The Best of Us

by Sarah Pekkanen

  “Savannah?” Gary asked in a voice so low she was the only one who could hear it. “If you’re not going to talk to me, I’ll leave now. I can make it to a hotel before the storm hits.”

  She looked at him levelly. I don’t need you, she thought. I can be happy without you.

  It was what finally made her nod and say, “Fine. Let’s talk.”

  The others left the room. The moment Savannah and Gary were alone, two things happened: First, Gary took a step toward her, his eyes intent, his mouth beginning to form a word.

  Then all the lights went out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  * * *

  Darkness

  “I’M GETTING SCARED,” TINA said. “Oh, my God, that sound . . . it’s like someone is being tortured!”

  “That’s some serious wind,” Gio said. He moved a few books off the top of a bookcase, clearing space for a fat candle in a glass holder. They were rationing the battery-powered lanterns, so just one was turned on, and the illumination didn’t reach into the adjoining rooms. Only the game room, where they were all clustered, had enough light to see. Whenever people wanted to use the bathroom, they brought along a flashlight and hurried back as fast as they could.

  “Betty sounds crazy,” Savannah said. “She’s almost human.”

  Tina wrapped her arms around herself, then flinched as a crash came from outside. “What was that? It’s like a horror movie. We don’t know what’s happening out there!”

  She could hear her voice growing shrill, but she didn’t care. This was a stupid idea. They should have gotten off the island when they had a chance. People were routinely killed by hurricanes, and yet, they’d stayed—arrogantly assuming they’d be spared. She should’ve remembered the lesson she’d learned from her shifts in the ER: No one was immune from tragedy.

  “It’s a tree limb,” Gio told her. “More will come down, so brace yourself for the noise.” It seemed impossible that her husband was so calm. He was moving around the room now, thumping his knuckles against the walls and peering up at the ceiling.

  “How long do hurricanes last, anyway?” Savannah asked.

  “A couple hours,” Gio said, lifting up an edge of a pinball machine to test its weight. “Ryan, help me move this to the far wall.”

  “A couple hours?” Tina shrieked.

  “We’re going to be fine, Tina.”

  Everyone turned in surprise as Pauline crossed the room to sit on the big sectional couch next to Tina. “This house was specifically built to withstand hurricanes,” she said. “Everything is reinforced. It sounds horrible outside, and it’s going to sound like that for a while, but we’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Tina looked at Pauline and let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “Is anyone else hungry?” Dwight asked.

  Tina clapped a hand over her mouth, then exclaimed, “Your birthday dinner!” She looked at Dwight. “We were going to cook you something special . . . I’m sorry, Dwight. You gave us this incredible vacation and you don’t even get a cake on your birthday!”

  “Oh, yes he does,” said a voice from the doorway. Tina looked up.

  “Happy birthday to you . . .” Allie came in the room carrying a basket topped with a tall candle. She was holding the basket with one hand and steadying the candle with the other.

  She put the basket down on the table in front of Dwight, and he closed his eyes and blew out the candle.

  “Who says we need a boring old cake to celebrate a birthday?” Allie asked.

  “Razzles!” Dwight said. He reached into the basket and pulled out Pop Rocks in three different flavors. “How’d you find all this?”

  “I’ve got my ways,” Allie joked. Tina glanced at Pauline, wondering if she minded Allie taking over the birthday celebration, but Pauline’s face didn’t betray any strong emotions.

  Dwight poured some Pop Rocks into his mouth, then passed the package to Allie. “Man, I’d forgotten how good these are!”

  “Candy for dinner?” Savannah laughed. “I love it. Someone give me a FireBall.”

  “Ooh, those things always burned my tongue,” Tina said. “And whenever I had one I got impatient and tried to bite down and felt like I was cracking my teeth.”

  Tina reached for the Pop Rocks and let a few sizzle on her tongue. “It totally freaked me out when I heard Mikey died from eating Pop Rocks while drinking Coke,” she said. “Remember Mikey? The kid from the Life cereal commercials? That might’ve been the first urban legend I ever heard.”

  “Mikey’s an adult entertainer in Ohio now,” Savannah said. “He specializes in bachelorette parties.”

  “Really?” Tina asked.

  “Just wanted to see if I could start another urban legend,” Savannah said. “I have no idea what Mikey’s up to these days. I haven’t been tracking the guy’s career trajectory.”

  Tina laughed and welcomed the way some tension exited her body along with the sound. “Ooh, pass me the Hot Tamales,” she said.

  “So what did you wish for, Dwight?” Savannah asked.

  “He can’t tell us—then it won’t come true,” Allie cut in.

  “It’s okay,” Dwight said. “I didn’t make a wish. I feel like I have everything I want.”

  The radio announcer’s voice fought through intermittent static: “Betty . . . in minutes . . . Seek shelter immediately . . . away from trees . . . interior room . . . away from windows . . .”

  “Tequila, anyone?” Gio suggested. He put a bottle on the table, along with a lemon with a knife stuck into it.

  “Heck, yes,” Tina said. She reached for the bottle and took a sip.

  “Ah, tequila,” Savannah said. She winked at Tina, then flicked her eyes toward Dwight. “Are you sure you should be drinking it?”

  “It’s fine,” Tina said, glaring at Savannah.

  “Do you mean because Tina has a low tolerance?” Ryan asked.

  “Yes, that’s precisely what I meant,” Savannah said.

  “I do not!” Tina protested. “I only got drunk the other night because I chugged so much during quarters. I can handle a shot of tequila.”

  “I’ll have one, too, Tina,” Allie said, grabbing the neck of the bottle. “To Dwight. Happy birthday!”

  Everyone cheered: “To Dwight!”

  “And thanks for being such a wonderful friend and host!” Allie continued. “You’ve given us the most amazing trip ever!”

  Even in the dim light, it was easy to see his spectacular blush.

  “Speech!” Gio shouted, and Ryan took up the chant: “Speech! Speech! Speech!”

  Was she the only one who saw the hurt flicker across Pauline’s face? Tina wondered. Sure, Dwight might’ve financed the trip, but it was obviously Pauline who’d done all the legwork. She’d even made sure there were vegetarian entrées at every meal for Allie. The whole thing had been Pauline’s idea—Dwight had mentioned that at the very first dinner. Besides, shouldn’t Allie have let Pauline toast her husband for his birthday first?

  “And to Pauline!” Tina cried, raising her glass again. “The hostess with the mostess!”

  Everyone cheered, and Pauline shot Tina a small smile. Usually Allie was the one who was attuned to everyone’s feelings, Tina thought. Since when had they switched roles?

  “Th-thanks for being such great friends,” Dwight said. “This has been the best trip of my entire life!”

  Better than your honeymoon? Tina thought. Something seemed off. She hadn’t completely warmed up to Pauline, but she felt sorry for her. Pauline seemed to have shrunk away to the margins of the group ever since she’d come back from visiting her mother in the hospital. She’d stayed in the house today instead of coming to the beach with everyone else. Dwight hadn’t seemed too concerned. He’d just been hanging out with Allie . . . like he was right now. The two of them were sharing a love seat, and Pauline and Ryan were across the room. Tina frowned. She’d convinced herself, despite their intima
te body language, that Allie and Dwight were just casually chatting by the pool when she saw them in the middle of the night earlier in the week. There couldn’t be anything going on between them. But they’d left the beach alone today . . . No! There couldn’t.

  Could there?

  “I miss college sometimes,” Savannah was saying. “I don’t think we knew how good we had it back then. At least I didn’t.”

  “No one did,” Gio said.

  “I wish I’d appreciated my classes more,” Tina said, shaking off her thoughts. “For me, learning got in the way of fun. What I wouldn’t give to be able to take any classes I wanted now! Like art history. Why didn’t I learn about art when I had the chance?”

  “I miss being in our dorm room in pj’s, and wandering across the hall to talk to Van,” Allie said. “Or knocking three times on the wall to tell Dwight to come over to study with me. Just always being together.” She turned to look at Gary, who’d been sitting quietly next to Savannah. “Did you feel that way about college, Gary?” Allie asked.

  He shook his head. “I worked every weekend in a sandwich shop,” he said. “Friday and Saturday nights, and all day Sunday.”

  That was the last thing she’d have expected, Tina thought. She couldn’t imagine Gary serving others.

  “Gary hates sandwiches now,” Savannah said. “Never eats them.” She was holding the tequila bottle, and she accepted the lemon wedge that Tina handed her, then she took a swig. “Ahh, that burns!”

  “I still have all the ingredients for the sandwiches engraved in my brain,” Gary said, shaking his head as if to try to loosen the long-held information’s grip on his mind. “The owner was crazy, and he held these impromptu quizzes. You had to reel off the ingredients of whatever sandwich he named in under ten seconds, or you’d lose your job.”

  “How many sandwiches were there?” Tina asked.

  “Twenty-seven,” Gary said. He reached for the bottle Savannah had set on the table and took a sip.

  Tina started to ask Gary another question—this new information about him was intriguing, and she wondered if his parents didn’t have money or just refused to help him with college expenses—but a huge crash drowned her out.

  “Well hello, Betty,” Gio said.

  He stood up, walked over to the candle, and blew it out. “Just in case,” he said. “We don’t want a fire on top of everything else.”

  Something rammed into the side of the house with enough force to make the walls tremble. The noise of a spectacular crash carried into the room.

  “That didn’t sound good,” Savannah observed. Her tone was light, but she’d moved closer to Gary on the big sectional couch. “It couldn’t be a window, could it?”

  “Nah,” Gio said. “That plywood’s thick. The wind probably carried something to the patio and smashed it against the stone. We’re going to find all sorts of stuff when we go out after the storm.”

  “I hope people got enough notice to get off the beach,” Tina said. “They were saying on the Weather Channel that most deaths come from the storm surge . . .”

  “They’ll go inland,” Gio assured her. “Jamaicans are savvy about hurricanes. They won’t mess around.”

  Tina tried to ignore the horrible sounds coming from outside, but she couldn’t. It was as if the hurricane had targeted their house specifically and was focusing all her rage on trying to tear it loose from its foundations, although Tina logically knew that wasn’t true. She couldn’t believe how violent and angry Betty sounded. She moaned and shrieked and thrashed and shook the house, like a giant in the middle of a tantrum.

  Anxiety began to creep back into Tina’s body. Could the house really withstand hours of this? Maybe Pauline was wrong; the contractors might’ve cut corners while building this place. Inferior materials could’ve been substituted for more costly ones to increase profits. That sort of thing happened all the time, according to Gio.

  The house shook, and a bookcase in the corner crashed to the floor, its contents scattering. Tina couldn’t help releasing a little scream at the sound.

  I want to go home, she thought suddenly. Her heart jackhammered in her chest. She looked around, but the others had gone suddenly silent. Even Gio looked tense, which scared her more than anything else.

  She closed her eyes, and the faces of her four children swam into her mind: Paolo, their oldest, named after Gio’s deceased father. He was only eight, but his feet were almost as big as Gio’s. Puppy feet, Tina called them. Angela was six, and she loved dogs and doing somersaults and shampoo that smelled of strawberries. She had big brown eyes and at night, just before falling asleep, she made the little cooing noises of a dove. Jessica was feisty and smart, and once she’d passed through the terrible twos, she’d developed a fantastic sense of humor—the kid could do a very credible Brooklyn accent. And sweet Sammy, with his skinny arms and big belly and soft kisses in the morning . . .

  I miss you all so much, Tina thought.

  She remembered how on the anniversary of her mother’s death last year, she’d driven past a field of wildflowers and recalled how much her mother had loved flowers. She’d had to pull the minivan to the side of the road because she couldn’t see through her tears. And then the high, worried voices began asking why she was sad . . . She’d told them the truth, that she missed her mom and the flowers had made Tina think of her. Then Angela had suggested they go smell the flowers and say a prayer for Grandma. Tina remembered the feel of their soft, small hands in her own, and the way Angela had danced in the field while Paolo had picked her a bouquet to take home . . . Oh, she loved those four small people so much it felt like a physical ache.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  Something had just happened to her, something important. She’d desperately needed something to cling to, and the thought of her children was what had given her solace.

  She blinked back tears—again!—but this time they sprang from relief: She missed her babies. She couldn’t wait to see them again. Her deepest fear—that something was wrong with her, that some vital mothering bone was broken inside of her—wasn’t true. She had only needed a break. It was really that simple.

  They’d get through tonight, and then on Friday they’d spend one last full day in Jamaica, taking in the aftermath of the storm and getting ready to leave. She’d be home Saturday night in time for pizza and pajamas and a family cuddle on the couch.

  Betty shook the house again and roared, but this time, Tina didn’t flinch. All week long, she’d felt as if she was back in college—and she’d jealously clung to that sensation, dreading the moment it would slip away. But right now she was a mother again, which also meant she was a warrior.

  * * *

  “Has it stopped?” Allie overheard Savannah ask.

  Allie was on her way back from the bathroom, but she paused in the hallway. For the first time in almost two hours, she couldn’t hear any noise from outside. Curious to see if there was any damage to the house, she turned and began walking in the other direction, then stopped short.

  The living room, which had faced the brunt of the storm, looked like it had been ransacked. Knickknacks had fallen off shelves, smaller pieces of furniture had been shifted, and a glass statue lay on the wooden floor, broken into dozens of pieces. She stepped gingerly through the mess, moving toward the coffee table books that had slid onto the floor. She found the one with the pictures of waterfalls on the cover and opened it, holding her breath. Her gift to Dwight was still there, hidden between the pages.

  Allie reached for the slim rectangular package, which was wrapped in a sheet of newspaper comic strips—the only thing she could find that resembled wrapping paper. But she knew Dwight would love it; he’d once told her he still read the comics first, before the business page and main news section.

  It wasn’t the most elaborate present she’d ever given anyone, but it might be the most meaningful. She’d taken photos of Dwight on the catamaran on the second day of the trip, and, after she’d discovered a
little nook of an office in the house containing a computer and printer and fax, had managed to print out a decent copy of the best one. It wasn’t framed yet, but she’d sandwiched it between two pieces of cardboard to keep it from becoming creased. She’d left it here because she didn’t want Ryan to find it in their bedroom.

  Allie wanted to give it to Dwight tonight so he’d know how he looked through her eyes: In the photo, he was leaning against the rail of the boat, the breeze blowing back his dark brown hair. He wasn’t smiling, but he looked thoughtful and a little mysterious, and the blue-green water mirrored the tints in his hazel eyes. It was a wonderful picture.

  Allie could hear Ryan’s voice calling her name as he came toward the room. She clutched the package to her chest. Where could she hide it? If the others began putting the room back together, they might discover her gift, and it was for Dwight’s eyes alone.

  She could hear Ryan’s footsteps. He was almost here. She glanced wildly around, realizing she’d be trapped if she went into the kitchen; then she unlocked the front door and slipped out, closing it silently behind her.

  The air felt clean, and it was light enough that Allie could see the pool area was remarkably unscathed. A lot of tree limbs had blown into the area—mostly small ones, but a few that were thicker than her wrist—but since all of the furniture had been put into storage, there wasn’t any real damage.

  Allie cast a glance behind her to make sure no one was coming, then walked around to the copse of palm trees on the far side of the pool, thinking she could tuck her gift there, then hurry back inside. Later, she could bring Dwight back to the place she now thought of as theirs. She knelt by the trees and found the perfect hiding spot between two close-together trunks. She was reaching for a rock to anchor the package when the world exploded.

  There was a long, loud shriek—the only warning Betty gave—then wind smacked into her like a brick wall, wrenching the package out of her hands and sending it swirling upward.

  “No!” Allie shouted. She reached up, trying to catch it, but it swooped farther away as a dark gray fog rushed in to envelop her.