Surviving Storms
Storm Warning Part One
by
Diana Walker
This work of
adult fiction, loosely based on
characters portrayed by Russell Crowe, includes adult language and
experiences;
you have been warned. No
copyright
infringement on the original work is intended.
Copyright Diana Walker 2006.
Copyright Diana Walker 2006.
Dino
careened around the door to my
office. “Terry. Gotta go.
I'll call when I get to Belize
“Who is it?”
“Bernardo Santiago. He came out of his office and disappeared. The Federales are on it already.”
“Can you give me 15 minutes? This is the first time one of us has been deployed since Max got back. I want to get him out of here so he doesn't see you leave. We’ll be at the flat if you need me; I need to get the last of my stuff out before the lease is up.”
Diana had started using the euphemisms 'while Max was gone' and 'when Max got back' for Maximus' kidnapping and return. In professional mode, i.e., dealing with a client's kidnapping when we’re on the job, Dino and I speak using industry standard words. It helps us stay detached from the emotional involvement with the family. It's different when it’s one of your own, and you are the family; I had fallen into Diana's terminology to assuage the pain I’d felt when Max had been taken. Dino had as well. Reags and Max seemed to be only of us who could actually say the words ‘kidnapped’, ‘abducted,’ or ‘ransom.’
“Yeah, I can give you at least 15.”
Men are as nosy as women; we just go about getting our information in a different fashion. We catch each other preoccupied and ask an innocuous question. Perhaps I should amend that original statement …some women use that technique, too. Diana had certainly used it on me on occasion long ago. Now if she wants to know something, she asks outright, and I tell her.
Dino’s thoughts were spinning with his upcoming trip. This was the right time to ask a simple question. “Do I need to call Ellie for you?”
“I called her before …. You prick!” He grinned at being caught, continuing as if the brief interruption never happened. “I need to set up my call schedule back to the office and get my crew down there rolling. Sooze is working on transportation. First flight out is at 1800.”
I called our car rental guy and got the truck and boxes delivered within the hour. I collected Max from his office, and we were out of the office the rest of the afternoon, sparing Max any chance to remember his own last office departure.
“May I ask why I have been chosen for this august honour?” Max asked when we stopped for beer on the drive over to my flat.
“Consider it a celebration, Max. I promised Diana and myself that I’d clean out and give up my flat when you got back. You're back, and it's time.” Max did seem dubious about the celebration comment, and his own ‘august honour’ phrase sounded a lot like sarcasm. I'd tell Max about the secondary reason – Dino's deployment – when we got to the farm.
The place looked exactly like I had left it. Clean, well appointed, and lifeless. I started Max in the bathroom. Anything in there could be easily swept into a small box; no consideration was necessary as to whether it belonged to the Adele Hunt Studios or me. I started sorting my things in the bedroom; only I could separate my personal treasures from the interior designer’s choices.
Maybe I overestimated my own importance; it was obvious what was mine and what was the decorator's. I had a few trinkets on the dresser – a jade Buddha that would go well with the colors in the guest bedroom, a pair of chopsticks from a particularly memorable evening in Shanghai, some Aboriginal art from home, a photo collage of snaps taken of Henry and me the day I left for Tecala, a few paintings I had picked up on my travels, my alarm clock.
The chopsticks could be dumped. I’d hate to wear them through my ear lobes or worse in one ear and out the other should Diana have some problems with a reminder of another woman in our bedroom. Then again, she might enjoy the story if told with appropriate re-enactments. The chopsticks went noisily into the box.
I was holding the picture of Henry and me and remembering the day on the footy field when the photos were snapped; I’d known nothing about it until I returned from Tecala and found the parcel waiting at my flat. I was lost in thought when Max walked into the room carrying the box he’d finished packing.
“Your ruminations will be more suited to unpacking with Diana. She would welcome your thoughts.” He was right; Diana would appreciate the stories about each item and the understanding they could bring to her. Max wanted to be finished and home to Reags as soon as possible. I was stuck with only one item packed, if you could call it that, and he had finished one room.
No one can philosophise like old soldiers. It isn’t often that we allow ourselves that luxury, but even the bloke in the unit who has the brightest, sunniest disposition gets morose at times. When we go deep, we go to the depths. We allow each other the time and space to wallow a bit and then work each other out of the mood.
“Are you having second thoughts of giving up the flat?”
“Not at all. I made that decision gladly long ago; it took longer to convince Diana. I was thinking about how we military men have so few personal items. It’s more important in changing duty stations to have the weapons than private reminders of home and family. I carried those practices over to now.”
“It has always been thus. The weapons, whether they are horses, shields, and swords or rifles and Kevlars, allow us to return to our loved ones. It is the small and deeply personal mementoes we carry with us that trigger rich memories.”
“I have so little that’s mine. It made it easy to walk out of a flat with not a backward glance. It would take me a month to pack out of Diana’s, and it would be a fight every step of the way. She’s become quite fond of my shirts.” I’m quite fond of her in them. My goofy grin was back; the muscles in my face feel different when I think about her.
“You have little in this abode. I would venture anything of note is already at Diana’s.”
“Too right, Maxie, except for these pictures of Henry and me.” He smiled as he looked at it. I’m sure it triggered memories of his all too brief time with Marcus, and he had no photos of his son. I was lucky.
“I still have difficulty conceiving of myself as ‘Maxie,’ but it does fit with your Australian penchant for shortening names. I would advise against calling my wife ‘Reagsie.’ She might be less inclined to accept the affection with which it is intended.” I’d already come to that conclusion.
Max took the frame from my hands and reached into the bathroom box to retrieve a towel. He wrapped the picture in the towel as lovingly as if it were his own and placed it on the bed beside me.
“We shall put this particular treasure inside a sheet set and surround it with clothing.” He opened the closet door. It was lightly populated with raggedyLevis
“Remember how you remarked I was wearing a different suit every day in the months after I met Diana? It was all part of a plan to have her accept me.” His darkened face told me I had been wise not to confide in him in Diana’s and my early days. “I know you weren’t happy with how we, I, went about establishing our relationship, but there was no reason to wait. I snuck work clothes into the master closet until she stopped returning clothes to the flat. I’d take two weeks of clothes out to the farm, and she’d deliver a week’s worth of clothing here from the cleaners. I upped the clothing to three weeks so she couldn’t be caught up. She finally got tired of driving into town to deliver my cleaning.”
Max saw the humour in Diana driving and grumbling about traffic. “You never told her about the cleaners at the office?”
“I considered that to be company classified information. It didn’t fit with my plan to move in surreptitiously. If I got enough of my things there, it would be a fait accompli. You know Diana; if a situation is working, she’s loathe to change the status quo.” Max nodded and smiled at her foible. “When I finally told her I’d take the cleaning to the office, she thought my plan to move in ‘sneaky and funny.’ She retaliated by throwing out some of my knock-about shirts.”
I really hadn’t minded when the grey golf shirt went missing. I viewed it as Diana taking a step towards me. If she was willing to ditch a shirt of mine, she considered it her prerogative to do so. When I asked about its whereabouts, Diana explained it made me look chubby. Her comment might be considered mean, but she was groping the ‘chubby’ at the time.
For all my ‘sartorial splendor,’ I don’t love many articles of clothing – a few pairs of well-worn levis, the flannies Diana gave me for Christmas which she had washed several times to soften them before I ever wore them, my jump boots. I do have a good eye for what looks good on me or rather my tailor does. I can’t buy off the rack suits, never found a style to fit, not even the designer ones. My barrel chest and arms are hard to fit in a pre-cut jacket. MyLondon
“Cassandra has begun sorting through my closet as well. She almost disposed of the first shirt I bought when I arrived in this life. It is a blue and white plaid fabric with a long rip in the elbow, and I am inordinately fond of it. She said my stricken look caused her to have second thoughts.” Sometimes it’s hell sharing our masculine lives with females who have their own ideas.
“You should take at least some of these older items of clothing to the farm. You will find them useful for barn renovations.”
“If I don’t take them, does that mean I can hire the work done?”
“I rather doubt it. Diana will not allow something as mundane as sanding and revarnishing the stalls to be hired out. You will begin refinishing in publicly acceptable clothing and end in disreputable. It is better to start in tatters.” He threw the worst of the lot in one box, marked it ‘RUBBISH,’ and threw what would become my own version of the Technicolour Wonder in another box. I stripped the bed and put Henry safely in the bedding, and the bedding went into the box.
“Right then. Your next project is the kitchen. Everything but the decorations is mine. Since the spices haven’t been used in a year, they’re all candidates for the bin. I think I have bags under the sink.”
Out of my funk and renewed for the moment, Max and I got on with the packing.
MAXIMUS
Terry had significantly overestimated his moving needs. Even were we to move the refrigerator, an efficiently loaded pick up truck would hold his goods. He had 1400 cubic feet of space in a very large truck to hold what I suspected would be less than 100 cubic feet of boxes.
Our immediate problem was finding a way to secure the boxes to prevent their movement during transit. We had not boxed the TV or sound system, choosing simply to place them against the front wall and stacking the ten – mark the figure – ten boxes round them. The boxes fit neatly across the truck bed; unfortunately, they would slide twenty feet backward when the brake was applied and twenty feet forward upon acceleration.
The solution was inelegant though effective; we tied one end of the rope supplied by the rental firm to the truck’s reinforcing girder and breached each box’s integrity by piercing the outward facing side corners with two sets of holes to thread the rope through to tie to the opposite reinforcing girder. We would have to exercise care in removing the boxes from the truck to keep them from ripping open. We could think of no other solution.
“Terry, do not look so morose. You did not know how little you had to move. It has been a long time since you have lived here.”
“Max, I never lived here. It was a place to hang my hat when I was in town and a secure storage shed when I was gone.” He appeared to have more to say but apparently found it difficult to speak, looking at me for a few moments, and I raised my brows at him for encouragement. “The packing out didn’t have to be done today.”
He flipped open his phone and punched a number on his speed dial. “Irish, do you have time to stop by the flat on your way out? Have a beer?” His curt nod indicated Dino would be stopping when he left the office. “I’ll leave your name at the desk. Max and I’ll be waiting.”
“The offer of beer should hasten his arrival.” We tugged the door down on the meagre load, locked it, and started back to the flat for a last, unlamented goodbye to Terry’s bachelor flat. Several Mercedes and a Lexus passed us, the drivers seemingly startled at someone in their building moving themselves. I could read the distaste in their eyes even in the gloom of the parking garage at such de classé behaviour. I understood Terry’s unease with such neighbors. His next words confirmed my belief.
“They’re hoping whoever has such gall as to pack themselves out really is departing. In the entire time I stayed here, I spent more time with the security people than my neighbours. I had the odd divorcee drop in periodically, but the plastic personalities went with the fake tits. I never got so hard up that any of them were remotely appealing. By the time I met Miranda, she looked warm and loving.” He snorted his derision at his former choice of women.
His cynical look was gone by the time we retreated to the still furnished flat. We settled into the comfortable sofa to await Dino’s appearance. The first beers we opened from the refrigerator were quite flat – they had been there since Terry moved out – though they still contained their alcohol content. It seemed a shame to dispose of them, but life is too important for flat beer. We poured them down the sink, opened the recently purchased six-pack, and acknowledged our well-deserved break.
“Terry, you have been most dour this afternoon. You have assured me of your joy with Diana. You have admitted your distaste for this lodging. What is troubling you so?”
His deep breath appeared to give him strength to answer me. “I’m worried how you’ll react to our first deployment since you got back. I made a decision for you that was rightfully yours to make. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted. Has a situation arisen in my territory?” Cassandra and I had discussed at length my reactions to my captivity; I had come to terms with it. Whilst I was not eager to be required to travel so soon after our marriage, it is a requirement of my profession.
“No, Dino’s. He’s flying out this afternoon. I brought you here under false pretenses; I didn’t want you to see him leave. I thought it would be hard on you.”
“It would be harder to have him depart without speaking to him. I appreciate your reconsideration of your actions.”
“We – all of us – were too used to acting on our own; the call schedule is tightened – every four hours during the remote location’s waking hours, and if Dino gets up to take a piss during the night, the phone is in his other hand.” Terry had brightened appreciably now that he no longer felt the need to protect me.
“What if he is …entertaining for the evening?”
“I don’t want to hear him mid-stroke if that’s what you mean. Diana would be a bit out of sorts if she answered the phone.” Terry mimicked Diana’s voice. “Glad you’re all right. Now pay attention to her, and call when she leaves.” He slammed an imaginary phone onto its base just as there was a light knock on the unlocked door; Dino burst through the lounge and toward the beer standing on the kitchen counter.
“First one of the day always tastes the best.” He looked round the kitchen and the lounge as he re-entered. “You guys weren’t waiting on me to get started?”
“We’re done,” Terry laughingly reassured him.
“Done?”
I reiterated, “Done!”
“Man, I timed that right.” We saluted Dino’s good luck with upraised bottles.
“May your good fortune continue on your journey.”
“Terry told you finally. Good.” Dino has taken on Terry’s quick head nod. “Saves me a phone call from the airport. God knows, I’ll be living with a phone stuck to my ear till I get back.”
“Max brought up an interesting scenario. If you have a woman with you, don’t call. If you do, I’m letting Diana listen.”
“God, no. Anything but that! GrumpyDee
from getting her beauty rest interrupted?
She’d critique my style.
Talk
about your mood killer!”
Terry’s smug smile answered him.
“OK. So you’d reap the benefits,” Dino grudgingly admitted, “…eventually. Before she got to you, she’d be on the phone to Ellie for sheer meanness.”
“Diana does not strike me as being a spiteful person. In my case, she chose her time to speak,” I thought to our lunch at Jeroboam, “though her words were carefully measured and truly deserved.”
My companions laughed at my observation before Dino commented. “We’ve all had our turns in the barrel withDee
then. And, yeah, I
deserved mine, too.”
We finished our beers, interrogating Dino on his plans forBelize
and the Santiago
I stood and took his outstretched hand. “Be well, my friend. Strength and honour.” I could say no more.
“Watch your back since I won’t be there to watch it for you.” Terry pulled him close and thumped him twice on the back; there were four shiny eyes as they pulled apart, and I admit to moisture in my own. Whilst I now have a far better understanding of what the kidnapped victim bears, my partners will empathise with the family far more. Our firm’s dynamics with our clients have changed appreciably since the summer.
TERRY
After I dropped Max at the office, assuring him Diana and I had the unloading duties knocked, I realised Diana knew nothing about my plans for her as a removalist tonight. She would take the news with her natural good humour, I hoped. Maneuvering the big truck through downtown streets did not lend itself to a phone convo. I speed dialed home once I merged the big truck into 75’s traffic.
“Hullo, Luv. How’s your day?”
“What’s wrong, Terry?”
“Why would you think anything’s wrong?”
“You’re using your thick Aussie accent, and you called me ‘Luv’. The accent and ‘Luv’ only come out when you’re trying to be extra charming.” She has me sussed better than I do.
“Dino just left forBelize
Her “Oh” was wistful and soft. I can also read her as well. She wanted to talk to him before he left, but she wouldn’t put her recriminations on me.
“Sounds like we need another line on the departure checklist. ‘Call Diana.’”
“And Reags.” That’s my shiela – ever the inclusive one.
“I’ll see to the checklist for future trips first thing tomorrow. I’ll make sure you’ll get to talk to him. He’ll call when he lands.”
I could hear the smile on her face. “Oh, good. I promise not to be sappy to him.”
“You’ll be the first one today who hasn’t. The real reason for my call is I’m bringing something home.”
“As long as it’s not a snake, I’m happy.”
“Good. Max and I packed out the flat today.”
“You tried to get Max’s mind off Dino with manual labor?” The natural laugh underneath her words was about to erupt. “Couldn’t you have taken him out and gotten him drunk? That would have been a lot kinder.”
“I tried not to tell him, but that was too cruel. He had to deal with one of us going out sooner or later.”
“How’d he do?” Her voice had softened in a heartbeat.
“Never blinked an eye …though he seemed to have something in that eye when Dino walked out the door. As I said, Dino may welcome your normal tone with him.”
“How’d you do, Boomer?” Diana can convey so much concern and love for me in four words.
“I’ve been on a roller coaster since Dino got the call; I choked up when he left. I can’t guarantee what I’ll be like when I get home.”
“Well, I don’t care what mood you’re in when you get here. Just come home to me. I love you.”
I much prefer the way Diana ends phone calls now.
DIANA
I had no idea when to expect Terry – he hadn’t said and I hadn’t asked where he was when he called. I sat on the porch drinking tea with two well-iced beers in the cooler at my feet to entice us, well, me, to get the car unpacked. The horses had wandered over to the fence for some after dinner entertainment, and the dogs were in their yard so we could leave the front door open to come and go freely with whatever containers he had chosen to transport his stuff.
The dogs first alerted me that something different was going on. Holly had on her big dog bark; the hair on Okie’s back was standing up. I heard a big truck coming down the road. Maybe someone on the road was having hay delivered. When I finally saw the source of the noise, it was a big silver and red U-Haul truck.
I wandered off the porch, tea glass in hand, to see if it turned into our drive, hoping it wouldn’t. It did. I stepped over to the largest crepe myrtle nearest me for protection; Terry would have to destroy some significant tree trunks before he got to me. He had slowed to a crawl maneuvering down the curving drive. As the driver’s window pulled even with me and I realized I had once again survived one of Terry’s bright ideas, the truck size fully penetrated my linear brain. It even had a life-sized portrait of Shamu and one of her calves on the side. For some reason, the name Shamu has always seemed male to me, but I understand that Shamu isn’t a gender specific name as far as Sea World is concerned. This must be the biggest damned truck U-Haul has in their fleet.
“Who is it?”
“Bernardo Santiago. He came out of his office and disappeared. The Federales are on it already.”
“Can you give me 15 minutes? This is the first time one of us has been deployed since Max got back. I want to get him out of here so he doesn't see you leave. We’ll be at the flat if you need me; I need to get the last of my stuff out before the lease is up.”
Diana had started using the euphemisms 'while Max was gone' and 'when Max got back' for Maximus' kidnapping and return. In professional mode, i.e., dealing with a client's kidnapping when we’re on the job, Dino and I speak using industry standard words. It helps us stay detached from the emotional involvement with the family. It's different when it’s one of your own, and you are the family; I had fallen into Diana's terminology to assuage the pain I’d felt when Max had been taken. Dino had as well. Reags and Max seemed to be only of us who could actually say the words ‘kidnapped’, ‘abducted,’ or ‘ransom.’
“Yeah, I can give you at least 15.”
Men are as nosy as women; we just go about getting our information in a different fashion. We catch each other preoccupied and ask an innocuous question. Perhaps I should amend that original statement …some women use that technique, too. Diana had certainly used it on me on occasion long ago. Now if she wants to know something, she asks outright, and I tell her.
Dino’s thoughts were spinning with his upcoming trip. This was the right time to ask a simple question. “Do I need to call Ellie for you?”
“I called her before …. You prick!” He grinned at being caught, continuing as if the brief interruption never happened. “I need to set up my call schedule back to the office and get my crew down there rolling. Sooze is working on transportation. First flight out is at 1800.”
I called our car rental guy and got the truck and boxes delivered within the hour. I collected Max from his office, and we were out of the office the rest of the afternoon, sparing Max any chance to remember his own last office departure.
“May I ask why I have been chosen for this august honour?” Max asked when we stopped for beer on the drive over to my flat.
“Consider it a celebration, Max. I promised Diana and myself that I’d clean out and give up my flat when you got back. You're back, and it's time.” Max did seem dubious about the celebration comment, and his own ‘august honour’ phrase sounded a lot like sarcasm. I'd tell Max about the secondary reason – Dino's deployment – when we got to the farm.
The place looked exactly like I had left it. Clean, well appointed, and lifeless. I started Max in the bathroom. Anything in there could be easily swept into a small box; no consideration was necessary as to whether it belonged to the Adele Hunt Studios or me. I started sorting my things in the bedroom; only I could separate my personal treasures from the interior designer’s choices.
Maybe I overestimated my own importance; it was obvious what was mine and what was the decorator's. I had a few trinkets on the dresser – a jade Buddha that would go well with the colors in the guest bedroom, a pair of chopsticks from a particularly memorable evening in Shanghai, some Aboriginal art from home, a photo collage of snaps taken of Henry and me the day I left for Tecala, a few paintings I had picked up on my travels, my alarm clock.
The chopsticks could be dumped. I’d hate to wear them through my ear lobes or worse in one ear and out the other should Diana have some problems with a reminder of another woman in our bedroom. Then again, she might enjoy the story if told with appropriate re-enactments. The chopsticks went noisily into the box.
I was holding the picture of Henry and me and remembering the day on the footy field when the photos were snapped; I’d known nothing about it until I returned from Tecala and found the parcel waiting at my flat. I was lost in thought when Max walked into the room carrying the box he’d finished packing.
“Your ruminations will be more suited to unpacking with Diana. She would welcome your thoughts.” He was right; Diana would appreciate the stories about each item and the understanding they could bring to her. Max wanted to be finished and home to Reags as soon as possible. I was stuck with only one item packed, if you could call it that, and he had finished one room.
No one can philosophise like old soldiers. It isn’t often that we allow ourselves that luxury, but even the bloke in the unit who has the brightest, sunniest disposition gets morose at times. When we go deep, we go to the depths. We allow each other the time and space to wallow a bit and then work each other out of the mood.
“Are you having second thoughts of giving up the flat?”
“Not at all. I made that decision gladly long ago; it took longer to convince Diana. I was thinking about how we military men have so few personal items. It’s more important in changing duty stations to have the weapons than private reminders of home and family. I carried those practices over to now.”
“It has always been thus. The weapons, whether they are horses, shields, and swords or rifles and Kevlars, allow us to return to our loved ones. It is the small and deeply personal mementoes we carry with us that trigger rich memories.”
“I have so little that’s mine. It made it easy to walk out of a flat with not a backward glance. It would take me a month to pack out of Diana’s, and it would be a fight every step of the way. She’s become quite fond of my shirts.” I’m quite fond of her in them. My goofy grin was back; the muscles in my face feel different when I think about her.
“You have little in this abode. I would venture anything of note is already at Diana’s.”
“Too right, Maxie, except for these pictures of Henry and me.” He smiled as he looked at it. I’m sure it triggered memories of his all too brief time with Marcus, and he had no photos of his son. I was lucky.
“I still have difficulty conceiving of myself as ‘Maxie,’ but it does fit with your Australian penchant for shortening names. I would advise against calling my wife ‘Reagsie.’ She might be less inclined to accept the affection with which it is intended.” I’d already come to that conclusion.
Max took the frame from my hands and reached into the bathroom box to retrieve a towel. He wrapped the picture in the towel as lovingly as if it were his own and placed it on the bed beside me.
“We shall put this particular treasure inside a sheet set and surround it with clothing.” He opened the closet door. It was lightly populated with raggedy
“Remember how you remarked I was wearing a different suit every day in the months after I met Diana? It was all part of a plan to have her accept me.” His darkened face told me I had been wise not to confide in him in Diana’s and my early days. “I know you weren’t happy with how we, I, went about establishing our relationship, but there was no reason to wait. I snuck work clothes into the master closet until she stopped returning clothes to the flat. I’d take two weeks of clothes out to the farm, and she’d deliver a week’s worth of clothing here from the cleaners. I upped the clothing to three weeks so she couldn’t be caught up. She finally got tired of driving into town to deliver my cleaning.”
Max saw the humour in Diana driving and grumbling about traffic. “You never told her about the cleaners at the office?”
“I considered that to be company classified information. It didn’t fit with my plan to move in surreptitiously. If I got enough of my things there, it would be a fait accompli. You know Diana; if a situation is working, she’s loathe to change the status quo.” Max nodded and smiled at her foible. “When I finally told her I’d take the cleaning to the office, she thought my plan to move in ‘sneaky and funny.’ She retaliated by throwing out some of my knock-about shirts.”
I really hadn’t minded when the grey golf shirt went missing. I viewed it as Diana taking a step towards me. If she was willing to ditch a shirt of mine, she considered it her prerogative to do so. When I asked about its whereabouts, Diana explained it made me look chubby. Her comment might be considered mean, but she was groping the ‘chubby’ at the time.
For all my ‘sartorial splendor,’ I don’t love many articles of clothing – a few pairs of well-worn levis, the flannies Diana gave me for Christmas which she had washed several times to soften them before I ever wore them, my jump boots. I do have a good eye for what looks good on me or rather my tailor does. I can’t buy off the rack suits, never found a style to fit, not even the designer ones. My barrel chest and arms are hard to fit in a pre-cut jacket. My
“Cassandra has begun sorting through my closet as well. She almost disposed of the first shirt I bought when I arrived in this life. It is a blue and white plaid fabric with a long rip in the elbow, and I am inordinately fond of it. She said my stricken look caused her to have second thoughts.” Sometimes it’s hell sharing our masculine lives with females who have their own ideas.
“You should take at least some of these older items of clothing to the farm. You will find them useful for barn renovations.”
“If I don’t take them, does that mean I can hire the work done?”
“I rather doubt it. Diana will not allow something as mundane as sanding and revarnishing the stalls to be hired out. You will begin refinishing in publicly acceptable clothing and end in disreputable. It is better to start in tatters.” He threw the worst of the lot in one box, marked it ‘RUBBISH,’ and threw what would become my own version of the Technicolour Wonder in another box. I stripped the bed and put Henry safely in the bedding, and the bedding went into the box.
“Right then. Your next project is the kitchen. Everything but the decorations is mine. Since the spices haven’t been used in a year, they’re all candidates for the bin. I think I have bags under the sink.”
Out of my funk and renewed for the moment, Max and I got on with the packing.
MAXIMUS
Terry had significantly overestimated his moving needs. Even were we to move the refrigerator, an efficiently loaded pick up truck would hold his goods. He had 1400 cubic feet of space in a very large truck to hold what I suspected would be less than 100 cubic feet of boxes.
Our immediate problem was finding a way to secure the boxes to prevent their movement during transit. We had not boxed the TV or sound system, choosing simply to place them against the front wall and stacking the ten – mark the figure – ten boxes round them. The boxes fit neatly across the truck bed; unfortunately, they would slide twenty feet backward when the brake was applied and twenty feet forward upon acceleration.
The solution was inelegant though effective; we tied one end of the rope supplied by the rental firm to the truck’s reinforcing girder and breached each box’s integrity by piercing the outward facing side corners with two sets of holes to thread the rope through to tie to the opposite reinforcing girder. We would have to exercise care in removing the boxes from the truck to keep them from ripping open. We could think of no other solution.
“Terry, do not look so morose. You did not know how little you had to move. It has been a long time since you have lived here.”
“Max, I never lived here. It was a place to hang my hat when I was in town and a secure storage shed when I was gone.” He appeared to have more to say but apparently found it difficult to speak, looking at me for a few moments, and I raised my brows at him for encouragement. “The packing out didn’t have to be done today.”
He flipped open his phone and punched a number on his speed dial. “Irish, do you have time to stop by the flat on your way out? Have a beer?” His curt nod indicated Dino would be stopping when he left the office. “I’ll leave your name at the desk. Max and I’ll be waiting.”
“The offer of beer should hasten his arrival.” We tugged the door down on the meagre load, locked it, and started back to the flat for a last, unlamented goodbye to Terry’s bachelor flat. Several Mercedes and a Lexus passed us, the drivers seemingly startled at someone in their building moving themselves. I could read the distaste in their eyes even in the gloom of the parking garage at such de classé behaviour. I understood Terry’s unease with such neighbors. His next words confirmed my belief.
“They’re hoping whoever has such gall as to pack themselves out really is departing. In the entire time I stayed here, I spent more time with the security people than my neighbours. I had the odd divorcee drop in periodically, but the plastic personalities went with the fake tits. I never got so hard up that any of them were remotely appealing. By the time I met Miranda, she looked warm and loving.” He snorted his derision at his former choice of women.
His cynical look was gone by the time we retreated to the still furnished flat. We settled into the comfortable sofa to await Dino’s appearance. The first beers we opened from the refrigerator were quite flat – they had been there since Terry moved out – though they still contained their alcohol content. It seemed a shame to dispose of them, but life is too important for flat beer. We poured them down the sink, opened the recently purchased six-pack, and acknowledged our well-deserved break.
“Terry, you have been most dour this afternoon. You have assured me of your joy with Diana. You have admitted your distaste for this lodging. What is troubling you so?”
His deep breath appeared to give him strength to answer me. “I’m worried how you’ll react to our first deployment since you got back. I made a decision for you that was rightfully yours to make. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted. Has a situation arisen in my territory?” Cassandra and I had discussed at length my reactions to my captivity; I had come to terms with it. Whilst I was not eager to be required to travel so soon after our marriage, it is a requirement of my profession.
“No, Dino’s. He’s flying out this afternoon. I brought you here under false pretenses; I didn’t want you to see him leave. I thought it would be hard on you.”
“It would be harder to have him depart without speaking to him. I appreciate your reconsideration of your actions.”
“We – all of us – were too used to acting on our own; the call schedule is tightened – every four hours during the remote location’s waking hours, and if Dino gets up to take a piss during the night, the phone is in his other hand.” Terry had brightened appreciably now that he no longer felt the need to protect me.
“What if he is …entertaining for the evening?”
“I don’t want to hear him mid-stroke if that’s what you mean. Diana would be a bit out of sorts if she answered the phone.” Terry mimicked Diana’s voice. “Glad you’re all right. Now pay attention to her, and call when she leaves.” He slammed an imaginary phone onto its base just as there was a light knock on the unlocked door; Dino burst through the lounge and toward the beer standing on the kitchen counter.
“First one of the day always tastes the best.” He looked round the kitchen and the lounge as he re-entered. “You guys weren’t waiting on me to get started?”
“We’re done,” Terry laughingly reassured him.
“Done?”
I reiterated, “Done!”
“Man, I timed that right.” We saluted Dino’s good luck with upraised bottles.
“May your good fortune continue on your journey.”
“Terry told you finally. Good.” Dino has taken on Terry’s quick head nod. “Saves me a phone call from the airport. God knows, I’ll be living with a phone stuck to my ear till I get back.”
“Max brought up an interesting scenario. If you have a woman with you, don’t call. If you do, I’m letting Diana listen.”
“God, no. Anything but that! Grumpy
Terry’s smug smile answered him.
“OK. So you’d reap the benefits,” Dino grudgingly admitted, “…eventually. Before she got to you, she’d be on the phone to Ellie for sheer meanness.”
“Diana does not strike me as being a spiteful person. In my case, she chose her time to speak,” I thought to our lunch at Jeroboam, “though her words were carefully measured and truly deserved.”
My companions laughed at my observation before Dino commented. “We’ve all had our turns in the barrel with
We finished our beers, interrogating Dino on his plans for
I stood and took his outstretched hand. “Be well, my friend. Strength and honour.” I could say no more.
“Watch your back since I won’t be there to watch it for you.” Terry pulled him close and thumped him twice on the back; there were four shiny eyes as they pulled apart, and I admit to moisture in my own. Whilst I now have a far better understanding of what the kidnapped victim bears, my partners will empathise with the family far more. Our firm’s dynamics with our clients have changed appreciably since the summer.
TERRY
After I dropped Max at the office, assuring him Diana and I had the unloading duties knocked, I realised Diana knew nothing about my plans for her as a removalist tonight. She would take the news with her natural good humour, I hoped. Maneuvering the big truck through downtown streets did not lend itself to a phone convo. I speed dialed home once I merged the big truck into 75’s traffic.
“Hullo, Luv. How’s your day?”
“What’s wrong, Terry?”
“Why would you think anything’s wrong?”
“You’re using your thick Aussie accent, and you called me ‘Luv’. The accent and ‘Luv’ only come out when you’re trying to be extra charming.” She has me sussed better than I do.
“Dino just left for
Her “Oh” was wistful and soft. I can also read her as well. She wanted to talk to him before he left, but she wouldn’t put her recriminations on me.
“Sounds like we need another line on the departure checklist. ‘Call Diana.’”
“And Reags.” That’s my shiela – ever the inclusive one.
“I’ll see to the checklist for future trips first thing tomorrow. I’ll make sure you’ll get to talk to him. He’ll call when he lands.”
I could hear the smile on her face. “Oh, good. I promise not to be sappy to him.”
“You’ll be the first one today who hasn’t. The real reason for my call is I’m bringing something home.”
“As long as it’s not a snake, I’m happy.”
“Good. Max and I packed out the flat today.”
“You tried to get Max’s mind off Dino with manual labor?” The natural laugh underneath her words was about to erupt. “Couldn’t you have taken him out and gotten him drunk? That would have been a lot kinder.”
“I tried not to tell him, but that was too cruel. He had to deal with one of us going out sooner or later.”
“How’d he do?” Her voice had softened in a heartbeat.
“Never blinked an eye …though he seemed to have something in that eye when Dino walked out the door. As I said, Dino may welcome your normal tone with him.”
“How’d you do, Boomer?” Diana can convey so much concern and love for me in four words.
“I’ve been on a roller coaster since Dino got the call; I choked up when he left. I can’t guarantee what I’ll be like when I get home.”
“Well, I don’t care what mood you’re in when you get here. Just come home to me. I love you.”
I much prefer the way Diana ends phone calls now.
DIANA
I had no idea when to expect Terry – he hadn’t said and I hadn’t asked where he was when he called. I sat on the porch drinking tea with two well-iced beers in the cooler at my feet to entice us, well, me, to get the car unpacked. The horses had wandered over to the fence for some after dinner entertainment, and the dogs were in their yard so we could leave the front door open to come and go freely with whatever containers he had chosen to transport his stuff.
The dogs first alerted me that something different was going on. Holly had on her big dog bark; the hair on Okie’s back was standing up. I heard a big truck coming down the road. Maybe someone on the road was having hay delivered. When I finally saw the source of the noise, it was a big silver and red U-Haul truck.
I wandered off the porch, tea glass in hand, to see if it turned into our drive, hoping it wouldn’t. It did. I stepped over to the largest crepe myrtle nearest me for protection; Terry would have to destroy some significant tree trunks before he got to me. He had slowed to a crawl maneuvering down the curving drive. As the driver’s window pulled even with me and I realized I had once again survived one of Terry’s bright ideas, the truck size fully penetrated my linear brain. It even had a life-sized portrait of Shamu and one of her calves on the side. For some reason, the name Shamu has always seemed male to me, but I understand that Shamu isn’t a gender specific name as far as Sea World is concerned. This must be the biggest damned truck U-Haul has in their fleet.
I stepped up on the running board,
looking down its length, and decided we needed to have a barbecue
tonight to
get some help unloading. Too
late to
make a brisket – the chicken, all the hamburger and hot dogs
in the freezer – I
might be able to feed all the people it would take to unload the
behemoth in
front of me. I took
a sip of tea; I
could annoy Terry when he kissed me hello.
I doubt I will ever get him to like iced tea, and this was
sweet tea – a
double no-no in Terry’s eyes.
Terry rolled down the window with the push of a finger, and the air conditioning hit me; U-Hauls have certainly changed since I last used one. I’ll bet this one even has an automatic transmission. I leaned in to kiss him hello, just a peck. He surprised me when his nimble tongue invaded my mouth; I almost choked on the tea. If this is what it takes to convert him to sweet tea, I’ll do it. Beer and sweet tea. Now that’s some combination.
I managed to murmur, “Hi to you, too,” against his mouth. Since I gave no indication that I was leaving the door and held onto it and the kiss, he swung the door open with me attached, stepping out of the truck with our kiss ongoing.
Screw unloading the truck. It can wait.
“That’s a preview of what’s waiting for you when we get the truck unloaded.” Oh, good. Cheerful Terry is home.
“It’ll take forever.” I think I just whined. How embarrassing.
Yep, I whined; Terry laughed at me. “It’s not so bad, Luv.”
“Yes, it is. You’re back in your heavy accent again.”
He pried me off the door, groping my boobs discreetly as he lifted me from it, and we took the half-mile hike to the back of the truck. He unlocked the door, and we separated to roll it up.
I handed Terry my glass and climbed into the box; I saw him take a quick gulp and cringe. He must be thirsty to have even taken a drink.
“Hello, anyone in here?” I swear I heard the echo come back to me. Terry left the glass on the bumper and rode up to the cargo area on the hydraulic lift.
“I didn’t give our car rental guy enough information to procure the right size. With some creativity on Max’s part, it worked.”
My eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness as we walked to the front. “He made a picket line! Instead of horses, he tethered boxes!” I was trying desperately to see how much hauling we would have to do before I could get my reward. Terry had his hands in my hair, kissing my face. He wasn’t trying to give my reward early; he needed me. His jaunty greeting when he had driven up was a sham. When his lips came near mine the next time, I kept them there and stepped into him for his full bodied, welcome home hug. I kissed him long and hard enough for him to need breath, showing him every bit of his passion was returned. Whatever he needed from me was his.
“Rough day?” I asked him gently, running my fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp, kissing the deep lines on his forehead. Of course it had been hard. Either giving up his last vestige of freedom with his flat or Dino’s flight out would have been plenty to contend with; both events in one day was more than he should have to bear. If he was having trouble giving up his flat and whatever it represented to him, I could fix that easily – the flat stays. What he’s going through about Dino and Max I couldn’t fix. He would have to tell me what was troubling him.
“I know we’ve tightened our own security measures as much as we can. We’re in an inherently dangerous business.” I was trying to soak whatever was bothering him into my body to soothe him.
“You’ve done all you can. It’s up to Dino now. What else?”
“Max. Last time he left, I was so callous. I didn’t say enough to him.”
I stood up on tiptoe and brought my mouth close to his ear. “Reags said everything he needed to hear just like this. He didn’t need you.” I felt his shoulders drop under my hands. “No more regrets about Max’s absence. When the shit hit the fan, you did what you had to do.”
We stood for minutes saying nothing, me still on tiptoe, his strong arms holding me stretched against him, his head on my shoulder, my thumb slowly, softly rubbing his ear. He sighed and sagged against me. He might be ready to move on.
“Is this all? One row of boxes?” I started to kid him.
“All I really needed was the photo collage of Henry and me.” His tension had left, but the mood hadn’t. I can spin on a dime to complement him.
“Which box is it in?” He pointed to the box neatly marked “BEDROOM” in Max’s print. I wanted him to be certain I was still in sync with his needs; I wrapped his arm around my waist to keep us connected before I dove into the box he indicated. I felt for anything that seemed like a picture frame and pulled out what felt like a frame, not that I could readily tell. I unwrapped a sheet from around a towel-encased picture frame; it was Henry and Terry. I don’t do young of any species, but “What a cute kid!” slipped out before I could stop it. “Not that I’m prejudiced. I AM in love with his father in all his many moods.”
I felt an imperfection on the frame’s backing. I turned it face down and saw something glued to the back. It was a note.
I turned in his arms. “The rest can wait till tomorrow, but this needs to go into the library with the rest of the family portraits. You need some TLC now.”
The following Sunday
TERRY
“If I bend it right here, it will fit. It won't hurt a bit.”
“Easy for you to say. Be careful,” I answer Diana.
“Your fingers are too big to fit. Just stand there and hold it. We'll be apples.” I hate it when she mimics me.
She bends and pushes; she finally gets some movement. It's looking pretty good. I feel some pride at our accomplishment.
“Watch what you’re hitting! Owwwwww! Bloody hell, Diana. You didn't need that big a hammer to get it in.”
“Stick it in your mouth and suck on it. That will make it feel better while I get some ice. It might stop the bruising.”
She's back quickly with a single ice cube wrapped in a kitchen towel and starts rubbing the ice cube on my thumb. It's my own fault for trying to get the few boxes out of the house before Alex Ross arrives in town for some meetings, and we have a dinner party for him here. At some level, I need to have more of my own imprint on the public rooms in our home for this party even if it’s only these three paintings.
Diana had wanted to store all 10 boxes in the extra bedroom and put the three pictures on the floor for a few days to see how they would look until we have more time to do a proper job of hanging them. We didn’t even have the correct sized hangers, and neither of us relished a trip to Home Depot. She’d assured me we’d have plenty of time to get the pictures on the walls before the party, but I had wanted them up as soon as possible.
Diana’s a bit of a procrastinator. I had visions of Irish putting his foot through one of them as he walked through the dining room the night of the party because they were still on the floor, or worse yet, Okie pissing on one of them as he goes tearing through the house looking for trouble.
Diana interrupts her barely contained mirth at my expense to watch the news intently. She turns up the volume and shushes me.
“ … and the front should be here Wednesday or Thursday. We expect it to be a strong one. Don’t be surprised if we start issuing Severe Thunderstorm Watches as early as Tuesday.”
She turns off the telly.
“Why did you shush me?” My feelings were more than a little hurt. After all, the woman had taken a hammer to my thumb and hadn’t yet shown the proper remorse for doing so. “The weathermen will be yammering on about the front all week, and we won’t get a drop of rain out of it.”
“This one feels different. It’s the wrong time of the year for thunderstorms. The moisture coming up from the Gulf and this front colliding over us have the makings of a bad one. It just feels …weird.”
DIANA
When I lived in LA, I never noticed the weather. The fog would lift about 10 AM; it would be sunny until 4 PM, and then the overcast would come back in. The high temperatures were 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit; the lows were between 60 and 70. Another shitty day inParadise .
The first week I was inDallas
My boss, a native Texan who had lived in LA, had noticed me looking at the sky every five minutes all week long; I had to walk past his office to get to a window. He’d had enough and sent me home at 4:15. As he pushed me out the door, he told me to eat dinner and feed my cat.
“And then what?”
“Watch TV.”
The local stations had a little map in the upper left corner showing where the storms were currently located. Fat lot of good that did me; I didn’t know which county on the map was mine. Every so often, a scroll would go across the bottom of the screen printing the size of the hail, the amount of rain that had fallen, the wind speed, and characterizing the lightning strikes for different towns in the area. Periodically the emergency warning beep, beep, beep would blast through the speakers, making me wake Cissy when I flinched. She’d rearrange herself, and I’d watch which county had gone from a watch to a ‘Severe Thunderstorm Warning.’ Each time the weather person said ‘Severe Thunderstorm Warning’ the forbidding tone was gone; they had started sounding panicked.
The wind picked up. I heard the crack of lightning, the roll of thunder, and the sky opened up with rain. More thunder and lightning – at least the weather gods finally got the order right. Then it was over; Cissy had slept through it all.
The TV beeped, beeped, beeped announcing some other poor souls’ encounter with a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. They named my county. The storm had passed several minutes before. They had warned me after it was all over.
I couldn’t believe it. All that hoo-haw for that? I was unproductive for a week for THAT? Give me a nice 2.3 on the Richter scale earthquake any day of the week. It hits, and it’s over.
The first storm was anticlimactic. Some of the others weren’t. They really didn’t bother me that much until I moved out to the farm and got horses. I feel a responsibility for their well-being, and getting a herd of horses into the bathtub with you to ride out the storm is not feasible. Some days the only reason I watch the news is to see the weather.
Monday morning
I dash out of the bathroom forgoing the distinct pleasure of watching Terry shave to see the weather maps. After he leaves for work, I’ll check the radar on the computer.
“ …front has slowed down. We still think we’ll be issuing a Severe Thunderstorm Watch either Wednesday or Thursday. Be sure to stay tuned for further developments.”
“Is he a preacher on Sundays? He’s got the hellfire and brimstone tone down well.” Terry stands behind me with a towel around his neck; he wipes his left-over lather on my bare back.
I laugh at Terry’s question and flip to the next channel. The weather girl there is also intoning ‘Severe Thunderstorm Watch’ in the same stentorian tone.
“I think they have a course in Speaking Weather 101 as a part of the meteorology major. They all say it the same way.”
Terry would make a good weatherman. The way he says Severe Thunderstorm Watch in my ear makes me shudder …or maybe it was the way he took off his only article of clothing.
Tuesday noon
“ …The front is overEastern Arizona
and …”
Wednesday morning
“We still have the inflow of Gulf moisture, and the winds are out of the south. I don’t see any way of us getting a pass on the conditions for severe thunderstorms.”
This is good. The dire warning tone is missing.
Wednesday dinner
“The National Weather Service has informed us to expect Severe Thunderstorm Watches for all of North Central Texas beginning mid-day Thursday and continuing through Thursday night. Be sure to stay tuned for ….”
Aw, shit. It’s back.
“What do you guys have going on Thursday afternoon? Any clients in?”
Terry laughs at my questions. “We have an early afternoon meeting. Sooze is making contingent plans to get them out on an earlier flight. She doesn’t want their possible delay at the airport due to storms influencing the decision about us.”
Wednesday night
Sometimes I think the weather gods enjoy stringing us poor humans along.
Terry’s had enough of my TV weather addiction. He smothers me under him and is whispering such wonderful things in my ear I have no idea where the front is and could care less.
NOTES
Terry rolled down the window with the push of a finger, and the air conditioning hit me; U-Hauls have certainly changed since I last used one. I’ll bet this one even has an automatic transmission. I leaned in to kiss him hello, just a peck. He surprised me when his nimble tongue invaded my mouth; I almost choked on the tea. If this is what it takes to convert him to sweet tea, I’ll do it. Beer and sweet tea. Now that’s some combination.
I managed to murmur, “Hi to you, too,” against his mouth. Since I gave no indication that I was leaving the door and held onto it and the kiss, he swung the door open with me attached, stepping out of the truck with our kiss ongoing.
Screw unloading the truck. It can wait.
“That’s a preview of what’s waiting for you when we get the truck unloaded.” Oh, good. Cheerful Terry is home.
“It’ll take forever.” I think I just whined. How embarrassing.
Yep, I whined; Terry laughed at me. “It’s not so bad, Luv.”
“Yes, it is. You’re back in your heavy accent again.”
He pried me off the door, groping my boobs discreetly as he lifted me from it, and we took the half-mile hike to the back of the truck. He unlocked the door, and we separated to roll it up.
I handed Terry my glass and climbed into the box; I saw him take a quick gulp and cringe. He must be thirsty to have even taken a drink.
“Hello, anyone in here?” I swear I heard the echo come back to me. Terry left the glass on the bumper and rode up to the cargo area on the hydraulic lift.
“I didn’t give our car rental guy enough information to procure the right size. With some creativity on Max’s part, it worked.”
My eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness as we walked to the front. “He made a picket line! Instead of horses, he tethered boxes!” I was trying desperately to see how much hauling we would have to do before I could get my reward. Terry had his hands in my hair, kissing my face. He wasn’t trying to give my reward early; he needed me. His jaunty greeting when he had driven up was a sham. When his lips came near mine the next time, I kept them there and stepped into him for his full bodied, welcome home hug. I kissed him long and hard enough for him to need breath, showing him every bit of his passion was returned. Whatever he needed from me was his.
“Rough day?” I asked him gently, running my fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp, kissing the deep lines on his forehead. Of course it had been hard. Either giving up his last vestige of freedom with his flat or Dino’s flight out would have been plenty to contend with; both events in one day was more than he should have to bear. If he was having trouble giving up his flat and whatever it represented to him, I could fix that easily – the flat stays. What he’s going through about Dino and Max I couldn’t fix. He would have to tell me what was troubling him.
“I know we’ve tightened our own security measures as much as we can. We’re in an inherently dangerous business.” I was trying to soak whatever was bothering him into my body to soothe him.
“You’ve done all you can. It’s up to Dino now. What else?”
“Max. Last time he left, I was so callous. I didn’t say enough to him.”
I stood up on tiptoe and brought my mouth close to his ear. “Reags said everything he needed to hear just like this. He didn’t need you.” I felt his shoulders drop under my hands. “No more regrets about Max’s absence. When the shit hit the fan, you did what you had to do.”
We stood for minutes saying nothing, me still on tiptoe, his strong arms holding me stretched against him, his head on my shoulder, my thumb slowly, softly rubbing his ear. He sighed and sagged against me. He might be ready to move on.
“Is this all? One row of boxes?” I started to kid him.
“All I really needed was the photo collage of Henry and me.” His tension had left, but the mood hadn’t. I can spin on a dime to complement him.
“Which box is it in?” He pointed to the box neatly marked “BEDROOM” in Max’s print. I wanted him to be certain I was still in sync with his needs; I wrapped his arm around my waist to keep us connected before I dove into the box he indicated. I felt for anything that seemed like a picture frame and pulled out what felt like a frame, not that I could readily tell. I unwrapped a sheet from around a towel-encased picture frame; it was Henry and Terry. I don’t do young of any species, but “What a cute kid!” slipped out before I could stop it. “Not that I’m prejudiced. I AM in love with his father in all his many moods.”
I felt an imperfection on the frame’s backing. I turned it face down and saw something glued to the back. It was a note.
I turned in his arms. “The rest can wait till tomorrow, but this needs to go into the library with the rest of the family portraits. You need some TLC now.”
The following Sunday
TERRY
“If I bend it right here, it will fit. It won't hurt a bit.”
“Easy for you to say. Be careful,” I answer Diana.
“Your fingers are too big to fit. Just stand there and hold it. We'll be apples.” I hate it when she mimics me.
She bends and pushes; she finally gets some movement. It's looking pretty good. I feel some pride at our accomplishment.
“Watch what you’re hitting! Owwwwww! Bloody hell, Diana. You didn't need that big a hammer to get it in.”
“Stick it in your mouth and suck on it. That will make it feel better while I get some ice. It might stop the bruising.”
She's back quickly with a single ice cube wrapped in a kitchen towel and starts rubbing the ice cube on my thumb. It's my own fault for trying to get the few boxes out of the house before Alex Ross arrives in town for some meetings, and we have a dinner party for him here. At some level, I need to have more of my own imprint on the public rooms in our home for this party even if it’s only these three paintings.
Diana had wanted to store all 10 boxes in the extra bedroom and put the three pictures on the floor for a few days to see how they would look until we have more time to do a proper job of hanging them. We didn’t even have the correct sized hangers, and neither of us relished a trip to Home Depot. She’d assured me we’d have plenty of time to get the pictures on the walls before the party, but I had wanted them up as soon as possible.
Diana’s a bit of a procrastinator. I had visions of Irish putting his foot through one of them as he walked through the dining room the night of the party because they were still on the floor, or worse yet, Okie pissing on one of them as he goes tearing through the house looking for trouble.
Diana interrupts her barely contained mirth at my expense to watch the news intently. She turns up the volume and shushes me.
“ … and the front should be here Wednesday or Thursday. We expect it to be a strong one. Don’t be surprised if we start issuing Severe Thunderstorm Watches as early as Tuesday.”
She turns off the telly.
“Why did you shush me?” My feelings were more than a little hurt. After all, the woman had taken a hammer to my thumb and hadn’t yet shown the proper remorse for doing so. “The weathermen will be yammering on about the front all week, and we won’t get a drop of rain out of it.”
“This one feels different. It’s the wrong time of the year for thunderstorms. The moisture coming up from the Gulf and this front colliding over us have the makings of a bad one. It just feels …weird.”
DIANA
When I lived in LA, I never noticed the weather. The fog would lift about 10 AM; it would be sunny until 4 PM, and then the overcast would come back in. The high temperatures were 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit; the lows were between 60 and 70. Another shitty day in
The first week I was in
My boss, a native Texan who had lived in LA, had noticed me looking at the sky every five minutes all week long; I had to walk past his office to get to a window. He’d had enough and sent me home at 4:15. As he pushed me out the door, he told me to eat dinner and feed my cat.
“And then what?”
“Watch TV.”
The local stations had a little map in the upper left corner showing where the storms were currently located. Fat lot of good that did me; I didn’t know which county on the map was mine. Every so often, a scroll would go across the bottom of the screen printing the size of the hail, the amount of rain that had fallen, the wind speed, and characterizing the lightning strikes for different towns in the area. Periodically the emergency warning beep, beep, beep would blast through the speakers, making me wake Cissy when I flinched. She’d rearrange herself, and I’d watch which county had gone from a watch to a ‘Severe Thunderstorm Warning.’ Each time the weather person said ‘Severe Thunderstorm Warning’ the forbidding tone was gone; they had started sounding panicked.
The wind picked up. I heard the crack of lightning, the roll of thunder, and the sky opened up with rain. More thunder and lightning – at least the weather gods finally got the order right. Then it was over; Cissy had slept through it all.
The TV beeped, beeped, beeped announcing some other poor souls’ encounter with a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. They named my county. The storm had passed several minutes before. They had warned me after it was all over.
I couldn’t believe it. All that hoo-haw for that? I was unproductive for a week for THAT? Give me a nice 2.3 on the Richter scale earthquake any day of the week. It hits, and it’s over.
The first storm was anticlimactic. Some of the others weren’t. They really didn’t bother me that much until I moved out to the farm and got horses. I feel a responsibility for their well-being, and getting a herd of horses into the bathtub with you to ride out the storm is not feasible. Some days the only reason I watch the news is to see the weather.
Monday morning
I dash out of the bathroom forgoing the distinct pleasure of watching Terry shave to see the weather maps. After he leaves for work, I’ll check the radar on the computer.
“ …front has slowed down. We still think we’ll be issuing a Severe Thunderstorm Watch either Wednesday or Thursday. Be sure to stay tuned for further developments.”
“Is he a preacher on Sundays? He’s got the hellfire and brimstone tone down well.” Terry stands behind me with a towel around his neck; he wipes his left-over lather on my bare back.
I laugh at Terry’s question and flip to the next channel. The weather girl there is also intoning ‘Severe Thunderstorm Watch’ in the same stentorian tone.
“I think they have a course in Speaking Weather 101 as a part of the meteorology major. They all say it the same way.”
Terry would make a good weatherman. The way he says Severe Thunderstorm Watch in my ear makes me shudder …or maybe it was the way he took off his only article of clothing.
Tuesday noon
“ …The front is over
Wednesday morning
“We still have the inflow of Gulf moisture, and the winds are out of the south. I don’t see any way of us getting a pass on the conditions for severe thunderstorms.”
This is good. The dire warning tone is missing.
Wednesday dinner
“The National Weather Service has informed us to expect Severe Thunderstorm Watches for all of North Central Texas beginning mid-day Thursday and continuing through Thursday night. Be sure to stay tuned for ….”
Aw, shit. It’s back.
“What do you guys have going on Thursday afternoon? Any clients in?”
Terry laughs at my questions. “We have an early afternoon meeting. Sooze is making contingent plans to get them out on an earlier flight. She doesn’t want their possible delay at the airport due to storms influencing the decision about us.”
Wednesday night
Sometimes I think the weather gods enjoy stringing us poor humans along.
Terry’s had enough of my TV weather addiction. He smothers me under him and is whispering such wonderful things in my ear I have no idea where the front is and could care less.
NOTES
| Sweet tea |
Brewed tea that is
heavily sweetened in the pitcher before being poured over ice. It takes a deft hand to
make sweet tea. A
small miscalculation can make it sickeningly sweet.
And for the record, real Texans NEVER use instant iced tea. |
| Picket line |
A way of tethering
horses on open range, usually overnight.
A rope is tied between two objects (normally trees,
if available, or bushes) and the horses’ lead ropes or reins
are tied to the rope. |
| Thunderstorm Watch |
A notification from the
National Weather Service (NWS) that conditions are possible for
lightning and thunder rainstorms with strong wind gusts to form. They can rapidly
strengthen to severe storms. |
| Severe Thunderstorm
Watch |
A notification from the
NWS that conditions are right for severe thunderstorms to occur. Tornadoes are generated
from these types of storms. |
| Severe Thunderstorm
Warning |
A notification from the
NWS that a severe thunderstorm is active in an area.
High winds, hail, extensive lightning, and heavy
rain typify this storm. If
winds begin changing directions in a localized area, a tornado is
possible. The winds
changing directions is called a ‘hook’ and is a
signature a tornado is forming. |