We Speak in Storms

by Natalie Lund

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  Back inside his own house, Joshua took the note out of his pocket and smoothed it out. The handwriting was printed in all caps.

  L—

  I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT OUR DRIVE THE OTHER NIGHT. I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I DISCOVERED NEW LANDSCAPES. I NEVER EXPECTED YOU TO BE SO RIGHT.

  CAN I SEE YOU AGAIN TONIGHT? I WANT TO MEMORIZE YOUR GEOGRAPHY.

  —E

  I never expected you to be so right? This guy had a love letter in his pocket. That was the kind of thing you’d notice missing. Joshua refolded the note. Hopefully, this guy—was he the L or the E?—would just think he’d dropped it.

  Lawrence might be back sooner than expected, and Joshua didn’t want to risk getting caught not in school. He dragged the recycling to the curb, unchained his bike, and looked back at the empty house. His new neighbor was at the window again, this time watching Joshua with the curtains pushed back.

  The man lifted his chin at Joshua, bobbing his head back in this way that was utterly masculine and graceful. But there was something else in the gesture too. Joshua lifted his own chin in return, sure that it was awkward and unpracticed and that he was exposing the rolls of his neck. Still, the moment felt meaningful—like a secret code, like mutual recognition. And in that instant, Joshua was certain that this man, this Wolverine, was gay.

  Brenna ordered a small iced coffee and plucked a straw from Bean City’s canister. Really, she wanted to order a latte or a frappé for her Friday treat, a sweet creamy beverage that would keep her full until lunch, but she’d been broke since her summer job at the Ice Cream Palace ended.

  She waited for her drink, scanning the morning patrons in line with their briefcases and shipped-in copies of the Chicago Tribune. One old man sat at the counter, counting change in his palm. Another had the local paper, the tornado still earning a spot above the fold. She wondered if there was anything new about the car.

  She looked around further and froze, every hair on her body standing at prickly attention. Colin, her Person, sat at one of the tables, his back to her, brown curls peeking out from under his slouched beanie. He wore a slate-gray T-shirt with a hole in the collar. That hole—she knew—only went through the first layer of the cotton. When they were together, she’d slid her finger through and snaked it along the inside of the collar. The fabric was so soft and thin from washing that it felt like gauze. More than anything, Brenna wanted to smell the shirt: name-brand detergent with a hint of pressed wood from his dresser. The desire thrummed in her ears. She tried to think of something she could say—anything—that would give her access to the fabric. She imagined walking up and taking it between her fingers, pulling it toward her nose.

  A laugh broke her staring spell, and Brenna realized there was a girl facing Colin. She had marshmallow skin and Midwestern blond hair: sun-whitened around the face, with darker golden tones along the neck and behind the ears. Brenna’s own hair was thin and flat. She dyed the tips because there was nothing else to do with them, because she wanted to give people something to look at besides her crooked teeth or her well-worn clothes: baggy jeans, black ribbed tanks, half-buttoned flannels, a black zip hoodie, and red combat boots.

  Brenna knew she should turn away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the girl’s heart-shaped face, straightened teeth, freckles. In her throat, Brenna felt the erasure of the tiny hope she’d harbored that the Same Life Stage Girl was just a passing fling, that she’d run into Colin and have a chance to show him how mature she could be. This girl was so white, so American pie. It made Brenna feel like a beacon in the coffee shop, like she was blinking brown.

  When they’d been a couple, Colin had pretended not to hear when his younger brother joked that they better use protection because Brenna was bound to be super fertile. He pretended not to notice his mother glaring at Brenna as if she were going to steal something. But when they went out with his friends in the Cities, he acted like Brenna was a novelty.

  “She knows all about Mexican Modernism,” he’d once told a friend at the art museum, even though she certainly didn’t.

  “I bet your family has incredible textiles,” the friend had said.

  “They do,” Colin had responded, which, again, was untrue.

  When Brenna asked him about it later, he said he must have misremembered. “But I bet you’re more of an expert than you think,” he’d added. And there it was again: that shiny version of her that he wanted to believe in. That she did too.

  Before her now, Colin reached out the hand with the thread-thin scar and took the girl’s. The movement knocked the breath out of Brenna.

  “Brenna,” the barista called, holding out an iced coffee. Colin started to turn, and Brenna’s breath returned in a rush. She scrambled, grabbing her coffee and shoving open the shop door to the loud clatter of bells. She was sure Colin had seen her practically tumble into the parking lot, but that didn’t stop her from speed-walking to her car, squeezing the sweating plastic cup in her hand.

  Someone had tucked a flyer under Golden Girl’s wiper that advertised a band, the River Bandits, in bold white letters. The women on the poster were dressed in rockabilly style, all lipstick and sculpted curls. They were playing a concert that night, in the courtyard the coffee shop shared with one of the town bars.

  Brenna was about to crumple the flyer and chuck it, so she could make her escape, when she saw a girl peeling that same flyer off another windshield two cars down. Her hair was blue-black, straight, with short bangs and a ponytail that curled around her neck. Her makeup was exaggerated like the women’s on the poster—skin powdered, false eyelashes, and cherry-red lipstick. She wore a polka-dot top tucked into high-waisted, cropped black pants, and shiny patent-leather Mary Janes.

  The girl noticed Brenna and straightened, using the flyer to shield her eyes from the sun. She was staring so directly, so unashamedly, that Brenna wondered if she’d forgotten to put on pants or something equally embarrassing.

  “Hi?”

  “Hey!” the girl said, coming to life with a start. “You going to this show?” When the girl smiled, the makeup cracked in rays extending from the corners of her eyes and lips. There was something off about her so-black-it’s-blue hair and doll eyes, something that didn’t belong in a daylit parking lot.

  “I’m not twenty-one,” said Brenna.

  “What’s that matter?” The girl crossed the empty parking spaces, walking closer. “Wait, are you Brenna Ortiz?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “My name is Dot. I live in the Cities, but I’m originally from here.”

  “Yeah? You knew my brother, Manny?”

  Dot made a gesture that was half shrug, half nod.

  “When’d you graduate?”

  Dot’s smile went lopsided. “I didn’t.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Dot looped the curl of her ponytail around one finger. “Hey, you live over by the cemetery, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ever see the blue stones?” Dot asked, flashing her red-lined smile again.

  The coffee shop’s glass door opened with a jingle, reflecting the sun in Brenna’s eyes momentarily. It was too late to duck into the car. Colin, holding the door open for the girl, looked right at Brenna. She waited for some emotion to register on his face: happiness or welcome or even discomfort. But he rubbed the back of his neck, right where the tiny collar-hole was, his face blank.

  “The blue stones?” Dot repeated. “You know the ones?”

  “Sorry, yeah. I’ve seen them.” Brenna watched as Colin opened the driver’s-side door and lifted himself up. He met Brenna’s eyes for just a second before swinging the door shut.

  “He really broke your heart, didn’t he?” Dot said.

  Brenna looked at Dot. The girl’s observation made her shiver. “How’d you
know?” she asked.

  Dot’s smile was lopsided again. “If it means anything, I also know you’re a hundred times better than him.”

  Brenna blushed. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say that.”

  “Someone’s gotta say something. You’re beating yourself up over that.” Dot waved her hand dismissively in the direction of his Jeep.

  “He’s not that bad, but thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Of course you are. Here.” Dot slid her hand into her purse and pulled out a notebook with a lavender leather cover. She held it out for Brenna to take. “Go on.”

  Puzzled, Brenna looked at the notebook. “What’s this for?”

  “For you.”

  Brenna shook her head, still confused.

  “It’s how I process everything. You’re a writer too, right? Go on. Take it.” Brenna did so, and the girl waved the flyer and headed for the bar. “I’ll see you at the show, Brenna Ortiz.” Even the girl’s walk was strong, confident. A swagger.

  Brenna blinked at the notebook in her hand. There were piles of composition notebooks under her bed filled with doodles and journal entries from before she met Colin. A few poems and stories, too, that she’d entered into the Mercer Journal’s writing contests, earning the favor of many of her English teachers and a few blue ribbons that her mother had tacked on their fridge. Colin thought you should live your life instead of writing about feelings. That part of her felt so distant now, small and dark, like she was looking back at herself from the end of a long tunnel.

  Something fizzed under her skin, something she hadn’t felt since Colin had broken up with her—anticipation maybe, like this stranger’s interest in her meant something. But she was unsettled, too, by how well the girl seemed to know her. Then she remembered Gretta’s words from the cemetery and wondered: Was someone trying to tell her something?

  Callie used to wake up earlier on Friday mornings so she could attend youth group before school. Lately she woke up early to pretend she was attending; she’d stopped going months ago. But this morning there was no one to pretend for; the house was silent. Her mother had come home from the hospital late, too tired for Callie to bother her with questions about strange old women and Lincoln.

  Callie put on a T-shirt and jeans and brushed her teeth before waiting outside her mom’s door. Her father emerged from their bedroom, shutting the door carefully so that it didn’t click.

  “She’s still asleep. Ready for youth group?” He handed Callie the keys, but she didn’t feel like driving anymore—not after the tornado.

  “I’m tired,” she said, trying to hand them back.

  “Me too. But you’re the one who needs more practice before tomorrow.”

  In the driveway, Callie settled into the driver’s seat, checked her mirrors, and backed up slowly, looking over her shoulder like her mother had taught her.

  Her father cleared his throat, the signal that “a talk” was coming. Callie’s stomach dropped. She’d avoided a bedside chat with her mother—only to end up here.

  “Mrs. Walsh called me and said you haven’t shown up for youth group in a while,” he said. “Which is strange, because I’ve been dropping you off.”

  Callie used to enjoy youth group and reconnecting with her classmates who’d gone to St. Malachy’s Elementary. The doughnuts were a welcome change from the Gatorade and granola she ate after her runs with her dad. And he was right: he had been dropping her off. But the past few months, Callie had instead found herself pulled to the chapel down the hall from the group room, where she could be alone. She’d kneel, hands folded and eyes lowered, until a ding on her phone reminded her it was time to walk across the soccer field to the high school. Callie didn’t pray during this time, but she didn’t think, either. She sank into a state of blankness, where the grumbling, nagging hunger in her stomach disappeared, where the perpetual ache for the days before her mother’s illness slipped away.

  “I’ve just been going to the chapel,” Callie said. “I want to be by myself.”

  Her father was quiet for a moment. “I understand. That’s natural. But this is important to your mom. I think she wants to know that you have a network of love and support aside from just me.”

  Callie felt the ache in her throat again, the kind that might explode out of her as sobs. She kept moving her eyes in the pattern her mother had taught her: windshield, rearview, left, right, repeat.

  “And it’s something you might need right now.” His voice cracked. “It’s something we all need. Can you try to actually go this morning? For her?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Callie said—only to quiet him.

  When she walked into the group room, Grant, who she’d had a crush on since elementary school, was talking about the tornado. She sank into her spot next to Leslie, and her friend’s mouth opened in shock at the sight of her.

  “The meteorologists are full of shit,” Grant was saying. “An F2 wouldn’t have taken out a turbine. It had to be at least an F3.”

  “What do you think the 1961 one was?” Silas, another classmate, asked.

  “F4, I’d bet. I’m sure the chances of it happening twice on the same date, in the same spot, and at the same intensity are minuscule.”

  “Yeah, my grandma keeps taking Dad’s car and driving to the field. She’s hoping that she’ll hear from her sister,” Silas said.

  Callie thought of the whispers rustling around her, could practically feel them on her skin now. Something had happened. But she wasn’t any closer to figuring out what. She had to find Brenna and Joshua again and see what else they knew.

  Leslie nudged her elbow. Her friend was wearing her dark curly hair in an effortless bun on top of her head. Two curls were loose, framing the thick eyebrows that always made Callie jealous.

  “Aren’t you going to say hi to me?” she asked.

  “Sorry. Hi,” Callie said, turning her attention to her last remaining friend. Since the diagnosis, Leslie offered to help cook or clean at Callie’s house, she planned outings to malls and water parks, she called to check on Callie’s mother. She was patient with Callie’s lack of interest, but Callie knew she’d give up soon, that she’d take the apathy personally and drift off to the theater kids and band geeks like the others had.

  “I can’t believe you’re here today,” Leslie said.

  “My dad made me come.”

  Leslie passed the box of doughnuts to Callie. At once, Callie felt hungry, dizzyingly so, and nauseated at the overly sweet smell of the cakes. There was something chemical about the scent, cloying. Callie pushed the box away, ignoring the concern stamped on Leslie’s face.

  “So why weren’t you at practice yesterday?” Leslie asked, in a voice that suggested she was trying to be casual, and also trying to mask something underneath: More concern? Annoyance? Anger? Callie was saved from answering by Mrs. Walsh welcoming her back and asking the members to say things they liked about her. The talking stick moved around the room, Callie’s peers’ eyes dropped to their hands, and she listened to them describe someone she didn’t know.

  Callie is very caring.

  She has a nice smile.

  She lives her life according to Christ.

  Leslie: She’s always there for you.

  Was that sarcasm in her voice?

  They all looked at Callie when they finished, expecting something.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad I have a network of love and support at a time like this.”

  Mrs. Walsh nodded, pleased. “I thought we’d start today by reading John 14.”

  Callie listened, knowing she was supposed to take comfort in the fact that there’d be a house of many rooms prepared for her mother—and for herself, too—and that they’d be somehow reunited in this afterlife. But how could her mother believe that was true and believe that Mrs. Jenson, the Storm Spirits, and the other Mercer ghosts were lingering
around? Why didn’t they get to go to their own great house in the sky? It made Callie’s head buzz to think about.

  She stood up, murmuring something to Leslie about needing the restroom. She headed for the chapel and sank down onto a kneeler. She liked the way the old cushions depressed under her kneecaps. She folded her hands, resting her forehead against them, and tried to empty her mind of thoughts of her mother. Sometimes, to empty it, she had to imagine filling it with something else—like the cotton stuffing inside her childhood stuffed animals. But the image of cotton stuffing only reminded her of Mrs. Vidal’s perm, of the eerie feeling Callie had had that the woman knew her, the house, and her mother too well.

  WE REMEMBER ELEANOR ROCKING

  We remember Eleanor rocking on the porch, little Celeste in her lap. Eleanor was the latest in the line of Peterson women who ran the inn. Small and wiry with blue eyes like cut glass, and frizzy yellow hair. She’d flick her eyes at those of us who toddled by, initially protective and ferocious, then softening with recognition. She’d hail us, call a few questions to our mothers from her swing, and nod firmly at their responses—like a town watchman, keeping the peace.

  Back then, we didn’t doubt that Celeste would grow up to be the town’s hearth and home, like her mother and her mother’s mother and so on. Baking rolls and scrambling eggs and flapping sheets for future Lincolns. Reciting the inherited story for any who stopped in: You’re staying where Lincoln stayed on his way to Springfield. We serve boiled oats and fresh jam every morning because that was what he ate here. He wasn’t one for hotcakes or pie. No, he was a man of simple tastes. For a few of us, it’s more than just a story; we witnessed his first stop through just three years shy of his presidency. He smiled with the whole of his long face when he left the inn to debate Douglas in Galesburg. Who wouldn’t want a pride like that for their daughter?

  Every day around two, we’d watch Eleanor walk Celeste down Main to French Imports; her husband, a Frenchman, had escaped his homeland in the war and opened his own store in Mercer. This—a Peterson woman’s marriage to a foreigner, a foreigner who had run from the war—was something the old folks in town scoffed at.