And Cherice said, “I think I’m just gon’ pray.”
But Mathilde will have to try harder this time, especially since she’s not there.
Cherice is not surprised to see Mathilde’s North Carolina number on her caller ID. “Hey, Mathilde,” she says. “How’s the weather in Highlands?”
“Cherice, listen. This is the Big One. This time, I mean it, I swear to God, you could be—”
“Uh-huh. Gamblin’ with my life and Charles’s. Listen, if it’s the Big One, I want to be here to see it. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Cherice, listen to me. I know I’m not going to convince you—you’re the pig-headedest woman I’ve ever seen. Just promise me something. Go to my house. Take the dogs. Ride it out at my house.”
“Take the dogs?” Cherice can’t believe what she’s hearing. Mathilde never lets her bring the dogs over, won’t let them inside her house. Hates dogs, has allergies, thinks they’ll pee on her furniture. She loves Mathilde, but Mathilde is a pain in the butt, and Cherice mentions this every chance she gets to anyone who’ll listen. Mathilde is picky and spoiled and needy. She’s good-hearted, sure, but she hates her precious routine disturbed.
Yet this same Mathilde Berteau has just told her to promise to take the dogs to her immaculate house. This is so sobering Cherice can hardly think what to say. “Well, I know you’re worried now.”
“Cherice. Promise me.”
Cherice hears panic in Mathilde’s voice. What can it hurt? she thinks. The bed in Mathilde’s guest room is a lot more comfortable than hers. Also, if the power goes out—and Cherice has no doubt that it will—she’ll have to go to Mathilde’s the day after the storm anyhow, to clean out the refrigerator.
Mathilde is ahead of her. “Listen, Cherice, I need you to go. I need you to clean out the refrigerator when the power goes. Also, we have a gas stove and you don’t. You can cook at my house. We still have those fish Tony caught a couple of weeks ago—they’re going to go to waste if you’re not there.”
Cherice is humbled. Not about the fish offer—that’s just like Mathilde, to offer something little when she wants something bigger. That’s small potatoes. What gets to her is the refrigerator thing—if Mathilde tells her she needs her for something, she’s bringing out the big guns. Mathilde’s a master manipulator, and Cherice has seen her pull this one a million times—but not usually on her. Mathilde does it when all else fails, and her instincts are damn good—it’s a lot easier to turn down a favor than to refuse to grant one. Cherice knows her employer like she knows Charles—better, maybe—but she still feels the pull of Mathilde’s flimsy ruse.
“I’ll clean your refrigerator, baby,” Cherice says carefully. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“Cherice, goddamnit, I’m worried about you!”
And Cherice gives in. “I know you are, baby. And Charles and I appreciate it, we really do. Tell you what—we gon’ do it. We gon’ go over there. I promise.” But she doesn’t know if she can actually talk Charles into it.
He surprises her by agreeing readily as soon as she mentions the part about the dogs. “Why not?” he says. “We can sleep in Mathilde and Tony’s big ol’ bed and watch television till the power goes out. Drink a beer and have the dogs with us. Ain’t like we have to drive to Mississippi or somethin’. And if the roof blows off, maybe we can save some of their stuff. That refrigerator ain’t all she’s got to worry about.”
“We’re not sleepin’ in their bed, Charles. The damn guest room’s like a palace, anyway—who you think you is?”
He laughs at her. “I know it, baby. Jus’ tryin’ to see how far I can push ya.”
So that Sunday they pack two changes of clothes, plenty for two days, and put the mutts in their crates. The only other things they take are dog food and beer. They don’t grab food for themselves because there’s plenty over at Mathilde’s, which they have to eat or it’ll go bad.
The first bands of the storm come late that night, and Charles does what he said he was going to—goes to bed with a beer and his dogs. But after he’s asleep, Cherice watches the storm from the window of the second-floor living room. The power doesn’t go off until early morning, and when the rain swirls, the lights glint on it. The wind howls like a hound. Big as it is, the house shakes. Looking out, Cherice sees a building collapse, a little coffee shop across the street, and realizes how well built the Berteaus’ house is. Her own is not. She prays that it will make it. But she knows she will be all right, and so will Charles and the dogs. She is not afraid because she is a Christian woman and she trusts that she will not be harmed.
But she does see the power of God in this. For the first time, she understands why people talk about being God-fearing instead of God-loving, something that’s always puzzled her. You better have God on your side, she thinks. You just better.
She watches the transformers blow one by one, up and down the street, and goes to bed when the power goes out, finding her way by flashlight, wondering what she’s going to wake up to.
The storm is still raging when she stirs, awakened by the smell of bacon. Charles has cooked breakfast, but he’s nowhere to be found. She prowls the house looking for him, and the dogs bark to tell her: third floor.
“Cherice,” he calls down. “Bring pots.”
She knows what’s happened: leaks. The Berteaus must have lost some shingles.
So she and Charles work for the next few hours, putting pots out, pushing furniture from the path of inrushing water, gathering up wet linens, trying to salvage and dry out papers and books, emptying the pots, replacing them. All morning the wind is dying, though. The thing is blowing through.
By two o’clock it’s a beautiful day. “Still a lot of work to do,” Charles says, sighing. “But I better go home first, see how our house is. I’ll come back and help you. We should sleep here again tonight.”
Cherice knows that their house has probably lost its roof, that they might have much worse damage than the Berteaus, maybe even flooding. He’s trying to spare her by offering to go alone.
“Let’s make some phone calls first,” she says.
They try to reach neighbors who rode out the storm at home, but no one answers, probably having not remembered, like Cherice and Charles, to buy car chargers. Indeed, they have only a little power left on their own cell phone, which Cherice uses to call Mathilde. The two women have the dodged-the-bullet talk that everyone in the dry neighborhoods has that day, the day before they find out the levees have breached.
Though they don’t yet know about the levees, Cherice nonetheless feels a terrible foreboding about her house, acutely needs to see how badly it’s damaged. She doesn’t have much hope that the streets will be clear enough to drive, but she and Charles go out in the yard anyhow to remove broken limbs from the driveway.
“Let’s listen to the car radio, see if we can get a report,” Cherice says, realizing they’ve been so preoccupied with saving the Berteaus’ possessions, they’ve forgotten to do this.
She opens the car door, is about to enter, when she feels Charles tense beside her. “Cherice,” he says.
She turns and sees what he sees: a gang of young men in hooded sweatshirts walking down the street, hands in their pockets. Looking for trouble.
Charles says, “You go on back in the house.”
Cherice doesn’t need to be told twice. She knows where Tony keeps his gun. She means to get it, but she’s so worried about Charles she turns back to look, and sees that he’s just standing by the car, hands in pockets, looking menacing. The young men pass by, but she goes for the gun anyway.