Dance, The (The Restoration Series Book #1): A Novel (25 page)

 47 

W
hen Jim awoke on Friday morning, his mind not even fully anchored in the day, he flipped on the television to the local news station. A familiar weatherman stood in his blue suit right next to a satellite image showing Hurricane Harold inching ever closer to the lower west coast near Naples, Florida. He clicked off the mute button.

“Here he is, folks. As you can see, Harold seems to be coming our way. It’s really time to start taking this storm seriously. I don’t think we’re going to dodge the bullet this time. Most of the tracks now show it making landfall somewhere between Naples and Fort Myers later this afternoon. Folks down there are already under a hurricane warning and have been since about 3:00 a.m. There are already reports of tropical storm winds picking up along the coast nearby. Let’s switch to the screen showing the new forecast tracks.” The man stood in place as the actual hurricane image became a red symbol, with multi-colored tracks spewing out of its head.

“Uh-oh,” Jim said as he sat back on the bed. Not good. All but two of the tracks had it coming in around Naples then
heading diagonally across the state, exiting somewhere south of Jacksonville. Three of the tracks went right through central Florida. “Looks just like the path Charley followed in ’04,” Jim muttered. A moment later, the weatherman said almost the same thing. Jim listened some more.

“Harold may be following Charley’s track, but it’s actually a little bigger than Charley was and moving a little slower. Which means there’s a likelihood of it causing more damage than Charley.” Charley had caused a great deal of damage. More than the other two storms put together, at least around their area. Jim listened now for the timing. After a few moments, that information came.

“It’s hard to say exactly when the storm will hit the Orlando-Sanford area. There’s a chance it will slow down even a little more once it makes landfall. There’s also a chance it will weaken significantly by the time it reaches us. It’s expected to reach Category 4 by this afternoon. But those of you who were around in 2004 might remember Charley was a Category 4 when it pummeled Punta Gorda, then a strong Cat 1 by the time it got here.”

The weatherman faced the camera; a serious look came over his face. “Now, don’t hear the wrong thing, folks. Even if it does weaken to a Cat 1 or 2, this is still going to be a major storm event. Expect severe tree damage, even some big ones coming down altogether. We’ll see roof damage and flooding in low-lying areas. Those of you in mobile home or trailer parks, you should already be making plans to pack up and stay with friends, or move to an approved Red Cross shelter. Let’s go ahead and put up that list of storm shelters in our area now.”

Jim clicked off the TV and stood up. He walked over to his desk to make a list of things he had to take care of right away.
At the top of the list, he wrote:
Call that guy, make sure he can get all the plywood on the windows done TODAY. Hire others, if necessary.
He wrote down to call Doug, make sure he was aware of the latest weather update and confirm where he planned to ride out the storm. Then he scratched through that one. Better just walk over to the garage and talk to Doug in person.
Call Tom and Jean
, he wrote. Both of them were responsible; he didn’t have to worry if they’d do all the right things. Michele would probably stay in one of the main university buildings. They were built solid, so no worries there. But still he wrote
Call Michele
down, to make sure she would buy all the necessary supplies for the storm’s aftermath.

But what about Marilyn?

He had to call her. Surely she’d be willing to talk to him with this storm on the way. Where would she stay? Those apartments built over the stores downtown were strong enough to stay intact with a Category 1 or 2 storm. But what about the windows? Did her landlady even have boards to cover them? What if the downtown area got flooded? That could happen if they got enough rain. The river could overflow its banks and move right into downtown.

He had to call her. He wrote that at the top of his list.

Charlotte and Marilyn sat at the dinette table in her kitchen watching the weather report. “This is terrible,” Charlotte said. “It’s really coming. Most of those tracks got it coming this way.”

“Looks like it,” Marilyn said.

“When I came here a couple of years ago, I asked the real estate guy about hurricanes. ‘They never come here,’ he said. But look, here it comes.”

“It’s not as bad as it seems,” Marilyn said, only half believing it. “I mean, it’s not going to be anything like Katrina or Sandy.”

“They were talking about this storm at work last night,” Charlotte said. “I didn’t know anything about it. Seems like it came out of nowhere.”

“It kinda did. That’s the thing about storms that move into the Gulf. There’s so many ways they can turn. If they go north toward the panhandle or west toward Texas, people there get lots of warning. Several days while it moves over the water. But when it turns east, toward—”

“Towards us,” Charlotte interrupted.

“Right, well, when that happens, it’s just right there at the doorway.”

“What are you going to do?” Charlotte asked.

Marilyn wondered why she didn’t say “we.” “What do you mean?”

“If it comes, where you gonna go?”

“Can’t we stay here?”

“What? No. I mean, I’d like to. I guess it’s safe enough. But my supervisor was telling us last night that if the storm comes, she wants those of us without families to ride it out at Urgent Care. The building’s solid as a rock. That way, we can look after any patients who come in.”

Marilyn began looking around the apartment, trying to imagine how she’d feel sitting through a hurricane in here, all by herself. She’d barely held it together in 2004 in her big house on Elderberry Lane. “Can we put masking tape on the windows?” she asked.

“We could,” Charlotte said, “but I read somewhere it doesn’t do any good. Think about it. A big oak branch comes sailing through that window at a hundred miles an hour, and masking
tape’s not gonna matter much. Oh . . . I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. Listen, there’s gotta be a place you—”

Marilyn’s cell phone began ringing. She lifted it up and saw it was Jim.

Charlotte saw it too and stopped talking. “Maybe you should get that, you know?”

“Maybe I should.”

As Jim dialed Marilyn’s number, he said a prayer, then tried to remember Audrey’s admonition about not reacting to things Marilyn did or said.
“Create a safe place for her to share what she’s feeling. If you react harshly, she’ll shut down.”

“Hello . . . Jim?”

He couldn’t believe it. She’d picked up.

“Hi, Marilyn. Thanks for taking my call.”

“Are you calling about the storm?”

“Yeah, have you seen the news?” he said. “I think this one’s really going to hit us.”

She sighed. “I think so too.”

“Have you . . . have you thought about where you’re going to stay?”

“We were just talking about it. Charlotte’s a nurse, so she has to be at Urgent Care if it comes.”

“You can’t stay in that apartment alone.” He instantly regretted saying it that way, like he was telling her what to do. “I mean, you’re not going to be there by yourself, right?”

“I don’t want to be. I don’t know where else to go.”

A pause.
Just say it.
“You could come here.”

“I don’t know, Jim. I don’t think—”

“Wait, hear me out,” he said as gently as he could. “I know
it’d be awkward for you with what’s going on between us. But you know this house is safe as can be. We rode out all three hurricanes here in 2004. I don’t feel right with you holed up in that little apartment by yourself. Do you even have boards for the windows?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Here we have first-class electric storm shutters. I just push a few buttons.” Another long pause. “How about . . . you come here, and I’ll go stay in a shelter.”

“I don’t want to do that . . . to you, I mean.”

“I insist. I won’t be able to rest unless I know you’re safe. So you stay here, and I’ll leave. Maybe I’ll stay with Tom and Jean.” Another pause, longer this time. “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ll come? You really should get here this evening before the wind starts to pick up. Right now it’s gorgeous outside, but that’s going to change pretty quick once it starts heading this way. So, you’ll come?”

“Yes. I think I will. Thanks for doing this.”

“I’ll be here all evening getting the house and yard ready,” Jim said. “You can come anytime. I’ll leave shortly after, when I know you’re settled.”

 48 

A
fter getting off the phone with Jim, Marilyn had spent the morning helping Charlotte get the apartment ready for the storm. Charlotte worried about the windows being blown out and high winds and rains pouring inside. She had renter’s insurance, so she wasn’t too concerned about the big things getting damaged. They boxed up all her little personal things and stacked the boxes in the bathtub.

Just after carrying the last box into the bathroom, Harriet had called, asking Marilyn to come in to Odds-n-Ends a few hours early and help her prepare the store. Her husband and son-in-law were boarding up the windows, but there was a ton of little things that still needed doing. Marilyn hadn’t been scheduled to come in until noon, but Harriet promised if she came in now she’d let her go home early. “As soon as the store is as safe as we can make it.” She had already put a sign on the front door, telling customers they were closed today.

Marilyn knew she didn’t have to worry about their house on Elderberry Lane. That was one thing she could always count on about Jim—he was thorough. And he loved that house. He
probably felt pretty good about those hurricane shutters he had “invested in” back in 2005. She thought they detracted from the house’s appearance. But she had to admit, she was glad they were there now.

Marilyn stepped out into the employee parking lot at 6:00 p.m. and was startled by the condition of the sky. A few hours ago on her break, it had been pleasant and calm, a sunny September day. Now it was completely overcast. Dark wispy clouds moved much too fast across the sky in odd directions. Strong winds out of the south were already causing trees to bend and sway. A brown palm frond broke loose overhead, startling her. The wind picked it up and carried it across the parking lot, slamming it into a dumpster.
It’s really coming.
Harold is really going to hit us.
Fears she’d suppressed all day through busyness began to surface. She hurried to her car and closed herself in, as if to escape the fear.

As she pulled onto Main Street, it was clear everyone was taking this storm seriously. Hardly any cars were on the street. Every storefront was either already covered in plywood or being worked on by store owners and employees. Someone had dumped a large mound of sand at one end of the street, and dozens of people were shoveling sand into sandbags.

She drove through the familiar streets from the downtown area to her neighborhood and saw the same thing. Big beautiful houses with windows boarded up. Many had spray-painted signs like “Leave Us Alone Harry!” or “Harry Go Home!”

As she pulled down the service lane that ran behind their house, a strong gust blew against her car, almost forcing her off the road into a fence. She swung it back just in time. Up ahead,
she saw that Jim’s car had just pulled into the garage. Doug’s little red Mazda was parked beside it. She was going to pull into the third spot, but Doug had come in wide, taking up half her space. She parked behind Jim’s car in the driveway instead. Maybe Jim hadn’t told Doug she was coming. It was sad to think Doug had already formed a parking habit that counted on her absence. More evidence of the gap in their relationship and the need to mend that fence.

Jim got out of his car, saw her, and waved. She waved back through the windshield. He looked tired and his hair was sticking out in odd directions. Too much gel, she thought. That and all this wind.

Jim noticed the problem with Doug’s car. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Let’s get your things in the house, then you and I can switch places.”

“Can’t we just get Doug to move his over?”

“He’s not here, and I don’t have his keys. He rode his bike over to Jason’s a few hours ago. I told him he needed to leave his car here in the garage. He’s gotten sloppy about pulling in since you . . . well, let me help you with your things.”

As Jim walked up to her car, she said, “You look like you’ve had a rough day. Been getting the properties boarded up?”

“No, I hired a guy to do that. A couple of guys, actually. They’ve already finished. I’m just getting back from helping—” He caught himself. He was just about to say he’d gotten back from helping Audrey Windsor’s nephew board up her place. But he didn’t want Marilyn to know he knew Audrey. “I was just helping this elderly woman get her house ready. Your stuff in the trunk?”

“I can get it, there’s just two suitcases,” she said.

“That’s all right. Why don’t you go on inside? I’ll get them. I just put a fresh pot of coffee on.”

“You’re making coffee now?” She popped the trunk.

“It’s not as good as yours, but I think I’m getting close.”

“Well, I could use a cup about now.”

“Here, give me your keys. After I put your things inside, I want to bring some of the lawn furniture in here before the wind tosses them in the pool. Then I’ll switch our cars around.”

“Want me to fix you a cup?” she said.

He smiled. “I’d like that. I won’t stay long.” She made a face he couldn’t interpret, but he didn’t want to ask. She went through the garage and disappeared into the laundry room, heading for the main house. A few moments later he followed behind her. He brought the suitcases through the house into the master bedroom. He figured she’d want to stay there, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t ask her at the moment; she was in the bathroom.

Glancing out the back windows, he watched two lawn chairs lift off the ground and fly against the back fence. “I’m going back out,” he yelled through the door. He was running outside to get the chairs when a fierce gust of wind blew through, knocking over the table with the umbrella.

A moment later, another burst of wind came through, stronger than the last. A loud cracking sound filled the backyard. Jim dove to the ground, certain a tree was about to fall and crush him.