Weather Girl(2)
Still, imagining my tiny perfect niece transfixed by a weather report warms the very center of my heart.
Once upon a time, I did the exact same thing.
“Relax. It’s going to be great,” Alex says as I fidget with the zipper on my waterproof jacket, and then with the necklace buried in the fuzz of my sweater. I only roped him into this because I didn’t want to do it alone, but there’s always been a whisper-thin line between excitement and anxiety for me.
Even if my tells weren’t so obvious, he’d be able to sense my emotions with his eyes closed. At thirty, Alex is three years older than I am, but people used to think we were fraternal twins because we were inseparable as kids. That morphed into a friendly rivalry as teens, especially since we were in the habit of crushing on the same boys—most notably, this Adonis of a track star named Kellen who had no idea we existed, despite our appearance at every one of his meets to cheer him on. This was made clear on the day of the state championships, when I showed up with flowers and Alex with balloons, and Kellen blinked his gorgeous tide pool eyes at us and said, “Hey, do we go to the same school?”
Reluctantly, I allow the swish of the windshield wipers to lull me into a false sense of calm. We head north up Aurora, past billboards for the Pacific Science Center, for gutter cleaners, for a guy who could be either a personal injury lawyer or a pro wrestler, given the way his face is twisted in a scowl. A cluster of car dealerships, and then—
“Oh my god, there it is. Stop the car. Stop the car!”
“You’re not allowed to yell like that when I’m driving,” Alex says, even as he stomps the brake, his Prius tossing me against the door. “Christ, I thought I’d hit something.”
“Yes. My ego. It’s shattered.”
He swerves into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour donut shop, sliding into a spot that gives us an unobstructed view of my very first billboard.
WAKE UP WITH KSEA 6 AT 5! WE’RE ALWAYS HERE 4 YOU, it proclaims in aggressively bold letters. And there’s our Colgate-toothed weekday morning team, all of us looking natural and not at all uncomfortably posed: Chris Torres, news. Russell Barringer, sports. Meg Nishimura, traffic. Ari Abrams, weather.
And an unmistakable whitish-gray streaked across my smiling face, blotting out my left eye and half my nose and ending in a beautiful bird-shit dimple.
My face only.
Chris and Russell and Meg keep on grinning. WE’RE ALWAYS HERE 4 YOU, my ass.
“Well. I’m sufficiently humbled,” I say after a few moments of stunned silence. “At least my hair looks okay?”
“Am I allowed to laugh?”
A sound that might be a giggle escapes my own mouth. “Please. Someone has to.”
My brother cracks up, and I’m not sure whether to be offended or to join him. Eventually, I give in.
“We’re taking your picture with it anyway,” Alex says when he can breathe again. “It’s your first billboard. That’s a huge fucking deal.” He claps a hand on my shoulder. “The first of many.”
“If this doesn’t haunt the rest of my career.” I follow him out of the car, my Hunter boots splashing through a puddle that turns out to be deeper than it looks.
“Say, ‘KSEA 6 Northwest News: where we really give a shit,’?” he says as I position myself beneath the billboard and mug for the camera. “?‘KSEA 6: what you watch when the shit hits the fan.’?”
“How about, ‘Breaking news: Alex Abrams-Delgado is a piece of shit’?” I say it in my best TV voice while giving him the middle finger.
* * *
? ? ?
“THANKS FOR DOING this,” I say once we’ve grabbed a table inside the donut shop. I brush damp bangs off my forehead, hoping there’s a spare hair dryer in the KSEA dressing room. “I would’ve gone with Garrison, or with someone from the station, but . . .”
Alex braves a sip of his donut-shop coffee and grimaces. “I get it. I’m your favorite person in the world.”
“You are,” I say. “But Cassie’s a strong second place. Don’t take that privilege lightly.”
“I could never.” He empties a compostable packet of sweetener into his cup. “How are you doing, by the way? With . . . everything?”
Before the everything he’s talking about, my brother and I saw each other about every month. Now I’m draped across his couch once a week while his chef husband ladles comfort food directly into my mouth.
“There are good days and bad. I’m not sure what today is yet, or if that’s a literal sign from the universe that things are about to go to, well, you know.” I wave a hand toward the billboard outside before taking a bite of a chocolate old-fashioned. “You’re not going to tell me to get back out there, are you?”
That’s the worst side effect of a breakup. Let me breathe for a moment before I attach myself to someone else who’s only going to end up disappointing me.
I rub the place on my finger where the engagement ring used to be. I figured its imprint would last longer than a few days, and I wasn’t sure how to feel when my skin no longer carried the evidence of our relationship. Truthfully, I never thought I’d be that attached to a ring—until Garrison asked for it back. In his defense, it was a family heirloom. In my defense, he’s a human trash can.