Hurricanes to be cont

The wind bent the few trees we could see from the basement window. Branches tipped invisible hats to friends beyond the horizon. I lit the scented candle on the sill, took one last look at the outside, and lowered the blinds behind it.
"It's my turn again already? I'm running out of jokes." I said.
"It's okay. One last one. We'll save the rest for later." She responded.
"Okay, here's a tame one my grandmother used to tell. So there's a couple of barnyard animals out to eat at a restaurant and the waiter says, 'So, what’ll it be?' And the one says, 'I know what I want but I feel sort of dumb ordering it.' And the other says, 'Well I know what I want but I feel sort of fat ordering it.' And after a lot of bickering and back and forth, the waiter finally says, 'Well, if I may be so bold, everyone here is expecting you, sir, to make an ass of yourself and you, sir, to make a pig of yourself, so I'm pretty sure you're in the clear."
"That's cute." And she smiled like a pageant winner: all teeth, no soul.
"Well it's not the best joke, but it's the first one I've ever known, so there it is and that makes it special, I suppose."
After that, we went silent for a while. She sat there on the pool table knocking the cue ball into the 9 ball. I settled into the loveseat I had against the east wall, across from the TV that wasn’t working. It was just that way for a bit and I didn’t really mind it. The sound of the wind beating up against the side of the house and the low rumble of the cue ball on the felt were a lullaby. I could have done without the inevitable clack of the cue against the 9 as they met, but I didn’t want to ask Elsa to stop. I knew that once she was done with the pool balls, she’d want to start up talking again. And sure as I sit here now telling the events of this day, the very second that woman lost interest in the cue ball, she turned back to me.
“So, do you think it’s a hurricane?”
“I think that’s just crazy, now. Hurricanes don’t just appear out of nowhere. People track them. There are warnings. People have jobs where they just sit all day and watch weather patterns. Besides, hurricanes don’t just drop out of the sky. This storm would have come through from somewhere. Chances are if we haven’t heard about this storm coming, it probably isn’t much to worry about.”
“Sounds like something to be worrying about. You hear it out there?”
“Yes, I hear it. I’m not deaf. I hear it. It’s just a lot of wind.”
We went quiet again after that, but the damage had been done. I took off my boots and socks. I rubbed them into the carpet to try to tickle my feet. It was a trick I learned from coach back when I was playing ball. During states, I was cramping real bad, and the salt pills weren’t putting a dent in any of it. Coach said, tickle yourself. It releases a chemical in your brain that soothes you out, he said. I’d been doing it ever since that, anytime I needed a little extra help. Just then, I remembered that we left everything out.
“Shit, Elsa, I have to go bring the stuff in, I’ll be right back.”
“But the food’s probably ruined all anyway.”
“I couldn’t care less about the food, but we got about 50 beers out there, now hold on and I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, you stay here, I’ll be back.”
I opened the door that leads to the back stairs and heard a high whistling sweeping through the dark. It was drafty and I could already feel that the temperature had dropped some. The truth is, I could give a shit about a few beers, but my own eyes needed to see what was tearing through here.
Before I stepped out, I could almost convince myself that it was just a storm, but crossing the threshold and stepping out, exposing myself to it, I knew this was not ordinary, and my heart beat into my throat.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but when I was able to steal a look around on my way to the cooler, it was the trees that scared me. They were rocking around in that wind like they could be swept away at any moment, bent like overgrown hunchbacks stooping to get under something.
I picked up the cooler and thought to myself, “Please. Dear God, please, let Roberta and Neil get back from the market all right.”
They’d been gone for almost two hours now and there was only about 5 miles to the store from the house. We needed limes for the Coronas because we weren’t anticipating Elsa and Neil being so insistent on having them with their beer. Otherwise, I would have bought all that fancy stuff the day before when I picked up their ridiculous Mexican beer at the Food Lion. Elsa just about threw a fit when I said we were finished with the only two limes I bought.
“Two limes?” she asked, “You only bought two limes for all this Corona? Well that won’t do. Neil why don’t you run the market, pick us up some limes?”
“I’ll go too,” said Roberta, “I want to grab a few things for dessert.”
God I just wanted Roberta to be back now.