Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Good morning, Valor. I'm Eliot Brooks with your festival weekend forecast, and I have good news."
Eliot had been tracking the festival weekend system for four days and it looked like it was going to be perfect conditions for cloud watching.
High pressure building from the west. Surface winds light and southwesterly.
Humidity sitting at sixty-two percent, which was high enough.
Temperature differential between the surface and the mid-levels sitting in the range he'd been watching since Tuesday.
The conditions for heart-shaped cloud formations, according to decades of Vivienne Austen's meticulous records and his own week of cross-referencing, were: late summer to early autumn, southwest wind flow, high humidity, and a high-pressure system moving through in the afternoon.
Today had all of them.
He walked the television audience through it.
The high-pressure system. The southwest flow.
The temperature profile. He talked about what the sky was going to do today to the camera, but he sensed the faces on the other end.
People he'd met on Main Street, at the Rusty Spur, even in the grocery store.
"Afternoon skies will clear to full sunshine by two o'clock.
Light variable winds, under five miles per hour, and visibility extending to the full range.
On a day like today you'll be able to see every peak on the horizon.
Atmospheric conditions for this afternoon's Heart Shaped Clouds Festival are optimal. "
"Thank you Eliot," Nora said from the news desk. "And now we have a caller this morning. Earl Mackie, are you there?"
"I'm here." The voice came through the studio speaker, gruff and unhurried. "Got a question for the weather fella if he doesn't mind."
"Go ahead, Earl," Eliot said.
"Got my second cutting of hay that needs to come off this week. Ground's been dry but I've got a system I've been watching on the western radar that's giving me some concern. Wondering if I've got a window Thursday through Saturday or if I need to get it done before then."
Eliot looked at the monitor while he pulled up the extended forecast in his head. The system Earl was watching, the one sitting off the Idaho border, the moisture content and the track and the timing. He'd been watching it too. Not for hay. For the festival.
"You've got Thursday and Friday," he said.
"The current data tells me that the system you're watching is going to stall over the Divide Thursday night.
It'll push through Saturday afternoon, earlier than the regional models are showing.
" He paused. "If I were you, I'd get your second cut off by Friday evening.
Saturday morning at the absolute latest."
"How sure are you?" Earl said through the line.
"Eighty percent."
"Alright," Earl said. "That's good enough for me. Good forecast, son."
The line clicked off.
Nora was beaming. Miles raised a brow behind the camera. Eliot ignored them both, but turned to hide his smile. The station back in Philly never took callers over the weather. Eliot's predications usually informed fashion choices and weekend plans, not livelihoods. It felt good to be this useful.
Nora wrapped the broadcast with her warmest smile and told Valor she'd see them all at the festival that afternoon.
When the red light went off the small station broke into the kind of spontaneous, slightly chaotic congratulation that Eliot had not experienced since his first network broadcast nine years ago.
The second he stepped off set, Veronica lit up his cell phone. "That was quaint. Since when do the audience call in for a weather report?"
"Since I moved to Valor."
"It was a nice touch. You look good, Eliot. Rested. Whatever Montana is doing for you it's working."
He thought about a particular couch. About eight hours of actual sleep. About the lush cushion of a woman in his arms all night that smelled of lavender and peace.
"You haven't asked," Veronica said.
"Asked what."
"About your slot."
Eliot hadn't thought about his slot. Not today, not yesterday, not the day before when he'd spent the day with Dalene. "Is there any movement?"
"Not at your old desk. Derek's holding the slot for now. But other stations have been asking around about you. The Valor broadcast footage has been circulating. People like what they're seeing. And the Gemma Lark article humanizes you into a lover boy."
Eliot ignored the Lark comment. "Which stations?"
"A few. There's one that seems quite serious. Florida."
Florida.
He looked at the Montana sky. At the Rockies white-capped on the horizon.
At the big-sky openness of it, the way the clouds had room to be what they were.
Florida had a varied amount of weather events to make his job interested.
It was a long way from Montana. It was a long way away from a woman with constellations on her cheeks.
"I can wait it out here a while longer," he said.
"Is there something I should know about? Like a certain science teacher?"
"You know better than to believe everything you read, Veronica."
"Good. Because we're close to your goal. Don't screw it up." And with that she hung up.
Eliot turned around and was looking at the unhappy face of Lila.
Dalene's BFF had her arms folded. Her chin was level.
She looked like a woman who had walked into a situation prepared.
Though he had no idea what a librarian would be doing at the news station.
Eliot opened his mouth to explain. But then realized he didn't owe anything to this woman.
His… situationship… with Dalene was none of her business.
"She has been through enough. Tristan gutted her, and she smiled through every single second of it because that is what she does. She holds herself together for everyone else and falls apart in private." Lila took a step forward. "I will not watch another man treat her like she's temporary."
"She really didn't tell you?" he said.
Lila's eyes narrowed. "Tell me what."
Eliot looked left. He looked right. The station parking lot was empty except for Miles's car and a truck he didn't recognize.
"We're not — it's not a real relationship," he said. "It's an arrangement. Mutual benefit. Gemma Lark needed a story. The town needed to see she'd moved on from Tristan. I needed—" Eliot stopped, not wanting to admit what he needed. At least not to someone who wasn't Dalene. "It's fake."
Lila stared at him. She stared at him for long enough that he started to reassess his decision to say anything. "Fake?"
"Agreed upon. Terms established. Expiration date."
"Fake," she said again, differently.
"Yes."
Lila looked at him with the focused, unhurried attention of a woman running a calculation.
"Dalene is many things. A good actress is not one of them.
She cannot fake a smile. Everyone in this town knows what her real smile looks like and everyone in this town knows what her assembled smile looks like because she's been wearing the assembled one for a year and a half.
" She paused. "She's been wearing the real one for the past few days. "
Something moved through Eliot's chest. "You think her smiles are real? With me?"
Lila looked at him for a long moment. The narrowed gaze of a woman arriving at a verdict. "I don't think either of you are faking it."
She unfolded her arms. Picked up her bag from where she'd set it on the hood of the car beside them. Settled it on her shoulder with the composure of a woman who had said what she came to say. "You'd better be a Captain and not a Willoughby."
"What?" Eliot asked, baffled.
But she was already walking away.