The Hurricane Sisters (33 page)

“Do you think we should cancel tomorrow?” Mary Beth said, trying in vain to hold her hair in a ponytail.

“I don’t know. I mean, it might be exciting for people to see the harbor like this. It’s getting wilder, but I don’t think it’s dangerous, do you?”

“Nah, but we should keep watching the weather.”

“Call Tommy. See what he thinks.”

“Okay,” she said, tapped his number into her phone, and walked back inside. “Hey! You got a minute?”

My cell phone was ringing too, so I ran inside to answer it. By the time I got there it went to voice mail. It was Porter. I wasn’t calling him back.

Mary Beth walked back toward me. I was standing just inside the room off the portico, watching the weather.

“What did Tommy say?” I asked.

“He said we should turn on Eyewitness News and keep it on. We both agreed that since we already have a dump truck’s worth of food, we should try to have it. But if they start talking about closing bridges, we should cancel.”

“I think we should have everyone come in trench coats and dark glasses and call it a spy party,” I said. “Tommy doesn’t stand to lose anything except his tip jar. We’ve got a boatload of shrimp salad and it wasn’t cheap.”

“You and your theme parties!” she said. “Why are you holding your phone? Who called?”

“Who do you think?”

“Did you talk to him?”

I shook my head. “No message either.”

“What an ass.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He sure is.”

The rain started on Friday morning, right after I got up to go to work. I stared out the bathroom window while I was brushing my teeth. The yard was already starting to puddle. It seemed like the wind wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been yesterday. Still, in this kind of weather there wouldn’t be a single soul in the gallery that day so it was kind of stupid for me to even go in. It would be like stealing money from the Turners. I’d wait until nine and then I’d call and see what they thought. I pulled on a cotton sweater and a skirt. I’d need my rain boots if I went out. I wondered where they were.

Mary Beth was in the kitchen making coffee.

“Good day for the ducks, like Maisie says,” I said. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a mess out there. Let’s flip on the news.” She picked up the remote and clicked through a few stations until she found a local weather report.

A very serious meteorologist with his shirtsleeves rolled up as if he’d been up all night spoke to the camera while the map behind him came to life. Various ribbons of colors moved across the coast, blinking and undulating like neon-colored snakes.

A hurricane warning is in effect tonight through Sunday as Hurricane Melissa makes her way toward the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Winds are out of the east/southeast and expected to exceed seventy-five miles per hour as the storm approaches with gusts maybe as high as ninety miles per hour. This is still a Category One storm but what happens in the next twenty-four hours can change all that. And just to remind our listeners, this might be a good time to bring in your porch furniture, secure those garbage cans, and make your property storm-ready. Make sure you have plenty of working batteries and drinkable water in case you lose power. For more comprehensive information on how to hurricane proof your home and to protect your loved ones go to Live5news.com.

“I’m not too impressed,” I said. “Looks like more of a wind maker than a rainmaker.”

“You’re not impressed?” she said.

“Heck no. I grew up with hurricanes always threatening to blow us to kingdom come. This is going to be messy but it’s not really dangerous. Unless it gets here on a high tide and a full moon. The moon’s not full, is it?”

We googled the phases of the moon on our phones.

“On the wane,” I said.

“Yeah, but it’s still pretty full.”

“Yeah, that’s not so great,” I admitted. “When is it supposed to make landfall here?”

“I don’t think they’re too sure it’s going to make landfall in South Carolina at all. At least not yet.”

“So let’s just leave the television on then. You feel like breakfast?”

“French toast made from diet bread, egg whites, and low sugar syrup?”

“Why not? I’ll nuke us some center cut bacon,” I said. “Three strips for only seventy calories.”

“Well, now that we are both officially back on the market, we have to watch it, don’t you think?”

“I think I’m not thinking about it yet,” I said as I poured a lot of real half-and-half into my mug of coffee. “Dieting is too stupid, and so is thinking of us as merchandise.”

“You’re right, of course. But my clothes are too tight.”

“That’s different. Let’s give up meat and dairy.”

“Except for bacon and yogurt.”

“Deal. Starting Monday.”

It made me laugh to think about how we’d devise these ridiculous plans to save calories when it seemed like we never lost a pound unless we flat-out starved and worked out like Olympians.

I never went to work. Bill and Judy Turner said they weren’t really expecting to see anyone that day. Rain was bad for business. I was just as happy to stay home and help Mary Beth make sandwiches.

Tommy rolled in around three with Ed and Ursula and they began bringing in all the boxes of glasses and the party tables from the cottage.

“Check out my very cool bow tie!” he said, unwrapping the tissue paper and holding it up to his neck.

“Awesome,” I said and giggled.

“I’ll just put it on the piano until later,” he said and left the room.

“Like an art object,” Mary Beth said and laughed.

“Exactly!” Tommy said, stepping back into the kitchen and smiling. “But I have to tell y’all, I think it’s getting worse out there. Seriously. I said to Ed that maybe we should try to set the bar up indoors but he said, and he’s right, that the whole point of this party is to be out on the portico and watch the sun going down. The sun, my friends, is nowhere to be seen.”

“How about the Ravenel Bridge is swinging in the breeze a little?” Ed said. “I didn’t say anything about it when I first came in because it seemed like the rain and wind were letting up. Bottom line? It’s not.”

“And the harbor out front is crazy water, choppy, swirling around like it shouldn’t be doing,” Tommy said. “I don’t know, y’all.”

“This is
not
good,” Mary Beth said.

We flipped on the television, and, sure enough, over the past few hours the storm had been upgraded to a Category Two and was predicted to go to a Three by nine that night. The airport was a ghost town, speed limits were reduced to twenty-five miles per hour on the bridges, and Charleston was all but officially closed.

“That’s it,” I said. We looked at one another already knowing our party was not going to happen. No way in hell! “Y’all? We need to cancel this thing. It’s insane. What if there are wrecks or whatever? What if somebody gets hurt? We might get sued, which means my parents will get sued and then Mary Beth and I would be homeless.”

“Shoot,” Mary Beth said. “You’re right.”

“What about all the food?” Tommy said.

“The only thing we’d really lose is the shrimp salad, which y’all should take some home, or we could just come back here Sunday when the storm is gone and have our own party, couldn’t we?” I said.

“My mother would just save it and serve it on Sunday. She’d give the shrimp more lemon juice and tell us to eat it anyway,” Mary Beth said.

“Classic,” Tommy said and smiled his goofy lopsided smile, loading big scoops of the salad into a plastic bag for himself and then another one for Ed. “Ursula? You want some?”

“Sí!” she said.

“I’m betting very few people would show up anyway,” Ed said. “I mean, who goes out in this weather?”

He was probably right, but we started texting and tweeting as fast as we could, putting the kibosh on what was supposed to have been our final soiree. We agreed that maybe we’d just reschedule for a couple of weeks later. The shelf life on vodka, frozen pigs in blankets, cheese and crackers and tortilla chips was pretty much good until Thanksgiving or longer.

In the middle of our flurry of messaging and racing around, transferring things back to the cottage, my phone rang. It was Porter. I walked out to the hall and answered it.

“Hello?” I was very unexcited to hear his voice.

“Ashley? It’s Porter.”

“I know that.” I hoped it sounded like I was saying,
so what?

“What’s the matter?”

I could detect a trace of panic in his voice.

“What do you mean,
what’s the matter?
”

He was silent then. Did he think all he had to do was pick up the phone and everything would be okay between us again?

“Are you staying out at the beach during the storm?”

“I haven’t decided,” I said as evenly as I could, hoping it sounded like,
why should I tell you?

“Ashley? You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

So was this what he thought somebody with a conscience acted like?

“You mean, did I tell anyone what
you did
to me?”

“You wouldn’t dare. And besides, you know you wanted it. Anyway, it would be your word against mine and who would believe . . .”

“Don’t you dare threaten me, you, you . . . bastard!” I said and pressed the end button.

Was he serious? No one would take my word over his? If I’d gone to the ER that night they could’ve had enough DNA to hang him by his toes! I went back into the kitchen where everyone was still frantically repacking glasses into boxes and putting food back into shopping bags. I was so angry I was practically hyperventilating. I had to hold on to the side of the counter while I tried to calm myself down.

“What’s wrong?” Mary Beth said. “He called again? What now?”

“I can’t talk about it,” I said. My face and neck were so hot and my heart was pounding in my ears.
He threatened me. And he said I had no credibility
.

Tommy was standing there with the last load of boxes in his arms, listening but not saying a word.

“I think I’m going downtown,” I said. “Mary Beth, let’s close up the house and go to my mom’s. I’ll call her on the way and let her know.”

“I agree,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Good idea,” Tommy said. “Let’s get off the island. I’ll take Ed.”

“I can drop off Ursula,” Mary Beth said. “You want to ride with me, Ash?”

“No, I’m going to take my car and I want to just go over all the windows and everything once more before I leave.”

Within the next fifteen minutes or so, everyone was gone. It didn’t seem like it was raining so badly then. I thought about just staying the night by myself. I didn’t really feel like being with my mom and a houseful of people. But I knew the storm would get worse. It would. And the wind would grow even stronger. Of course, there were other dangers to be considered. The house might flood, a tree might come through it, or we might lose power. You just never knew. The whole house might blow away. But I knew enough to know when to head for the hills and that was the plan. I was going to my mother’s and somehow I would suppress my anger at Porter and no one would know.

I threw pajamas and a bunch of underwear in a tote bag and my cosmetics that I thought I’d want. I took my laptop and my chargers and threw them in too. Then I took what jewelry I had that was worth anything and put it in a sock, burying it in the bottom of my tote.

I checked and double-checked to see that all the windows were locked and then I locked the front door and raced to my car. I didn’t set the alarm because who robs houses in a hurricane? I called my mom.

“Mom? Are you home?”

“Yes! We closed early. I’m here with Maisie and Skipper. Are you coming home? I’ll tell you these fool weathermen had me thinking tomorrow was the worst day of the storm, but no! They’re wrong again.”

“I’m on my way and Mary Beth too.”

“Well, thank God. Just take your time, all right? The wind is fierce. Go slowly on the bridge.”

“I will. Don’t worry. I’m already in the car. I’ll see you soon.”

I drove on and it was true, the weather was just dreadful. The water was almost to the top of the causeway. And just as I came to the traffic light at Rifle Range Road I realized I’d left my shoebox of cash behind. I swung my car around through the gas station and headed back to the island. I was only ten minutes away from the house. With my luck it would be the first hurricane in the history of Sullivans Island besieged by looters.

I pulled into the yard and there were pools of water everywhere. I looked at the cottage once more, thinking about my paintings and wondering if it would be better to move them to the second floor of the big house. I should have thought of that a couple of hours ago, I decided. I hopped out of the car with just my keys and made a run for the front steps. It took a minute to get the door open but I finally did, the ferocious wind grabbing the door away from me and slamming it against the wall of the foyer. The doorknob left an indentation in the plaster. My mother was going to give me the devil about that.

“Oh, fine!” I shouted to the house and left the door open, making a beeline for my bedroom closet.

As quickly as I could, I emptied the contents of the box onto my bed and stuffed all the money into another purse that had a zipper running across the top. I hurried out toward the front door and there stood Porter.

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought we needed to have a little talk, Ashley.” His tone was threatening.

“About what?” I said. I was suddenly frightened.

“About what you said to me. Do you understand what would happen if anyone thought I had raped a woman? Do you understand that it would ruin my whole career? Do you?”

All I could think at that moment was that I wasn’t going to lie for him, not then or ever. I don’t know what possessed me to give me such courage.

“Well, Porter, you didn’t seem to care about that when you held me down on my bed, did you?”

I never even saw his fist coming, but he hit me on my cheek, and then with the back of his hand he slapped my face, splitting my lip. I fell back against the wall and he started choking me. I couldn’t breathe.