The Stormchasers: A Novel

by Jenna Blum

  “How was it at the end?” he asks, not looking at Karena. “Did she ask for me?”

  Karena sighs. By then, Siri wasn’t capable of speech, just of raspy breath that went on and on, issuing from her skeletal throat, the skin around her mouth swollen and chapped from the tubes.

  “She wasn’t herself by then, Charles,” she says.

  Charles positions the horses at right angles, nose to nose as if they’re kissing.

  “And Dad,” he says. “Jesus, K, you let him marry the Black Widow?” He makes the horses gallop away across the place mat, whinnying in terror.

  Karena remembers standing beside Frank at the wedding, one side of the New Heidelburg Lutheran church choked with the Widow’s multitudinous offspring, on the other just her. The strained smile for the photographer, Karena wanting to whisper in Frank’s ear that he’d better get a food tester.

  “It wasn’t as though I had a choice,” she says. “He’s a grown man. . . . Waaaait a minute. How’d you know about the Widow?”

  “I know everything,” Charles says. “I know about Dad’s stroke too. And how the Wid just stuck him in the Center when the going got tough. I visit him every once in a while.”

  Karena gapes at him. “You do?”

  “Sure.”

  “You have got to be kidding me. God, Charles! Why the hell didn’t you let anyone know you were there? I’ve been looking and looking for you.”

  “Oh,” says Charles casually, “well, I didn’t want to stir the pot. It looked like you were better off without me.”

  He canters the horses over to Karena’s place mat and makes them look at her.

  “I mean, this place”—he waves around the room—“and your job. I’m so proud of you. I read every article you ever wrote, you know that? Yup. Online. You did good, K.”

  “Thank you,” says Karena. “But Charles—”

  The doorbell chimes, and Karena sighs and gets up to go pay the pizza delivery guy. When she sets the pie on the table they both dig in, ravenous, dragging slices out of the box and trailing strands of cheese.

  “I did try and see Dad once before the stroke too,” Charles says, mouth full. “To make up. Right after they were married. I even brought a wedding present, one of those garden gnome things the Wid likes, with toadstools growing out of its head or some shit like that. But he must have been away on a case or something, and when she saw me she pretended not to be home.”

  “She did not,” Karena says.

  “She did.”

  “Maybe she really wasn’t there.”

  “No, she was there all right,” Charles says, picking vegetables off a slice still in the box and adding them to the one on his plate. “Her car was in the driveway and the TV was on, but when she looked out and saw who it was, what do you know, boom! TV goes off. Lights go out. End a story.”

  Karena laughs.

  “That is so despicable,” she says.

  “I know,” Charles agrees. “She’s such a tool.” He folds his slice in half and crams it into his mouth. “What do you think, K, did she do it?”

  “Did who do what?”

  “The Widow. Cause Dad’s stroke.”

  “No!” says Karena, although the thought did initially occur to her, given the Widow’s track record. “I think she just has really bad luck in husbands.”

  “I don’t know,” Charles says darkly. “I wouldn’t rule out strychnine. Or arsenic maybe. Yeah, definitely arsenic. She’s got that arsenic look.”

  “I really don’t think so, Charles. Besides, if she did, she didn’t do a very good job, did she?”

  “Maybe she’s slipping,” Charles suggests.

  “Clearly,” Karena says.

  Charles chews contemplatively. “Speaking of bad marriages,” he says, “that British dope you married? What was up with that? I was so relieved when you kicked him to the curb.”

  Karena stops chewing and stares at him. The fact that Charles apparently has been keeping tabs on her as well as Frank is so huge and unbelievable Karena can’t think about it right now. She files it away for later consideration.

  “He wasn’t so bad,” Karena says.

  “He totally was,” says Charles. “He was an idiot. The Loaf is an upgrade, though not by much. I have to say, K, I don’t think much of your taste in men.”

  “Nobody asked you,” Karena says, then, “What’s the Loaf?”

  Charles tilts his chair back and grins.

  “Wiebke,” he says. “The Loaf. Doesn’t his gut remind you of a loaf of bread? Like the loaves in the Richard Scarry books we liked, with steam coming from them?”

  Karena can’t help laughing. “I did think exactly the same thing,” she admits, and Charles raises his brows and his palms in a there-you-go gesture, then reaches for another slice.

  “So you and the Loaf,” he says in a wheezy Godfather voice, wagging his forefinger back and forth. “How did this come to be?”

  Karena explains, and Charles nods.

  “Nooowwww it makes sense,” he says. “I couldn’t figure out how you got hooked up otherwise. It’s not as though you’re in the same league.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, K. He’s a loafy fortysomething bachelor science teacher. You’re a star reporter. You do the math.”

  “I totally disagree,” says Karena, thinking, Fortysomething? Kevin’s over forty? She’ll have to look him up. “Kevin’s great, Charles. And I’m hardly a star.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, K,” Charles says. “But I can understand how this happened. I used to see it all the time when I was working tours—did Loafy tell you I was a guide too, for a while? He didn’t? Huh. Anyway, I’d see these chase romances go up all the time. You spend so many hours in an enclosed space together, then the drama and excitement of the storms—so intense, right? How could you not fall for each other? It’s all so sexy, the meaningful glances across morning briefing, those stolen moments when nobody else is around. . . . If the Jeep’s a-rockin’, don’t come knockin’—anh?” He winks at Karena. “Right?”

  “You’re a pig,” Karena says, and Charles grins.

  “Thought so,” he says. “Don’t worry, sistah, it’s not just you. Happens to everyone. But then you get home,” he adds, shaking his head sorrowfully, “and what happens? Suddenly—foop! You’re just your normal boring selves again. A pumpkin. In this case, a loaf. And that’s it, the end. Very sad.”

  “Okay,” Karena says, “thank you, Charles.”

  “I didn’t mean you, K. You’re not boring. The Loaf ’s boring.”

  “Charles.”

  “Okay, okay,” says Charles, letting his chair legs thump back down to the floor. “Sensitive subject, I can see. Sorry I said anything. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

  He pinches some cheese off a slice in the box and regards Karena thoughtfully as he chews it.

  “Actually,” he says, “maybe I’ve been too hasty. Yes, I think I have. Because now I can see it. I can totally see it.”

  “Now what,” says Karena, rolling her eyes.

  “You and the Loaf,” says Charles. “You two probably are really good for each other. Because come to think of it, you have a lot in common.”

  Karena starts to ask what, then realizes the most obvious similarity: She and Kevin have both betrayed Charles. They have both turned him in.

  Flushing, she hits the volley back at him. “So what about you? How’s your love life?”

  “Oh, just hangin’ with the ladies,” Charles says, grinning and crossing his hands behind his head. “Makin’ honey while the sun shines,” and then, when he sees how Karena is looking at him, he says, “Okay, fine, I haven’t found the right girl yet. I’ve got kind of a short attention span, you know? I did get engaged once, though.”

  “Did you now,” Karena says. She gets up. “Want some wine?”

  “No thanks,” Charles says, “I’m not big into the booze. I’ll take some of that green tea we brought in
, though.”

  Karena brings in both from the kitchen, then sits back down. “So what happened?” she says, pouring herself a glass of Shiraz. “You don’t have to tell if you don’t want.”

  “No, I’ll tell you,” says Charles, uncapping his tea. He tips the chair back again. “Situ. Indian chick. Gorgeous girl. Met her on a chase in Kansas. She was working in her folks’ motel, and I was looking for a room, and I walked into the lobby and there she was wearing this little pink cut-off T-shirt, and the motel had a hot tub, and I had a bag of very excellent weed, and I’ll spare you the salient details.”

  “Thank you,” says Karena, “I appreciate that. So you contaminated the hot tub, then what?”

  “Then I left,” says Charles, “went off to chase the next day, but the farther away I got, the more I thought, Huh, I think there might have really been something there. I felt kind of regretful, you know? So I finished up the chase I was on—dinky little cell that didn’t produce anything—and then I turned around and went back. This time her dad was on the desk—Mr. Chowdhury. He really did not like me. Oh my goodness, no. But I was persistent. I got a room for the night and sat in the lobby until Situ came back and I took her out on an honest-to-God date—unfortunately at Pizza Hut. Small town, Pleasanton, whaddyagonnado. But it was kismet. I’m serious, K, I wanted to marry this girl and have ten kids with her.”

  “Really,” says Karena, slit eyed. “So, why didn’t you?”

  “Three reasons,” says Charles and lists them on his fingers. “One, Mr. Chowdhury. Two, Mr. Chowdhury. Three, Mr. Chowdhury. He did give me a job there, handyman stuff, working reception—they needed a white guy in there too. It was this tiny farm community like New Hellishburg, so can you imagine what the locals thought of the Chowdhury family? Oh my goodness, the crap I heard. That there were bugs in the rooms. That they ate bugs. That they sacrificed animals. Just the most ridiculous shit. Poor Mr. C, you really had to hand it to the guy, trying to make it work there. It wasn’t his original game plan. He started out in Chicago when they came from Bombay, had a convenience store. But then some junkie shot Mr. C in the face, so when they heard about this motel for sale, they took it.”

  “They shot him in the face!” says Karena.

  “Yeah, I know, nice American dream, right? So Mr. C wasn’t too crazy about American guys trying to date his daughter, and oh, especially one who chased storms, that wasn’t exactly in my favor either. He was convinced I was going to ruin Situ’s life, derail her from going to med school, which they were saving up for. No matter what I did, I could not convince him otherwise. I’d hear them fighting about it in the office, like I’d be on front desk and Mr. C would be saying, It is not enough you take up with an American boy, you have to find one who is crazy, and Situ would be screaming, He’s not crazy, you are, and besides, I love him! and I’d be like, Welcome to Pleasanton Inn & Suites, we have continental breakfast from eight to ten.”

  Karena laughs, then presses her mouth on her wrist. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s not funny, you’re just making it sound . . . So go on.”

  “So then what happened,” Charles says, shoving his hands through his hair, “was I spent that fall and winter there, and we were really happy, K. That was 1999 to 2000, because I remember watching the Millennium in our room and having Jiffy Pop and champagne. But then in the spring of 2000 I started to feel a little antsy—I wasn’t chasing, I forgot to say, because I wanted to convince Mr. C of my good intentions, and frankly Situ wasn’t too happy with the chasing situation either. So I stopped. But you can imagine how well that went. I started to get wiggy, kind of irritable, and then I started to see things.”

  Karena is taking a sip of wine, and although her stomach jumps, she manages to ask calmly, “What kind of things?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual,” Charles says. “First the TV anchors started talking to me, blah blah, and then the gods in the Chowdhury shrine—that was a little creepy because it was Buddha and Vishnu telling me I’d better cut my tongue off, put my eyes out, stuff like that. They were bad. I tried to avoid that shrine whenever possible, which was difficult because it was right in the lobby office. But there was a tornado siren out back too, which I thought was a great omen to begin with, so I’d hang out there for comfort. I’d go out there and stand next to it and be like, Hey, buddy, how are you, and once the siren said, Hello. But meanwhile I woke up one night and Situ was wildly upset. Apparently I’d hit her in my sleep because I’d seen Motorcycle Guy.”

  Karena’s leg jerks involuntarily under the table.

  “What did you tell her?” she asks.

  “That he’d been there,” Charles says absently, and then his eyes widen. He thrusts his palms out, waving them. “Oh, Jesus, no, K! I didn’t tell her what really happened, nothing like that. Goodness, no. Just that ever since I was very little I’d had this—affliction, or gift, or whatever you want to call it; that I have visions. And that this is something I accept about myself as part of who I am, a scary part sometimes, but also the best part of me because it makes me who I am, you know? It helps me understand things. Enables me to find the storms. But without getting into all that, I tell her what’s going on, honestly, which is hard for me because most of the time I keep it to myself, the world has such a misconception about it. And you know what she did?”

  Karena can guess.

  “She told her dad,” Charles says. “Yup. She went straight to Mr. C and told him I’d been hallucinating. Nice show of support, right? But that’s how crazy I was about this girl, K, I wasn’t thinking straight. If I had been, I would’ve known that was going to happen, because what else could I expect from a woman who wanted to be a doctor, of all things? Can you imagine?”

  “Well,” Karena says cautiously, “yes, actually, and I don’t know that it necessarily sounds like a conflict of interest. In some ways it could be ideal—”

  “Yeah, if you accept I have an illness, and I don’t,” Charles says. He levels a finger at her. “I’ve done a lot of research on my condition, K, not just sources from our culture but others that are older and more advanced. And I’ve spent a lot of time with the Lakota, and you know what they call a man like me, K? A man who has visions?”

  “No,” says Karena.

  “They call him a wicasa wakan,” Charles says. “A divine man. A blessed man. Sure, somebody whose soul is eroded more quickly than other people’s, especially if he uses his talents to help them. Because he can see things others can’t, and that’s a psychic burden. Still. It’s not stigmatized like it is in our culture. It’s viewed as it should be, with respect.”

  “Okay,” says Karena, “I hear you, Charles. I understand—”

  “You don’t, though,” Charles says. “You don’t understand what it’s like to have visions like me. Do you?”

  Karena stares at her place mat. After a minute she shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry, K,” says Charles. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice. It just frustrates me that otherwise we’re like one person, but that’s the one thing you don’t get. And it’s not just nature, it’s nurture. You’re a product of our culture. You’ve been brainwashed along with everyone else. Which brings me back to Situ. She was scared of me after that, asked me to see somebody—and again, I should have seen right then that she was not the woman for me, because if she were, she never would’ve forced me to go against my principles. But she did, so for that whole spring I went to a shrink in Lawrence. Sat in this office with posters that said INSPIRATION and TEAMWORK and changed them around in my mind so they said PERSPIRATION and ROADWORK, and this guy with a big mustache talked to me about bipolar this and rapid cycling that and had I ever been on lithium? He put me on four different drug cocktails, and I took it as long as I could, K. Which wasn’t that long, because as you may remember I have an unusual sensitivity to medication. I stopped taking the whatever, and finally when the guy asked me had I considered ECT, it was making quite a comeback, I got up and walked out. I went back to the motel
and packed my bags and said to the siren, I’m outta here, and I left. I haven’t spoken to Situ since.”

  He stops, holds up a finger, and drinks his green tea in a single long swallow.

  “I have looked her up online, though,” he says. “She’s a shrink now, in Denver. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  Karena nods and drinks some wine.

  “I guess,” she says, watching Charles, as she has been all along. Ever since he has started talking—no, since he stepped into her house, since he followed her here, since they met in Austin—Karena has been on high alert for signs of the djinn. She has been waiting for his monologue to swerve into incoherence, to become grandiose and insulting. For his expression to shift and change, to become that dark liquid scorn she remembers so well. But she hasn’t seen the djinn, not today, not tonight, just her brother breathlessly telling a story. And Karena would know the difference, she’s quite confident she would, even after all this time. The djinn is bred into her muscle memory.

  “Well,” says Charles, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “that’s it. The tragic story of my broken engagement—Jesus, come to think of it, that’s something I have in common with the Loaf. He told you about that, didn’t he? Except from what I heard he was the dumpee, not the dumper.”

  “Yes, Charles,” says Karena. “He told me.”

  Charles shakes his head. “Poor guy. You gotta feel for him. But I’m telling you, sistah. Your taste in men . . .”

  “Charles.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  He stands up, yawning.

  “I just hit a wall,” he says. “Do you mind if I go to bed early?”

  “Of course not. And you don’t need to ask. This is your house too.”

  “Thanks, K,” says Charles. He cricks his neck this way and that. “You wouldn’t happen to know a good holistic chiropractor, would you?”

  “Um, no,” says Karena. “But I could find one.”

  “That’s okay,” Charles says. “I’ll do it.”

  He comes around the table and kisses her head.

  “Good night, sistah,” he says. “It’s so good to be here. We have so much to talk about . . . Love you.”