The Hurricane (22 page)

Roby laughed. “You have no idea how lucky you are, you shit!
That video is like urban legend now. If you were one of the fifty or so people
to see it, you’re like in this cult.”

“What do you mean?” Daniel was pretty sure he was going to
throw up on the pavement. He felt like everyone walking past was looking right
at him, smiling.

“Jeremy’s house had flood damage. His home computer is
toast.”

“You’re shittin’ me.” Daniel still felt sick. It was going
to take days to pass. “But everyone’s okay, right?”

Roby waved his hand. “Like that’s more important. But yeah,
it wasn’t even from the storm, not directly. Their pool burst open and flooded
half the downstairs.”

Daniel clutched his shirt. “And the computer?”

“I tried everything.” Roby frowned. “Couldn’t save your
little video.”

“What do you mean? You went over there and tried to
salvage
it?”

“Like I want to see your little prick.” Roby glanced around
the courtyard. “I told Jeremy I would try and get their family stuff off the
drive, pictures and documents and what-not, which I did.”

“You did.”

“Yeah. I plugged the drive into my computer. Worked like a
charm. The motherboard was the only thing that got wet.”

Daniel was about to explode. “For fuck’s sakes, Roby, what
the hell did you do?”

Roby smiled. “I put you in my debt for let’s see . . . like,
forever.”

“You deleted it.”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned coyly. “Or I kept a copy.
You’ll never know.”

“Dude—”

“Speaking of which, we still have a ton of debris to round
up and get rid of. I told mom that you’d be coming over this week and helping
me do my share.”

“Seriously, man? You’re gonna blackmail me?”

His friend smiled. “Nothing I do to you will be worse than
what I prevented.”

“But you’re my friend!”

“Yeah, well, then you should’ve gotten in touch with me at
some point the past two weeks.”

“Man, I’m sorry, I’ve been busy. And hey, it’s not like we
don’t go all summer without hearing from each other—”

“Yeah, but this was like
the storm of the
century
. I was dying to talk to you about everything
that was going on.” Roby frowned. “I tried to get my mom to drive us by last
week and see how you guys were doing, but my dad is still militant about the
gas. We’ve been driving everywhere at like twenty miles an hour. I thought he
was gonna cut a hole in the floor and go Flintstone on us.”

Daniel laughed.

“I’m serious, dude. He got all end-of-the-world. You shoulda
seen him. We were on rations for the first week.”

The more grave Roby tried to look, the harder Daniel
laughed.

“I’m glad you think my suffering is funny.”

“Ditto. But hey, at least you got to spend a ton of time
with your girlfriend, though, right?”

“I wish. She has an aunt and uncle nearby. She went to their
house after the party and stayed there for the storm. I just saw her a week ago
as she was heading back to Columbia. I think she’s gonna come back down in a
few weeks, if her parents and NOAA say it’s alright.”

Daniel laughed.

“I’m not kidding,” he said. “Her parents have already set up
hurricane rules for our weekends together.”

“Guess what?” Daniel asked. He figured now was a good time
to fully explain neglecting his friend the past weeks. “I kinda met someone
after the storm.”

“Yeah?” Roby’s eyes lit up. “A girl?”

“Guess what her name is. I’ll give you a hint: It’s real
ironic.”

“Like
real
ironic or Alanis Morissette ironic?”

Daniel thought about that. “I’m not sure, actually.”

“Her name’s Wendy,” Roby guessed.

Daniel laughed. “No, but close.” He shrugged his bag higher
up his back. “Her name’s Anna.”

Roby stopped laughing. “Serious?”

“Yeah, and we’re like boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Who’s playing the girlfriend?”

“Shut up, dude.” The bell rang, signifying two minutes to
class. Kids stood and stretched in the courtyard. Some hurried off, backpacks
jouncing dangerously.

“What’s this girl like?” Roby jerked his head to the side.
“Walk while you tell me about her. And don’t forget to kiss my ass for making
sure the first time she sees you in the buff is the first time she sees you in
the buff.”

“No, honestly, thanks for that. You being Jeremy’s
geek-on-call worked out for me.”

“The girl,” Roby said, waving his hand in circles.

“Anna,” Daniel replied. “This girl’s a category five, to be
sure. Insanely smart. Pretty in a normal kind of way, not like cheerleader
pretty or tall and exotic—”

“Kinda plain?” Roby asked.

Daniel shook his head. “There’s nothing plain about her.”

Roby held open the door to the English building, and Daniel
stepped inside and let his eyes adjust to the fluorescent lights. He wondered
what he could say about Anna that wouldn’t sound silly, wondered if maybe Roby
felt the same way about his girlfriend, how much more he and his best friend
might now have in common. But before he could think of the first thing to say,
they passed a bulletin board with a weeks-old newspaper tacked up for the
students to see.

“Holy shit,” Daniel said. He stopped and stared at the
full-page image on the cover of the Journal.

“You haven’t seen this picture?” Roby asked.

Daniel shook his head. “Haven’t really seen the news at all.”

“Listen, I’ve got to run to the end of the hall. I’ll catch
up with you at lunch, okay? I want to hear about this girlfriend of yours.”

Daniel nodded and waved him off.

“And I want my ass kissed properly,” Roby yelled back as he
blended in with the river of kids jostling and chattering down the hall.

Daniel barely heard him. He stood and stared at the
newspaper behind the glass. In bold type across the top, it simply said: “ANNA
STRIKES.” Below that, and taking up the entire rest of the page, was a satellite
photo. It showed a storm spread wide across the entire state of South Carolina,
long trails of feeder bands curling down through the Atlantic, the northwest
corner of the storm brushing Charlotte. But the part Daniel found himself
transfixed on was the eye. There was a perfect circle in the center of the
storm, a hole in the white shroud directly over Beaufort. Daniel stared through
the glass display at the center of that hole and imagined himself down there,
looking up at the blue sky, asking Carlton if the worst was over. And Carlton
was saying it had just begun.

It felt like a lifetime ago. Like something a different
person had lived through. Daniel lost himself in that image and the memory of a
temporary quiet at the center of so much noise and destruction, and he
realized, in an instant, that the
eye
was the storm. That low pressure
at the middle, that intense calm and quietude surrounded by a wall of
maelstrom,
that
was the hurricane. It’s power came from the sucking
void, was shaped by the spinning of the world, was fed by the warmth of the
seas, and it had churned quietly along, oblivious and uncaring, passing right
over his home, whipping an unknown frenzy across his life with its wide and
powerful winds, rocking him, changing him, with its mighty calm.