The Waiting Sky

by Lara Zielin

  “This isn’t about sides,” Ethan interjects. “It’s about our team. It’s about science.”

  “Screw off, Boy Scout,” Victor replies. “No one asked you.”

  “Vic,” Stephen says, lowering his voice, “please stop. No one wants to see you acting like this.”

  “Then fine,” Victor says, collecting his cell phone and a few miscellaneous papers, “I’m gone.”

  He storms past me without so much as a glance.

  “I take it Victor’s permanently constipated, then?” Mason asks. He’s still got the duct tape in his freckled hand, mid tear—he was fixing a walkie-talkie when the fighting broke out.

  “I’m sorry, you guys,” Stephen says, hunching his shoulders. “Victor hasn’t been the same since . . . well, you know.”

  The same since what? I wonder, approaching the table.

  “I know he’s exceptionally hard to deal with right now,” Stephen continues, “but he’s also an integral member of this team. He understands Polly better than anyone, and we need him. He’ll get over this thing. I know he will.”

  I’m about to ask what part of the story I’m missing, when Hallie spots me and speaks first.

  “Oh, hey, Jane,” she says. She looks adorable in a cowboy hat, shorts, and rugged boots that come to just above the ankle. She’s not even posing about the Western thing—she actually grew up on a ranch in Texas. Her blond hair, like mine except silky and straight and without the hints of red—which is to say, nothing like mine at all—is pulled into a low ponytail.

  “Hey,” Ethan says to me. “You sleep okay?”

  “Sure,” I say quickly, wanting to circle back to Victor. “Everything okay here?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Stephen says, waving his hand like he’s ready to wipe away the whole discussion. “Victor just needs to get with the program.”

  “So we chase the nearby dry lines today?” Hallie asks, speaking again before I can get any questions out.

  “Absolutely,” Stephen says, and I rack my brain to remember what the heck a dry line is. After a moment, it occurs to me that it’s the line where hot air meets cold air, which is what needs to happen for twisters to form.

  Mason, Ethan, Hallie, and Stephen are all back to discussing the radar, which is my cue to grab food, though I make a mental note to ask Ethan about Victor later.

  I head toward the waffle maker, passing the coffee and juice machines. This early in the morning, I practically have the whole buffet to myself. But just as I get there, someone’s standing next to me. “You using the waffle maker, or can I go?”

  I look over and am surprised to see a guy around my age. There just aren’t that many teenagers at an Oklahoma Days Inn on a Thursday morning. I’m about to ask him what he’s doing here when he points to the waffle machine. “Seriously. Can I use this? I’m starving.”

  He taps his foot a little. He’s wearing the same brand of shirt Cat bought for her boyfriend last Christmas. Designer crap, meaning he’s probably some rich kid who thinks he’s entitled to waffles before everyone else. Most likely he’s just passing through Oklahoma on a road trip. His douchebag frat friends are probably only seconds from showing up.

  “Whatever,” I say, holding back an eye roll only because, with his tan skin and dark hair, this guy isn’t terrible looking. The next thing I know, he’s ladling out the batter in messy, drippy globs that drive me nuts.

  Before I can get any more irritated, I hit the fruit and cereal. I settle with my breakfast at a table by myself, fork a pear slice, and try to enjoy the peace and quiet, since it’s such a change from meals at home. I know I should be loving the fact that I have as much food as I want, that the water will come out of the tap anytime I need it to, that I’ll have electricity when I flip a switch. Plus Ethan’s paying me every week for my photos, and no one’s stealing my money.

  I should be happy, but the truth is, I can barely get breakfast down my throat. Nothing about this feels right. No way should I be down here enjoying free food while my mom flies solo at home. What will she eat? I wonder if she’s checked her voice mail or remembered to cut the dryer sheets in half to make them last longer.

  It’s fine, I tell myself. I take a deep breath. But the air expanding inside my lungs doesn’t calm me down much. And the ache in my chest is getting worse. I glance around the breakfast room, wondering what I can do. Maybe I can bring Hallie some coffee. Or help Mason organize all his equipment.

  Except everyone seems just fine. No one needs me to do that stuff, which, if you asked Cat, she’d say is a good thing. But she wouldn’t understand it’s a hard thing, too.

  No, Cat would just shake her head, like she did the day she came to pick me up from the apartment before school.

  “You’re trying to keep it together, I know you are, but it’s like nailing Jell-O to the wall,” Cat said as we settled on the worn sofa in my living room, ignoring the fact that we were both going to get detention for not showing up at school on time. I tried not to stare at the gash above Cat’s eyebrow, which was covered with a smaller bandage now, but still very much there. She caught me looking and touched the dressing self-consciously.

  “My mom and dad think you and I crashed our bikes,” she said. It had been months since Cat and I went anywhere on two wheels. I’m relieved they bought it. “I told them you were hurt too, but I probably didn’t even need to say anything. You just have those red marks. You could pass them off as zits or something.”

  It was my turn to touch my face. The skin was hot where my fingers landed. Probably from guilt since Cat would no doubt have a scar from all this, while I just had cuts that were already fading.

  “It was a stupid cover, I know,” Cat continued, watching me. “But the thing is, I’m not as good a liar as you are.”

  She let the words hang there for a moment. I imagined grabbing each letter—L-I-A-R—and shoving them all into the trash. But of course that was impossible and, besides, Cat was right. I did lie. She just couldn’t seem to understand that this is the way it had to be. I didn’t have any other choice.

  “But it’s not even the lies that upset me so much,” Cat continued. “The worst part of this all is, you’re not actually helping your mom. You’re hurting her, and eventually, someone is going to die if you don’t change. Whether it’s your mom from liver failure, or someone she runs over while drunk. Either way, you won’t be blameless next time. Not unless you figure something out.”

  “Fine, but what am I supposed to do?” I asked, thinking Cat had some nerve coming in here with her hundred-dollar backpack and her mom’s Lexus parked outside, telling me how to live a life she’d completely fail at after a day. Granted, the accident was awful, and I did play a part in it. But still. What kind of twisted form of intervention was this, when I wasn’t the one with the drinking problem?

  Cat pulled out a crumpled sticky note from her pocket. Her hands were shaking as she unfolded it. She cleared her throat. “Stop calling in to work for her, saying she’s sick,” she said, reading off the paper, which was covered in her tiny, bubbly writing. She’d made a list, for crying out loud. “Stop allowing her to take your babysitting money. Stop paying bills. Do not tell any lies, period, to cover for her.” She took a breath. “Do tell a counselor at school what’s going on. Do start attending Al-Anon meetings. And do come live with me if you want to. Or go live with someone else. School lets out in a couple weeks, and you should be somewhere else for the summer. But—and this is the last one—do let your mom hit bottom, so she can realize she needs professional help and sobriety.”

  Cat shoved the note back into her pocket and looked at me. I expected her to be teary again, but her eyes were clear. Her chin was up. “So?” she asked. “What do you think?”

  I took a breath. My heart was pounding, though I couldn’t say why. Cat was clearly wrong about everything, so it wasn’t like I didn’t have a leg to stand on. And, it’s not like I was mad at her—she was just doing what she thought best. So why was I getting all em
otional?

  “You’re my best friend,” I began, “and I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’m so super sorry about the accident. It was awful, and I never should have let us get into that car. But I don’t think it means you understand any of the stuff that my mom and I go through. If I do those things on your list, my mom will lose her job. We’ll get evicted, and we’ll have nowhere to go. My mom will still have a problem—but in your version she’ll have it in the back of the Honda instead of in an apartment.”

  Cat opened her mouth, but I barreled forward. “I know things with my mom are fucked up. I’m not arguing that point. But until you’re in it, until you live it, you can’t sit there and say what it’s going to take to fix it. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

  Cat tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She nodded. “All right, then. Here’s the bottom line. I love you. And it’s because I love you that you need to know that I can’t be friends with you if you don’t try to at least do something on this list.” She pulled the paper back out from her pocket and put it on the coffee table, then stood. “I’m sorry. But I can’t be friends with you if this is how it’s going to be.”

  I stood too. My heart was jackhammering now, and I could feel my face flush. “Wait, so suddenly you’re dumping me?”

  Cat looked at the list. “Unless something changes.”

  “Unless I do your chores, you mean. And, for the record, that’s manipulative. Not to mention ridiculous.”

  “No,” Cat said, marching over to the light switch and flicking it over and over to no effect, “this is ridiculous.” She went to the coffee table and grabbed the television remote. She hit the power again and again. “This is ridiculous,” she said when it didn’t turn on. She went to the sink, lifted the faucet, and let the pipes groan. “That is what’s fucked up, Jane.”

  “Okay!” I said, wanting her to stop. “Okay, you made your point already. Little miss house-on-the-hill, can-I-have-a-convertible-for-my-birthday has made her point.”

  Cat froze. “This has nothing to do with where I live or what I drive. My parents love you. They want you to stay with us, okay? It’s not about money.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

  “So that’s it?” Cat asked. “Whatever?”

  “That’s it,” I replied.

  Cat stared at me for a moment before she shook her head and walked to the door.

  “Don’t forget your list on the way out,” I said.

  She didn’t even look at me. “Keep it,” she replied, and pulled the door closed.

  And that was that.

  At least it was until I decided to spend the summer in Oklahoma with my brother.

  It was one of the things on her stupid list, which I’d lifted off the coffee table and buried in the middle of a book at the back of my shelf. I couldn’t say exactly why I kept it around, except that a hazy, gnawing feeling was pulling at me, telling me Cat might not know everything, but she might know something I didn’t. Which is why I texted her when I had news:

  Am leaving 2 live w Ethn in Oklhma 4 summer.

  Radio silence for an hour. Then finally, a text back:

  Im prd of u.

  * * *

  I nearly drop my pear when the chair next to me is suddenly occupied. “Are you with the Torbros?” It’s Waffle Boy. I want to be annoyed, but I’m too caught off guard by him—and the fact that his waffle looks like it’s been massacred, then laid to rest in a syrup-and-whipped-cream grave.

  “Um, yeah,” I reply, working simultaneously to stop thinking about Cat and to figure out how this random rich kid knows who the Torbros are.

  “Cool,” he says, and shoves a mass of carbs and stickiness into his mouth. While he chews, he studies me with green eyes that are like a mixture of sunlight and moss. His dark brown hair juts out in every direction and should look ridiculous—but somehow doesn’t. A current vibrates through every vertebra on my spine. It’s all I can do not to shiver.

  When a guy in a burgundy shirt and khakis strides by, Waffle Boy raises a hand, flagging him down. Like it’s a restaurant, and this guy is a waiter or something. “Hey, yeah, I was wondering if we could get more strawberries at the breakfast buffet?” Waffle Boy asks.

  The guy shakes his head and gives a little wave, the kind like when you’re saying no thanks to a second helping. “I don’t work here,” he says, and walks on.

  Unbelievable, I think. Waffle Boy must have people waiting on him all the time if he’s picking people out of a crowd and thinking they should bring him stuff.

  “My bad,” Waffle Boy says. “He’s wearing the same colors as the front desk guys.” He laughs in an easy way, unfazed, and I think that if I’d just done that in front of a stranger, I’d be ducking my head, red from embarrassment.

  I stare at the box of Cheerios in front of me. I want to leave, but I can’t think of how to exit gracefully.

  “Cool headband,” Waffle Boy says. “You make that yourself?”

  I shake my head. “No. It’s vintage.”

  “Nooo?” he draws out the word with a smile. “I’ve never heard it pronounced like that. Where are you from?”

  “Minnesota.”

  “Oh. Yah. Minnesota, eh?”

  I bristle. It sounds like he’s making fun of me. “What’s wrong with the way I talk?”

  “No, nothing. Sorry. It’s just very . . . Fargo.”

  “Fargo’s in North Dakota,” I reply as he swallows down more bites.

  “Yeah. I mean, I was talking about the movie, but. Okay.”

  My stomach falls at the flat note in his voice. This kid might be a little . . . entitled, but he’s not horrible. I don’t have to be mean. Cat says I get bitchy around cute boys because I’m nervous.

  “Wh—where are you from?” I venture, lightening up.

  “Vermont.” He’s all smiles again, and I swear, it’s like his mouth is plugged into a light socket it’s so bright. “I’m doing an internship with the Twister Blisters.”

  I sit back, surprised. Waffle Boy is decidedly not on a rich-kid road trip.

  Even someone like me knows the Twister Blisters are the rock stars of tornado chasing. They roll around in Escalades and have Weather Network cameras on them for almost every chase. Their founder, Alex Atkins, was just on the cover of Time. “Are they—are the Twister Blisters here?”

  Waffle Boy jerks his head. “Next door at the Motel 6.”

  “Then shouldn’t you be over there too? Being their intern and all?” Great, now I’m using words that sound like I want him to get up and walk away. But I don’t. Not really.

  “Don’t tell, but sometimes I hit a nearby motel to get away from the filming. And the egos.” He places his hands six inches from either ear and puffs out his cheeks.

  “Big heads, huh?” I ask, biting back a smile because this guy’s suddenly borderline adorable.

  He nods. “The first week I was with them, they actually tried to tell me that bringing them breakfast in bed was part of my job. I ignored the order and almost got fired, but then they wouldn’t have had anyone to lug around the heavy equipment.” I glance at his callus-free hands and figure maybe lugging is a new thing for him. “Are the Torbros the same way to you?”

  “Oh, I’m not an intern. I mean, I’m a photographer. I’m taking pictures for the Torbros website. My brother, Ethan McAllister? He’s a researcher with them.”

  “Yeah?” Waffle Boy’s eyebrows shoot up like he’s actually interested. “I’ve totally seen that site. The photo gallery is amazing. Super professional.”

  I feel my face heat up with the compliment. “Thanks.”

  Waffle Boy holds out a banana. “I’m Max, by the way,” he says, like I should shake hands with his yellow fruit. The intensity of his eyes is like a lightning bolt striking too close. I can feel the electricity of it.

  “I’m Jane.” I don’t shake the banana.

  “Well, then,” he says. “Jane.” He starts unpeeling the banana. “Nice to meet you.” />
  He chews, and my brain becomes a white sheet. I fumble for words. Any words. “I was hit by hail yesterday,” I say suddenly. I want to melt. I know I sound stupid.

  To my surprise, Max laughs. “I got cow shit on my shoe on Sunday,” he says. “We were in a field watching a wall cloud.”

  This time I can’t hide the smile. I’m about to tell him that last week Ethan kept farting in the van so much, we had to open every single window, but just then, a cluster of guys enters the breakfast lounge. There are six of them, and they’re all wearing jeans and embroidered polo shirts with the same logo: THE TWISTER BLISTERS.

  “Crap,” Max mutters. “The dick parade is here.”

  I watch as two cameramen trail in after, rolling tape. “And, look,” Max says. “They brought their balls.”

  5

  The second the Twister Blisters and the camera crew saunter into the breakfast room, Stephen and Ethan both stand. The Twister Blisters might be on TV, but Stephen and Ethan are the ones that look like movie stars. Well, maybe more Ethan than Stephen right this minute, since Stephen looks a lot like Brad Pitt during his scary facial hair phase. But still.

  I spot the Blisters’ founder, Alex Atkins, right away. He’s smaller in real life.

  Alex holds out a hand, and Stephen takes it. “How’s your season so far?” Alex asks. I wonder if he’s smirking for the camera or if he always looks like that much of a dick. “Heard you got caught in some hail yesterday.”

  “We got out just in time,” Stephen says. “And you? How are things?”

  “Good. All good,” Alex says, reminding me suddenly of the vintage Harry Houdini posters Cat’s little brother has in his room. Small but compact, Alex looks like he might be able to weasel out of a lot of dangerous situations. He motions to the cameras. “The Weather Network is on our tail almost every chase. Got some new equipment from them, so we don’t have to build gear with duct tape in the hotel rooms at night.” His eyes shift to Mason, and he snickers. Apparently Alex has no problem with appearing like a total jerkwad on national television.