Nick Courage - Storm Blown

When the first glimpse of day appears, I make my way on deck, where I stand not unlike a newly hatched bird, tottering on feeble legs.

J OHN J AMES A UDUBON, B IRDS OF A MERICA, V OLUME VII , W ILSONS P ETREL

Alejandro! the old man shouted, his voice small in the rising wind. Las sillasthe chairs, theyre blowing away!

A turquoise lounger slid across the slick deck of the San Juan Pilastro Resort and Casino, its waterproof fabric stretched and filled like the sails of a ship. Alejandro ran after it, his skinny shoulders squared against the wind and rain as his padrino squinted at the approaching storm. Most of the guests had already evacuated, cutting their vacations short as weather advisories rolled in with the clouds. The few who had hoped for the best and ignored the warnings were holed up in their rooms, enjoying complimentary cocktails and wondering if it was too late to leave.

It was too late.

Just minutes before, Alejo and his mothers unclePadrino Nandohad joined the hotel staff in the lobby for an emergency meeting. Theyd stood near the doors with the other groundskeepers, not wanting to track mud onto the marble floors as the manager informed them that the bad weather theyd been having all week had been upgraded to a tropical storm.

Tropical Storm Valerie.

Nando had laughed and clapped his hands.

It was a name like one of their tourists, another Hawaiian-shirted guest with no real love for the island. But Valerie was nothing to laugh aboutall flights out of Isla Verde were grounded until the storm blew over, and most of the birds were already gone. The loons, the geese, the herons, and even the gullsthey were smart like that. Except for a handful of purple-black cormorants that were fighting the wind for fun, the swirling gray skies were empty.

Padrino Nando smiled as Alejandro dragged the runaway lounger back to the others, tying them all down with a bright nylon rope. Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, not so very far from shore, winds were gusting over forty miles per hour. Faster than traffic, their manager had said. Sometime that night or the following morning, those winds and the rain would hit San Juan and the streets would flood and end the tourist season early.

Or everything would be fine.

It all depended on how angry the white peaks were, out in the surf.

Alejo! Nando shouted. Look!

The palm trees lining the Pilastros white sand beach bent toward the resort, their leafy crowns catching the wind. Beyond them, the cormorants took turns dive-bombing the roiling white waves. With the sky so gray and the sea so gray and the rain running down their faces, it was hard to tell what was earth and what was air.

Nando squeezed Alejos shoulder with one wrinkled hand as they watched the cormorants fish, shading his eyes with the other to better see their long necks piercing the surf like arrows from the heavens. No matter what happened, the storm would be gone in a few daysspinning up to Bermuda or threading its way into the Gulf of Mexico, toward the oil rigs and refineries off the muddy coasts of Louisiana and Texas.

Padrino Nando didnt care where the storm went, only that the cormorants were full and happy.

As long as there were birds in the waves, San Juan would be fine.

By the time Sam Gribley developed a taste for frog soup, Emily had finally settled into her book. It hadnt been easy. Sams story was written so long ago that Emily was borrowing her moms childhood copy of My Side of the Mountain. Theyd both had it assigned for summer reading, twenty years apart, and the pages were brittle and yellow. Emily traced her finger over an ancient crease, her vision blurring at the edges as she folded and unfolded the same corner her mother had dog-eared when she was a kid. She tried not to think about Elliot and the surgery, and her dad working on the oil rig while her mom worried herself sickbut it was all too much.

She couldnt concentrate.

The words just wouldnt stick in her head.

It didnt help that their apartment was so small.

Between the low groan of Elliots humidifier and the cable news blasting from the living room, shed had to stop three times and start from the beginning. The thought of starting all over again was too much for Emily to bear, so she chewed her lip and turned the page. Samthe main characterhad run away from home and was camping in a hollowed-out treebut Emily had to admit that he was doing okay for himself.

Maybe even better than she was.

Emily had been living on fast food for the past month, and her mouth watered as she reread the recipe for Sams favorite meal: acorn flour, water-lily buds, and wild onions served in a polished turtle-shell bowl. If you left out the frog legs, itd be perfectbut even without them, there was no way she could get any of that stuff at their grocery store. The Winn-Dixie they went to on Saturday mornings had flickering fluorescent lights and a security guard who was always sipping from a quart of pink, flavored milk.