Page 7 of The Apparent Trap

“He’s a jerk.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” I lie. “I’ve practically forgotten about it at this point.”

Georgia’s face contorts enough that Lisa has to tell her to hold still. I’m not fooling anyone.

“I’m just saying, he really owes you an explanation.”

“He literally doesn’t even know who I am,” I remind her. “Like in his mind, he ghosted some woman at a bar, and he’ll never see her again. So let it go.”

I can tell from her expression that there’s no world where Georgia’s letting it go. But thankfully, before she can reply, Carmen knocks on the door and steps inside without waiting for anyone to say it’s okay.

I can’t pretend that there hasn’t been another wrinkle adding to my mood over the last two weeks. Carmen Zamora is not what I was expecting. Everything about her is excessively bright. You’d look at her and expect birds to fly her way like a Disney princess. And I bet that’s been her experience—the gorgeous put-together woman whose charmed life has given her a smooth path. This morning, her long chestnut hair is already styled, and she’s got on a butter yellow jumpsuit that shouldn’t be flattering on anyone, though I have to admit it somehow works on her.

But for all that exterior perfection, she’s come into this job ready for the battle, as though she’s determined to outperform any and all expectations by instantly taking control. There’s something behind her bubblegum sweetness that tastes like a competitiveness I’m not used to in this work environment. Georgia is also an ambitious woman, of course, but she’s a good-natured dork underneath. Everyone else here has worked their way up, but Carmen is a twenty-six-year-old who was anointed into a leading role. As a result, she’s got everything to prove, and she’s been acting like it.

Carmen’s new contract with the show has been set up as a trial—she has four months to show she can hold her own, otherwise she’ll get sidelined. She does the weather and some news reading for the first two hours of the show while Georgia and Darren share anchor duties, and then for the nine-to-ten slot, she’s one of three coanchors.

My gut instinct was to root for someone new in such a tenuous position. But she’s been so commandeering since the moment she arrived that I’m wondering whether maybe I’m in over my head. She’s talented. She’s smart. She’s clearly got good instincts for the job. But she’s also a lone wolf who doesn’t seem to think she needs the support of a producer. She’s someone who does what she wants, while I always unintentionally wait for a go-ahead.

With Georgia and other reporters, my role has always automatically been as a thought partner and teammate, even if they’re the leading face. But Carmen seems to want an assistant whose advice she doesn’t necessarily need to take into account. It’s been disorienting.

“Sorry to interrupt, Georgia,” she says. “But I need to steal Ezzie for a moment.” I don’t know how someone manages deferential but firm, but she does. When Georgia nods her on, Carmen turns to me. “Do you mind going over this segment about the wildfires? I know we’re doing the live shot with the fire chief, and I just want to get into some of these questions you wrote.”

“Of course,” I reply, hopping up from my perch on Georgia’s long desk. While I’m not excited to have everything I worked on yesterday probably thrown out, I can’t pretend I’m not also a little grateful to be exiting Georgia’s line of question fire. “Let’s grab the scripts off my desk, and we’ll run through it.”

We make our way down the hall, away from the offices that hold talent and executives, and out to the sea of starkly white desks that hold the rest of us. Carmen’s already talking a mile a minute, changing the entire direction of where I thought we should take the segment. She excels in the details at these weather stories, since her background is meteorology, but sometimes I think she is quick to strike out the humanity.

I’m giving her background on the woman she’s about to interview when we get to my desk and I notice my dad in my chair.

“Hey!” he says, springing up like a jack-in-the-box the moment he sees me.

“What are you doing here?” My grin is automatic as I pull him into a hug. When I finally let him go, he grabs a little Tupperware he’s placed on top of my desk.

“I made some of our banana bread last night, but it was too late to bring it over. And I have a meeting nearby this morning, so I thought I’d surprise you with it.”

I squeal and open the top. I don’t care that I look like a kid given free rein in a candy store in front of all my colleagues. This is my favorite thing on earth. I take a piece and then realize I’m being rude. I turn to Carmen and hold out a piece for her. “Carmen, sorry, this is my dad, Mark, and he makes this amazing banana bread, and you should definitely—”

But I’m stopped by the pure delight written across her face. I haven’t seen it before; most of the happiness she usually exudes has a sheen of professionalism that works on the air, but in person seems guarded. Watching her now, though, it’s even clearer that there’s a side to Carmen she’s not showing up to work with.

“Of course I know who your dad is,” she says, not looking at me, her eyes glued to my father. “The Halevi Model is a huge part of any atmospheric science degree at this point.”

Oh god, I should’ve realized. My dad is a senior research scientist at the Center for Integrated Earth System Information (say that ten times fast) at the Columbia Climate School. Fifteen years ago he invented a much more accurate and adaptable atmospheric prediction algorithm that improved everything from hurricane forecasting to wildfire-spread modeling to even crop insurance risk analysis. So this is all to say, meteorology nerds are obsessed with my dad.

“Your recent paper on microclimate data reshaping city infrastructure zoning truly shifted my entire opinion,” she says, and he beams.

“Well what a compliment, thank you!” He holds out his hand. “You must be Carmen. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you from Ezzie.” (He hasn’t, he’s just polite.) “I watched a few of the segments you two have worked on together, and I’ve been blown away.”

She takes his hand, and it’s like nothing else exists in the world. They’re staring at each other with goofy smiles, and it feels like I’ve fallen into some weather dork mutual fan club.

“Oh, well, Ezzie really is an incredible producer,” she says, not looking at me at all, and saying words she’s never once given the impression she means. “I’m so lucky to have her guiding me.”

They’re still shaking hands. They’re . . . holding hands?! They’re shaking each other’s hands like they’ve forgotten that handshakes are only supposed to last a few seconds.

Maybe I’d expect this from my dad. He’s the spokesmodel for the bumbling, oblivious professor stereotype. But this amount of unguarded enthusiasm from Carmen is downright jarring.

“Um, Dad,” I say, and both of their heads snap toward me, as though they’ve just remembered there are other humans in the room. “Thanks for the banana bread, but we’ve um . . .”

He claps his hands together, like he’s shaking himself back to reality, and it’s . . . weird.