The Stormchasers: A Novel (36 page)

“Okay, Kevin,” says Karena crossly. “I get it. It’s just—there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, you know? It’s not an exact science, psychology, any more than meteorology or any other -ology. How many times have I heard you Whirlwind guys say that even now, after all these years of research, nobody knows why one supercell spawns a tornado and another doesn’t? Why wouldn’t that be the case for people too? Every brain is different and responds differently to treatment, and what might not help one person, for instance holistic medicine, might help the next.”

“That’s an interesting hypothesis,” says Kevin, “and I’ll concede science is inexact. But if we’re going to extend the analogy, I’d say your brother’s disorder is an EF-4 or -5. It’s really damaging. And the only way to test your theory is to wait and see if his moods can be controlled by holistic means. This isn’t an experiment, it’s a gamble, and frankly it’s not a gamble I want to take.”

“Well,” says Karena. “Lucky for you, you’re not the one taking it.” They stare at each other. Karena’s chest has flushed in pink blotches, and she pulls the sheet up. Kevin looks away, his mouth compressed, his face flat and closed.

“Sorry,” he says stiffly. “My bad. I didn’t mean to overstep.”

He gets up and walks naked from the room.

“Where are you going?” Karena says.

“Nature call, Laredo,” says Kevin. “I’ll be right back.”

Karena waits, making a face at herself in the mirror over the dresser. She looks ridiculous, one side of her hair braided, the other not. When Kevin comes back, she has taken it all down and is sitting cross-legged in a square of sunlight.

Kevin stops in the doorway. “Um,” he says. “What were we talking about again?”

“Come here,” says Karena, and Kevin gets back in bed.

“I’m sorry,” she says, rubbing his thigh. “I didn’t mean to snap at you—”

“Just a sec,” says Kevin. He captures her hand and sets it on top of the sheet. “There. You were saying?”

“Just that—no offense, but Charles is
my
brother. It’s my business to handle him. And who’d know how to do that better than me?”

Kevin opens his mouth as if to argue, then shuts it and runs a hand over his hair.

“Karena,” he says, “believe me when I say I’d rather eat my own arm than ask you this, but . . . do you want to take a break? From this—us? You haven’t seen Chuck in such a long time, and there’s a lot to negotiate. Not that I’d be going anywhere,” he adds, “you could still call me if you needed to, and eventually we could figure out if . . .”

Karena holds up a hand—wait—and takes a gulp of air. This is where she should be a good person, should say, You know, you’re right, maybe this isn’t the best time. Should let Kevin go. Because there’s Charles, and then there’s Karena and Charles, and then there’s Motorcycle Guy, and if Karena felt as if she’d fallen through a trapdoor just now when Kevin’s face closed, how would she feel if it looked like that permanently? Because it surely would if he found out. He would be devastated.

But Karena doesn’t want to let him go. She pictures the change in seasons, summer morphing into fall, visiting him at school. Watching through the little window in the door while he finished a class, standing in front of rows of boys with those Silly Putty faces in that stretchy phase of development—all of them, Kevin included, wearing blazers with crests on them. Swinging his hand in the hall, hearing him josh with the kids. Walking through leaves on a smoky afternoon, taking him to her favorite cabin in Duluth. She adores this man with his curious, nimble mind, his warm body, his watchful hazel eyes. How can she let him go?

“Is that what
you
want?” she says, looking down. “To break this off? I’d understand, I know it’s a lot to ask, the twin thing and the crazy twin thing and—”

“And whatever,” says Kevin. “Hell, no, I don’t want to break it off. I don’t even want to take a break. I’m just trying to be supportive here.”

“Oh,” says Karena and laughs a little shakily. “Thank goodness.”

“Get on down here,” Kevin says. He draws her back into the pillows and kisses her.

“That’s more like it,” he says. “But two things, Laredo, if we’re going to make a go of this.”

“Uh-oh,” says Karena. “I should have known.”

“One,” says Kevin, “you have to let me know what’s going on over there. I’ll stay out of your business, but if you’re my girl, you are my business, and I need you to be safe. The slightest thing out of whack, you tell me. Promise?”

“I do,” says Karena. “What’s the other thing?”

“We should get together, the three of us, sooner rather than later,” says Kevin. “If I’m going to be in your life, Chuck needs to get used to it.”

Karena nods and sighs. “You’re probably right. I’ll set it up.”

“Woman,” says Kevin, “I am always right. Now, I think that’s enough Chuck talk for a while, don’t you?” and Karena agrees, but as Kevin starts to kiss her more deeply her mind is elsewhere, and not in New Heidelburg this time but back in Austin. The moment when Charles first noticed Kevin sitting at the table in the Best Western breakfast room and looked from him to Karena and back again.
So you and Wieb, huh?
he’d said.
Nice, nice.
He’d grinned, but before that, just for a split second, his face had darkened. And now, even as Kevin rolls on top of her and does the Patented Kevin Wiebke Knee Sweep, Karena remembers that first glance and feels a cold foreboding.

T
he following Saturday they go to Lake Harriet, Karena and Charles and Kevin, for a picnic. Lake Harriet, three blocks from Karena’s house, is her favorite of all the Minneapolis lakes. Unlike Calhoun, which is round as a platter, or the confusing, amoeba-shaped Lake of the Isles, Harriet has a fairy-tale air. It’s because of the fanciful turreted bandstand on the north side, but it’s also the shaded paths, the yellow willows trailing their fronds down into the water, the speckled rocks like hens’ eggs Karena can see at its edge. The lake is a perfect mirror of the sky, alternately dark or gray or, like today, a bright blue. There are fish. There are boats. And there is the troll tree.

Charles stops a quarter of the way around, transported with delight. “It’s still here?” he exclaims, turning to Karena. “I can’t believe it!”

“Believe it,” says Karena. “I pass it every day during my run.”

Charles kneels next to the path. The troll tree is an oak with a little door in its trunk, complete with a tiny lion-headed gold knocker. There’s a pebble path leading up to it, and twigs stuck on either side for bushes, and today the roots are also decorated with flowers. The door bulges open slightly with all the offerings the children of Minneapolis—and a good amount of adults too—have placed inside it for the troll. Bottle caps, Barbie shoes, notes folded into triangles, gumball-machine rings. If the troll is pleased with the treasure, the legend goes, he will grant the petitioner’s wish.

“Oh my God,” says Charles. “I used to love this thing. I still dream about it sometimes.” He digs in his shorts pockets and gets up, knees pitted with dirt.

“Here you go, sistah,” he says, handing a penny to Karena, “and here’s one for you, Wieb,” and he gives another to Kevin, who takes out his wallet and finds a coin for Charles in return.

“Ladies first,” Charles says. “Go ahead, Wieb.”

“Ho ho, Hallingdahl,” says Kevin, but he stoops to put his penny in the tree. “Laredo? Your turn.”

“Why don’t we let these guys go first?” says Karena, smiling at two little girls who are standing shyly to one side, clutching their offerings.

“Yeah, Wieb, where’re your manners?” says Charles. “Ladies, right this way,” and he bows and rolls his hand out toward the tree. The older of the girls, maybe five or six, giggles, while the younger buries her face in her mother’s thighs.

“And what do we have for the troll today?” Charles asks.

The elder girl unfurls her fingers to show a sparkly barrette on her palm.

Charles claps his hand to his forehead and staggers backward. “That . . . is . . . so . . . perfect,” he says. “How did you know trolls love barrettes! It’s their favorite lunch.”

The girl giggles, whirls around to her mom, then turns back to Charles and shouts, “YUM!”

“Yum is right,” says Charles, grinning up at the girls’ mother—or au pair maybe, Karena thinks now, since she is about twenty and wears no ring. She tucks her long curly hair back behind her ears and blushes and smiles.

“Oh boy,” says Karena. “Charles, we’re going to keep walking toward the bandstand, all right? You can catch up with us.”

“Okay,” says Charles distractedly, “be right with you,” and as Karena continues along the path with Kevin she hears Charles talking to the nanny, and the nanny talking back, and the little girls shrieking with laughter and calling, “Byeeee! Byeeee!”

“Namaste,” Charles calls, “bye!” and he jogs up behind Karena, panting a little and flipping his hand open to flash the phone number inked there.

“Anh?” he says. “Who is the coolest? Who is the smoothest?” He nods and points to himself. “That’s right, sistah. Me. Smoooooth as buttah.”

“Oh please,” says Karena.

Charles puts an arm around her.
“Thank heavens,”
he sings in his Inspector Clouseau voice,
“for little girls. . . .”

Karena shoves him off. “Get away from me, you pervert,” she says, laughing.

“What, K? You didn’t think they were adorable? Wieb, help me out here.”

“The nanny wasn’t too bad either,” says Kevin, impassive behind his aviators.

Charles grins. “Noticed that too, did you, Wieb? That’s good. So you’re not totally whipped yet.”

“Hey!” says Karena.

Charles flaps a hand at her and unslings the canvas bag he’s carrying over one shoulder.

“Woman,” he says, handing it to her, “walk behind and carry the food. Let the men talk.”

“Oh boy,” Karena says again. “Whose bright idea was this? I’m going home.”

But she lets Kevin take the bag and falls behind so the two men can stroll in front of her, conferring about something with their heads together, casually kicking stones. She can’t stop smiling. Karena has envisioned a lot of outcomes for this outing, running the spectrum from lukewarm to atrocious, but she would not have believed what has actually happened, which is that from the moment Kevin showed up at the house—nervous, Karena deduced from the careful parting in his damp hair and the amount of Old Spice he’d doused himself in—the men looked at each other and lifted their chins, and Charles said,
Wieb,
and Kevin said,
Hallingdahl,
and instantly they were a boys’ club of two. It makes sense, since after all Charles and Kevin have a friendship quite separate from Karena’s relationships with either of them, close enough so that at one point, Charles has told her, they considered forming their own tour company:
Wiebke and Hallingdahl, Chasers-at-Large.
Karena can’t remember the last time she was so happy to be excluded.

They reach the dock in front of the band shell and walk all the way to the end, then set out their picnic. Charles has made everything: curried tofu salad, tabouli, hummus, cherries, veggie sandwiches on whole wheat pita. There are also a couple of bottles of his special algae drink, which Karena passes up. She made the mistake earlier of trying one, and she won’t do that again. Luckily, there is also beer.

“Think fast, Wieb,” Charles says, tossing a bottle at Kevin. “Organic, brewed by Trappist monks. Better for the baby,” and he slaps Kevin’s stomach.

“Charles!” says Karena, but Kevin just uncorks the beer and drains half of it, then rubs his belly.

“Hoo-ah,” he says, “baby’s thirsty today. Thanks, Hallingdahl. You’re a prince among men.”

“Don’t mention it, Wieb,” says Charles, and they settle down to eat. Kevin picks suspiciously at his sandwich.

“Jesus, Hallingdahl,” he says, “is this
eggplant
?”

“Just eat it, Wieb, you fucking puffball. When’s the last time you ate a vegetable, in a past life?”

“Never,” says Kevin, slinging the eggplant into the lake, where it promptly attracts a swarm of minnows. “How many times do I have to tell you, Hallingdahl? Vegetables are what food eats.”

Karena leans her back against Kevin’s and dangles her feet in the water, warmish and green-gold this close to the banks, laced with shimmering orbits of light. She devours her sandwich. And the salad. And the tabouli, and the hummus, and some cherries. They have a pit-spitting contest, trying to hit the nearest sailboat, and Karena wins easily, pinging its side. Even Charles pretends to be impressed. Then she reclines on her elbows on the sun-beaten boards and belches.

“Ugh,” she says, “excuse me. I think I ate too much.”

“That’s what I love about you, sistah,” says Charles. “You’re so ladylike. Such a delicate flower.”

“Fuck off, Charles.”

“See,” Charles says to Kevin, “how abusive she is? Man, I hope you know what you’re getting into.”

“Oh,” says Kevin, stroking Karena’s hair, “I think I have a pretty good idea.”

“Jeez, you kids,” says Charles, “do you never stop?” But he helps himself to another sandwich and chews thoughtfully, gazing out across the lake.

“I haven’t been here in years,” he says. “Remember how Uncle Carroll used to take us here every time we visited, K?”

“I remember,” Karena says drowsily. Uncle Carroll, Siri’s brother, has been dead for five years from a stupid accident, slipping in the shower and fracturing his skull, dead for three days before a neighbor found him. Every single person’s nightmare. But before that he lived quite happily in his little bungalow, surrounded by fascinating samples, books of carpet and wallpaper swatches, rainbows of paint strips. Carroll was a decorator who’d worked in New York for several years, then returned to Minneapolis with a mustache and huge square smoked sunglasses. He had a laugh that soared into the upper registers when something was really funny. Karena remembers Carroll sitting on his couch, wrapped in a cowhide blanket, roaring until he squeaked at an episode of
All in the Family
on his rabbit-eared TV.