Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [73]
Late that night Valerie went into labor. By the time I got home from work the next afternoon, Jake had posted pictures of mother and baby on Facebook. They’d named her Rachel.
When the young family returned from the hospital, Everett and I drove to her house to visit and deliver food. Jake met us at the door, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt on which a smiling taco said Hola! The house was small, crowded in a comfortable way. The living room smelled of baby powder and tomato soup. It had the closed-in feeling of a happy family absorbed in their private world. Valerie let us take turns holding Rachel. I was mesmerized by the tiny white line of her fingernails.
“She’s beautiful,” I said. In the moment it felt like a novel thing to say.
Selfishly, we stayed an hour, a good forty minutes after Valerie lost interest in our company.
When we got in the car I started crying.
“Why are you crying?” Everett said. “She’s fine—the baby’s fine. Everybody’s fine.”
“I think I want one,” I said.
“Oh, honey.”
This was my second breakdown of the week and I didn’t even care this time. I had lost all dignity. Everett drove directly to the Donut Shoppe where we ate bear claws and coffee for dinner. He tried to cheer me up with gossip about Eli.
“So that was some drama, the other night.”
I’d managed to stop crying. I wiped my nose on a napkin and asked what he was talking about.
“Eli and Jillian. They were arguing on the porch at your party. Well, he was on the porch, on the phone arguing with her. I don’t know what she had her panties in a twist about, but things look bad for our hero.”
“You could hear them fighting?”
“I heard his end, which was more than enough. Trust me, barbs were thrown, rejoinders met with sarcasm.”
“How can you tell?”
“I’m a writer. I know dialogue.”
“You write criticism.”
“Then I know character development. Whatever.” He lifted his coffee as if to make a toast. “It’s curtains for Jillian.”
It was too hot for March. We suffered a weekend of rain that only amplified the humidity. When the sun returned Monday, it seemed an earnest, unwanted newcomer at an already out of control party. It shone eerily over the wind that throttled the windowpanes and whipped the trees into a frenzy. Girls walked sideways. Dead leaves, blackened from months under snow, stirred and spun in mini-twisters. On the field, the men’s soccer team kicked the ball toward the goal only to wait in suspense as it lingered in the air eight, nine, ten seconds before falling back to the earth and directly at the opponent’s feet.
At the office, I closed the blinds and shut the door. I was too busy working to notice the increasing violence of the wind. When I checked my e-mail several hours later I found four campus security messages waiting in my inbox.
To: gallagham@copenhagen.edu
From: campussecurity@copenhagen.edu
Sent: Monday 3.12.07 10:37 AM
Subject: Wind Advisory
Students and faculty:
A severe wind advisory is in effect for Copenhagen University from 3:30 PM to 8:14 PM. Winds have been clocked in at 40 MPH with corresponding gales at nearly 60 MPH.
There have been power outages on South Campus. If you are without power, you may stay in the Student Commons for the night. Bring a sleeping bag and pillow. The Student Commons and Laws Dining Hall will be open for meals. Campus security requires that all individuals not moving to the student commons REMAIN INDOORS until further notice.
~Campus Security
Similar messages had been sent at 11:21 a.m., 12:15 p.m., and 3:12 p.m. Each insisted that students and faculty remain indoors so, like the students, I went outside to see what was going on.
The sky had yellowed. Somewhere wood splintered, the spine of a sapling snapping in two. The clouds moved quickly, each a part of a larger tapestry pulled quickly on a reel. In the parking lot, a group of boys took turns sitting in wheeled office chairs, using dormitory bedsheets as parachutes to rocket themselves back and forth across the lot. I drove home at a crawl, mindful of falling debris and blacked-out