Hurricane Days

by Renée J. Lukas

  Adrienne nodded. “With you,” she said, “it was always there. I’d see you on TV or hear your name on the news. God, you pissed me off! But I couldn’t help it. You’re like a disease with no cure!”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Why else would I go against my better judgment?” Adrienne came closer to her. “Your heart doesn’t listen to your head. It’s fucked up.”

  Robin smiled knowingly. How true that had been for her when they were in school together.

  “It’s hopeless,” Adrienne said. “I’ll meet someone else, but you know how sometimes you think about how…just before you die, there’ll be that one person you’ll think of right before the end? For me, I know it’s gonna be you.”

  Robin had had the same thought years ago, but she wouldn’t admit it. She stood up, pretending to be interested in the décor. Being here in this apartment with her, now a stranger, and yet feeling something so familiar still between them—she wondered why she had really come. Had she wanted to hear Adrienne say those words again and to be sure she meant them? She hadn’t planned what she would do once she heard her say it.

  Adrienne smiled to herself. “You’ll probably fuck up the whole country, but there it is. I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to.”

  “You mean again? You couldn’t hurt me again.” Robin’s voice was sharper than a knife. Her wounds were now showing.

  “Yeah.” Adrienne lowered her eyes.

  Robin took her seat on the couch again. “I love my husband,” she announced abruptly.

  “Good for you.” Adrienne made herself comfortable in a chair across from her and crossed her legs.

  Robin glanced at her, taking brief note of Adrienne’s black stockings and heels underneath her skirt. Through the stockings Robin could see something she hadn’t noticed the other night. Adrienne had some kind of new tattoo, almost like a snake or serpent-type creature, swirling up her calf. Still the wild child in the way she dressed and in her attitude, Adrienne would always be her temptation—the poison apple she couldn’t ponder too long.

  She was lost in the sight of her, vaguely aware of the hum of traffic noise below.

  Adrienne sighed. “I really should thank you. If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve kept running for a long time. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

  Robin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead her mixed emotions came out in an inaudible, awkward chuckle. “How ironic,” she sighed. “You’re thanking me for something…”

  “Your whole campaign is against?” Adrienne hung on the verge of a laugh, her lips turned upward. “Seeing you again,” she said, “I figured you’ll suffer more living a lie than having some nutcase call you out.”

  “I am not living a lie!” Robin would have been more convincing had she not shouted it quite so loudly. She set down her beer and rose to her feet. “It obviously meant more to you,” Robin lied. There was that fear again, protecting her like an old friend.

  “It will eat away at you,” Adrienne said. “You already look older.”

  The governor could take anything but that. She looked older? Now she was furious. And she didn’t know whom she was furious at—Adrienne or herself, for coming here in the first place.

  Robin walked purposefully across the hardwood floor and stopped, face-to-face with the person she pretended meant nothing to her. They stood in front of each other, moments stretching like hours, until Adrienne held her face in her hands. “I’m not trying to hurt you,” she said.

  Robin lowered her eyes. “I want you to know,” she said. “You broke my heart. Remember that.” She went toward the door as Adrienne let go.

  “I was a scared kid,” she told Robin. “Years ago, when you told me you loved me…everything was so intense. I was afraid.”

  Robin released the door handle, frowning at the memory. They weren’t kids anymore. It was time to tell the truth, at least while no cameras were around. “You weren’t too scared to parade around with that boyfriend of yours.”

  As soon as the words slipped from her tongue, it was obvious to Robin, and probably to Adrienne as well. Robin remembered it all, every hurtful detail. Even more obvious to Robin was the awareness that her feelings weren’t confined to the past. They were with her still, even now. She’d heard about how a first love never completely leaves you, but she’d done everything she could to be the exception, to remain above it all, as if she’d never experienced any of it.

  Adrienne would never know how Robin ran home to Georgia and remade her identity as the Southern belle who dated boys at Emory. Or how she threw herself into her books. How she went to church more times a week than she needed to. How she did everything to be the perfect daughter for her parents. And how she locked the year at FSU away in her mind and thought she’d thrown away the key. She thought she had come so far, only to find herself unchanged in the presence of the woman she couldn’t forget, the woman she still loved.

  Robin turned around slowly. There was no point in pretending anymore.

  “I know I really hurt you.” Adrienne ran her hand through her blond-streaked hair in the familiar way she used to. “I’m sorry. I guess we both did what we had to do at the time.”

  “I guess we did.”

  Adrienne’s eyes were bright, intense. “So what now?” she asked with a slightly awkward smile.

  “I’m doing what I have to do.” With that, Robin opened the door and went to the stairs. In spite of her recent realization, Robin couldn’t let herself succumb to her feelings. She could feel the hollowness inside of her expanding with every step she took. She reached the first landing quickly.

  “Say hi to your husband,” Adrienne called. Her voice was cold, like a slap in Robin’s face.

  With white knuckles Robin gripped the banister… “Adrienne, there comes a time for everyone, a sort of crossroads, where you can see the right path and the wrong one. I know what’s right, and I have to follow what I believe is right.”

  “I agree.” Adrienne folded her arms in judgment, standing in the doorway, looking disappointedly at her on the stairs. She had to have been wondering why Robin bothered to come here at all.

  “Good-bye, Adrienne,” Robin said, like she was finally closing this chapter of her life once and for all. Even though it seemed over, she had to wonder if it was really over. It had taken her years to push everything down. Now that it had all come bubbling back up, how much longer would it take to push it back down again? Would she be able to now?

  As she took another step, she tried to seal up the door to what seemed like someone else’s life.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The green Gulf of Mexico glistened in the hazy morning light. In spite of the turmoil, of course I had agreed to get out of town with Adrienne for the weekend. Falling in love was like that—anger, then willingness to do anything no matter how irrational. I was convinced I was no longer in charge of my brain. The outing gave me the idea, no matter how stupid, that I would try to broach the subject neither of us had been able to talk about. During this trip, I was somehow going to find out if I was alone in this relationship, if it was a one-way street that only led to a dead end. Of course, if she told me she only thought of me as a friend, one whom she happened to have sex with, it would be a very long, awkward ride back home.

  Before we left that morning, Lydia the RA blocked us in the lobby. “A storm’s headed this way.” Her brow was crinkled. She seemed to thrive in times of impending catastrophe.

  “We won’t be out long,” Adrienne reassured her. Then in the parking lot: “Who the hell does she think she is? The Gestapo?”

  We doubled over with laughter until we saw Lydia guarding her post at the glass door of the lobby. So we quickly climbed into the car and sped out of the parking lot.

  Adrienne’s little Camaro zipped down the highway as we headed west. We listened to a heavy metal station, and I was proud to recognize many of the songs. I even liked them, the ones with not-so-offensive lyrics. My hand beat against the
door along with the drums.

  “I love this one!” I shouted, singing as much of the words as I could to “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” I glanced at the little notes tattooed on her upper arm. “This is so great!” Until I heard the words more clearly than ever: “What does he mean? ‘Give her inches?’”

  Seeing my horrified face, Adrienne replied, “He’s talking about a ruler. He’s going to give her a ruler!”

  I shook my head as she laughed at me, as usual.

  “You like a lot of misogynistic songs,” I said.

  “There you go with the big words again. Focus on the song, not the words.” She turned off onto an exit.

  “It’s hard not to because he’s screaming them at me!” I kept shaking my head. The whole world was going to hell.

  With the windows open, I could immediately smell the salt air of Panama City. The excitement, the anticipation of the beach and this place I’d never been—the air seemed to crackle with electricity.

  We passed run-down tourist shops and seedy motels, each a different pastel color reminding me of the 1950s. A bit tired-looking compared to how it had been in its heyday, Panama City was still situated along some of the prettiest stretches of beach I’d ever seen.

  “The sand is almost as white as Destin,” Adrienne told me. When she winked at me, my chest rippled inside.

  Waves crashed as we strolled side by side looking out at the sea. It was every shade of green, sparkling in the light. We found a spot on the beach away from clumps of tourists and screaming children who smelled like sunscreen. Adrienne wore a sleek, black bikini, and I was covered from head to toe in a cotton wrap covering a one-piece, old lady bathing suit, topped off with a white hat and a gallon of sunblock. I looked like a giant tampon.

  Next thing I knew, the balmy breeze seized my wrap and threatened to pull it off completely. I tried to gather it in, as it blew backward.

  “Why do you always cover yourself up?” Adrienne asked.

  “I don’t want to give the birds a free show.”

  “It’s Florida, for God’s sake. You gotta show a little skin.”

  “So I can get skin cancer?” But the clouds had already begun to gather. There wouldn’t be much sunlight for long. “I’m convinced. Florida is a weird, hostile environment,” I declared. Just then, drops of rain started to fall upon the sand while the sun was still shining. “Look at this! It’s not supposed to rain when the sun’s out! What is that?”

  “It does that.”

  “Isn’t there some law of nature that says that can’t happen?”

  “Not here,” Adrienne laughed.

  “It’s a bipolar state.”

  “Haven’t you ever felt sad even when you’re happy—at the same time?”

  I smiled faintly. “No comment.” I hated it when she got poetic, especially on days when I wanted to dislike her.

  Our eyes locked. How weird it was to never talk about the only thing that was on my mind ever since our night together. I allowed myself quick glimpses of Adrienne’s curvy body and remembered what it felt like to touch her skin. Her bathing suit bottom had relaxed a little and was sliding down her hips just enough to make me forget to breathe.

  “Hey, what’re you thinking about?” Adrienne came closer.

  “Nothing.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “It’s nothing important.” Thank goodness she didn’t have the mystical gift of mind reading.

  Adrienne took my hands, and electricity shot through my body. Just go away. “Why don’t you give me a chance and tell me?”

  I looked away, suddenly fascinated with washed-up seaweed. Adrienne held my chin and turned my face toward her. “I see you staring off all the time like you’re deep in thought or something. You think I don’t see?” Her lips turned upward in a smile. “Can’t you trust me with your deep, dark secrets?”

  “How do you know they’re deep?”

  “Everything about you is deep.”

  “You think so?” I laughed to myself. If only she knew…my deepest thought lately was her bathing suit accidentally coming off.

  “You never like to watch anything fun on TV,” she continued. “All you want is the news. And you’re always arguing about the economy with the guys on TV—who can’t hear you, by the way.”

  “So you think I’m insane.”

  “You said it, not me.” She kept smiling, leaning closer to me. It almost seemed as if she wanted to kiss me.

  We started laughing as rain began to fall. Even more threatening clouds seemed to congregate directly above us.

  “You think Lydia was right?” I asked.

  “She’s crazy.”

  “About the storm?”

  “We’re fine.” That wasn’t an answer, so I knew we were in big trouble.

  The rain fell harder, as she scooped up wet sand and threw it at me. I tried to hurl it back at her in retaliation, but all I managed to pick up were gray clumps that couldn’t hold together long enough to throw at anyone. In no other circumstances would I enjoy being outside in a rainstorm, with wet mushy sand working its way into every crevice of my feet, toes, hands and God knows where else.

  When the weather cut the trip short, it reminded me of my original plan. Would I be able to find my inner braveness? As we traveled back, dark clouds followed us, casting a long shadow on the car. It looked like the end of the world was coming. Maybe it was. If I couldn’t find my gutsy side, I’d never be able to live with myself. I watched the intermittent windshield wipers swipe at the rain until it fell so hard that everything was a blur.

  “Adrienne, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  I thought carefully before crafting my words. “What if you wanted to tell someone something, but you weren’t sure how to say it and really weren’t sure how they’d take it? What would you do?” Surely Adrienne would know by now what I was going to say.

  She smiled. “You do like Boyd!”

  “No!” I guess it wasn’t that obvious to her after all.

  “You said nothing happened that night.” Adrienne grinned. “But you wanted it to, didn’t you?”

  I looked out the window. The wind brushed whitecaps across the water. “No.”

  Adrienne didn’t believe me. “You’ve gotta tell him. You don’t have a chance if he never knows how you really feel.”

  “What if he, and I’m not saying it’s him, really doesn’t think of me that way?” I’d never been so scared, teetering on the edge of a storm, wondering what the crash of thunder would feel like.

  “So?”

  “What if he’s really offended that I like him that way?” The whole discussion seemed ridiculous, but her homophobic comments were just too frightening for me to risk putting myself out there. If things went badly, I’d be stuck in a small room with her for the rest of the year. I had visions of Adrienne pointing me out to her party friends as the girl who put the moves on her and that ugly sneer she had when talking about the girl on our floor, the “freak” who kissed another girl. There was too much at stake. If Adrienne had really been too drunk, she might become hostile if she thought I had deeper feelings for her. The space we shared was too small for that kind of problem. She might be uncomfortable and think that I was going to stalk her when she took a shower or something. If things got so bad that I had to transfer, how would I explain it to my parents?

  “Offended?” Adrienne looked peculiarly at me as the rain let up a little. “You really don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re really cute. And he seemed to be into you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh yeah.” Our eyes met for a moment, as she placed her hand over mine.

  “The road!” I was distracted by another pocket of torrential rain up ahead. Wind seized the car and jerked it from side to side. I closed my eyes. “Just tell me when we’re on the other side of this.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The wind was relentless. It jerked the car around so much I started praying to myself
. I muttered a few phrases under my breath.

  “What is that? Voodoo?” Adrienne teased.

  “Shut up. Haven’t you ever prayed before?”

  “Yeah, once.” Her face became hard like stone. She stared at the road, expressionless. “I prayed something would happen to my dad, so Mom and I wouldn’t have to put up with his shit anymore.”

  “You prayed for him to…”

  “Die.” She glanced at me to see if I was shocked. “That’s right. You think I’m a bad person now?”

  “Nooo.” I was careful in my response.

  “He went through this time when he drank every day. He’d slap my mom around, and I knew it was a matter of time before he turned to me. But I wasn’t going to take it. I got a spare hammer from the garage and kept it in my bedroom, planning how I’d hit him with it if he ever came after me. But he never did. It got so bad, though, Mom had enough and she left. Not a word to him or me.”

  I could tell from her face that her mom’s departure had hurt her deeply.

  “So yeah,” she said. “I’ve prayed before.”

  “I’m sorry. I never saw you as the praying type.” Then I remembered that she was living with her dad now. “How is he now?” I asked carefully.

  “He doesn’t drink as much. When he gets bad, I lock my door.” She was so matter-of-fact. I wanted to say the right thing, but I couldn’t think of anything. I also realized how silly I must’ve seemed to her, freaking out over bugs and public restrooms when she had much more serious things to deal with.

  Then a crack of thunder and flash of lightning seemed to bounce right off the hood of the car with one powerful strike.

  “What the hell was that?” I leapt out of my seat. “We should’ve listened to Lydia! We knew a storm was coming, but no! You had to go to the beach!”

  “Oh, will you get a grip?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel like getting electrocuted today.” Lightning and the possibility of death were not silly things, I decided.

  Everything blurred across the windshield as more buckets of rain descended, along with some hail. She strained to see the road as long as she could before pulling into the nearest convenience store, where we could wait out the storm.