By the time they reached Johns City on State Road 59, the gusts of Hurricane Sandra were starting to kick up. Cars coming toward them looked to be fleeing for their lives the dark sky that hung down behind them with an angry goliath face. Their headlights were on high, their wipers were flailing, and their hoods and doors were drenched with a black shine, as if all the paint had been blasted off by the downpour.
"We're the only car going in this direction!" Rosie cried out, grinning at the adventure of it.
Thad glanced down at the pink wine cooler sloshing around in her hand. She had had two already, but insisted she wasn't drunk.
"Look at the trees!" she cried out next, turning the wipers up to frantic speed.
He leaned forward to see the tall trees swaying far left, then far right, like a forest of upside-down pendulums.
"They're like dancers," she said. "No, cheerleaders!" She looked over at him, then reached over and shook him by the shoulder. "Come on, Thad, lighten up."
They had met not 24 hours ago, and, yes, in a bar, and, yes, for a one-night stand, and yes, they were raunchy about it, but, this morning, the one thing she was discovering as they went joyriding down the interstate together into a category 4 hurricane was that her privileged life was totally meaningless, as she had failed out of college yet again, that she would never be a pretty girl, like the millions who were in this world, and that his moodiness, which she was just finding out about, was something she wanted to cradle in her arms and fall in love with like an injured kitten. She could only hope the hurricane would lift them like a tornado out of Virginia and into Oz.
Blasts of air were nudging the car to the left, then to the right, as if some invisible, massive specter were wading down the middle of the rain-slashed road, kneeing them from side to side.
"Rosie, I don't think we should be driving east!" he said, raising his voice over the battering rain. "Storms come from the east!"
Her face went blank.
"Yeah, so?"
"Yeah so? Cape Hatteras is Lake Hatteras by now!"
Their plan, or rather her plan, was to drive to her parents' time-share condo on the coast. Hurricane-proof, she had called it.
"Oh, my god, you think?"
"Yes, I think! Turn around."
She sat gripping the wheel, frozen in indecision. All the while, the tempest Sandra was throwing buckets of torrent against the sides of Rosie's car, daring her to go on.
"Maybe I should," she finally said, looking over.
"Yes—yes!"
She started pulling over, but stopped when the downpour suddenly rose to a roar and the rain began beating down with unreal force, like a hundred padded drumsticks against the roof. Cars in the oncoming lane, what few they could see, were all but stopped, their yellow eyes beaming through TV-like static of rain.
"This is so fun!" she cried out, just as a spout of water splattered the windshield like a stream from a fire hose. "Watch behind you," he said, glancing back. "Since I met you, Thad, I feel different—alive!" she said, raising her wine cooler in a toast. "Rosie, watch." She reached across the seat. "Let's make love in the storm," she said, her voice gushy and strange. "Right on the hood. Right now! We won't get blown away." Then she laughed and took a swig of her bubbly, strawberry drink. "And what if we do?" He glanced unhappily at the wine cooler before wheeling around in the seat and gaping to see out the fogged-up rear window. "And I know what you're thinking, boy," she said, swatting him on the arm, "but it's not the wine!" When he turned and firmly pointed her onto the shoulder, she started pulling over again, but stopped when the rain, as if it could possibly come down any harder, began hammering the roof and beating the doors, hazing the car. "Oh, my god!" she cried out, grinning around at the rain-battered windows. "It's like a car wash!" Down came angry cascades of rain, turning the windshield as wavy and opaque as a shower door and leaving them completely blind in the road—stopped somewhere, maybe half off it, maybe half on it, maybe with one wheel an inch from the ditch. "Put your blinkers on!" he shouted over the roar, glancing behind them. She looked over at him, her eyes floating and dipping from the alcohol. "Blinkers?" "Four-ways!" "Blinkers, dinkers," she said, giggling. "What, can't I feel different, Thad?" "And headlights—now, Rosie!" She did so, but with annoyance, trying to yank the knob out of the dash. "I suppose you were just passing through St. Claire," she said, "stopped one day and decided to sell cars for the rest of your life, huh?" She glanced over at him. "I can't believe you're still being secretive with me, Thad. What happened in your marriage? I'll listen." When he didn't answer, she turned to him, all but abandoning the driver's seat. "And who fucking cares if your wife's a lesbo. You got your rocks off." She upended her wine cooler and took a big swig. "The judge is a man of the cloth—hey, that's funny. Man of the cloth. He'll believe you, for crying out loud!" He craned around to see behind them, through the gush of water on the rear window. "Jesus, this is dangerous," he said. "Rosie, you're half out on the road. If a car comes up behind us—" "What's wrong with me falling in love with you?" she asked, slurring as she pulled the parking brake. "No, not here! Get off the road first," he said, pointing. He jabbed his finger toward the gravel shoulder, then wheeled around in his seat and spilled his body over the console, in an effort to reach the rear window to wipe it clear. She burst out laughing at the sight of him sprawled headlong down in the center of the car, his buns in her face and her gearshift where no man should have it sticking. Suddenly, there were two raps on the roof, like small rocks striking the car. Then, there were three more such knocks, followed by a "ping!"—something glancing off the windshield. Rosie froze, her eyes peeled up. Thad, turned around in the backseat, started swiveling his head in every direction. "What the hell?" he said. They sat helplessly as down came what sounded like a rain of rocks—"pata pata pat!" Rosie popped forward in her seat to see, bouncing all over the hood, pea-sized white balls. "Oh, my god—hail!" she cried out. In seconds, the car was inundated by a million ice marbles, striking the roof and windows, clattering up a storm. Rosie's eyes were wide open like baseball gloves trying to catch sight of them all. "Global warming—Bush, you asshole!" she yelled. Thad's eyes were raised to the roof. From hood to trunk, it was a mesmerizing rattle, heaven's ball bearings spilling down. Rosie, as heedless as ever, powered down her window, letting in the train-like roar of the storm, and stuck her hand out into the shower of hailstones. "Ouch!" she cried out, jerking it back. But that didn't stop her from opening her door. When she did, gumball-sized hail started bouncing into the car, some hitting her, most striking the underside of the dash, then rolling around on the carpeted floor and gathering at her feet like lottery balls. "Oh, god, they're so cute!" she said, reaching down and snatching one up. "Wow, cold!" She tossed it from one hand to the other like a hot potato. "God's ice machine." Before he could stop her, she was out of the car and on the roadway, shrinking down under a shower of ice cubes, shrieking out, "God, this is so cool!" She held her wine cooler over her head like an umbrella and started dancing around in the middle of the highway—ice pellets dinging off the skinny bottle, others rapping her on the noggin, still others pelting and whacking her arms and shirt, making her yelp out like deranged hyena. "Come out and play with me, Thaddeus—ouch, shit! That hurt." She made a furious little face up to the heaven and even flipped God the finger. "Get back in here!" he was yelling out her door. "No, it's not that bad!" she yelled back. "God's throwing diamonds down on me!" She raised her face to the sky and grimaced as the hail pellets made direct hits—on her cheek, forehead, even glancing off her nose. "God's sandblasting me a new face!" she cried out, dancing around like a fool on hot coals. She started singing, "I'm not ugly anymore. I'm not." "Rosie, get in here!" he kept yelling, arm groping out the door, trying to grab her. "It doesn't hurt—ouch, fuck! Yes, it does. Stop throwing ice cubes at me, Terrie Larson, you bitch! I didn't mean to fuck your boyfriend!" She doubled over and laughed out in a drunken roar, then raised her wine cooler like a sword, ice particles clinking off the glass. Meanwhile, all around her along the road, trees were bending back, twisting under the wind, and rain was zigzagging in the air like garland. "Hail, Rosie!" she yelled, doing her Indian-on-hot-coals dance. Up the highway, car horns started blowing at her antics. At the same time, God's ice machine was spitting down cubes at full force. Thad was yelling. And mixed in with the clatter of hail on the hood and roof was the cockamamie ding-dong of the door-ajar alarm. "Auntie Rosie, you come down here and show me how to live my life!" she yelled out next. All the while, Thad's arm was getting socked by ice as he leaned out the door and lunged for her. Car horns went on blowing. Finally, Rosie yanked up her shirt, showing the highway her breasts. "Oh, sandblast me beautiful!" she cried out, proceeding to do a jig on the roadway, her face and breasts getting pelted. When an ice pellet beaned her good and hard, she shook her fist at the sky and said, "Auntie Rose, is that any way to treat your favorite ugly great-grand geese." She burst out laughing. "Geese? Niece!" Eventually, so bombarded by ice was she, she scrambled for the car. "Ouch, shit, let me in!" she cried out, dancing and wincing and diving for the door. She climbed back in, red-faced and wet.