The Stormchasers

by Jenna Blum

  “You sound unconvinced,” he says.

  “Not necessarily,” says Karena, “I’m just thinking,” and she is. She’s thinking about imbalances. She’s thinking Nature is majestic, yes, but vicious too. She’s thinking that whatever Kevin says, Nature is something to be wary of, because of its two-faced system. Because storms are necessary to scour the atmosphere. Because chaos is required before order. Because a human brain can be so scrambled—naturally, scientifically, just chemicals and synapses—that a few hours’ peace, let alone euphoria, must inevitably be followed by a descent into hell. Nature may be beautiful, but it is cruel in its extremes.

  “Charles used to think there was a connection between his instability and atmospheric instability,” Karena says. “That that’s why he was so good at finding storms. Because in essence he was one.”

  “Did he?” says Kevin. “He never told me that. Interesting theory.”

  The siren starts up again, swinging round and round on its pole. RrrrowwwWWWW! WwrrOOOOOwwww! Karena bolts up.

  “God, that sound freaks me out,” she says. “It used to terrify me. Not Charles, though. It was his favorite. Siren was his first word.”

  “Not yours, I take it.”

  Karena shivers. “Hardly,” she says. Her first word, come to think of it, was Charles.

  Kevin sits up too and puts an arm around her.

  “Are you scared now?” he says, his breath warm in her ear.

  “A little,” Karena admits.

  “Don’t be,” says Kevin. He pushes her hair to one side and kisses her neck. “Trust me, I’m a professional. I’m here to protect you with my superior skill and knowledge.”

  “Oh boy,” Karena says, rolling her eyes. “We’re toast.”

  “Now, that is just not very nice, Laredo,” says Kevin, hooking his fingers into the waistband of Karena’s shorts and sliding them around to the button. “After everything we’ve been through,” he adds, undoing it, “you haven’t placed complete and utter faith in me yet?”

  “No way,” says Karena, as her zipper clicks down inch by inch.

  “Wise girl,” says Kevin, and pulls Karena back onto the bed.

  24

  When Kevin makes love to Karena, she goes places. This astonishes her. She has had younger lovers and taller ones and fitter ones, and she would never have believed that this short, stocky stormchaser with his sun-reddened arms could drive her mad. But he does. Kevin is clever and inventive and extremely energetic, and there’s something about his body that feels like home to Karena. She loves everything about it: his calves blocky from soccer, the sweet spot on his neck, the heat of his mouth. Maybe it’s pheromones, the way he smells, good ol’ chemistry at work, but everything about him fits Karena just right.

  And then there are the places. During their first lovemaking session, while the siren is still going off, Karena finds herself transported to her backyard in New Heidelburg, the air smelling of pine, the grass spiky beneath her feet. The second time, before dawn, it’s the house on the Hallingdahl farm, with its glorious white snowball bushes. The third time, when they wake at first light to find each other naked and together, it’s the New Heidelburg town pool, where Karena sunbathes slick and sizzling, her skin fragrant with baby oil.

  “Wow,” says Kevin, when Karena tells him about this. He is lying on his back with one arm around Karena, blinking thoughtfully at the ceiling. “I make you go places, Laredo? Nobody’s ever said that to me before.”

  “Nobody’s ever taken me anywhere before,” says Karena, sliding her hand down Kevin’s stomach to pluck at what she and Tiff used to call the goody trail. Karena loves Kevin’s stomach most of all, although it is admittedly more beer belly than six-pack. The solid curve of it reminds her of the drawings of bread in the Richard Scarry picture books she and Charles loved as children. In those illustrations the loaves always had wavy lines of heat coming from them.

  “Watch it there, Laredo,” says Kevin, “unless you want to be starting something.”

  “Again?” says Karena. “Aren’t you done yet?”

  “Woman,” he says, “I am just getting warmed up.” He kisses Karena’s temple, then asks, “So, these places I take you, are they good places?”

  “They are,” says Karena. “They’re my favorite places.”

  “Then I’ll take that as a compliment,” says Kevin.

  Suddenly he rolls over and parts Karena’s knees with one of his own in a single, fluid movement.

  “Patented Kevin Wiebke Knee Sweep,” he says. “You like? Now, tell me where you want to go, and as your trusty guide, I will be happy to take you there.”

  An hour later, when the sun is spoking through the parking lot’s chain-link fence, they stagger into the shower. “Good grief,” says Kevin. “Okay, my legs are weak. I have to say, Laredo, you may look sweet, but you’re an animal.”

  “Me!” says Karena. “Who literally pushed me off the bed? You’re the animal.”

  “I’m an animal, I’m an astrotravel machine, make up your mind,” Kevin says, uncapping the tiny bottle of shampoo. “So what’s our plan for today?”

  Karena stands with her head down as Kevin massages the gel into her scalp. She feels like a bird with salt on its tail, hypnotized. She loves anything to do with her hair.

  “Well,” she says, “I’d like to stay another day at least. To keep checking the hospitals and emergency centers until the search-and-rescue’s done. How long do you think that’ll take?”

  “I don’t know,” says Kevin. “Probably a day or two. It depends on the extent of the damage.”

  He turns Karena to face him. She is shivering despite the hot needling spray.

  “Look,” Kevin says, “if Chuck’s here, we’ll find him, but frankly I don’t think he is. We saw him as we were going toward the wedge, right? And then we turned around and came back, and he wasn’t there. For him to get anywhere near that tornado, we would have passed him. He probably dropped back when he saw how dangerous the situation was, and now he’s miles from here, safe and sound.”

  “Well, safe, anyway,” says Karena. “I hope.”

  She thinks he probably is—not so much because of Kevin’s theory, although its logic is comforting, but because Karena believes if Charles were dead, she would know. And not because of the twindar, which has proven fairly ineffective. Karena would just know in the same way she knew Siri died an hour before Karena actually confirmed it. At the time Karena was driving home from Norwegian Ridge, the town one over from New Heidelburg, with some of the rommegrod the old ladies made there—thinking if Siri could be persuaded to eat anything, it might be this pudding. But as Karena passed Siri’s favorite field, the one with contour-farmed pillowy rectangles of corn between rows of grass, Karena had started to cry steadily. There had been no call from the neighbor sitting with Siri. There had been no pinch. Karena had just known.

  So Charles is probably alive now. Karena just needs to stay and make sure. And, of course, to find him.

  She tells Kevin this, adding, “Can you do this? What’s your schedule?”

  “I’m officially a free man until August fifteenth, when soccer starts,” Kevin says. “Turn around, I’ll do your back,” and he soaps it briskly.

  “I was thinking,” Karena says, “in addition to the hospitals, we could drive around to the fast-food places and gas stations to look for Charles’s car.”

  “That’s a good idea,” says Kevin. “What was it again, a yellow wagon?”

  “Volvo,” says Karena.

  “Okay, let’s download an image of one to photocopy and hand out,” says Kevin. “With a photo of Chuck too, if you have one.”

  “Oh, do I,” says Karena. If Charles really is unharmed, please God, it’ll serve him right to have his mullet photo plastered all over Pierre.

  “You’re brilliant, Mr. Wizard,” she tells Kevin.

  “Pshaw, it’s nothing, Laredo,” says Kevin. “Oh dear, look at that, I dropped the soap. It’s right by your foot�
�could you pick it up, please?”

  “Nice try,” Karena says. “I’m not falling for that one. . . . Oh my, in the shower, Mr. Wiebke? I thought stormchasers didn’t like to get wet.”

  “Extenuating circumstances, Laredo.”

  “I can feel that,” says Karena. “Very extenuating.”

  “My, you’re mouthy,” says Kevin. “Let’s put that mouth to better use, shall we?” He kisses her, hands busy. “We’ve got a long day, Laredo, so let’s hurry and see if we can make you go somewhere you can behave.”

  25

  They leave on Wednesday afternoon after another day and night of fruitless searching, leaving Charles’s mulleted and tuxedoed image and Karena’s cell number all over Pierre. Again they head east on I-90, Karena driving, then Kevin. As they near the Minnesota state line, Karena watches the topography change. The high plains give way to farms, first one, then a handful, then more and more until finally that’s all there is. Dark green fields of soy and corn—knee-high by the Fourth of July means a good harvest. Red barns with white piping. Clusters of silos. Cows. These are prosperous family spreads with big houses and numerous vehicles, proud and clean beneath a blue sky dreamy with Cu, the late-summer sun flowing golden over the land like syrup. It’s as perfect as the picture on the back of a cereal box, and it fills Karena with dread.

  She tries to parse the source of it: Is it because she’s exhausted, traumatized, because this strange adventure is over, because she doesn’t have that much to go back to? Because of her uncertainty about what will happen with Kevin? Because of her uncertainty about what has happened to Charles? All of the above. Nothing seems stable. Karena thinks of the grasslands outside Kadoka, and then of Fern and Alicia and Marla and Scout, and then her grandmother Hallingdahl, her uncle Carroll, her mom, Siri. For all intents and purposes, Frank. And Charles. Karena turns to the side window to hide the tears. Why even bother, when all you love will be taken away?

  “What’s up, Laredo?” Kevin says. He gives her knee a gentle shake.

  “Nothing,” Karena says, but it comes out in a tiny squeak.

  “Nothing,” repeats Kevin in a Minnie Mouse voice, “nothing? Doesn’t sound like nothing to me.”

  “Well, it is and it isn’t,” says Karena. “I’m just having a mean attack of the Dreads.”

  “The Dreads, what’s that?”

  Karena explains the wall of fear and bad feeling that sweeps toward her every evening.

  “I know the Dreads,” Kevin says.

  Karena gapes at him. “You do?”

  “I do. I don’t get them every day, but I do get them situationally. Ex Dreads, for instance. That whole best-man-eloping-with-my-fiancée thing—that kinda messed me up for a while. I was afraid to leave the house. I kept feeling like something was going to fall on me.”

  “Yes,” says Karena. “Like you’ll be walking down the street and an air conditioner or piano or anvil will smash you from a clear blue sky. What is that?”

  “Anxiety,” says Kevin, “something you haven’t coped with usually.”

  Karena sighs. “Yes,” she says again. “I’m sure you’re right.” This is something her former therapist, Dr. B, used to say quite often.

  “So, Laredo,” says Kevin, “what do you think these Dreads of yours are about?”

  “The tour, partly,” Karena says. “I miss everyone. But Charles mostly. I failed, Kevin. I came out here to find him, and I failed.”

  “You haven’t failed,” Kevin says. “You just haven’t achieved your objective yet. But I don’t think you need to worry about it right at this moment.”

  “Oh, I don’t? Why not?”

  “Because you’re exhausted and you’ve been through serious trauma and you probably have scurvy. You need to go home and take a long hot shower and get a good night’s sleep and eat as many green vegetables as possible. Recharge. Then we’ll find Chuck.”

  Karena raises her eyebrows. “We will?” she says.

  “Yes, we will,” says Kevin, perhaps not hearing Karena’s slight emphasis on the pronoun. “I’ll start making inquiries in the chasing community, send up some flares. No offense, Laredo, you’re a superlative reporter, but nobody knows you. And the media has done so many slam pieces on chasers that make them look like screaming yahoos—of which, regrettably, there are many—that the good ones are often wary of talking to the press. You’ve probably found you haven’t gotten very far asking about Chuck, right? But I will. At least, I’ll try.”

  “Thank you, Kevin,” Karena says. “That’s a lot of trouble to go through.”

  Kevin reaches for her hand.

  “(A) it’s no trouble,” he says, “and (B) it’s a bribe. I’d like to keep seeing you, Laredo. When we get back to the Cities. Under less—adrenal circumstances.”

  He is blushing wildly. Karena bites her lips to hide a smile.

  “You would?” she says.

  “Yes. I would.”

  “Good,” says Karena. “Because I’d like that too.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes. I would.”

  “Fantastic,” says Kevin. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  He kisses her hand and pats it back into her lap.

  “Meanwhile, if you could keep your paws off me for a while, I’d appreciate it. You’ll have to wait ’til the next rest stop to satisfy your rapacious animal desires. I’m trying to drive here.”

  Karena folds her hands.

  “I’ll do my best,” she says primly.

  She is smiling out the side window, feeling dozy, when Kevin says suddenly, “Pukwana Wiebke.”

  “Goodness,” Karena says. “Bless you.”

  “Ha, very funny, Laredo. No, it’s this game I play sometimes to keep myself awake on the road. I always thought, wouldn’t it be great to name a kid after the place it was conceived? And out here that’d make for some unique names. Hence: Pukwana Wiebke.”

  “Oh,” says Karena. “I get it.”

  She finds Kevin’s atlas in the backseat.

  “Liiiike—Pedro,” she says. “Pedro Wiebke.”

  Kevin nods. “Good for a girl.”

  “Or Blunt,” Karena says. “Blunt Wiebke? Somehow that seems redundant.”

  “Hey,” says Kevin.

  “Eureka!” says Karena. “Eureka Wiebke, don’t be lookin’ at me like that! I’ll slap you upside the head!”

  “Very nice,” says Kevin. “I can tell you have a gentle touch with the wee ones, Laredo. Speaking of which,” he adds, “something I should perhaps have—ahem!—ascertained before, but are we protected against an influx of little Wiebkes?”

  “Yes,” says Karena, “at the moment.”

  “Good. I mean, I’m not opposed to offspring or anything,” says Kevin, and when Karena glances over she sees he is flushing again. “I actually intend to procreate quite profusely. It’s just, you know, all in good time, my little pretty.”

  “Good to know,” says Karena, smiling down at the map. “Mmkay, how abouuuutttt . . . Badger Wiebke?”

  “Meh. A little too school-mascot.”

  “Ideal Wiebke? Oh, here, Winner Wiebke.”

  “Better,” Kevin agrees. “Alliterative.”

  “Winnebago Wiebke. Wilder Wiebke.”

  “Uh-huh,” says Kevin. “Sounds like we’ll be doing a lot of traveling.”

  “Athol Wiebke,” says Karena and snickers. “Poor kid.”

  “Okay, Laredo, I think it’s time to put the map away.”

  But Karena can’t stop now. She starts to chuckle, then snort, and then she is laughing so hard she’s crying. “Tennis Wiebke,” she chokes. It’s not even that funny, which makes it all the funnier.

  “Wakonda Wiebke,” she howls, “Okobojo Wiebke, Spink Wiebke, Holabird!”

  She laughs and laughs, clutching her stomach, wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh, oh,” she gasps. “Holabird!” Kevin twitches the atlas off her thighs and throws it in the backseat, which makes her laugh even harder. Finally she tapers off to h
itches and giggles.

  “You okay, Laredo?” Kevin asks. He hands her a napkin. “You done?”

  “I think so,” Karena says. She wipes her eyes.

  “Holabird,” she repeats softly, and snorts.

  Kevin shakes his head. “Holabird,” he repeats. “You’re a holabird.” But he takes her hand again, and he is smiling.

  26

  They stop in Austin, MN, for the night, which on the one hand is silly because they are only a few hours from home and on the other is necessary because they are both so punchy. Besides, Kevin points out, Austin is home to the Spam Museum, which, wonder of wonders, both Karena and Kevin have managed to live their whole lives without managing to see. It would be a crime of nature, Kevin insists, to pass that up. They check into a Best Western, which seems like an incredible luxury, and walk—walk!—to an adjoining Applebee’s. Sitting across from Kevin in a booth, Karena can’t get over all the people, the faux memorabilia on the walls, the number of TVs all tuned to cable sports channels. In her grubby sneakers and limp, days-old clothes, Karena feels as though she has flies around her head.

  “I can’t figure out why I’m so unsettled,” she tells Kevin. “It’s good we’re getting back to civilization, right? I can’t wait to have strong coffee. And shower with non-generic soap. But I feel like my friends who’ve been war correspondents—they’re so thrilled to get home, after being in these remote places, and then they see fresh fruit and they freak out.”

  “Well, that’s an apt analogy, Laredo,” says Kevin. “We have been through a pretty hair-raising situation. Far above and beyond the norm. And it’s always a little jolting coming back from chasing anyway. Have you ever been diving?”

  Karena tilts her head at the non sequitur. “Once, on my honeymoon in Mexico. Why?”

  “Because then you know about the bends,” says Kevin. “When you’ve been down sixty, seventy feet, you need to come up in stages. That’s really why I wanted to stay here tonight. The reentry can be rough otherwise.”

  He orders Karena prime rib to go with her salad because of the chasers’ custom of getting steak when they’ve seen a tornado. “And we missed our chance in Pierre,” Kevin says. “Ideally, though, we should be at the Big Texan in Amarillo, where they have the infamous seventy-two-ounce sirloin. A fitting counterpoint to that horrific wedge—”