt as insignificant in front of her as I do right now.
“It’s not—it’s not what it looks like,” I stammer. “T and S, that’s—” My unhelpful brain goes blank.
Torrance crosses her arms over her burnt-orange dress. “Really? That’s all you have? You improv every day in front of thousands of people, and that’s the best you can do?” When she holds out her palm, I realize I’m still clutching her phone. “Meet me in my office. And bring Russell.”
I wait until the sound of her heels clicking across the linoleum fades, and then I do my best to compose myself. Deep inhales and shaky, strangled exhales. A hand to my heart, willing it to slow down.
There has to be a way to salvage this. I can’t accept what might happen otherwise.
Back in the newsroom, Russell’s immersed in a game of desk hockey with his sports colleagues. “Hey,” I say, tapping his arm, the single word sounding unsteady. Now is the time for my star performance. Pretend everything is okay when it’s on the verge of collapsing.
He grins at me, and for a moment, I feel a brief flash of annoyance toward him. Shouldn’t he be able to tell that this isn’t a real smile? “Hey. Do you want to play?”
“No, I—” I break off, unsure how to phrase it. “Torrance wants to see us in her office.”
“O . . . kay?”
The collar of his blazer is wrinkled. I smoothed it out this morning before we left for work, but it’s a stubborn slice of fabric. For some reason, focusing on this helps ground me.
“Russ.” I take hold of his arm, towing him a few steps away from his friends, who are too distracted by the game to notice my imminent panic attack. “She knows.”
His face goes pale, jaw slack. “Oh. Oh shit.” His eyes flick to Torrance’s office, as though he’s imagining what kind of fate awaits us. “How did she—？” he asks, but I can’t muster a response.
I keep my gaze trained on the space in front of me as we walk toward her office, a hand around the lightning bolt at my throat. It’s a wonder I don’t yank it right off my neck. There’s no way anyone in the newsroom could guess what’s going on, and yet I’m half convinced it’s written all over my face. BETRAYED BOSS’S TRUST. WORST MENTEE EVER. DISGRACED METEOROLOGIST SEEKS NEW JOB.
Seth is already inside, leaning against Torrance’s shelf of meteorology books with two succulents for bookends.
“Take a seat,” Torrance says, gesturing to the two chairs on the opposite side of her desk. “And please. Feel free to start explaining yourselves at any time.”
I’m grateful when Russell speaks first.
“It was originally my idea.” He sounds solid. Sure of himself. “The night of the holiday party, both of us were feeling a little down about everything that had happened, and, well . . . I suggested trying getting the two of you back together as a joke. I don’t think either of us were serious about it until a few days later.”
“Did you even know each other back then?” Torrance asks. “I don’t remember you spending much time together at the station.”
“We’d always been friendly, but it wasn’t anything more than that until the party,” I say, my voice small and fragile. “We bonded because of you and Seth. Because—because you were so preoccupied with each other that KSEA became such a hostile place to work.”
While she knows this about KSEA, I wish my words sounded less trivial. Less selfish. We may have begun that way, on a mission to make work better for ourselves, but that was before we really knew the Hales. Torrance has become more important to me than I ever imagined, and I don’t want to have betrayed what little trust we had. If I can explain myself, clear my conscience, maybe she’ll understand.