Don't Get It Twisted, page 4
“Sorry I’m late,” Haley said, without a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “It’s almost impossible to find a real printer these days. I had to wait for the library to open.” The gas pump clicked that the tank was full, and Haley hung the nozzle back up, then reached in the backseat and pulled out a stack of papers. She thrust them at Claire. “Sign this and let's get going.”
Claire scanned through the document quickly. It looked like a pretty typical waiver for any sort of risky activity like horseback riding or whitewater rafting, but seeing the words ‘up to and including death’ still gave her pause. “I thought you were kidding about the lawyer thing,” she laughed nervously.
“Why would I joke about that?”
“I don’t know, to give yourself time to sleep on it, think it over. Someone else to blame if you changed your mind.”
“What kind of influencer would I be if I didn’t have a lawyer to look over my contracts and write up legal documents for me?” Haley said dryly.
“I’m sorry about that,” Claire said, wanting to make amends. “Why does being labeled an influencer bother you so much?”
Haley looked thoughtful, and took a long time answering. “No shade to influencers, because I respect their game. But calling me one delegitimizes the work I do. Are you going to sign that?”
“Is it really this dangerous?” Claire asked, though she was already scribbling her name on the last page. At least Haley finally seemed ready to give her genuine, thoughtful answers without the animosity from the day before. What was a little risk of death if she finally got a good interview?
“I try not to take too many risks, but better chasers than me have died before. Storms are only predictable to an extent. You don’t have to do this. I can drop you off back in town before I head out.”
“Yes, I do. It’s kind of my job. Plus, I’m excited to see you in the field.” Claire handed the papers back, feeling the tiniest spark of static electricity when their fingers brushed together.
Haley glanced up at the blue sky quickly, then shook her head almost imperceptibly and tossed the waiver in the backseat. “Get in and buckle up.”
The seatbelt was a complicated contraption that clearly hadn’t come from the factory on the otherwise surreptitious station wagon. Claire fumbled awkwardly, trying to get too-loose shoulder straps adjusted to her frame. Haley leaned over to help, expertly tightening the harness as another static shock leapt between them. Claire’s breath caught in her throat. Stay professional, she reminded herself. Don’t think about how long it’s been since another woman touched you that way.
Haley was wearing a similar outfit to the day before, jeans and a tight, white tank top with the same eye-catching belt, but her thick hair was braided into pigtails sticking out from under a worn baseball cap. Her expressions were hard to read because of the aviator sunglasses she wore, but she seemed almost chipper as she fiddled with the custom display in the dash of her car. A radar projection filled one screen that was mounted in the console and angled towards the driver’s seat, and Haley stuck new batteries into a camera installed on the windshield. Claire felt a little shiver of anticipation when Haley finally cranked the car and pulled out onto the highway.
“We have about a two hour drive to where it looks like the best storms will develop. I want to get there early so we can get in position before anyone else. Though we might already be too far behind schedule.”
“Sorry,” Claire said.
“Why are you sorry? I’m the one who was late. And speaking of apologies, I think I owe you one for yesterday. I’ve never done an interview like this before, and I guess I was nervous, too. But I was rude to you when you were just doing your job, and that wasn’t fair.” The apology was unexpected, and took Claire aback. Haley Hunter was full of surprises.
“Let’s just start from a clean slate,” she offered. “Is it okay if I record?”
“Until I go live later. I own the copyright to that, so you’ll need to talk to my lawyer if you want to license any of it.” And she was a shrewder businesswoman than Claire had initially given her credit for. First the waiver, now this.
“No problem,” Claire said, aware she still needed to tread lightly but feeling a hundred times more confident about salvaging her interview than she had even an hour earlier. She jumped back into her questions with renewed vigor, having spent hours the night before reworking Carl’s disaster. “You said calling yourself an influencer delegitimizes your work. What do you mean by that?”
“Do you think any of my male colleagues get called an influencer by the media? I’m a storm chaser, and a streamer, and a lot of things, but the only thing that really matters is getting people advance notice for storms. The one thing I don’t chase is brand deals, and I couldn’t get them if I wanted to. So no, I don’t consider myself an influencer.”
“Even with as many followers as you have? I mean, surely you influence people.”
“There’s no amount of followers that will get me sponsorships for this like influencers or gaming streamers. You think Coca-Cola wants their logo on the bottom of my feed while a tornado is ripping through a town? ‘This storm damage brought to you by WestVPN?’”
“I guess that could be bad for their brand image,” Claire chuckled. “So your income comes from what? Donations?”
“And licensing footage to media agencies, and ad revenue. No one has to donate to watch me; all my streams are free to watch. I don’t ask for it.”
“But you enabled it as an option.”
“So? Storm chasing doesn’t pay for itself. They like to do it to support me, and so I read their comments on stream.”
“So they’re paying to be acknowledged?”
“I guess so,” Haley played coy.
“Are more of your viewers men or women?”
“If you want to ask me if I leverage my sex appeal to get more viewers and donations, just ask that.” Haley’s retort was blunt, but not angry.
“That wasn’t where I was going, but you can answer that if you’d like.”
“Of course I’m aware that my looks might have an impact on my viewership, but I don’t encourage or indulge lewd comments and messages.” Haley’s response was slower and more careful than some of her other answers had been. “Like if someone makes a big donation and asks me to strip on stream, I take their money and ban them. But most people watch and donate because they’re interested in the weather.”
“Most storm chasers are men, aren’t they?”
“It’s a male-dominated field, but we’re out here, too. I’m just more public about it than most. How much research did you do about me before you came out here?”
“I watched some of your recent streams, but you’re a bit of an enigma online. There’s not a lot of other information about you out there.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t get talked about as much any more but I touched on it in some old streams. I used to… weaponize, I guess, but I don’t really like that word, my sexuality for views. I wasn’t doing it to hurt people, just because I thought it was the only way I could make a name for myself out here. I encouraged those parasocial relationships and it got me a stalker. But then that whole incident went sort of viral and brought in a bunch of new viewers from the drama, so I guess I got what I wanted in the end.”
Claire wasn’t buying that. Haley’s voice hitched a little on the word stalker, and Claire suspected it had rattled her more than she let on. “That must have been frightening, though. How bad was it? Were the police involved?” She hadn’t found any public police reports or articles in her research.
“He showed up at three different motels on three separate chases in three different states. If it hadn’t been for…” Haley trailed off, and Claire couldn’t tell if she was lost in the memory or about to shut Claire down again.
“For what?” Claire nudged.
“The chaser community really stepped up for me. I can’t say more than that.” She paused, then laughed quietly. “I realize that makes it sound like they killed him, but it was nothing like that. Just not my story to tell. Not fully.”
That was okay for now, Claire could follow up later. At least Haley was talking, and as far as Claire could tell, without the hostility of the day before. She jotted down a few notes, letting the silence coax more from Haley at her own pace.
“It changed everything about the way I chase. Most streamers post their location on the radar but I don’t share it until I’m right on top of a storm. I don’t put lights or decals on my car, like a lot of them, or drive something flashy or obvious. You’ll see what I mean later. I just don’t want people finding or following me. For their safety and mine. Can you reach in the back and grab me a Red Bull out of the cooler? You can grab one, too, if you want. There’s plenty.”
“No, thanks,” Claire said, digging for the energy drink. She handed it over to Haley, who popped the tab immediately and took a long swig. “What do you mean for their safety?”
“I don’t want inexperienced people following me into storms. I’m not comfortable with that on my conscience. But anyways, my turn to ask some questions.”
“Oh?” Claire was taken by surprise.
“Don’t you think it’s fair I learn a thing or two about the person that’s going to be riding in my car all day asking me invasive questions about my life?”
“I guess so, what do you want to know?” Claire felt her guard go up, and immediately understood some of Haley’s stand-offishness from before. It was uncomfortable being put under the investigative spotlight. She felt like she needed to be careful what she said, to keep control over the interview and their relationship within the boundaries of professionalism. She wasn’t there to be Haley’s friend, she was there to get the story.
“Where are you from? You don’t sound like you’re from Boston.” Haley’s first question was a soft ball.
“I grew up in Buffalo, New York and went to journalism school at Ohio University. I didn’t move to Boston until after college.”
“Why journalism?”
“It was that or psychology. I’ve always been interested in why people are the way they are, why we do the things we do, and how it impacts others. Journalism lets others share that journey with me.”
“But sports?”
Claire paused her recording device. “It’s a job, and my choice during the pandemic was to move to sports and write puff pieces that would generate clicks, or lose my job entirely.” She unpaused the recorder and waited for the light to turn green again. “I like sports but I’m just grateful to be working on this series now. I think these stories, like yours, are important to tell.”
“And what story is it that you think you’re going to tell?”
Claire froze. She knew Haley wouldn’t like the answer, but maybe she could use it as an opportunity to earn some trust. “I’m still figuring it out,” she said slowly, pausing the recorder again. “I threw out Carl’s questions because I want to take a different approach. His angle was to portray storm influencers as exploiting the destructive impacts of climate change for financial gain, but even in the little time I’ve spent with you, I don’t see that at all.” It wasn’t fully true, but if Claire could convince Haley they were on the same side, it was her best shot at getting a bombshell feature.
“I fucking hate that guy,” Haley muttered. “Is he as sleazy in person as he seems over email?”
“I never interacted with him much. He has a reputation for squeezing information out of a rock, but he’s pretty full of himself. He hated that your interview got handed to me. I don’t even think he knew who I was before it.”
“Good.” Haley finished her energy drink, crumpled the can, and tossed it on the floor behind the passenger seat. “You’re ten times better at writing than him, anyway.”
“Our editor wasn’t happy, whatever it was you found on him.” Claire hadn’t had time to dig into it in the rush to prepare for her trip, but she was definitely going to dig deeper when she got back— if only to satisfy her own curiosity.
“Old posts that said women who make false accusations deserve to be raped so they know how it feels.” Haley’s eyes narrowed as she scrutinized Claire’s reaction.
“Okay, yikes.” That was worse than Claire had expected, especially when put so bluntly. “If it makes you feel better, Whitney implied he was probably going to lose his job for it.”
“I hope so.”
The flat fields of Oklahoma rolled by, bisected by the occasional dirt and gravel road as they ventured deeper into the middle of nowhere. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the air conditioning in the car seemed to be working overtime against the rising temperatures outside in the sun.
“Do you think we’ll see a tornado today?” Claire flipped the recorder back on. It was hard to believe violent weather was imminent on such a perfect, cloudless day.
“There’s a 10% risk in the area we’re heading to today, that’s good enough for me.”
“That doesn’t sound very high.”
“It’s extremely high. 10% hatched risk means there’s a 10% chance of an EF2 or greater tornado occurring within 25 miles of any given point in that area, not a 10% risk overall. If we can make it to the right place at the right time, we’re pretty likely to see one.” Haley checked the rearview mirror, then pulled over onto the shoulder and put her emergency blinkers on, even though they were the only car in sight. “Look at this.” She swiveled the radar screen so Claire had a better view. “Which storms do you think look most dangerous?”
“That one?” Claire pointed at a long storm to the north of them that stretched across most of Kansas and Nebraska, an angry line of red and yellow that seemed to scream danger.
“Looks scary, doesn’t it? And that line could produce some tornadoes on the rear edge, but I’d be surprised if it has the energy to. Where I’m actually looking is down here.” Haley pointed to their west, where little bubbles of green were popping up. “These are discrete cells, and there’s nothing standing in their way. Those are what we’re after, but the storms we’re going to end up chasing probably haven’t even shown up on radar yet. There’s a cold front that’s going to slam into this stagnant hot air and things could get spicy.”
Claire was just going to have to trust Haley’s expert opinion on that one, because the friendly little green blips didn’t look any more threatening than one of Boston’s spring drizzles. Besides, it was getting hard to focus on the radar when Haley was leaning in towards her, and she smelled so good. Talking about the weather was the closest she had seen Haley act to her on-screen persona, except it didn’t seem like an act. The enigmatic woman genuinely got excited by radar scans, and something about that unbridled passion was deeply attractive. But Claire needed to focus. She was there to do a job, and whatever flashes of lust she felt were unprofessional, probably not reciprocated, and needed to be pushed to the side.
“So yesterday you said your grandfather got you interested in weather?”
“My sperm donor dipped out before I was born and my mom… she wasn’t really equipped to be a single parent, if you know what I mean.” Haley pantomimed lighting a pipe. “So I got sent to live on my grandparents’ farm in Iowa. Twenty years ago next week.” Haley crossed her arms defensively, and Claire could see the shadow of that little girl in her expression as she continued. “It stormed that night and the thunder shook the whole house and it felt like the world was as angry as I was. And that made me feel better. Something about the power of these storms, it’s just awe-inspiring. I think as humans, we all need to be reminded how small we are sometimes. Some people go to the mountains, some look at the stars, and I stand in front of storms and realize how much is out of my hands and that’s freeing. Sorry, that’s probably too out there for your story.”
“That’s exactly what I want for your story. And I get what you mean. Are you religious?”
“No, but I understand why people are. It’s that same draw to power that’s bigger than we can comprehend.”
“So instead of God, you have tornadoes?”
“Never really thought about it that way, but I guess so.”
“And studying meteorology was akin to going to divinity school for you?”
“I don’t know if I’d take it that far, but I guess you could look at it that way. An attempt to understand something beyond our control. But obviously, science offers a lot more concrete explanations to those questions. We do know with certainty that tornadoes exist, and we do understand a lot about how and why they form due to advances in radar and other weather monitoring technology. So in that sense, it’s completely different.”
“And unlike religions, weather doesn’t discriminate,” Claire quipped, knowing she probably should have held her tongue. It didn’t set a good precedent for her to be so casual.
“That’s not entirely true, though. People living in poverty are far more likely to be impacted by severe weather, whether it’s because they live in homes that weren’t designed to withstand high wind speed or were built without underground shelters. Or after weather events due to not carrying the additional insurance required for earthquakes, fires, and floods. So the weather itself may not discriminate, but our policies and protections for people impacted by weather sure as fuck do.” Haley reached back to grab another energy drink that Claire didn’t think she needed because she was already speaking so fast Claire could barely keep up. “And it’s just getting worse with climate change. There were twice as many confirmed tornadoes this April compared to last year. More people are being impacted and we don’t have the resources prepared to handle it, especially–”
A loud ringing from the car's speakers startled both of them, and Haley fumbled to answer the incoming call.
“Hey Noah, you’re on speakerphone, the jour— Claire is in the car with me, what’s up? Are you live?”
