Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Eliot slept nine hours last night. Nine full hours.
No waking at two. No lying in the dark taking inventory of the ceiling.
He'd gone to sleep thinking about the hike on and the way Dalene had looked at the top of the trail with the whole valley below her.
He went to sleep with the taste of her on his lips, and a smile on his face.
Then he'd woken up when the alarm told him to.
This had been happening every night for a week.
Now he stood at the kitchen window and looked at the garden and thought about the woman next door.
Dalene was no longer sneaking up the stairs.
She walked proudly up each step. It was Tristan who looked both ways before he left his apartment.
He'd caught Dalene and Eliot kissing in the garden more than once.
Eliot may have laid it on a bit thick when he'd seen the Letterman slumping around the corner. He'd definitely pulled his girlfriend closer as her ex shot daggers at him. Eliot drank his coffee and smiled even broader at the memory.
Earl Mackie was outside the station when he arrived. He had two men with him — ranchers, by the look of them, the same weathered quality, the same economy of movement. They were standing in the parking lot looking like men who had gotten up before dawn their entire lives.
"Brought some people who wanted to meet you," Earl said.
The first man — introduced as Walt, who ran a sheep operation out past the eastern ridge — had caught the Tuesday forecast and moved his flock to lower pasture ahead of the cold snap. The timing had been exact.
The second man, Pete, had an irrigation question that turned into a twenty-minute conversation about soil moisture and evapotranspiration rates and the interaction between the mountain shadow and the valley floor that affected his growing season in ways the regional models consistently underestimated.
By the time they left Eliot had agreed to look at Pete's field drainage layout and had given Walt a two-week outlook that was more detailed than anything the regional service had produced in the last month.
He went inside. He broadcast the morning weather segment.
Nora watched from the desk with her hand pressed to her mouth.
Miles lowered the camera at the end and gave him a thumbs up.
When the broadcast was over, he looked up to see Veronica Steele standing just off set.
It was a surprise since she hadn't warned him she'd be flying out.
"I've got news. Let's go to lunch."
They headed to the Rusty Spur. Veronica put a napkin down on the seat before she sat. She waited until Felix had brought the food and disappeared before she started in on him.
"You haven't asked," she said.
Eliot looked up from the steak and potatoes. "Asked what."
"About Philly." She looked at him steadily. "Every call, every day, since the day I sent you here. First thing. Before hello, sometimes. You haven't asked in days."
"Veronica, how's Philly." It wasn't a question. There was no inflection on the end. Because Eliot was no longer concerned about the answer.
"Derek is doing well," she said. "The numbers are holding. The network is happy with him." She paused. "They're going to keep him, Eliot."
He waited for the bottom to drop out. For the dread of hearing that his slot was gone, that the thing he'd spent years building had been handed to a man who couldn't correctly identify a stratocumulus formation on a good day.
Eliot had stopped turning on the broadcast…
he couldn't remember when. It had to be before the Cloud Festival.
He'd simply had too much to prepare for, too many people counting on his forecasts, and one particular person who he wanted to keep warm every night.
So the news of his old job being permanently out of his reach didn't hit as hard as it might have a few weeks ago. It landed quietly. Like a pressure change so gradual you didn't notice until you were already breathing different air.
"So that's it," he said. He almost shrugged at the nonchalance of it. Philly was sleepless nights and anxiety and no smell of lavender from next door lulling him to sleep.
"That's not it." Veronica reached into a folder in her bag. "That's not why I came all the way out to the middle of nowhere Montana to have lunch with you." She slid a single page across the table. "They still want you, Eliot. Just not in Philly."
He looked at the page. He read it once. He read it again.
"The National Weather Service," he said.
"Washington D.C." Veronica's voice was careful.
Precise. The voice she used when she understood she was handling something that required care.
"Forecasting division. Senior meteorologist. You'd be working on the models that feed every regional office in the country.
The research, the data architecture, the long-range forecasting systems. It's not television.
It's not a camera or a green screen or Sunny the cartoon sun. "
No, it wasn't any kind of performing. It was the real work.
"It's everything you said you actually wanted," Veronica continued.
"You told me once, years ago, that if you hadn't gone into broadcast you'd have gone into federal forecasting.
You said the NWS was the most important weather organization in the country and that the work they did mattered in ways that television never could. "
Eliot had said that. A late night in the network offices, some dinner or other, Veronica asking him what he'd do if the cameras disappeared tomorrow. He'd said it without thinking and then changed the subject because it had felt too honest for the context.
He looked at the page. Full salary. Senior title. The Storm Prediction Center, the whole national infrastructure running through the work he'd be doing. It was, objectively, the most significant meteorological position he'd ever been offered.
It was in Washington D.C. The distance from Valor, Montana to Washington D.C. was approximately the same distance as Valor to Philly. A long flight. A different time zone. A different world.
He thought about Earl Mackie's hay. He thought about Pete's irrigation questions. He thought about kisses in the garden and the most restful sleep he'd had in years with someone who fit against him like a missing puzzle piece.
"Eliot, this is what you worked for. Your whole career.
Everything before the meltdown, everything that got buried under it — this is the version of your professional life that exists on the other side of all of that.
" Veronica looked at him with the direct, honest attention of someone who cared about more than the contract.
"I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't put it in front of you. "
He knew she was right. But he couldn't get over the distance.
There was no version of this where he took the NWS position and kept his spot across from the garden gate.
No commuting from the National Weather Service to Valor, Montana.
No wall with music through it. No kitchen light at midnight. No lavender.
No her.
"Two days," Veronica said. "That's the window. They have another candidate."
Eliot nodded, set the paper down. He didn't pick his fork back up to finish his meal. He had no space left for it.
"Eliot." Veronica waited until he looked up. "Whatever is keeping you here—" She stopped. Started again. "Just make sure you know what you're choosing and what you're giving up. In both directions."