Page 56 of Weather Girl

“Ari,” he says into my hair, his hand resting on my hip. “I really like you.”

“Me too,” I say quietly, and I wish it didn’t feel so terrifying.

20

FORECAST:

Mild discomfort leads to a long-awaited heart-to-heart

WHEN I USED to picture Torrance’s house, I imagined the kind of place in furniture showrooms, sophisticated and spotless. The reality isn’t too far off. Her Dutch Colonial in Madison Park is painted robin’s-egg blue, and everything inside is done in shades of white and cream with warm wood accents. I’m so worried about tracking dirt onto the rugs she tells me she custom-ordered from a Seattle artist that I half wonder if I should have taken off my shoes outside. At least I washed my sling last night.

“Make yourself at home.” Torrance hangs up my coat and gestures to a cream sectional topped with no fewer than a dozen decorative pillows. Next to it is a towering shelf full of succulents. Making myself at home might require becoming a different person entirely. “I’ll be right out with the wine and cashew cheese. Trust me, it’s better than it sounds.”

When she invited me over for a “girls’ night” and told me we would be the only two girls in attendance, I was skeptical. In three years of working for her, Torrance has never expressed a desire to see me outside of work. But then I thought back to the massage, and how she opened up. And how great it felt, even just for a while, that she was listening to me. This whole time, that’s been the goal. I’m just not sure I can accept that it’s happening.

I debate where to rehome the pillows on Torrance’s couch, settling for stacking them in the matching armchair, before sitting down, and—oh. This is a phenomenal couch. Between my therapist’s, my brother’s, and Torrance’s couches, I’m starting to think I need to go furniture shopping. I remove my sling so I can stretch my arm a bit—after physical therapy this afternoon, my elbow’s a little sore.

The arrival of a gorgeous wood charcuterie board snaps me out of my sofa envy, with five kinds of vegan cheese and a marble-handled cheese knife. Cured meats and wedges of grilled bread, green olives and fig jam. It’s a Williams-Sonoma catalog come to life.

“This looks incredible,” I say. “Even the vegan cheese.”

Torrance waves a freshly French-manicured hand. “I love entertaining. Seth and I used to do it all the time, but I don’t do nearly enough of it on my own these days.”

It’s been almost three weeks since the yacht, and I hope it’s a good sign that she brought up Seth without my prompting.

She pours herself a glass of white wine and lifts it to mine for a toast. “We’re going to have the best time!” she says, and I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince me, herself, or both of us.

After we get the pleasantries out of the way—how’s your arm, how was your day, how’s work been—she settles back onto the couch. I expected weekend Torrance would be casual Torrance, and she is—a little. Jeans, a loose top, hair naturally straight instead of the barrel curls she wears on camera.

She spreads some fig jam on a piece of bread, which she then tops with a single olive. “It’s good. You should try it,” she says when I give her a horrified look.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I say as I help myself to a hunk of imitation cheddar.

I’m reminded of that moment at the holiday party, when she and Seth joked about her favorite song. There’s a true goofball stuck in Torrance’s body, and I want to draw her out as much as I can.

“We’ve talked far too much about me lately,” Torrance says after another fig-olive monstrosity. “Are you still single?”

I cough, trying to dislodge the olive caught in my throat. “I’m... I don’t know what I am right now, honestly.”

“Is it someone I know? Someone from work?” She leans in and drapes a conspiratorial hand over her mouth. “Is it Russell?”

My blush must completely give me away.

She reaches out to gently slap my knee. “You and Russell,” she says, a lipsticked grin spreading across her face. “I’m not sure I’d have predicted it, but I can see it. He’s very cute. Nice, too.”

“He is,” I say, my mind drifting back to just how nice Russell was in my bed last weekend. How eager I am to get him back there.

Except for Joanna, Torrance is the first to hear about him. With my brother, anything I tell him gets passed to Javier, which I don’t mind, but I’m not quite ready for that. It’s tough not to envy what they have, this assumption that you can trust someone with a secret as much as the person telling it could trust you.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that with someone. Not even with the man I thought I was going to marry.

If I can trust Torrance with this secret, though, maybe she’ll trust me with hers.

“You are hard-core blushing.” Torrance lets out a giggle I’ve never heard from her, this sound that has nothing in common with her TV laugh. I realize I haven’t talked like this with anyone in a while, and it feels good. “Did it happen on the retreat? When he took you to the hospital?”

“I was way too zonked on Vicodin for anything to happen,” I say. “We just talked. A lot. Our first date was only last weekend.”

“I love this so much. I love this for both of you.”

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