An instant later I become aware of a cool breeze on my cheeks—and not the ones on my face. I reach back tentatively with one hand and gasp when I realize that the seam in the back of my dress has pulled itself apart. I turn and slowly back into the nearest wall while everyone in the room giggles and pretends not to see what I’m doing.
Izzy finally catches up to me, breathless and red-faced from his exertion. “Your dress,” he mutters. He squeezes his lips together hard.
“If you laugh, Izzy, so help me, I’ll pummel you.”
“I’m sorry.” His mouth twitches and spasms as I stick my hand between me and the wall and examine the damage. At least eight inches of seam is open, maybe more. The waistband of my panty hose is halfway down my cheeks, cutting across them so that they bulge through the seam opening like a four-pack.
“Damn Olga and that stupid bow,” I mutter.
“What bow?”
“There was a bow on the back of this dress and I made Olga take it off. I don’t think she sewed things back up as well as she should have.” I keep glancing around the room, seeing heads huddle, hearing whispers and giggles. I have a bad feeling I’m going to be the joke du jour come Monday and silently wish for a bolt of lightning to pop out of the sky and strike me dead. Then I nearly jump out of my skin when all the windows in the room light up bright for a second and a rumble of thunder shakes the building. Of all the times for God to finally start listening to me.
“Get me out of here, Izzy,” I say, my voice low and thick. “Get behind me, stay close, and follow me out to the car.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, working to suppress a giggle. I want to pop him one but I need him to get me out of the room first and away from all these laughing, watching eyes. Thank goodness the rip is down low in the dress. Otherwise, Izzy wouldn’t be tall enough to cover the damage.
He moves in and stands as close to me as possible, close enough that I can feel the heat of his breath through the sleeve of my dress. “Ready,” he announces.
I turn slowly, Izzy following my every move as if we are practicing some sophisticated dance step. We walk out of the room together, moving our legs in synch, Izzy sticking so close to my backside he looks like a tumor on my ass.
When we reach the parking lot, I see that my hope for a lightning strike is becoming more viable with each passing minute. Streaks of it flit across the sky off in the distance and thunder booms all around us. It isn’t raining here yet, but the air has that thick, ozone smell to it that says a deluge is on its way.
I hurry toward Izzy’s car, no longer worried about him keeping up. I am still a good ten feet away when the sky opens up and releases sheets of icy cold rain that slake down my back into the dress. Belatedly I realize that I’ve left behind my shawl, which would have covered up my gaping seam nicely. Ah, the wisdom of hindsight, so to speak.
By the time I squeeze myself into the front seat of Izzy’s car, I feel and figure I look like a drowned rat. Izzy climbs in, glances over at me, and snorts a laugh.
I give him my best glare. “A little heat would be nice,” I say through clenched teeth. “And don’t you dare say one word about the dress, or the rain, or anything else. Just take me home. And don’t tell Dom about this either. Understand?”
“I understand.” It’s a token answer. We both know he’ll tell Dom the entire story the minute he gets home. But for now, I need my delusions.
Izzy starts the car, pulls out, and, moments later, cold air is blowing in my face. The heater in the car takes forever to warm up and Izzy is convinced that running the blower on high helps to speed the process along. I start to complain but suddenly a horribly loud sound, like rocks hitting the car, make speech nearly impossible.
“Hail,” Izzy yells over the noise. “Damn it. It will ruin my car.”
I am less concerned about Izzy’s car than I am the hail. Wisconsin is no stranger to killer tornadoes and, all too often, hail is the precursor. I stretch my neck out as far as I can and peer through the windshield at the dark sky. A streak of lightning flashes, blinding me, but my ears still work and I can hear the wind howling outside the car, screeching and screaming that it wants in.
“Izzy?” I holler. “Do you hear that wind?”
Izzy nods but he doesn’t try to speak. He white-knuckles the steering wheel, his speed down to a crawl as the hail continues to pummel us. I don’t know how he can see where the road is because no matter how hard I look, I can’t see it at all. Finally, he makes a turn, eases the car over to one side, and stops.
“I can’t see well enough to drive in this,” he says. “Let’s wait here a bit.”
I nod, thinking it’s a good idea, but then another flash of lightning streaks down from the sky and I see where Izzy has parked. Panic fills my throat.
“Izzy?”
“What?”
“You just pulled into Whispering Pines.”
“So?”
“So what is Whispering Pines, Izzy? I’ll tell you what it is,” I say quickly, not giving him time to breathe, much less answer. “It’s a freaking trailer park. You pulled into a trailer park in the middle of a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm that could easily be spawning a tornado as we speak.”
I stare at him, waiting for him to shift the car back into gear and hightail it out of there. Instead he stares back at me, a look of confusion on his face.
“For heaven’s sake, Izzy. Don’t you get it? This is a trailer park! You might as well hang a sign outside that says, TORNADOS WELCOME HERE. Everyone knows that trailer parks are the first to go in any tornado. Hell, they’re tornado magnets.”
He stares at me, his mouth hanging open. “You know, sometimes I think you are truly nuts,” he says.
“Fine, be a skeptic,” I tell him. “But think back on all the news footage you’ve ever seen of tornado damage. What’s the one thing you always see? A trashed trailer park. Every time. Think about it.”
He squints his eyes and gives me a look that says he is about to consign me to the nearest loony bin. But then he assumes a faraway expression and I know he is replaying those news reports in his mind. Another bolt of lightning zips across the sky and he looks out the window at the neat rows of trailers.
“Oh my God,” he says finally. He reaches down and quickly shifts the car into gear. Then he creeps back out onto the main street and tries to stay on it as best he can. The hail stops almost as quickly as it started but driving rain and sleet come in its place, some of the drops splashing hard and thick, like overripe cherry tomatoes.
By the time we make it back to the house, the storm is still blowing furiously and the darkened windows everywhere tell us that the power is out. Since the automatic door opener won’t work, Izzy parks just in front of the garage.
Dispensing with any niceties, I say, “See you tomorrow,” pry myself out of the car, and run for the cottage. I can’t move very fast as my feet are numb from both cold and a lack of circulation and the thick nylon in the panty portion of my support hose is like an iron band around my thighs, hobbling me. A flash of lightning momentarily blinds me, making me trip on the front steps. Cursing, I rub my bashed shinbone a moment before I struggle back to my feet and limp my way to the door.
Once inside, I kick off my shoes, hike up my dress and peel off the hose, tossing them aside. I give the light switch a cursory try, but nothing happens. Feeling my way through the darkness, I head for the kitchen. I think of Rubbish in the split second before he decides to rub against my feet and I do an awkward little side hop to keep from stepping on him. I lose my balance and fall again, coming down hard on my left hip and elbow. Wincing with pain, I feel a warm wetness run down my arm that I am pretty sure is blood. I sit up, issuing forth with every cuss word I know. I call to Rubbish and as soon as I feel him at my feet again, I scoop him up and hold him close to my chest.