Page 4 of Weather Girl

It’s eight o’clock, meaning the morning show just ended. All over the newsroom in our Belltown station, people are hunched over their desks beneath too-bright fluorescents and a bank of TVs, the one tuned to KSEA currently airing an ad for a carpet cleaner with a too-catchy jingle. On a typical day, I’d be a few hours from the end of my shift, but Torrance is presenting at some gala tonight. As a minor Seattle celebrity, she’s always getting invitations like this, and while I’ve grown out of my obsession with her, the city hasn’t.

Without looking at the piece of paper and even without the warning from Russell, I’d know who’s behind this unacceptable behavior: Seth Hasegawa Hale, KSEA 6 news director. Torrance’s ex-husband.

I chance a peek at it.

Please finish milk before opening new carton to avoid waste. Two containers are already open and more than half full. The environment thanks you. —SHH

Classic Seth. With our general manager a year from retirement and completely checked out, Seth’s taken it upon himself to run the station as he sees fit, often in the form of passive-aggressive signs like this one. The irony that his initials are SHH isn’t lost on me.

I’m not sure which of Torrance’s questions to answer first. “I hadn’t seen it yet,” I settle on. “Maybe he didn’t know it was yours?”

“He knows perfectly well that I’ve been off dairy for years and soy gives me hives. I’m the only one who drinks the oat milk. This was very clearly directed at me,” she says, sparing me from having to take a side in the Great Milk Debate. She leans her hip against my desk, her form-fitting blue dress wrinkle-free even after having been on the air since four in the morning, her blond hair tumbling past her shoulders. At fifty-five, Torrance is, and I say this with a tremendous amount of respect for her as a scientist, smoking hot.

“He can’t just do this and expect all of us to fall in line the way he wants,” she continues. “If he wants to talk about saving the planet, then he should trade in that SUV he’s driving. Or stop wasting all this paper.”

I’m fairly certain this isn’t about the environment at all, but I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the Hales’ relationship. From what I’ve heard, they were miserable for a while before they divorced five years ago. I don’t love Seth’s signs, either—really could have done without the one in the bathroom reminding us that the plumbing is too delicate to handle tampons—but I imagine I’d love them a lot less if I used to be married to him.

I do my best to stay optimistic. Upbeat. “He did say ‘please,’ at least? And I drink the oat milk sometimes, too... maybe it was more of a general note?” I have never had the oat milk.

“Is everything okay over here?”

Seth is striding toward us, hands in the pockets of his navy slacks, hem of his matching jacket swaying as he walks. Posture relaxed, chin tilted upward just slightly. Completely unbothered by his ex-wife’s distress. He looks so innocent, he might as well be whistling a tune and wearing a cap at a jaunty angle.

“What do you think?” Torrance asks sweetly, snatching up the sign with her thumb and index finger and dangling it in front of his face. “You realize people might actually do what you want them to if you asked them nicely, right? Instead of this passive-aggressive bullshit?”

“What a shock that I’d want to put it in writing instead of dealing with this,” Seth says, monotone. While he’s not as imposing as Torrance, he’s well past six feet, black hair graying at the temples in that distinguished way only men seem able to pull off, though I’d love to think I could rock a gray streak someday.

Everyone at my old station in Yakima, my first full-time job out of college after I double-majored in atmospheric sciences and communications at the University of Washington, felt like one big family. Maybe the problem here is that the Hales are too much like a dysfunctional one.

As the news director, Seth should be chief meteorologist Torrance’s boss, but because of their history and her seniority, she’s directly underneath our GM, a man named Fred Wilson whom I have spoken to exactly twice. Given that Wilson’s third-floor office stays locked most of the day—when he bothers to show up, which he didn’t even do for the seventy-fifth birthday party we threw him last month—this essentially puts Torrance on equal footing with Seth. The two of them are willing to run this station right into the ground, as long as it means one of them comes out on top.

“I don’t need to be micromanaged, Seth,” Torrance says. “What I put in and take out of the fridge is my own business.”

Seth crosses his arms over his chest, which he probably does in part to show off the way his ridiculous biceps strain against the fabric of his jacket. Sometimes I think Torrance and Seth are locked in a battle to prove who’s winning their divorce. I imagine them at gyms on opposite sides of the city, panting on treadmills while personal trainers shout at them to go faster. “Can’t say being a team player has ever been your strong suit.”

“And not being a massive prick has never been yours.”

I bring a hand to my throat and rub my thumb along the tiny lightning bolt at the end of my necklace. The charm is about the size of my pinky nail and hammered gold, a gift from my mother when I graduated from college. A rare day she seemed truly happy. I want to disappear between my low-partition walls, but the whole point of them is that you kind of can’t.

“I’m just going to—” I start, but Torrance suddenly stands straighter, something catching her attention across the room, in her office. She marches over there and, in one swift motion, tugs a sheet of paper off her computer monitor. Another sign.

“Be sure to turn off your office lights to conserve power when you’re not using them? Did you put this in my office when I was on the air?”

“I wanted to make sure you’d see it,” Seth says with an innocent shrug.

Maybe Seth’s requests aren’t entirely unreasonable, even if his method is. Yes, they’re petty, but Torrance does have a way of forgetting her surroundings when she’s at work. On camera, she’s poised and professional, but off it, she’s a bit of a mess. Too often, I’ve swept trash off her desk, tidied her makeup in the dressing room, watered the plants in her office. If her ficus is thriving, it’s not because of her. It’s probably not the best way of getting my boss to pay attention to me, but at the very least, I figure I’ve prevented a couple Hale v. Hale brawls.

Torrance storms back over to my desk, sign balled in her fist. “That is such a blatant invasion of privacy, I don’t even know where to start.” She juts her chin toward me. “What do you think, Abrams? Can you imagine if I put up signs in the weather center saying, ‘Be sure to check the National Weather Service’ or ‘Don’t forget to smile when you’re on the air’? Would you appreciate being treated like a child?”

Again, I get the feeling anything I say is going to be the wrong answer.

“Maybe the weather center would be run much more efficiently if you cleaned it up every once in a while,” Seth says. “I don’t know how any of you can work like that. That place is a pigsty.”

“Because I just finished my shift!”

“Excuse me,” I say, backing out of my chair and grabbing my bag, but they’re no longer listening to me. If they ever were.

The farther I get from them, the easier I can breathe, but their voices follow me down the hall. I probably could have come in later, since I won’t be on camera until three, but I’m an early riser to my core. And I could use some therapeutic alone time with my hair straightener—I’ve never quite mastered my natural curls and have to iron my shoulder-length hair into submission before each broadcast—and newest eye shadow palette. The people at Sephora adore me. I’ve been a VIB Rouge since before I could legally drink.

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