Page 15 of Weather Girl

By eleven o’clock, I’m scanning menus of the Belltown lunch spots I haven’t tried yet and posting viewer photos of last week’s storm on social media when I hear Seth’s voice booming from Torrance’s office.

“I told you we can’t air this,” he’s saying. The office door is open a crack.

Avery Mitchell catches my eye from a couple desks away. “Torrance’s story about Dungeness crabs and climate change,” she says by way of explanation. “About how the rising acidity in the ocean is damaging their shells. We were working on it all last month, talked to a ton of scientists. It was supposed to air this afternoon as part of a series on marine life, and I’m guessing Seth just watched it.”

“What was wrong with it?” I ask, just as Torrance yells, “It’s not biased, it’s science!”

Avery shrugs as though to say, that.

“You know that and I know that,” Seth says, “but the advertisers don’t, and I’d rather not field a dozen angry phone calls about it.”

“We get angry phone calls whenever we talk about climate change. I report the weather. I can’t not talk about it.”

“I’m aware of that! But we have to be careful about how we do it. This is about all our viewers, not just the ones who agree with you.”

“Well, the ones who don’t are wrong.”

I’m firmly on Torrance’s side. It’s something we have to contend with every so often on social media, though not nearly as much as the comments we get about showing both too much and not enough skin. It’s disheartening how many more people care about our bodies than rising ocean levels.

Seth goes quiet, too quiet to hear. And then: “What if you cut out this part at the end, or—”

A sharp laugh from Torrance cuts him off. “I know what’s going on here. You’re trying to get back at me for Friday. Your Emmy.”

“That is blatantly untrue. I’m just doing my job, Tor.”

“I don’t think you are. I think you’re trying to silence me to make yourself look like the big man here. So you can feel better about your pathetic little—”

And I’m done.

With shaking hands, I push out my chair, making more noise than I intend as I shove to my feet and stalk out of the newsroom. My ears are ringing, my lungs tight. No one can see me like this, and if I stay in this room a second longer, I’m going to scream.

When the door to the Dugout opens and someone says, “In here,” I’m in such a state that it takes me a moment to register the voice as Russell’s. He opens the door wider, beckoning me inside. The Dugout isn’t super high-tech or anything, but it’s quiet. There’s Russell’s desk, and those belonging to our other sports reporters and anchors, most of them strewn with sports equipment and memorabilia, the walls covered with jerseys and pennants and posters of athletes. Maybe there was something to Chris Torres’s football theory.

It’s stunningly, blessedly empty.

“Thought maybe you needed to hide as much as I did.” He gestures to a free chair at the empty desk next to his before leaning back in his own chair. He looks so casual here, so right. The kind of comfort I’ve never managed to grasp at the station. “Everyone’s out to lunch, but I had a story to finish up.”

I finally let out a breath, collapsing into the chair he rolls over to me. Out there, my emotions were on the verge of taking over. In here, I’m safe. “Thanks.”

“Hey,” he says, leaning forward, a little worry-divot appearing between his brows, right above his glasses. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

He reaches for a candy jar on his desk and holds it out to me.

“You guys really do have privacy in here,” I say as I grab a handful. The sugar helps. A bit. “All we have out there are our low-partition workspaces. And those do approximately nothing to shield us from the Hales.”

“Somehow, I get the feeling you didn’t come in here to talk feng shui.”

I crunch down on a mini Snickers. “I am so fucking naive.”

At first, I’m surprised I say it out loud. I don’t make a habit of swearing at work, and I don’t do anything nearly as aggressive as the way my teeth are tearing apart this Snickers. It must be last week’s drunken gripe fest that’s made me okay talking to Russell like this. Letting him see a less polished version of Ari Abrams.

Russell’s brows crease again, his eyes growing concerned. They really are a brilliant shade of blue. “What do you mean?”

“Torrance apologized to me this morning. She got here early, told me how embarrassed she was about what happened at the party. She even said she’d take me to lunch, like we’re friends, when we’ve never gone out to lunch together before.” I shake my head and unwrap a 3 Musketeers. “I really let myself believe her.”

“I get it. Even in here, sometimes I feel completely...” He motions to the walls around us. “Trapped.”

---