The Love Sucks Club (23 page)

“Really?”
I’m dumbfounded. “Did I just
get body slammed by a ninety-year-old?”

Laughing,
Rox
takes the flour from me
and puts it into the basket. “I didn’t realize there would be such a demand for
flour.”

Jumping aside to make way for a guy who is running through the
aisle with four gallon jugs of water, I knock back into the flour display
again. This is ridiculous. I raise my voice as high as I can. “The storm isn’t
due to hit for another ten hours. Everyone calm the fuck down!” Silence
descends on the aisle for a moment. A mother with a toddler in the cart gives
me a dirty look before pushing her child away from me. Everyone else looks at
me for a second before looking away. They go back to pushing each other and
snapping at each other as if there hadn’t been an interruption. Roxanne puts
her hand on my forearm. “Maybe you should go wait in the car.”

“No way.
You need someone to protect
you.”

We make it to the end of the aisle. Continuing to dodge and dive
to avoid the angry mob, we manage to finally make it through the store. Almost
everything is decimated, but we are able to gather the ingredients we need for
chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin cookies. Roxanne has promised
to bake them all before the storm hits so that we have them when the power goes
out. Standing in the long line, I lament out loud about the lack of cashiers.
“Maybe they were given the time off to prepare their own homes,” Roxanne says.

“Doubt it. The store just wants us to wait in this long, horrible
line.”

“I’m sure that’s it,” she replies.

“Excuse me.” The lady behind me pokes me in the back. Turning
around, I see the old lady who knocked me into the flour. “Can I go in front of
you? I have to get back to make sure my cats are okay.”

She has an entire loaded grocery cart, piled so high it’s
overflowing the sides. “Are you kidding me? I only have a basket full of
stuff.”

“Really, Dana?”
Roxanne gapes at me. “We can’t
just let her go first?”

I’m almost to the front of the line by now and I’m not in a great
mood. There is no way I’m letting someone with an overstuffed cart in front of
me, no matter how old she is. Ignoring both of them, I turn back to the front.
Roxanne comes up close behind me.

Whispering, she says, “Are you really not going to let her go in
front of us?”

“Why would I?”

“Because she’s really old.”

“I don’t care how old she is. She has a million items and she’s
probably paying with pennies.”

Roxanne laughs. The line moves forward. Another cashier opens next
to us and says, “I’ll take the next person in line.”

The old lady rushes toward to new cashier, but I’m quicker. Diving
in front of her, I knock the front of her cart into the candy display, spilling
Peppermint Patties and Reese’s all over the place. She tries to block my path with
the front of her cart and manages to smash the front of it into my hip, but by
then, I’m already into the line. Skidding across the spilled candy, I
practically fall onto the belt, slamming my basket down in front of the
cashier. She pulls back, looking at me like I’m the crazy one. I dump my
groceries out of the basket and turn around to look for Roxanne. She’s still
standing behind the old lady, looking flabbergasted. “Come on,” I call to her.

As I turn back to the cashier, I can’t resist throwing down a smug
look at the old lady with the cart. She feints like she’s going to ram her cart
into me and I back up. Cackling like an evil witch, she pulls back to let
Roxanne into the line. As I pay for the groceries, Roxanne helps the old lady
load hers onto the belt. Finally, I’m done and I tug on Roxanne’s sleeve.
“Let’s go.”

Back in the car, I stow the groceries in the trunk and Roxanne
gets behind the wheel. Staring straight ahead, she says, “What the hell
happened back there?”

“I stood up to a bully.”

“A ninety-something year old
bully?”

“A person’s age has nothing to do with their personality flaws.”

“Dana, she weighed eighty pounds soaking wet.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll probably have a bruise on my hip for weeks.”

She’s shaking her head, but I can see the laugh lines at the side
of her mouth. Silently, she pulls out of the parking lot and we head back
through town and back up the hill.

“Anyway,” I say, rubbing at my hip, “Are you still going to make
me cookies?”

She finally laughs. Reaching across the car, she slaps me on the
thigh, hard. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“No way.
Life’s too short to let old
people take advantage of me.”

She laughs softly, and we drive the rest of the way in silence.
Thinking about the store, I envision telling the story to Sam. She’ll probably
be pissed that she wasn’t there. It would have been an entirely differently
situation if she had been. She would have been blocking for me while I slid
into the new line. And I never would have gotten the elbow to the back if Sam
had been there. Women are different from buddies. Sometimes, you have to be on
better behavior with them.

When we get to my house, I note that my sister’s car is already in
the driveway.

Roxanne pulls up to the door and Susannah comes running out.

“Hey, I wondered where you were.” She runs over to give me a hug.

“I went down the hill with Roxanne to get groceries.”

“We brought pre-popped popcorn, cut veggies, and several bags of
ice in the
world’s
best cooler.”

Coming around the side of the car, Roxanne raises her eyebrow.
“We?”

Susannah manages to look smug and sheepish at the same time.
“Thomas came with me.”

“I thought you two were...” Interrupted by Thomas coming out the
front door, I make a note to get my sister aside later and find out what’s
going on.

Thomas smiles as he approaches the car.
“Hey,
Dana.
Hi Roxanne.
Can I help carry in your
groceries?”
 

“Please do,” I say.

We get all of the bags in one trip and then Thomas and I go back
out to Susannah’s jeep to move in some water he brought. “You can never have
too much.”

Since the storm is coming from the southeast, we move both
Roxanne’s car and Susannah’s jeep to the other side of the house, making sure
to position them as far away from any hanging tree branches that we can. Thomas
looks up at the closest tree. “How sturdy are they?”

“It’s the best we can do.”

Back in the house, Susannah and Roxanne have started mixing cookie
batter. Leaning over the bowl Roxanne is stirring gets me a whack on the hand.
“What? I was just looking!”

“You were hoping to score some cookie dough and that isn’t going
to happen.”

“You’re a hard woman, Roxanne.”

Susannah snaps me with a dish towel. “Shouldn’t you be walking
around the house securing the perimeter or something?”

“I did that already? What did you do to secure your place?”

She shrugs. “I put everything I could think of into waterproof
containers or Ziplocs and elevated everything off the floor. The sensitive
stuff is here.” She gestures toward a pile of her belongings on the floor.

“You had better find a place for all of that,” I cautioned. “Once
the storm starts, we’re likely to have water coming in under the sliders, even
with the shutters on.”

Thomas walks over. “Where can we put this?”

“Best place will be the spare bedroom on top of the bed or
dressers. I moved everything to the center of the room and have all of the
potential leakage areas in the windows stopped up, but you can never tell. Best
we can do is
be
as prepared as possible.”

Susannah and Thomas start moving her stuff to the other room. The
skies have just opened up and the rain is starting to pound against the roof.
It will still be several hours or more until the actual storm gets here. These
rain bands will cause a lot of mud on my road, though. I should call Sam and
tell her to hurry up. I’m pacing like an expectant father. The storm is
projected to be a category two when it hits us, which is not too bad. However,
you can never tell if it is going to pick up and if the wind is bad enough, it
will take out the power lines and block the roads. Plus, with sideways rain,
we’re looking at the possibility of flooding. My hilltop house is perfect to
avoid surge and flash flooding, but we won’t be as safe up here from the high
winds if the storm becomes really bad. Still, I’ve made a lot of improvements
on this house over the past several years and I think it’s pretty hearty in a
moderate to severe storm.
 

Roxanne has taken a couple of trays of cookies out of the oven
already. Frank is sitting on one of the bar stools behind her, watching her
every move. “Don’t forget that he can’t have chocolate,” I warn.

They both turn to give me haughty looks. “Please,” Roxanne sneers.
Frank doesn’t bother to respond at all. He merely blinks imperiously and turns
back to Roxanne.

“Well,
jeeze
. I was just reminding you.”

Muttering to myself, I grab my cell phone and plug it into the
charger. That reminds me. “Anyone who hasn’t
charged
their phone should do so now. The power company will shut down if they look to
get hit hard.”

Looking up from her own phone, Roxanne nods. “NOAA is now saying
that it looks to hit us directly as a Cat three. Do you think we need to do
anything else at my house?”

“I think we’re set at your place,
Rox
,
unless you want to bring over anything from the fridge or freezer to put in the
coolers after the fridge starts getting warm.”

“No, I cleaned out everything already. Last big storm, we lost
power for a month and I had a freezer full of leftovers.”

“I remember. I ate like royalty for about a week.”

Someone knocks on the door and Roxanne goes to answer it.
Expecting Sam, I blink several times before realizing
it’s
Esmé
.

“Come in,” Roxanne says. “Do you want a cookie?”

“No, thank you. I brought some honey, tea, and water.” She holds
up her bags, looking awkward.

My mouth opens at least three times, but I can’t formulate any
words. Roxanne relieves
Esmé
of her bags, and offers
her a seat. Still looking at me,
Esmé
slides onto the
stool not occupied by Frank. He ignores her as he’s still staring in the
direction of the cookies.

“I left a message earlier, but you didn’t call back,”
Esmé
says.

That’s true. She called earlier and I ignored the call. Then I
decided I didn’t want to listen to the voice mail. I guess I’m an asshole, but
I was busy all day. Shrugging, I turn away toward the kitchen windows so I can
check the seals.

“Dana?”

“What do you want me to say? You’re here. It’s already raining and
you have a shitty car. It looks like you’re here for the duration.”

“Wow, Dana,” Susannah says, walking into the room.
“Bitchy much?”

“Speaking of which, where is Olivia?”

Susannah walks past me to take a cookie from the tray. “She parked
her car at the resort. Sam is going to bring her up after work. Hopefully
they’ll get here soon.” She pauses to hug
Esmé
. “I’m
glad you’re here. This is a safe space.”

“From the storm, at least,” Roxanne mutters.

I can’t tell if she’s irritated at
Esmé’s
presence or at my rude behavior. I’m guessing it’s the latter. Stomping off
into the other room, I check and recheck all of the windows and doors. I debate
about going outside to check the hurricane shutters again, but I decide against
it. I know I fastened them all securely. When I come back to the kitchen,
Thomas is coming back through the front door, soaking wet. I hand him a towel
from a pile on the table as he hands
Esmé
her car
keys.

“I moved her car over by Roxanne’s and Susannah’s.”

“Good thinking. I really think we’re as set as we’re going to
get.”

Walking past
Esmé
, I stop for a second.
“I’m happy you’re safe.”

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she says.

“It’s fine.”

She looks up at me, smiling. “Maybe we can talk later,” she says,
touching my arm.

“Probably not,” I reply.

Roxanne is putting the last of the cookie sheets in the oven. The
wind is picking up a bit and the rain is coming down a lot harder. I can hear
it rattling against the storm shutters. Walking up behind Roxanne, I put my
arms around her waist and rest my chin on her shoulder. She leans back against
me for a second. “The cookies will be done in twelve minutes,” she says.

“I saw you give a piece to Frank.”