Weather Woman

by Cai Emmons

  Earl’s way of seeing is bleeding into her a little. She is acutely aware of her own porousness. Something is fomenting, the day hankering for a fight, not just with anyone, but with her specifically, vengefully, as if Vince’s will is behind it. Lightning streaks down from aloft, a thin zipper. Thunder snaps, then morphs to a long low groaning. Earl echoes the groan. Bronwyn drifts. Her skin begins to hum, her vessels dilate, the heat coalesces and slides through her blood. Her gaze ticks over the cloud directly in front of them. A classic wall cloud.

  The skies hemorrhage. Hail pounds the windshield. Ahead of them a tornado swaggers into view, shimmering like a hologram, snaking east, an animated column, skinny at its base, splayed wider at it its top, its edges indistinct but still a discrete thing. It twists and bends like a human with a waist, supple as a hoola-hooper, mocking in its gyrations, prowling laterally across the horizon. As they watch, it swerves, reverses directions, advances straight toward them as if the two of them are its intended prey. She thinks of Vince. Earl pulls to the side of the road, shuts off the ignition. He bows his head. “Blessed Father, hold us safe . . .”

  Bronwyn tumbles from the car into a granular rain and steadies herself on the road’s shoulder. The funnel is closer now and it swivels and taunts, advancing quickly one moment, then taking its time, continuously spewing digested debris. She stares it down as the heat rises to her head and sounds of the ordinary world—the battering rain, Earl’s muttered prayers—slide away.

  She ascends into the spinning wind, the whizzing electrons, the immense charge, meeting it all with her own immense charge. Then begins the rhythmic hurling, her brain seethes and pops, and she falls into blackness.

  19

  She lies under a quilt on a couch in a dim shabby living room. An image swoops into her mind like an eagle coming to perch: the tornado swaggering toward them, darkly malevolent. She squashed it, but she herself is not squashed. She is whole, awake, present.

  Earl sits a few feet away in a straight-backed wooden chair, cap and glasses removed, bald pink head bent toward her, hands in a teepee, muttering syllables of prayer. He senses her wakefulness, opens his eyes and fixes them on her. They are large and faceted, robin’s egg blue.

  “Praise God! How’re you feeling?” he asks.

  “Fine,” she says, discovering that she is. She’s carved out and a little dazed, but essentially fine, even elated. She did what she planned to do.

  “I was so worried. You were out there in the storm and the tornado disappeared, real sudden, and a second after that you went down. Boom! You’ve been out for two hours now. I’m so happy you’ve joined us again.” Earl stands abruptly. “Can I get you something? Tea? Soup? A sandwich?”

  “Water would be nice.”

  She props herself up while Earl fetches water. The room is a product of decades past, the mid-twentieth century perhaps, with fading floral wallpaper, chairs upholstered in fraying chintz, lace curtains without utility. One section of the room is defined by an upright piano with chairs grouped in a semicircle around a braided rug, as if a small choir is expected any minute. The other half of the room features the couch on which she is lying and four easy chairs oriented toward a fireplace and a TV. A stack of folding chairs in one corner makes it clear the room is accustomed to hosting large groups. Despite the need of upkeep, the place exudes a sense of safety with its lagoon of deep silence and the soft early evening light sifting through the dusty window panes.

  Earl rattles around in the kitchen. She tries to review what happened. Why wasn’t she scared? For a while, driving along with Earl, watching the storm approaching, the wall cloud foreshadowing exactly what was to come, she was terrified, but then a moment came when the fear dissolved, and she swooned into the storm, spilling herself beyond her usual edges, becoming part of it as if her body had undergone some alchemical change. She was folded into the trumpeting thunder, the strands of lightning, the concealed moraines of the clouds. She gave herself over to the spiraling winds. It was malevolent and yet she withstood the malevolence. Now she understands firsthand what Earl said about tornadoes harboring evil intent. But her own intent—where does that fit in? She thinks of Vince again with a flash of hatred.

  Earl carries a tray into the living room. A glass of water, a bowl of tomato soup, and saltines. She laughs. “My mother always gave me the same thing when I was sick. I’m not sick.”

  “But I’m sure you’re tired. You don’t have to eat this, but if you want it, help yourself.”

  He draws a small folding table up to the edge of the couch, lays down the tray, hands Bronwyn her water, and takes his seat again, intent on her, his face a tablet of concern. Sweat makes eels of his broad hands. He must have lifted her to get her here. He is a mouth breather, and he has trouble controlling his lower lip, and she can smell the coffee on his breath, possibly the plaque on his teeth. In other situations she knows he’s someone she might avoid.

  “It’s cozy here,” she says. “Do you have a family?”

  “I have a boy, Luke. He’s fifteen. He lives with his mom across town.”

  “So you’re here alone?” She studies his eyes again, drawn by some mystery they seem to evince even through his thick bifocals.

  “Oh, I live alone, but I’m not really alone much.” He laughs. “I’m a people person. You can see that, can’t you?”

  She sips her water, trying to repel his expectant gaze, concentrating on the way the water’s molecules fill her mouth but do not impinge on her teeth. She finally turns to him and finds his eyes awash in tears.

  “I’ve seen some amazing things in my time. But never, ever have I seen the like of what I saw today. I would have to call it a miracle. 'He rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm.’ Matthew 8.”

  “Oh, please don’t. Please. That makes me terribly uncomfortable.”

  “But you turned that tornado to dirt. I watched that sucker tumble like a slain soldier. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. If only Vince had been there to see. I have half a mind to call him.”

  “Please . . . I don’t . . .”

  Earl nods, frowns. “He means well.”

  She disagrees. “It isn’t a miracle,” she says. “I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s something else.”

  “We don’t need to name things,” Earl says. “You call it what you want to call it. I’ve told you what I think of names—they usually get in the way. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you how you did what you did, that’s your concern.” He pauses, frowns. “I don’t want to tire you out, but when you’re feeling up to it, I got a favor to ask you.”

  What a relief to not be questioned. What a surprise. She likes this Earl. “What would that be?”

  “Some folks want to see you. They want to thank you.”

  “You told people?”

  “Only good people, people who understand—” He leaps up from his chair, kneels by the couch and takes her hand in his sweaty one so they slime together. His tears are flowing now. “Oh, dear me.” He drops her hand to find a handkerchief in his pocket. “I’m embarrassing myself.” He blows his nose and stashes his handkerchief and stands. “Pull yourself together, Earl.” He walks to the window and gazes out. “It’s going to be a beautiful sunset. What do you think about those folks coming over?”

  Warmed by Earl’s kindness, she can’t say no. There is something too sad and loveable about him to refuse his request. He leaves her to rest for a while. She eats some soup and dozes. She hears Earl showering. She would like to shower too, but all her things are at the Holiday Inn in Oklahoma City, along with her rental car. Earl comes bustling back.

  “I thought you’d want to hear this.” He goes to the TV and turns up the volume. It’s Vince Carmichael.

  “It was a stroke of incredible luck. Today’s supercells, which were sporting high winds and had already spawned several serious tornadoes, crashed very suddenly. The winds were powerhouses one moment, and then they simply lost all their momentu
m in a matter of minutes. In all my years of broadcasting weather in Oklahoma, I have never witnessed anything like it . . .”

  Earl lowers the volume as Vince, gesturing wildly in his trademark way, details the storm’s path, its divergence into two supercells, and its subsequent demise.

  “That’s you!” Earl is as animated as Vince. “You did that! You wowed even Vince.” She can’t keep her eyes off Vince’s windmilling arms. She’s not in the habit of watching him without sound, but it does seem as if he’s more active and excited than usual. “I might not have become a meteorologist if it weren’t for him.”

  “You won’t let me call him?”

  She vacillates. It would be satisfying to have Vince know what she did, but would Earl’s testimony sway him? “Please don’t,” she says.

  The visitors let themselves in, coming through the kitchen door and parading into the living room in single file. Earl has laid out plates of Oreos and Dixie cups and a large pitcher of pink juice. He sits at the piano pounding out “This Little Light of Mine” and singing along, nodding at his visitors, nodding at Bronwyn. They come right up to where Bronwyn sits, and one by one they introduce themselves. She shakes their hands. Patty Birch. Dixon Mason. Winona Burns. Glen Otway. She loses track of their names as the living room fills. Eventually the room is crowded with twenty people, maybe more. They seat themselves, keeping her, their object of study, in view. Some of them begin to sing quietly along with Earl. The women are all large, with pillowy bosoms, dressed in pull-on pants and loose tunics, their hair gray, their faces smooth and rosy-cheeked and pleasantly placid. The men, somewhat leaner though not a lot, are also gray-haired, middle-aged, casually dressed. What is it about this group that makes them appear so devoid of meanness? Perhaps it’s their curiosity that tinges them so, or the fact of Earl’s singing which casts an all-is-right-with-the-world religious tone over the gathering. Are these his parishioners or friends? Probably both in a town of twelve hundred.

  They gaze at her unabashedly and, though she first feels herself recoiling and wanting to hide, she tries to be polite and sit still and think of their regard as nothing more than a certain kind of rain that will not last. She is quite sure she would want to study someone like herself as closely as she could. Perhaps they gaze at her with the same open-eyed wonder she brings to the clouds.

  Finally Earl stops playing and draws up a folding metal chair to the circle that has formed around Bronwyn. “Evening all,” he says.

  He is greeted with a chorus of Evening, Pastor and Hey, Earl.

  “Help yourselves to refreshments. So glad you came by. We can chat for just a bit, but you understand that Ms. Artair needs to rest and doesn’t want to talk too much.”

  Bronwyn wishes Earl would keep playing. She would really rather not chat at all. These visitors will want her to explain herself, and she has no inclination, ability, or stomach for that. They are used to being at Earl’s place, and they help themselves to punch and cookies without needing encouragement. One woman fills a plate and cup for Bronwyn, and Bronwyn accepts them gratefully. It occurs to her that she has eaten very little today—some toast before her meeting with Vince, the melted ice cream, a little soup.

  Night has colonized the windows and seals them in hermetically. Earl’s lamps shed warm yellow light. He sits beside her, patting her knee with proprietary pride, then removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. He must be tired too. Without glasses his voluminous head, pink and rubbery, looks naked, and his blue eyes stand out even more. She has the feeling she’s seeing something very personal about him, a certain sadness he usually, as a public person, keeps hidden.

  “Did you all see Vince Carmichael tonight?” Earl says. “I’ve never seen him more flabbergasted.”

  “Oh, yes,” says one of the men, chuckling. “He was struggling for words. You don’t see Vince Carmichael struggling for words very often.”

  “He said more storms are on the way, later this week,” says a man with a gold front tooth.

  Patty Birch, one of the women whose name Bronwyn remembers, looks stricken by this information. “I didn’t see that. I don’t watch the news anymore. It scares me. My sister wants me to move out to California with her, but I can’t do that. What would I do in California? Honestly, I couldn’t leave everyone here. Besides, they have earthquakes there. And fires.” She sobs quietly. The woman beside her squeezes her shoulder.

  “She lost her husband back in May,” another woman explains to Bronwyn. “That tornado just lifted his truck and that was that.” She shakes her head. “We have needed someone like you so badly. Are you here to stay?”

  Since the meeting with Vince the future has vanished. There is only now. “I live in New Hampshire. I work at a TV station back there.”

  “Tornado season should be over soon,” says the man wearing a jacket, curiously overdressed on this hot night. “Should have been over a long time ago, but if we can make it through this next round we might be okay. Can you do anything to help us out?”

  The dolor of Patty’s quiet weeping seeps through the room and hushes them. Bronwyn regards the assembled faces, all listing in her direction, all painted with hope as if she has wisdom or power to sprinkle like seeds. No one is saying: What the heck? We don’t believe you. We need to see to believe. Or: We need to understand to believe. It almost feels as if she’s at a terrorists’ cell meeting where certain articles of belief need no further clarification. She is not accustomed to being regarded as a source of power. She does happen to have a kind of power, but why do they accept it so readily? Would they take on faith anything Earl said? Their gullibility unnerves her, almost as much as Vince’s kneejerk skepticism.

  Patty Birch has stopped sobbing and is now gulping deep audible breaths.

  “I have to get back to my job,” Bronwyn says.

  Earl senses her discomfort. “I think we need to call it a night. This gal needs some sleep. Let’s take a minute to give thanks.”

  Everyone bows their heads and shifts their attention to Earl.

  “Almighty God, we thank you for your divine gift to us in our hour of need. You have brought this brave and talented and holy woman to us. Bless her and guide her and keep her from harm. And hear our thanks for all you have given us. Amen.”

  Amens ripple throughout the room and people stand. They face Bronwyn, bowing a little. How embarrassing! She is not holy, not remotely so. But she nods back at them nonetheless. Patty and another woman are standing in front of her, obviously wanting something.

  “Is it alright if we touch you?” Patty says. “We could use some good luck. And from what Earl says you seem to be very good luck.”

  Bronwyn smiles, shrugs. Patty reaches out and slides her palm down the side of Bronwyn’s head, fondling the tips of her loose hair. The other woman does the same.

  “You don’t see hair like this every day. This dark red color. So beautiful. Magical really,” says the woman who is not Patty.

  “Thank you for indulging us,” Patty says. “Who would think our little town would be blessed with a miracle worker.”

  “Please, I can’t do miracles.”

  “Call it what you want. In my book, it’s a miracle. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  20

  Joe has gone out for the Sunday papers. Diane awaits his return, sipping her coffee, nibbling her toast. Maybe later she'll make some eggs, but now she is happy to simply sit here, reveling in this moment of summer at its ripest. The tide is out and long strands of morning sunlight illuminate the salt flats, bringing a sheen to their fetid gray. Sometimes she likes to walk out there in her knee-high rubber boots, inhaling the sulfurous smell that most people revile, checking for clam bubbles and collecting pearlescent shells for the mosaics she imagines making but never has time for.

  She would love to live in perpetual summer with its languid rhythms and loose routines that leave room for surprises. Winter is the season of hard tasks: grants are written, squabbles mediated, blizzards endured. Back
in the city Joe gets moody, and worried about his work, certain he’s lost his talent, sure he has written the last good thing he’ll ever write. She tries to reassure him, but there is only so much she, a non-writer, can say. So, when they both survive those grueling dark winter months, and summer arrives on schedule, and they return to savor the Maine summer, it always seems at least one part miracle.

  The house is modest, built in the early twentieth century, with creaky floorboards and a leaky roof and rot that needs to be fixed, but it is beautifully situated on a private, semi-wooded promontory above a tidal cove. They purchased it fifteen years ago, mainly as a summer retreat for Joe, but now she is as attached to it as he is. Occasionally Joe returns for a few days in the winter months, but Maine is lonely then and, although he loves solitude, he never lasts here more than a week in the off-season. He likes the knowledge that people are nearby, even when he isn't actively engaging with them.

  Beyond the glistening mud flats the ocean is calm. The pacific Atlantic. She loves this ocean, this patch of land, this needy house.

  She hears Joe pull into the gravel driveway and shuffle up the outdoor steps to the deck. He likes going for the paper at Cushing’s, the mom-and-pop store that has been owned by the same family for over a century. It sells newspapers and magazines, ice cream, various canned foods, souvenirs, local crafts, penny candy, such an odd assortment of items she's amazed it's still in business. Joe likes talking to Mr. Cushing, a taciturn down-easter who only speaks to a few select individuals, one of whom happens to be Joe. He doesn’t engage with Diane, a summer person only, and in Mr. Cushing’s view one of the despised invaders who is ruining the state by crowding the streets and making real estate unaffordable for the locals, but Joe, who is around more often, has developed a rapport with Cushing. He always comes home with new stories about Cushing and his family members, usually dismal stories about n’er-do-well sons-in-law, and women who have eschewed family and fallen prey to the bad values in Massachusetts and New York.