The Rest of the Story(108)

“Are they prepping over there? Do you have a place to go when the storm comes?”

I looked around again at the pool: a group of kids in goggles were wrestling in the shallow end, while the bar was already packed, even though it wasn’t noon yet. “No . . . I mean, it’s still gorgeous here.”

Behind him, I could hear a phone ringing. “Which doesn’t mean anything if you look at the forecast. They should already have told you where to go when it starts to get bad—it’s Storm 101.”

“According to them, this place is hurricane-proof. All I’ve seen are a few sandbags.”

“And they haven’t said anything about shelter?”

“Well . . .” I looked at the bar again. “No. Not yet.”

“Get low,” he said. “Bottom floor, ideally a room with no windows if you can find it. Stay away from all glass. Bring your valuables and medication. And if you haven’t charged your phone, do it now. Tell your dad and Tracy, too.”

“Okay,” I said, “but seriously, maybe they’re watching a different forecast track over here, because they’re really not worried.”

“Then they’re stupid,” he replied. “Look, get ready and then hopefully it will all be for nothing. But if it isn’t . . .”

He let this thought trail off, even as I waited for him to finish. Finally I said, “Are you scared?”

“I’m concerned,” he said. Another phone rang. “And busy, so I should go, even though only morons think they can get storm windows put in before this afternoon. I just wanted to make sure you were safe. I’ll call again later, okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And you’ll be at the dinner, right? At six?”

“Sure,” he assured me, but he sounded so distracted I wondered if he’d even heard my question. “Talk to you soon.”

When I hung up, Tracy turned her head, looking at me over her sunglasses. “Everything okay?”

I nodded. “Roo’s just worried about the storm.”

She tilted her head back, looking up at the blue sky, white clouds drifting across it. “It hardly looks like hurricane weather, though, does it?”

When I shook my head, she stretched out, then lowered her sunglasses again. But the truth was, behind the Tides, over the trees, I could now see a row of darker clouds, shorter and squatter, piling up on the horizon. As I lay back, I called on my imagination to picture us all at dinner that night, with oyster forks and candles, Mimi and Nana and Bailey and Roo. But when I closed my eyes, all I could see were those clouds. By the time we left the pool an hour later, there were even more of them.

At four p.m., I was sitting at the table with Nana, looking out at the sky. By then, it was dark as dusk.

“Looks ominous,” she observed mildly. She turned to my dad, who was watching the TV, now all storm coverage. “Should we double-check with the hotel that dinner is still going to happen?”

“They’re saying they’ll be fine no matter what the weather does,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the screen, where the reporter in the windbreaker from earlier was being thrashed by rain and wind as he tried to describe the conditions. “But I’m wondering if we should have a shelter plan, just to be safe.”

“Roo says so,” I told him as I yet again tried Roo’s number, only to have it ring and ring before going to voicemail. It was the same with Bailey. “We need to be downstairs, away from windows.”

“You’d think they’d set up something,” my dad muttered, walking over to the phone in the kitchen. “I’ll call down, see what’s happening.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Nana told me. “If the dinner gets canceled, we’ll reschedule.”

But for the last few hours, I hadn’t been thinking about the dinner anymore. It was Mimi’s house and Calvander’s that were on my mind: that big kitchen, with the shiny toaster. The gardenia bushes by the door. Each of those rooms I’d learned to clean, the tiny fold on the toilet paper at the beginning of a roll. I’d just gotten it all back. What if it was lost for good?

My phone rang then, startling me after so long of not being able to reach anyone. I jumped on it like it was alive. “Hello?”

“Can you get over here? Do you have a car?”

Trinity. She sounded like she was moving, her voice coming in and out. “What’s wrong?”

“I just want to be at the hospital,” she said, her voice breaking. “If this baby decides to come during the storm, I swear to God I will clamp my legs SHUT. I want my fucking epidural!”

Nana glanced over at me. Whoops. I stood up, putting some distance between us before saying, “Are you having contractions?”

“No,” she said, “but I’m so uncomfortable and I can feel the barometric pressure dropping. Storms make weird things happen, and I do not want my kid to be one of them.”

I looked at my dad, who was on hold with the front desk, still watching the TV. Outside, I could see several Tides employees in white golf shirts hurriedly folding up the chairs on the beach.

“I have a car,” I said. “But I don’t think—”

At first, I didn’t recognize the sound she made in response to this. Then I realized it was a sob. “I just can’t do this, I’m already alone without the Sergeant and everyone’s freaking out here. Even if I just sit in the hospital parking lot, I’ll feel better, I swear to God, I’ll walk there if I have to. . . .”