Taking Chances (10 page)

After my quick shower, I applied mascara and powder to my face, trying to look as natural as possible while wearing my new jeans with casual sandals and a white t-shirt. I hoped I didn’t look like I had just dolled up to see Harvey. Which I had, but he didn’t need to know that. I spritzed light perfume and applied a tinted chapstick.

A few minutes later my mom was scrubbing the bathtubs with bleach, getting them ready to fill up, and I heard a knock downstairs. In the spirit of playing hard to get, I didn’t answer the door and let my dad go greet them. I stood at the top of the stairs, out of sight and feeling insanely giddy. What was I—15?

“Hello Mr. Whitman, thank you so much for letting us stay here,” I heard Harvey say.

“Thank you, Elton,” I heard Mrs. Garrett say, “But we could have easily gone to the shelter like I told Harvey here. I don’t know why he had to come and bother you on such a night.”

“Don’t you worry about it. Now come in. It’s picking up again out there,” my father said, and right then there began a deluge accompanied by a wind that sounded as if the hurricane was already there. I heard my mom’s voice as she greeted them.

“Oh, Teri, the last thing I want to do is make you work, what with Elton just recovering,” Mrs. Garrett said.

“We are glad to have you. Come put your things here in the guest room,” my mom said, and their voices drifted away. I walked towards the stairs, taking them on tiptoes until I reached the landing and turned the corner. I saw Harvey’s back in front of the guest room door where our moms were conversing.

What an awkward situation I now realized we were in! And my parents knew nothing of Greg’s infidelity! I smacked myself on the forehead wishing I’d been forthcoming with them about the whole mess. I had to let Harvey and his mom know not to mention it.

As I continued downstairs, the floorboards beneath me squeaked, as I knew they would, and Harvey turned around and gave me the biggest smile. I was so glad we were still friends.

“Hi,” he said coming closer to the stairs.

“Hi,” I said, as my ears got warm. His eyes were trying to tell me something— maybe something about that kiss we shared. I couldn’t read him.

“Thanks for this,” he said. “I’m real happy I don’t have to go stay at that shelter tonight.”

“No problem,” I said, smiling and tilting my head to the side. He was beautiful, even more so each time I saw him. I was going to mention to him not to talk about Greg and my divorce when Mrs. Garrett came out of the room and saw me.

“Teri, you must be happy to have Audrey to yourself, now that Greg is out of the picture,” she said, coming over to give me a hug. I almost pushed her away but instead delved into the embrace while watching my mom’s face turn from confused to shocked.

“I’m sorry, why is Greg out of the picture?” my mom asked. She stared at me, waiting for me to explain.

“Mom, I, um... Well, remember I said Greg and I had a fight?” I said, looking from my mom to Mrs. Garrett (who looked pitifully sorry) to Harvey, who was cringing. I wondered if it was because of his mother’s big mouth or because he’d have to hear the story again after living through it this past week.

“Elton!” my mom yelled, putting her hand up at me so I’d wait for my dad. He walked in, puzzled at each of us silently waiting for him.

“Mom, Dad— Greg has been cheating on me with Natalie. I’m going to divorce him. End of story,” I said and ran out of the room and up the stairs to my bedroom. I shut the door and threw myself on the bed, sobbing. It was not how I planned to tell them, and it certainly had not been my intention to blurt it out and bolt like a teenager who’d gotten caught, but the last thing I wanted was to choke up in between the details and have them see me fall apart.

There was a knock on my door, but I didn’t answer, hoping my parents would take the hint and leave me alone. The door opened anyway, and I left my face buried in the pillow. I knew that my mom would feel bad that I felt bad, and that made me feel worse. Any second now she’d sit next to me on the bed and pat my back. I stayed silent until I wondered if it even was my mom. I lifted my head and looked back to see Harvey standing there.

I wiped my face. “Was that god-awful or what?”

“What’s awful is that my mom is sitting downstairs telling them the story. You should never have told her.” He crossed his arms in front of him.

“No, it’s not her fault,” I said with a sigh. “I should have told them as soon as I saw them.” Harvey sat beside me and brought his thumb up to my cheek, brushing a tear away. Oddly, I was distraught and comforted at the same time. Who was this man that made me feel like a paradox? This man that was so close I could breathe in his musky breath, and yet I felt as if we were light-years apart. I stood up and smoothed out my top.

“I’m fine,” I said, as cool as I could muster. “I’ll go and explain, now that I’ve had a moment to process what I want to say. Then they’ll know, and it will be real.” It’s true. Without my parents knowing the truth, it was still just inside my head. But now, going public to the two people who meant most to me in this world and had jointly walked me down the aisle... now it was more real than ever. I was actually getting a divorce. I would be a divorcee.

Harvey wanted to say something but was holding himself back, I could tell. I didn’t press it because I had to focus on what I’d tell them downstairs. So I turned around, left him in my room, and made my way to my parents.

I
t wasn’t
as bad as I imagined. Though my parents are fairly open-minded, I envisioned screaming and judgment. I finally realized that I harbored unrealistic expectations, but still, I’d been afraid. My inevitable divorce upset my mother, but she seemed to be more disappointed for me rather than at me. My dad kept repeating that everything would turn out fine, and I was welcome home as long as I needed. I hated turning our lives inside out this way, especially with my dad’s condition. But this hadn’t been my choice, had it?

My retelling of the story left out anything to do with Harvey and our make-out session. I made a point of staying far away from him the rest of the evening as he helped my mom make dinner and then sat with my dad by the TV for the local evening news (most of it storm coverage). Yes, I stayed away, but that didn’t mean I didn’t watch him. Oh, I watched him— open a jar for my mom that she couldn’t budge, how his forearm muscles flexed and he barely made any effort. How he laughed when my dad told a stupid joke at dinner. How he looked at me and winked a couple of times throughout the night. Delicious shivers surprised me each time he did that.

The eleven o’clock update showed that the storm lingered off shore. While they weren’t sure how close the eye would be to us, the forecast showed at least tropical force storm winds, if not hurricane strength coming our way. Everyone said their goodnights and went to bed, hoping that the hurricane passed over in the night as we slept, with nothing but a little rain and wind. I was in the middle of a dream in which Harvey had made his way to my bedroom. In the dream, we continued where we’d left off the other night, but I woke with a start at a loud bang on my window – well, on the shutter.

“Audrey!” My mom yelled. I tried to calm myself enough to answer her. The wind outside whistled through the shutters and caused several more bangs on my window and others throughout the house.

“I’m fine! It’s the wind!” I called back. I tried to lie back and fall asleep when my parents opened my bedroom door without knocking.

“It’s on top of us. Come downstairs,” my dad said, and we made our way down. Harvey, groggy-eyed, sat up on the sofa bed and reached for the remote. Red banners popped up on the top of the screen announcing tornado warnings. The hurricane had strengthened to a Category 4 in the early hours of the morning right before making it onshore. The current satellite image showed that we were on the edge of the hurricane-force winds at the moment, with the eye traveling directly towards our town.

Just as we finished hearing the last of the update, everything went dark. With the power out, the silence inside— no A/C, no refrigerator noise, no TV— increased the noise outside. I felt my way to the dining table and grabbed a few flashlights, turning them on before handing one to each person. The wind howled— there was no other way to put it. I itched to open a door or something to see what was happening out there, but it wouldn’t be safe.

Mrs. Garrett had joined us earlier and now said, “Maybe we should huddle in the hallway with a mattress slanted over us. That’s what we did in the other hurricane, and it saved us when our roof caved in.”

“Let’s do that Elton,” my mom said, flinching when several things hit our shutters again.

“Let’s get the guest room mattress,” my dad said, “since it’s down here.” He made over to the room as if he was going to carry the mattress himself, but Harvey jumped over the sofa and beat him to the room.

“Let me, Mr. Whitman,” he said and lifted the mattress, but it was too large for one person to move alone. Mrs. Garrett and I each grabbed corners on the same side, my mom lighting the way with a battery-powered lantern.

This time I couldn’t avoid Harvey because, before I knew it, everyone was sitting on top of a pile of comforters on the floor. We were in a line with my dad first, then my mom next to him, then me, Harvey, and finally his mom next to the closed guest room door.

“Well, this is cozy,” Harvey said trying to lighten the mood. My mom gave a nervous laugh.

“It will be a rough next couple of weeks,” my dad said. We talked of last time, sharing our stories of the aftermath.

“But this is a Category 4,” I said. Everyone stayed quiet.

“Let’s say a small prayer for our town,” my mom said and led us in a short request that we be spared from great damage and loss of life.

I tried to check my Facebook, but the 4G signal apparently failed in the storm. Dialing out was impossible at the moment, though I didn’t want to call anyone right then.

The sounds outside got louder every minute, and we tried to have some light conversation to distract us. No one mentioned Harvey and my divorces, thank goodness.

We were in the middle of hearing Harvey tell us a story about rude customers at the restaurant when the doors inside the house started shaking. I jumped at the noise. It was as if there were people at each closed door trying to open them.

Bang, clang, bang, clang
nonstop. My mom curled up onto my dad, and Harvey had his arm around his mother. I sat there, waiting for it to pass, praying for it to pass, not sure if I was even breathing as I heard something else. It sounded like a train, the kind of sound everyone who’s been through one describes as an approaching tornado. We all looked around and huddled even closer.

Harvey took my hand, and I held on for dear life. I don’t know if I’d ever been that scared in my entire life, with my eyes wide, my breathing ragged, and my heart a pounding mess. The noise was interminable, and I waited for the mattress and the rest of the house to be ripped from on top of us at any second. Harvey’s hand gave mine a reassuring squeeze.

When what seemed like years passed, and the noise finally faded away and dissipated into what sounded like regular wind and rain, everyone loosened their holds on each other, and I let go of Harvey’s hand.

“That was close,” my dad said, stepping out from under the mattress.

“Where are you going?” my mother called out. “Get back here!”

“I’ll be right back,” he said. The doors were no longer shaking, but the wind outside blew as strong as ever. He returned in two minutes.

“I remembered there are no shutters in the small bathroom window,” he said. “It’s a disaster out there, is all I can say.” We took in his words and rested on them for a few minutes.

“Did you see flooding?” Mrs. Garrett asked, obviously worried about her own house.

“You know, I didn’t notice any flooding, but I’m not sure if I could see that well, what with the rain sideways and the wind blowing leaves everywhere. It’s still dark out, but there are white planks in our yard, and I have no clue where they came from.” White planks? Our roof was brown and our walls concrete.

We had another tense few minutes when the doors began to shake again, but it passed, and eventually so did the storm. My dad went to the door, and while the wind continued, the howling had died down. We all huddled at the door, taking a look out onto the street which had water accumulated but not enough to make it impassable. One of those white planks my dad talked about, lots of leaves, and who knows what else were visible from the door. The neighbors in front had a tree knocked on to their car, but the house looked fine, albeit half of the roof shingles ripped off. From our vantage point there was not much else we could see until the storm finished, and so we went back in.

My mom walked into the kitchen and called out, “Anyone for some melting ice cream? I have two cartons full.” We made our way to the kitchen, illuminated by the lantern and sat down to eat ice cream at 6:45 in the morning.

As the sun came up, Harvey dragged the mattress by himself back to the guest room, and we each went to our respective rooms to rest. Sleep eluded me, and I followed my parents downstairs about twenty minutes later as I caught them passing my room.

“We’re going to take a drive around,” my dad whispered.

“I’m coming too,” I said and ran back to my room to put on clothes. I threw on my jeans and a pair of sneakers.

Downstairs, Harvey and his mom also looked ready to join us.

“I guess there’s no sleeping right now,” I said.

“I want to see my house,” Mrs. Garrett said.

We walked out onto the lawn, following the brick path, and surveying the surrounding damage. Our other neighbor’s car had a branch through the back window. Thankfully, the shutters had saved our house windows from any damage, and our cars were in the garage. Our roof looked much like our front neighbor’s, with the shingles all but gone. Two houses down we noticed a piece of the roof had caved in at the front. Debris lay everywhere. Trees had fallen all over the place.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to make it anywhere, Dad,” I said.

“We’ll go as far as we can,” he said, and we piled into the car. The scenes were devastating. Besides the trees knocked over, power lines down, and side streets flooded, houses had roofs caved in. A section of the town could not be crossed into because of the debris. From far away it looked as if that part of town had been demolished. My guess was that a tornado had spawned from the hurricane. Emergency personnel hacked away at fallen trees, trying to get through to the battered section of town.

“Let me out,” Harvey said.

“What?” my mom said.

“Stop the car so I can help,” Harvey repeated. I was shocked and impressed by him. My dad stopped the car, and Harvey jumped out.

“I’ll find my way to your house later,” he said, tapping on the roof of the car before he took off towards the firefighters. There were other men there not in uniform.

“I do hope he stays safe,” said his mother nonchalantly while I sat in awe of him. My dad kept driving, and I looked back, observing as he and another man picked up a large branch that had been sawed off of a fallen tree.

“That’s so incredible of him,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” my mother agreed.

“Harvey was always volunteering for something or other when he was younger,” his mother noted. Hmm. I guess I didn’t know him as well as I thought. My dad stayed silent, and I hoped he wasn’t too frustrated that his health didn’t allow him to help out.

“Thanks for taking us out, Dad. I don’t think we could have braved this water and mess without you,” I said. We continued on toward the east part of town, taking side roads when trees or emergency crews blocked off the main road. More and more side streets at lower elevations were flooded several feet. As we neared Mrs. Garrett’s neighborhood, my fears that her house would be completely underwater grew. The level of accumulated water on the roads was getting much higher, and in the distance we could see several houses halfway beneath the surface. My father stopped driving when we noticed the two cars in front of us making U-turns.

“I’m sorry Julie, but it looks like we can’t get in there,” my dad said, making a U-turn himself.

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Garret said, “It’s all flooded, I’m sure it is. This is horrible.” Her lower lip trembled, and I put my hand on her arm in a small gesture of comfort. My dad took a different way through town, but we saw the same destruction. When he passed by the shopping center near our house, many of the same white planks we had found in our yard littered the ground.

“They’re from the supermarket,” I said pointing at the planks.

“I cannot believe they made it all the way to our house!” my mom exclaimed. Neither could I.

“That’s incredible,” my dad said. We continued on back to the house and went inside, my dad staying outside to inspect the rest of our house and yard.

I was exhausted. Having stayed up all night, we were beyond tired, but I was the only one that went to bed. Mrs. Garrett and my mother stayed up talking in the living room. I lay in bed, relishing in the fact that Harvey stayed behind to help those people. I wished I could help too, but I’d be more of a hindrance than anything. I fell asleep dreaming of a knight in shining armor.

Waking up in a daze, I reached for my flashlight. A light at the rim of the window indicated it was still daytime, but with those damned shutters my view was completely obstructed. I was pretty sure a noise had woken me up. I crept out of my room and saw that my parent’s door was closed. They must have been sleeping.

I tiptoed downstairs and winced when the floorboards creaked. If there was an intruder, they’d have heard me for sure. From the bottom of the stairs, I saw Mrs. Garrett’s door closed. I inched towards the kitchen, flashlight off and above my head to strike whoever was in there when a light turned on in the kitchen. Harvey was sitting there, lantern on, and wrapping a paper towel around his hand.

“I thought you were a burglar,” I whispered in an accusing tone.

“And so you came in to greet me?” he asked, also speaking low.

“No, I was going to hit you with the flashlight,” I said, showing him the one in my hand. He raised an eyebrow.

“That wouldn’t have done a thing. We need to get you into self-defense classes,” he said. I smiled, but looked to his hand and noticed it was bleeding through the paper towel.

“What happened?” I reached for his hand. He pulled it away.

“I sliced it with a saw. But it’s not that deep, and the firefighter said it shouldn’t need stitches. He was going to clean it for me, but I ran over here. I didn’t want them wasting their resources on me. There are people trapped in there, Audrey,” he said gravely.

“Hold on, there’s a first aid kit in here somewhere with gauze, tape, and triple antibiotic cream. First clean it with water, and here,” I said handing him the hydrogen peroxide, “Pour this on it.”

“Are you kidding? That hurts like a bitch,” he said, shaking his head.

“Don’t be a baby. You just cut your hand with a saw, and you’re worried about a little peroxide?” It would sting like hell, but he needed it. He snatched the bottle from my hand and went over to the sink.

“The water’s off,” he said, trying at the handle.

“Grab a bottle of water under that cupboard,” I said, searching the drawers and cupboards for the first-aid kit. I found it as Harvey cursed over and over again while he poured the peroxide on the gash. His hand shaking, he poured water over it afterward.