The Waiting Sky

by Lara Zielin

  Farther down the block, a cluster of people heave branches out of the road, and I crane my neck for a good look at them. I’m hoping one of them is Max.

  “Looking for someone?” Hallie asks.

  I whip back to attention. “No,” I say quickly. Too quickly.

  “You sure about that?”

  Hallie will be a junior next year at the University of Oklahoma, so we’re only a few years apart. And while she’s cool and an awesome chaser, I’m not exactly ready to be besties and go blabbing to her about Max.

  “It’s nothing,” I say.

  I wipe a rivulet of sweat off my forehead and bend down to grab the two-by-four. Hallie picks up the other end and helps me. After we heave the thing into a nearby Dumpster, we stare at each other. A small smile plays at the corner of her mouth.

  “So, you’re not looking for anyone?” she asks. “Not one single person? Not a member of the Twister Blisters even?”

  “Are you trying to make a point here?”

  In the distance, a truck backs up with a series of shrill beeps.

  “It’s just that I saw you with one of the Blisters yesterday at breakfast,” Hallie says. “Cute guy, dark hair? Thought maybe you guys hit it off or something. And since the Blisters are in Patchy Falls too, maybe—”

  “A Blister? No way.” I try to end the conversation by scooping up an armful of leaves and tossing them into the Dumpster. Unfortunately, they’re too light. They all come flying back at me, landing in my hair, on my face.

  Hallie brays with laughter.

  “It’s not funny!” I say, but she’s already doubled over. I giggle and whip a few leaves at her. She grabs a scrawny branch and thwaps it against my butt. I shriek and toss more leaves.

  “You have to tell me!” she yells. “You’re looking for someone out here. I know you are!”

  “You know jack!”

  “If it’s not the breakfast boy, I bet it’s one of the Weather Network guys. You’re letting him get in your pants so they air more footage of you!”

  I laugh harder. “Oh, my God, no.”

  “It’s breakfast boy, then!” Hallie says, waving her wimpy branch at me. “I know it is!”

  I stop our play fight to frantically peel the leaves out of my hair and brush the dirt off my shorts and shirt. I suppose she’ll figure out everything she needs to know in the next few seconds. Danny’s heading toward us—and Max is with her.

  15

  “Danny!” I say. I hope my voice doesn’t betray how my insides are twisting at the sight of Max in jeans and a snug white T-shirt that shows off his broad shoulders. “You’re on crutches!”

  “Yeah,” Danny says, smiling and looking at her ankle. “Just for a few weeks. Doctor says I have a sprain.” Her wavy brown hair shimmers, the dirt and blood from last night long gone. There’s a bright white bandage covering the gash on her forearm, plus a few bruises here and there, but other than that, she seems completely fine.

  “Max here told me your name,” Danny continues. “I asked around about you guys and finally found him. I had to thank you both in person for what you did for me last night.”

  I swallow back the guilt at how Victor—our own teammate—wanted to leave her injured in the darkness. She shouldn’t be thanking me. Max, maybe—but not a Torbro.

  “This is Hallie,” I say, changing the subject. “She’s a chaser, too.”

  Hallie pulls off a glove and extends her hand. “Nice to meet you. Glad to see you’re up and about.”

  Danny nods. “The doctors kept me overnight, but released me first thing this morning. My boyfriend took me home, and—would you even believe it?—I came in the door, and there was a pile of food there for me. Casseroles, cakes, even a whole roast turkey from the ShopRite. It’s like I was gone for a month with a terminal illness.”

  “Must be nice to have neighbors who care about you so much,” Max offers. It’s the first time he’s spoken since they walked up. I try not to stare at the way his mouth moves.

  “You bet,” Danny agrees. “We do take care of our own ’round here. But I have to tell you, the whole town is powerful thankful you chasers stuck around after the storm. I suppose it could have been much worse. Good Shepherd Lutheran lost most of its roof and windows. The Johnsons lost half a garage. No one died, though, and no one lost everything. For the mess that is here, well, we’re just really grateful you’re helping out.”

  And helping ourselves out, I think. Good thing Danny doesn’t know this is a PR stunt for both teams as much as it is a humanitarian effort.

  “Do you need anything?” Max asks, like he’s thinking the same thing and wants to get the focus off the chasers. “Is there something we can help you with?”

  “I’d ask if you know where I can get a deal on a new chasing van, but I think I’ll be laying off the storms for a while.”

  “Storms are hard to predict,” Max agrees. “The Twister Blisters get mixed up all the time, and we’ve got Doppler and a team of six.”

  Danny nods. Down the block, a chain saw starts up. “Well, I need to get back home, and I’m dropping Max here off at the Culvers’ barn. Guess it got hit by some winds and his team’s gonna fix it up.”

  I fight down a wave of disappointment when I hear that Max won’t be helping Hallie and me for the rest of the day. “But if you’re around tonight,” Danny continues, “I wanted to invite you all out to the Pig & Spit over in Clarkstown. The Bluegrass Aces are playing there tonight raising money for Pastor Kraus and the Good Shepherd. Lots of people have been asking if the chasers might come too. Chasers are the closest thing we have to celebrities around here.”

  “I’ll be there,” Max says. His eyes are boring into mine, willing me to say I’ll go. To decide right then and make it happen.

  “Okay, cool,” I agree.

  Danny smiles. “It really will be a good time.” She looks at Max. “You ready to go?”

  Max flashes a grin at Hallie and me. “Good to see you,” he says. His electric green eyes linger on mine for a second.

  “Good to see you,” Hallie replies, elbowing me.

  We stand there watching Danny and Max climb into a black truck parked a little ways off. After the diesel engine rumbles to life and they drive away, Hallie faces me.

  “So, Max was nice.”

  I shrug. “He’s okay.”

  “Seems like he was more than just okay. Seems like he was olé, as in that bull can run through my red cape any time.” Hallie cracks up at her own joke. I go back to picking up branches and try to ignore her. “Though I have to tell you,” Hallie continues, “it would be really hard dating someone on a rival chasing team. You’d probably have to clear it with the other chasers, you know. Have a meeting. Come clean on both sides. Make sure everyone knew.”

  I straighten. “Don’t you dare,” I say. “Don’t say anything to anyone.”

  Hallie bursts into laughter. “I knew it! Oh, my God, you should see your face!”

  “This isn’t funny,” I protest, imagining a powwow with both teams talking about whether two rival chasers could date. Romeo and Juliet—only with consensus. And bad weather.

  “Come on, Jane. Lighten up, buttercup. Who am I going to tell? Stephen? Your brother?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “I don’t know.”

  Hallie makes like she’s locking her lips shut. “Your secret is safe with me,” she says, tossing away the imaginary key. “But you might want to practice not staring at Max in public before you go to the Pig & Spit tonight.”

  “You’re coming too, right?”

  “Oh, hell, yes,” she says. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  16

  I smooth down my hair as best I can and grab my room key. Just as I’m ready to head to the Pig & Spit, my phone buzzes. I look at the caller ID: Cat.

  It’s funny how we used to talk on the phone every day, but now a phone call from her feels like this ginormously huge deal. I take a deep breath. On the third ring, I hit Talk.

>   “Hey, Cat.”

  “Hey,” she says, her voice as even as mine. “I wanted to call and see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m great,” I say. “Really good. You?”

  “I’m fine.” I can practically see her sprawled on her pink comforter, magazines spread around her in glossy, overlapping waves. I miss her so much in that moment, my chest tightens. “Are you guys, uh, seeing many storms?”

  I can hear how hard she’s trying to make conversation. “Actually, we are,” I say, working to give her more than two-word answers, since she did make the effort to call. “Right now, we’ve stopped in this town called Patchy Falls to help them clean up after a twister.”

  “Really? That sounds pretty cool.”

  “It’s—yeah, I guess it is. There’s this other chase team, the Twister Blisters, and they’re here too. They have Weather Network cameras following them around all the time, and when we come into contact with the Blisters, we sometimes wind up getting filmed.”

  “Are you going to be on TV?” Cat asks, sounding excited.

  “I don’t know. My brother probably will be. And definitely this guy named Victor. He’s on our team, but secretly storms wig him out.”

  “No way. How can you be a chaser and not love storms?”

  “I know, right?” I say, my words coming more quickly now. “And you know what this guy did? After the tornado hit Patchy Falls, we were trying to help people, but Victor was so scared of another storm rolling in that he left this one injured woman. He just, like, ran away from her.”

  “For real?”

  “Totally for real.”

  “I just can’t imagine,” Cat says, “why someone would do that. It sounds like he needs some serious help. I mean, he’s putting people in danger, you know? Because he can’t face . . .”

  Cat trails off and I suddenly realize she’s afraid to go on, afraid of how much the Victor situation sounds like my situation. Or my situation as Cat sees it, anyway.

  I swallow. No way am I like Victor.

  “I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did,” Cat says finally. “I wasn’t calling to bring anything up, I was only calling to see how you were. Really. And to tell you in person that I’m proud of you for going down to live with your brother for the summer. I know it was hard.”

  I don’t tell her how my brother wants me to stay with him permanently. I don’t tell her how he wants me to go to Al-Anon too. But I do tell her at least part of the truth. “I’m pretty confused,” I admit. “About all this. About what I’m supposed to do to help my mom. I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

  “Oh, Jane. I can’t imagine how awful—how hard this is.”

  It’s nice that right then Cat doesn’t try to tell me what to do. She’s just in it with me. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Look, I’m here, okay? I know my note was tough. But I’m not sitting here saying you have to do all these things right now, this second. It’s a process. A journey . . . or something.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” not sure what to say. I reach for more of the truth. “I’m glad you called.”

  “Me too.”

  We make a plan to talk again in a couple weeks. When we hang up, I’m standing in front of the dusty motel mirror, and instead of turning away, I stare—really stare—at the girl in the reflection.

  I’ve gained weight on the road, and even though it’s from eating fast food and sitting too much, it’s rounded out my sharp edges. My blue eyes are brighter, and being out in the sun has bronzed my skin. My copper-and-straw hair is still a wavy mess, but it’s lighter now.

  I take a breath. Was I really so hungry and pale and stressed before this? I wish it didn’t take me leaving my mom to look more like a happy teenager. I wish everything could just be normal back home. I can all but hear my mom laugh: If wishes and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas. Even by my mom’s definition, there’s no use sitting around hoping for things that will never be.

  * * *

  The Pig & Spit is loud, hot, and crowded, but even so, I can spot the chasers immediately. They’re the ones with the cameras trained on their table. I know at least one lens is zooming in on me now as I cut through a bank of cigarette smoke to reach the table. I’m the last one to arrive.

  Ethan waves at me. “Jane! We thought you’d been sucked into a tornado!” He’s smiling, our fight at Happy’s apparently forgotten.

  “If I had, would you chase it?”

  Ethan shakes his head. “And leave the Pig & Spit? No way.”

  Next to Ethan, Hallie pipes up. “Hey, Jane!” she says. She jerks her head toward the other end of the table. “I made sure you had a seat. Down there.” At the very end of the long table is one empty seat. Next to Max. Hallie winks at me, and I try not to blush as I make my way to the chair.

  Max is to my left. Directly across the table is Mason, flanked by two of the tech guys from the Twister Blisters. From the bits of conversation I catch above the din of country music, they’re absorbed in a discussion about multiple vortices, meaning a bunch of tornadoes at once. To my right, unfortunately, is Victor.

  “You missed the appetizers,” Max says when I’m finally parked. “Pieces of deep-fried steak you dunk into gravy.” I don’t mind the fact that he has to lean in close so I can hear him.

  “Uh, yum?”

  “Crazy stupid delicious,” Max says, locking eyes with me. A funnel cloud forms in my spine. “For dinner we all ordered the ribs,” Max continues. “Well, most everyone. I think Mason got the fried chicken, and one of the Blisters got a hamburger. But the waitress said the ribs were the best.”

  “Place like this, I’m not surprised,” I say.

  A waitress walks past. “Want something, hon?” she asks.

  Victor grunts, and drains his beer. “’Nother,” he says, interrupting my order. I’m about to mumble “jerk” under my breath, but the word dies on my lips when I get a good look at him. He’s unshaven, and his face is crisscrossed with lines I’ve never noticed before. He seems exhausted. I don’t want them to, but my insides twist for him. It must be awful, I realize, being terrified of bad weather and watching yourself turn into a monster on chases as a result.

  “Honey? You want something or not?” The waitress taps her pen against her notepad. I tear my eyes away from Victor.

  “Yes, um, the ribs,” I say. “And a Diet Coke, please.”

  “You got it.”

  “So what’d you do the rest of the day?” Max asks. He leans an elbow against the table and gets that much closer. I feel a cold thrill, even in the hot restaurant.

  “More Dumpster duty,” I say. “Hot, sweaty, stupid Dumpster duty.” I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. It wasn’t so bad—not with Hallie there, and it felt good to help Patchy Falls, even if we did it to save our own asses in the process. “You?”

  Max whispers in my ear, so the Weather Network cameras won’t pick up on our conversation. The minute I feel his breath on my lobe, I take a sip of the Diet Coke the waitress has set in front of me, so I don’t haul off and kiss him right there. “We went out to rebuild a barn for this old couple. Your brother and Stephen were there, too. So was a Weather Network producer, and he got pushy about stuff. Like, making your brother and Stephen take their shirts off because they’re both so ripped. I mean, it’s smart, because it’s going to be a total ratings fest when the episode airs. But it feels so fake. There is nothing ‘real’ about reality TV. Nothing whatsoever.”

  I glance down the table and, as if to confirm what Max is saying, I see one of the camera operators talking to Stephen, Ethan, and Alex. He motions with his hands and, a moment later, the three guys clink their glasses together. They make it look spontaneous—as if the two rival teams have put aside their differences to clean up Patchy Falls. “See what I mean?” Max asks. Then, to my amazement, they do it again—this time with Hallie in the scene. I try not to throw up when I see Alex weasel in closer to her.

  A waitress interrupts t
he setup by bringing over a tray of shots to that end of the table. “From table twelve!” she says. Danny and four other women at a nearby booth wave at the chasers.

  Ethan shakes his head at his shot and offers it to Hallie. She grins and throws back the brown liquid, one then another. I never figured Hallie for a drinker, but any girl who can take two shots like that and not get sick has to have had some practice at it. I see she’s got a beer in front of her as well.

  The food arrives, and I stop thinking about Hallie and the cameras. I’m so ravenous, I don’t even wait until everyone is served before digging in. The sweet, saucy ribs are perfect, and I’m almost inhaling them. There’s also buttered corn, steaming rolls, and fluffy mashed potatoes on the side. The whole table goes quiet as everyone chews and swallows. It’s the closest thing we’ve had to home-cooked food in a long time.

  The Bluegrass Aces start playing about the time I’m so stuffed I feel like I might explode. “We got a basket up here,” the bass player says, his long, gray beard touching the mic, “for Pastor Kraus and some of the folks whose homes were damaged in the twister. If you can throw a buck or two in while you do-si-do past, we’d sure appreciate it.” A cheer goes up from the bar, and the band plays a few notes then quiets again. The bass player continues, “And let’s have a round of applause for the Twister Blisters and the Tornado Brothers, who stuck around after the storm to help us out. Three cheers for them!”

  Every pair of eyes in the place turns to our table, and all I can think about is ducking under my chair to hide. I feel like there’s a neon sign above us flashing POSEURS. Nevertheless, I smile along with the other chasers and hope the good folks of this town have heard one of my mom’s other favorite expressions: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

  The Bluegrass Aces start a song that includes both a fiddle and a banjo, and half of the Pig & Spit gets up to dance. I’m so full, I want to put my head down on the table and nap, but suddenly there’s a hand on my shoulder. It’s Ethan. “C’mon,” he says. “Time to dance.” I want to protest, but then I see the cameras. So I get up and follow him to the scuffed-wood dance floor, crowded and sticky with spilled drinks. Everyone smiles and makes room for us.