Before the Storm (8 page)

houses, it was built on stilts. The sign above its front door read

The Sea Tender.

“An incredible panoramic view from that one.” Jamie turned

onto a narrow road away from the houses.“I want to show you

my favorite spot,” he said over his shoulder. We followed the

road a short distance until it turned to sand; then we got off

the bike and began walking. I tugged my jacket tighter. The

October air wasn’t cold, but the wind had a definite nip to it

and Jamie put his arm around me.

We walked a short distance onto a spit of white sand nearly

surrounded by water. The ocean was on our right, the New

River Inlet ahead of us and somewhere to our left, although

we couldn’t see it from our vantage point, was the Intracoastal

Waterway. The falling sun had turned the sky pink. I felt as

though we were standing on the edge of an isolated continent.

“My favorite place,” Jamie said.

“I can see why.”

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“It’s always changing.” He pointed toward the ocean. “The

sea eats the sand there, then spits it back over there,” he moved

his arm to the left of us, “and what’s my favorite place today

may be completely different next week.”

“Does that bother you?” I asked.

“Not at all. Whatever nature does here, it stays beautiful.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then Jamie broke the

silence. “Can I tell you something?” For the first time since we

met, he sounded unsure of himself. A little shy.

His arm was still around me and I raised mine until it circled

his waist. “Of course,” I said.

“I’ve never told anyone this and you might think I’m crazy.”

“Tell me.”

“What I’d really like to do one day is create my own church,”

he said.“A place where people can believe whatever they want

but still belong to a community, you know?”

I wasn’t sure I understood exactly what he meant, but one

thing I’d learned about Jamie was that there was a light inside

him most people didn’t have. Sometimes I saw it flash in his

eyes when he spoke.

“Can you picture it?” he asked. “A little chapel right here,

full of windows so you can see the water all around you.

People could come and worship however they chose.” He

looked toward the ocean and let out a sigh. “Pie in the sky,

right?”

I did think he was a little crazy, but I opened my mind to

the idea and imagined a little white church with a tall steeple

standing right where we stood. “Would you be allowed to

build something here?” I asked.

“Daddy owns the land. He owns every grain of sand north

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of those houses. Would
nature
let me build it? That’s the thing.

Nature’s got her own mind when it comes to this spot. She’s

got her own mind when it comes to the whole island.”

The aroma of baking greeted us when we walked into

Terrier. Jamie introduced his parents Southern style as Miss

Emma and Mr. Andrew, but his father immediately insisted I

call him Daddy L. Miss Emma had contributed the gene for

Jamie’s full head of wavy dark hair, although hers was cut in a

short, uncomplicated style. Daddy L was responsible for

Jamie’s huge, round brown eyes. They each greeted their son

with bear hugs as if they hadn’t seen him in months instead of

a day or so. Miss Emma even gave
me
a hug and a kiss on the

cheek, then held my hands and studied me.

“She’s just precious!” she said, letting go of my hands. I

caught a whiff of alcohol on her breath

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Jamie said to his mother as he helped me

out of my leather jacket.

“I hope you’re hungry.” Daddy L leaned against the

doorjamb. “Mama’s cooked up a storm this afternoon.”

“It smells wonderful,” I said.

“That’s the meringue on my banana pudding you’re

smelling,” Miss Emma said.

“Where’s Marcus?” Jamie asked.

I hadn’t met him yet, but I knew Jamie’s fifteen-year-old

brother was something of a bad boy. Eight years younger than

Jamie, he’d been a surprise to parents who’d adjusted to the

idea of an only child.

“Lord only knows.” Miss Emma stirred a big bowl of potato

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salad. “He
was
surfing. Who knows what he’s doing now. I told

him dinner is at six-thirty, but the day he’s on time is the day

I’ll keel over from the shock.”

Jamie gave his mama’s shoulders a squeeze.“Well, let’s hope

he’s not on time, then,” he said.

An hour later, we settled around a table laden with fried

chicken, potato salad and corn bread. Marcus was not with us.

We were near one of the broad oceanside windows and I

imagined the view was spectacular in the daylight.

“So, tell me about your people, darlin’,” Miss Emma said as

she handed me the bowl of potato salad for a second helping.

I explained that my mother grew up in Raleigh and my

father in Greensboro, but that I lost them on the cruise ship

and was raised by my aunt and uncle in Ohio.

“Lord have mercy!” Miss Emma’s hand flew to her chest.

She looked at Jamie. “No wonder you two found each other.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Jamie smiled at me

and I figured I could ask him later.

“That explains your accent.” Daddy L looked at his wife and

she nodded. “We were trying to peg it.”

Daddy L helped himself to a crisp chicken thigh. He glanced

at his watch, then at the empty chair next to Jamie. “Maybe

you could talk to Marcus about his grades, Jamie,” he said.

“What about them?”

“We just got his interim report, and he’s fixin’ to flunk out

if he doesn’t buckle down,” Miss Emma said quietly, as if

Marcus could overhear us. “Mostly D’s. And it’s his junior

year. I don’t think he knows how important this year is for

getting into college.” She looked at me. “Jamie’s Daddy and I

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never made it to college, and I want my boys to get an education.”

“I love going to UNC,” I said, although I was really thinking

that she and Daddy L had done quite well for themselves

without a college degree.

“I’ll talk to him,” Jamie said.

“He spends all the time he’s not in school on that surfboard,” Miss Emma said, “and then is off with his friends on

the weekends, no matter what we say.”

“Boy’s out of control,” Daddy L added.

I’d been in the house only an hour, but already the primary

Lockwood family dynamic was apparent: Jamie, despite the

long hair and the tattoo and the motorcycle, was the favored

son. Marcus was the black sheep. I hadn’t even met him and I

already felt sympathy for him.

We were nearly finished when we heard the downstairs

door open and close. “I’m home!” a male voice called.

“And your dinner’s cold as ice!” Miss Emma called back.

I heard him on the stairs. He came into the dining room

barefooted, wearing a full-length wet suit, the top unzipped

nearly to his navel. He had a lanky, slender build that would

never fill out to Jamie’s bulk, even though Jamie had eight years

on him. A gold cross hanging from his neck glittered against

the tan that must have been left over from summer, and his hair

was a short, curly cap of sun-streaked brown. He had Miss

Emma’s eyes—blue, shot through with summer sky.

“Hey.” He grinned at me, pulling out the chair next to Jamie.

“Go put some clothes on,” Daddy L said.

“This is Laurel,” Jamie said. “And this is Marcus.”

“Hi, Marcus,” I said.

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“You’re a sandy mess,” Miss Emma said. “Get dressed and

I’ll heat you a plate in the microwave.”

“Not hungry,” Marcus said.

“You still need to change your clothes if you’re going to sit

here with us,” said his father.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Marcus got up with a dramatic sigh

and padded toward the bedrooms.

In a few minutes, I heard the music of an electric piano. The

tune was halting and unfamiliar.

Jamie laughed. “He brought the piano with him?”

“If you can call it that,” Miss Emma said.

Daddy L looked at me. “He wants to play in a rock-and-roll

band,” he explained. “For years, we offered to buy him a piano

so he could take proper lessons, but he said you can’t play a

piano in a band.”

“So he bought a used electric piano and is trying to teach

himself how to play it,” Miss Emma said. “It makes me ill, listening to that thing.”

“Ah, Mama,” Jamie said. “It keeps him off the streets.”

After we’d eaten the most fabulous banana pudding I’d ever

tasted, I wandered down the hall to use the bathroom. I could

hear Marcus playing a song by The Police. When I left the

bathroom, I knocked on his open bedroom door.

“Your mother said you’re teaching yourself how to play.”

He looked up, his fingers still on the keys. He’d changed into

shorts and a navy-blue T-shirt. “By ear,” he said. “I can’t read

music.”

“You could learn how to read music.” I leaned against the

doorjamb.

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“I’m dyslexic,” he said. “I’d rather have all my teeth pulled.”

“Play some more,” I said. “It sounded good.”

“Could you recognize it?”

“That song by The Police,” I said.“‘Every Breath You Take’?”

“Awesome!” His grin was cocky and he had the prettiest

blue eyes. I bet he was considered a catch by girls his age. “I’m

better than I thought,” he said. “How about this one?”

He bent over the keys with supreme concentration, the

cocky kid gone and in his place a boy unsure of himself. The

back of his neck looked slender and vulnerable. He grimaced

with every wrong note. I struggled to recognize the song, to

let him have that success. It took a few minutes, but then it

came to me.

“That Queen song!” I said.

“Right!” He grinned. “‘We are the Champions.’”

“I’m impressed,” I said sincerely. “I could never play by ear.”

“You play?”

“I took lessons for a few years.”

He stood up. “Go for it,” he said.

I sat down and played a couple of scales to get the feel of

the keyboard. Then I launched into one of the few pieces I

could remember by heart:
Fur Elise.

When I finished, I looked up to see Jamie standing in the

doorway of the bedroom, a smile on his face I could only

describe as
tender.
I knew in that moment that I loved him.

“That was beautiful,” he said.

“Yeah, you’re good,” Marcus agreed. He tipped his head to

one side, appraising me. “Are you, like, a sorority chick?”

I laughed. “No. What made you ask that?”

“You’re just different from Jamie’s other girlfriends.”

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“Is that good or bad?” I asked.

“Good.” Marcus looked up at his brother. “She’s cool,” he

said. “You should keep this one.”

I heard the sound of dishes clinking together in the kitchen

and left the brothers to help clean up. I found Miss Emma up

to her elbows in dishwater.

“Let me dry.” I picked up the dish towel hanging from the

handle of the refrigerator.

“Why, thank you, darlin’.” She handed me a plate. “I heard

you playing in there. That was lovely. I didn’t know a sound

like that could come out of that electric thing.”

“Thanks,” I said, adding, “Marcus plays really well by ear.”

“It’s his
choice
of music that makes me ill.” I had the feeling

nothing Marcus did would be good enough for her.

“It’s what everybody listens to, though,” I said carefully.

She laughed a little.“I can see why Jamie likes you so much.”

I felt my cheeks redden. Had he talked about me to his

parents?

“You care about people like he does.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I mean, I care about people, but not like

Jamie does. He’s amazing. Three weeks ago, I almost killed him.

I did. Now I feel like…” I shook my head, unable to put into

words how I felt. Taken in. By Jamie. By his family. More at

home with them than I’d felt in six years with my icy aunt and

silent uncle.

“Jamie does have a gift with people, all right,” she said.“The

way some people are born with musical talent or math skills

or what have you. It’s genetic.”

I must have looked dubious, because she continued.

“I don’t have the gift, Lord knows,” she said, “but I had a

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brother who did. He died in his thirties, rest his soul, but he

was…it’s more than kindness. It’s a way of seeing inside a

person. To really feel what they’re feeling. It’s like they can’t

help
but feel it.”

“Empathy,” I said.

“Oh, that stupid tattoo.” She squirted more dish soap into the

water in the sink.“I about had a conniption when I saw that thing.

But he’s a grown man, not much his mama can do about it now.

He doesn’t
need
that tattoo.” She scrubbed the pan the corn

bread had been baked in.“My aunt had the gift, too, though she

said it was more of a curse,because you had to take on somebody

else’s pain. We were at the movies this one time? A woman and