Нэнси Кресс - Tomorrow's Kin

Invasive species. Sissy didn’t look at Marianne.

Dr. Lopez went on about sand dune lizards, lesser prairie chickens (were there greater prairie chickens?), owls, reptile collection, habitat loss. Especially habitat loss. Sissy tried to listen and learn, but she kept glancing at the ground. Was that another scorpion moving over there? A snake? The sun poured down heat like burning oil.

Finally she said, “I’m going back to the car.”

Tim looked up from whatever he was examining on the ground. He did a three-sixty scan of the desert, looking for any threat to Marianne—like what , out here?—then said, “Okay, Sissy. I’ll go with you.”

Sometimes he could be really understanding.

Back at the hotel, Marianne worked furiously on her laptop, rewriting parts of her speech to include what she’d learned from Dr. Lopez. Sissy and Tim retired to their room and made very quiet love. Afterward, refreshed and happy, Sissy left him asleep, carefully put on her clothes just the same as they were before, and asked Marianne what she wanted to order from room service for dinner. Room service wasn’t a thing that most foundation speech sponsors would pay for, and Sissy did not intend to let the chance go to waste. Marianne just wanted soup. For herself and Tim, she ordered chicken-fried steak and garlic mashed potatoes and crème brûlée.

“What’s that noise?” Sissy said.

Marianne looked up. “What noise?”

“That,” Sissy said, and a shiver ran over her.

They ate dinner to the roar of the wind. Sissy had gone back into the bedroom to wake Tim, drawn back the heavy curtains, and ducked onto the balcony. How could weather change that fast? At noon, glaring blue sky. At 6:00 p.m., low sullen clouds, racing wind, leaves and trash skirling across the parking lot.

“Tim, get up. Dinner.”

He always woke as fast as he went to sleep. “Is that wind?”

“Lots of wind.”

Naked, he padded to the French doors and peered out. “Wow. What does the local weather channel say?”

“I’ll see.”

Marianne was already checking weather on the Internet. “Rain, high winds—damn, nobody’s going to come to the lecture.”

“Some people will come,” Sissy said, with more confidence than she felt. “Does Albuquerque get superstorms?”

“I’ll check.”

Tim, dressed, emerged from the bedroom. Room service brought dinner, which smelled wonderful. The wind howled louder, or at least it seemed louder to Sissy. She said to the waiter, “Have you lived here long?”

“All my life, ma’am.”

Sissy dropped her voice. “Does Albuquerque get superstorms? Or tornadoes?”

“No, ma’am. I ain’t never seen neither one.”

“Thank you.”

After he left, Marianne looked up from her tablet and said, “Monsoon season doesn’t usually start in Albuquerque until August—well, this is late July. There can be heavy winter storms and severe lightning storms, but the last tornado of any impact was 1974. And it was only an F2. New Mexico lies outside of Tornado Alley. And the city hasn’t ever had a superstorm.”

“First time for everything,” Sissy muttered.

They ate in silence except for the wind. Marianne scarcely looked up from her notes. Not that she wasn’t always this focused before a speech, but at least she was eating. Her speech outfit, dress pants, and a pretty burgundy blazer that Sissy insisted she buy, hung loosely on her thinner body, but she’d refused to go shopping for something that actually fit. Tim, who always gulped his food, left to meet with hotel security and do his final check of the ballroom. He said to Marianne, “You stay here until I come for you.”

She said, “Tim, it’s been over a year since anybody has considered me worth attacking with so much as a banana. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Tim said, winked at Sissy, and left. Instead of being reassured by the slight bulge of his shoulder holster under his jacket, Sissy felt oddly disturbed.

Snap out of it, Sissy. Mama’s voice, strong in her head. And good advice. It was just the wind making her so jumpy. Sissy knew the cure for that—good common-sense facts. She left the table, turned on the wall screen, and found the local news.

“… unusually high winds… moderate rains… travel advisory in effect…”

Marianne looked up sharply. “How high did they say the winds are?”

Sissy said, “Gusts up to fifty miles per hour.”

Marianne frowned. Sissy said, “You have somebody you can call?” Marianne knew a lot of scientists, all kind of scientists.

“Yes, but I’m not going to call him. Not enough probability. You just leave your tablet on during the speech, Sissy, and keep an eye on the weather.”

Sissy nodded, but she wasn’t happy. She didn’t even want to eat her crème brûlée.

She was even less happy after Tim escorted Marianne to the green room behind the ballroom and Sissy took her seat in a middle row of chairs. Most of the chairs were empty; Marianne had been right about people staying home. A raised stage had been set up at one end, with a lectern and two more empty chairs. The wall behind the stage had a little door. The ballroom had no windows and it must have rooms all around it, because all of a sudden Sissy couldn’t hear the wind. An elderly couple sat next to her. They looked nice, so she leaned over and said, “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” the lady said.

“I’m not from around here and I’m just wondering—does Albuquerque get tornadoes or superstorms? There’s so much wind out there!”

They both smiled. The man said, “No, miss. Oh, small ones sometimes, but it’s not a big problem here.” It was what Marianne had already told her, and Sissy felt better. She should have eaten the crème brûlée. Maybe it would still be on the hallway cart after the speech. Almost 7:30—she settled herself more firmly on her chair.

Then they came in.

A whole group of young men—fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—which in itself was trouble because they were too old for a class trip and anyway there was no teacher or professor with them. They all wore long dark raincoats with hoods, which didn’t look like gang gear but didn’t look good, either. No girls with them, and the raincoats were loose enough to hide anything. Where was Tim? Had security let these guys through?

Sissy walked back to the ballroom entrance and asked the guard there, “Where is the ladies’ room?” He told her, but there was something about the way he held his face and body, something she couldn’t name but felt as strong as the chill from a freezer door. She smiled and walked toward the ladies’ room, and when she turned to open the door, he was watching her hard.

In the bathroom stall, she heard the wind howling. She called Tim on her cell. The call didn’t go through. Sissy checked her tablet; the Wi-Fi had disappeared.

Sissy left the bathroom and turned the opposite direction from the ballroom. The security guard had been watching for her. He called down the corridor, “Miss! You can’t go that way!” He started toward her.

Sissy ran. No place else, no hotel or college campus or community hall or anywhere else Marianne gave speeches, had ever tried to stop Sissy from going backstage. She darted into a staircase, ran up one floor instead of down, and raced toward a different stairwell. Her sense of direction had always been good. She found the corridors that brought her behind the ballroom. Another Security guard stood outside the green room. He eyed her the same way the other one had.

“You can’t go in there, Miss Tate.”

He knew her name. She hadn’t met with these people—had Tim for some reason shown them her picture? Why would he do that? Sissy made herself smile appealingly and held out her tablet. “I have to go in, I’m afraid. Dr. Jenner forgot her notes! She’s always so forgetful!” She shook her curls at the man.