Hurricane Days

by Renée J. Lukas

  “Oh?” I replied absently. “Looks can be deceiving.” I smiled and handed him my notebook.

  Andrew dropped it and bent over to retrieve it, pushing his backside into my face. “Whoa,” I laughed. “Way more of you than I want to see!”

  “Ahh! You’re so funny!” He stood up and slapped my arm. Something about him seemed to me like an old friend. “I haven’t mastered the f-stop thing. Everything is coming out blurry.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “It’s pretty confusing,” he continued. “I don’t know. And the teacher hates my guts.”

  “He hates everyone’s guts.”

  “Ahh!” Andrew’s laugh drew some attention in the library. I was a little embarrassed. I looked around, over my shoulder. Then Andrew held up my notebook. He cleared his throat and said softly, “Thanks for this. I’ll get it back to you tomorrow.” He winked at me and walked away.

  Relieved at his departure, I exhaled and turned back to the Psychology section, where I shoved a few more “secret” books for later reading. If workers at the library weren’t too conscientious, the books would still be there tomorrow.

  All was quiet and still, as I walked back to the dorm. Regal palm trees against a moonlit sky appeared like postcards I’d seen in tourist shops. It was a sharp contrast to the scene I witnessed when I got back to the dorm room. The aftermath of the party reminded me of what a nuclear holocaust might bring—corpselike bodies lying in weird positions across the floor, the rank odor of warm Budweiser swirling up my nose, a Marlboro fog still hovering in the air and towers of beer cans rising up like monsters out of the trash can and teetering dangerously.

  Adrienne and Sean, the redneck peacock, were entwined on Adrienne’s bed with their clothes on. My dislike of Sean intensified. It was not intellectual; it came from a place deep in my gut. The sight of them together was like a hard punch to my stomach. I winced at the filled ashtray on my nightstand. With a sleeping body blocking my closet door, I gingerly climbed into my own bed with my clothes on.

  * * *

  The next morning, a half-asleep Adrienne frowned at herself in the mirror as I fixed my makeup.

  “What time is it?” she asked. Her mascara had smeared into her hair, her eyes were pink and unfocused. To me, she still looked beautiful.

  “Eight thirty,” I said. “The bodies rose from the dead about an hour ago and left, thank God.”

  She shuddered. “Could you…just…shhh?”

  I leaned into her ear and shouted, “Hung over?”

  “Bitch.” Adrienne pushed me away and opened her closet, staring at her clothes disdainfully.

  “What was that? It looked like Armageddon when I came in last night.”

  “I told that fucker he wasn’t sleeping over,” she grumbled, pulling out a pair of jeans.

  “Who?”

  “Sean.”

  “Oh, the one who was sleeping with you?”

  “We didn’t sleep together,” she snapped defensively. “We had a fight. I told him to leave. But he was too wasted to go anywhere.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanation.”

  “No, it’s cool. I just wanted you to know what happened.” She smiled faintly at me before disappearing to the showers.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Security at the governor’s mansion that night was the tightest it had ever been, as everyone awaited Adrienne’s arrival.

  Robin waited in the library. She sat rigidly in her favorite high-back leather chair, unable to relax, knowing that the one person who could unravel her carefully crafted persona, not to mention all her future plans, would soon be there. Vaguely aware of the occasional pop and crackle from the glowing fireplace, a necessity in the drafty mansion, she settled back into the leather cushion cradling her head and remembered a time when nothing else had mattered but Adrienne’s impression of her.

  Why had she been so drawn to the most dangerous person she could have met? She’d never know the answer, only that Adrienne was the one she had always longed for in the hidden recesses of her mind, in places she’d never share with anyone, especially not her husband. She could hardly even share it with herself!

  Peter lingered in the doorway. “Governor? If you need anything, I’ll be right outside.”

  How comforting, she thought sarcastically.

  She heard the front door close. Moments later she saw Tom passing in front of the archway that led to the library. He was just getting back from work. He nodded to Peter, pushed past him and entered the library, closing the door behind him. “You really think this is a good idea?” he asked.

  “Word certainly gets around.” She rose from the chair. “You’re home late.”

  “A lot of work at the office.” He poured himself a brandy. She noticed how the amber liquid rippled in the light. It was actually kind of pretty. Sometimes she could find beauty in unusual things, at the oddest moments. Here she was, balanced on a tightrope between her career and the reemerging desire that had haunted her all these years. She knew she could just as easily fall off into oblivion as to make it safely to one side or the other. And yet here she was, pondering her husband’s drink and attempting small talk.

  “Security out front,” Tom said. “They told me you’re meeting her here?”

  She nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “You know the place is going to be swarming with the media.”

  “Peter assures me the second car is taking a more circuitous route, to avoid being tailed. We’re taking every precaution we can to keep this discreet.”

  “Discreet?” He laughed. He gulped the rest of his drink. “Be careful. Her only motivation is to bring you down.”

  Robin nodded, but she wasn’t really listening.

  He smiled bitterly to himself. “I’m going to go up and check on Ken, see if she needs help with her homework.” In quick strides he made it to the door, then paused, turning around. “She is pretty.” With a slight, knowing smile, he turned the knob to leave.

  “Tom…” She watched the door close behind him.

  Going to the flat screen, she switched it on and saw what Tom must have seen. A still shot of her face upon seeing Adrienne in the Atlanta crowd was being splashed all over the news. Ann DeMarco, looking stern with her slicked-back, auburn hair and black-rimmed glasses, was commenting on it.

  “Clearly, Governor Sanders did share a room with Adrienne Austen in college,” Ann said, “although it still remains unclear whether or not they had more than a friendship.”

  On CNN, Jay Savage was interviewing one of Robin’s opponents in the Republican primary, Jerry Johnson. He too was from Georgia and liked to talk about his days as an SEC coach.

  “I just think the whole thing’s distasteful,” Johnson said, scrunching up his face. He had at least a pound of pancake makeup on and his pepper hair had been sprayed so much it wouldn’t have moved in a tornado.

  “Do you think this rumor that keeps dogging the governor will have a negative impact on her campaign?” Savage asked.

  “I’m not a betting man,” Johnson responded. “But…”

  “They say her poll numbers are still quite strong.”

  “That may be. But I think where there’s smoke…you know, too often some of my less fortunate colleagues have been caught doin’ the one thing they said they were against. It happens all the time.”

  “Like your gambling problem!” Robin exclaimed as she shut off the TV. She needed a moment of peace anyway. She turned away from the screen, toward the windows that now flashed with headlights. Her heart began to pound…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I loved Florida skies. At the end of each day, as I walked up the hill toward the dorm, I’d notice the wisps of pink cotton candy clouds floating overhead. They were only a temporary distraction, though. What I was most interested in was seeing if the light was on in one particular seventh-floor window—the one on the end. When it was, my heart beat a little faster and my feet got lighter as I ran up the steps
to the towering building. The front desk staff must have thought I had some kind of condition. Every time I went into the lobby, panting and sweating, I had to stop to catch my breath. Not wanting Adrienne to see me like that, I’d stop in the bathroom to freshen up before entering our room. I started tying my hair back more, because the humidity would make strands of it stick to the back of my neck.

  Most days, Adrienne wasn’t in the restroom. But on the rare occasion when she was, I would nod, duck into a stall and wait for her to leave. It was a bizarre way to live, but I’d become so accustomed to my strange rituals, they had begun to seem normal.

  I was losing the emotional war I was fighting in my head. I knew it every day, my face sometimes betraying my thoughts, my feelings. Mundane moments of everyday life rippled through my mind like treasured photographs. The way Adrienne turned around when I called her name, the inside jokes we began to share, simply studying beside her quietly—there was no work of art or piece of music that could hold my attention quite like this. No Chopin piece could rival her voice, especially her throaty laugh. This was the stuff girls in high school wrote notes and poems about. This was the reason why they etched certain initials in the margins of their notebooks. It all made sense now, like one of my senses had now been turned on and couldn’t be switched off.

  I’d lie in bed and remember the comfortable nights with Marc back home. I realized that Adrienne made me feel anything but comfortable. The constant butterflies in my stomach whenever Adrienne was near—that must have been what it was like for Marc. I’d feel a pang of guilt, then roll over to erase it.

  My trips to the library grew more frequent and urgent. I eventually read all of the top-secret books I’d stashed in the Psychology section.

  One night, when there was autumn frost on the Spanish moss and shrubs around campus, Adrienne returned to the room fresh from her shower wearing only a pink terrycloth towel. “Did you turn the heat off again?” she exclaimed, rushing over to the thermostat.

  “I was hot,” I said.

  “You’re always hot.”

  “You’re cold when it’s sixty degrees! You don’t know what real cold is.”

  Adrienne closed her eyes. “Twenty degrees. I know.” She turned the heat on and took a seat at her desk, studying beside me. Her long, wet, curled hair dripped down her exposed neck… My breathing became shallow. Droplets of moisture glistened on her bare, broad shoulders… My thoughts were wild horses; I tried to focus them on my book.

  What a cruel world—forced to read about the political structures of China and India—when all I could think about was gently placing my lips upon her shoulder…so smooth, so soft…and gliding my mouth lightly across her skin, gathering beads of sweet water with my lips, caressing her skin with my face.

  I wiped my eyes and exhaled loudly, suddenly remembering where I was.

  “You okay?” Adrienne asked.

  “Yeah. Just Comparative Politics.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “Getting harder.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Robin.” It was her voice.

  Without looking up, Robin poured two glasses of white wine.

  “You know I’m a beer drinker,” Adrienne said. Robin raised her head and met those caramel eyes, now with a new line or two around the edges. They only made her even more striking. She noticed that Adrienne was wearing a simple but glamorous black dress, something she’d never seen her wear before, with black hose and heels, not the casual boots she used to favor. She actually heard the faint sound of her heels clicking on the marble tiles before she entered. Adrienne’s slight smile was intimate, familiar. “This is fine.” She took the glass, briefly touching Robin’s fingertips, watching her with obvious curiosity. “You look so different now. It’s not your face. Maybe the clothes.”

  Robin self-consciously pulled at her blouse. She’d removed her scarf and the blazer of her pantsuit, feeling they were too formal now.

  “Please, no small talk. Why are you doing this?” Robin was intense, her eyes like steel.

  Adrienne searched her face as though she was trying to solve a mystery. “You’re a liar.”

  “You mastered the art of hypocrisy quite well yourself.” Robin swirled the wine in her glass, careful to avoid Adrienne’s eyes, now glistening in the dim light. She looked almost delicious.

  “I was different back then,” Adrienne said.

  “So was I.” Robin came closer. “You should know, Adrienne, I won’t allow anyone to destroy my career.”

  “Should I be worried about getting out of here alive?”

  “This is not a joke.”

  Adrienne looked oddly at her. “So it’s true. Politicians are scary.” She walked over to a window and peeled back part of a curtain to reveal the black, starless night. “What the hell happened to you anyway?”

  “Me!” The governor was off the hinges now. “You were the one who…” For just a moment she felt a splinter of the pain she’d suffered over this woman. But she clenched her jaw and made a dismissive gesture, as if nothing that had happened between them was worth talking about.

  Adrienne set down her drink. “I’ve changed, Robin.”

  Hearing her say her name again…she felt her all over again—her laugh, her soft skin, her irreverence—and she suffered all over again—in a single instant. She felt a perverse pleasure in the pain of it all. Maybe it reminded her she was still alive. But a desperate voice inside reminded her of her faltering campaign, not to mention the damage this would eventually do to her family.

  “How exactly did this leak occur?” Robin asked.

  “It was a casual conversation in a bar,” Adrienne replied. Just as Robin had suspected. “This guy asked if I knew you, and I said, ‘oh yeah,’ and winked. I might’ve added a few other words. Like ‘in the Biblical sense.’”

  Robin closed her eyes. “Oh, Adrienne.” If she’d been anyone else, Robin would have been tempted to throw her through the window.

  “It was an accident,” Adrienne said.

  “How did they get that photo?” Robin asked.

  “I honestly don’t know.” She seemed sincere. “They wanted me to go on all these shows, but I wouldn’t. Not until I talked to you first.”

  “How admirable,” Robin said sarcastically. “What do you want from me? Money?”

  Adrienne seemed offended. “I don’t need your money.”

  “Don’t you? I hear you’re playing in a band, no recording contract…awfully risky for someone your age, don’t you think?”

  Adrienne let out a bitter chuckle. “I’d almost forgotten that self-righteous bitch tone you get.”

  “Let’s be honest.” Robin set down her drink. “This scandal certainly gave your little group some publicity, am I right?”

  Adrienne stepped closer. “Get one thing straight. I never meant for this to be public. But now that it is, let’s get real. The first time I saw you on a morning show, talking about unnatural unions, I spit out my coffee. What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Adrienne snapped. “I’m gay, and you’re an affront to all gay people.”

  “So you’re calling yourself a lesbian now?” Robin raised an eyebrow. “Well, I guess you have changed.”

  “Fuck you. The little Southern belle routine is getting really old and boring.”

  “Don’t presume to know me. It’s been over twenty years.”

  “Twenty-seven years and four months.” Adrienne traced her glass with her fingertip. “I still remember how you taste.”

  Robin tried to maintain her composure. “I don’t agree with that lifestyle.”

  “Bullshit. You were that lifestyle. You wanted it, and you got it.”

  “Stop it! Just stop it!”

  Was Adrienne playing with her? Trying to get a rise out of her?

  Peter barged in when he heard Robin’s raised voice, but mostly because he was nosy. “Everything okay?”

&
nbsp; Adrienne turned to view him, an eyebrow arched. “Who’s this?”

  “Peter, please, give us a minute.”

  “Okay.” He eyed Adrienne; it was obvious he was threatened by her in more ways than one. He kept watching her as he backed out of the room.

  Robin exhaled deeply. “How can you visit me twenty-seven years later and think you know anything about who I am? You know how much a person can change in that time?” Even as she asked the question, Robin knew that she herself still imagined Adrienne as a snapshot frozen in time, never changing, always the party girl she used to know. She had no idea what Adrienne had gone through in the years between.

  “Of course I know,” Adrienne said easily. “Look at me. I used to think I had to make out with a whole football team to be comfortable with who I am.” Unlike the governor’s minions, Adrienne held her ground and unnerved Robin with her strong sense of self.

  After all these years, Robin Sanders was nothing but a well-rehearsed paper doll. And Adrienne was the only other person besides her who seemed to know it.

  “What do you want from me?” Robin asked quietly.

  “I want you to admit it. That something happened between us.”

  She wanted validation? How ironic. The tables had turned. Robin took a deep breath. “Yes, something did happen between us.” Her eyes filled. Just saying the words aloud unleashed an unexpected flood. “Just remember who broke whose heart!” She tried to catch her breath. “You hurt me!” She grabbed her pearl necklace to collect herself.

  Adrienne pulled her cell phone from her purse and touched the screen. “That’s all I needed.” The phone had been clipped to the outside of the small black purse, so inconspicuous, Robin hadn’t noticed it.

  A sickening sensation overtook Robin as she realized it wasn’t validation Adrienne was looking for, but a confession. Tom was right. All she had wanted was to bring her down.

  “Adrienne!”

  It was on video now, potential fodder for YouTube or the highest bidder.