Caroline: The Storm of the Century Two Days after the Flotilla

WHEN WE WERE LITTLE, THE number one role Emerson liked to play was the bride. The pictures are pretty comical. Tiny Emerson in the middle with Sloane and me, seven and five years older, respectively, towering over her on either side, the unhappy bridesmaids. She had an entire trunk of thrift-store gowns and veils, hideous rhinestone heels that clomp-clomp-clomped as she tried to walk around in them on her miniscule feet. It was the grandest of ironies that, out of all of us, Emerson—the consummate bride—was the most reluctant to get married.

I was telling her that very thing on our flight to New York. “Kyle is a god. You know that, right?” I asked Emerson as I sipped my rosé, sinking back into the wide, comfortable first-class seat.

She nodded. “Oh, I totally know. And I feel as though I worship him appropriately.” She was so straight-faced when she said it that we both burst out laughing.

“Do you? Because your not-even-husband is back in coach with your daughter and my son so that you can sit in first class with me. That’s a good man right there.” I smiled at her. “If my disastrous attempt at marriage taught me anything, it’s that sometimes the little sacrifices, the tiny things that show someone how much you love them, really are the most important.”

Emerson sighed. “I know. He’s the greatest man in the whole world.”

I was trying to feel Emerson out since we got interrupted by Kyle last time I’d tried. Mom had confided in me that Kyle had approached her about wanting to marry Emerson, but she wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea. We all loved Kyle and Emerson together, and the last thing we wanted was a brokenhearted Kyle back in Peachtree Bluff while Emerson continued on with her fabulous LA life. Well, I mean, truthfully, having Kyle back in Peachtree Bluff wouldn’t be that bad since his coffee—and delivery—skills beat the pants off of Keith’s. But I guessed my little sister’s eternal happiness was more important. Not to mention that there were tiny Peachtree Perks in our New York and LA stores, which would further complicate a disentanglement.

Before I could make any more offhanded comments that might help me dig further into the situation, Emerson leaned over and whispered, “I have a secret to tell you.”

I gasped. “You’re pregnant!”

She held up her wineglass and shook her head.

“Oh, right.”

“I don’t want you to get too excited because it’s a huge long shot, and probably nothing will come of it.”

It was too late—I was already excited. “What? What?”

She pursed her lips and said, “I’ve been asked to audition for a leading role on Broadway.”

My mouth fell open, and I got chills all over my body. Yes, that would be great for Emerson and her career and blah, blah, blah. But, really, I’d get to have my little sister in New York! Maybe even for years on end!

“Does Kyle know?” I whispered.

“Of course Kyle knows. If I get the part we’re going to have to move to New York.”

“Have to?” I said skeptically. “If he moved to Toronto and Atlanta for you, I feel like New York isn’t asking for too much. Seems like a step in the right direction.”

She rolled her eyes. “New York is the only city in the world; nowhere else matters. I get it.”

Now we had to figure out how to make this dream a reality. “I need the names of all the important people,” I said, springing into action. “You know, producers, casting agents, any and everyone.”

She nodded. “Thanks, Car. You’ve been my biggest supporter from day one.”

I shrugged it off, but I knew it was true. Almost ten years ago, when she’d forgone college for LA, I’d paid Emerson’s rent so she could focus more on auditions than waitressing. I’d asked favors from every friend James and I had that might know someone in the business. But she was my sister. I would do literally anything for her.

“So when’s the audition?” I asked.

“In three days,” she practically squealed.

I gasped. “Oh my God. What do we need to do? How’s your singing? Should we practice your tap dancing?”

She laughed. “It isn’t a musical, but that does sound kind of fun. Want to do it anyway?”

I nodded enthusiastically. “Got to keep up your skills because you never know what might happen.”

Emerson looked down at her watch. “Okay. I’m going to go switch with Sloane.”

It occurred to me as she got up that we had never even discussed my switching from first class to coach midway through the flight. At first, I felt sort of vindicated. All these years of big-sister rule had really sunk in. But then it hit me: Did they just feel sorry for me? They both had these amazing men in their lives to sit with and I didn’t.

But when Sloane sat down, she looked so smiley and warm that I decided maybe I was being just a tad ridiculous. So I didn’t bring it up. She sighed and said, “I’ve been wanting to ask you for days, but there’s always someone around: Are you dating at all? Like, in New York?”

Well, now. That was fast. “Um, no. Why?” I said, not wanting to admit, even to myself, that Wes came to mind when she said it. Which was utterly preposterous. I lived in New York. He was moving to Peachtree. But it wasn’t like I wanted to get married. And maybe it would be nice to have someone waiting for me underneath the mistletoe.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just kind of unlike you. You’re not one to really be without a man.”

“What does that mean?” I asked defensively. But I knew. Since seventh grade I had had a boyfriend pretty much every second until I married James.

Sloane just crossed her arms.

So I said wistfully, “I’m taking this time to get to know who I am without a man.”

“Car, no offense,” she said, “but you know who you are better than anyone I have ever met.”

I smiled at her. “I do, don’t I?” That didn’t mean I always liked who I was. But I never felt the need to take a sabbatical or get lost in the woods to soul-search. Even after I finally decided, for good, to leave James, I was still me. I’d always been me. And I guessed it was comforting to know that, no matter what was going on around me, I always had myself to come back to.

I sighed. “No, I mean, you’re right. I do want to find somebody. I do want to fall in love again. I’m not jaded and cynical—”

“You’ve always been jaded and cynical,” Sloane interrupted.

I glared at her. “Well, not about love.”

She nodded. “True. You have always been sort of shockingly romantic.”

“I have had some good offers on the table, but I just haven’t been ready,” I said. “And I don’t know. If I do this again, I don’t want to jump into a relationship with James 2.0.” And that was going to be hard because James was my type: handsome and confident and successful. I knew I was a lot to handle and that I had a big personality. And, for some women like me, a man who was calm and compliant was the way to go. But I knew from experience that I would bulldoze right over a man like that. I needed someone who could stand up to me when I was off base. “I need an equal,” I said.

Sloane patted my hand and took a sip of Emerson’s wine. “The fact that you think you could even have an equal shows some real progress.”

The flight attendant interrupted, refilling our glasses. She looked from Sloane to me a few times, but she didn’t say anything, even though it was against the rules for us to switch seats. It wasn’t like we could quietly replace Emerson anymore. Everyone knew who she was.

“Do you think Mom and Jack are going to have fun on their trip?” I asked, changing the subject.

“I think they would have before Vivi was tagging along.”

Truth. We both laughed.

A few minutes later, we landed. I felt surprisingly calm and rested. When I turned my phone on, the incessant dinging of messages coming through didn’t set any alarm bells off in my head. But when I started scrolling, I panicked.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“What?” Sloane asked, her alarm now matching mine.

I dialed Mom as I said, “They can’t find Vivi.”

“We have everyone looking for her,” Mom said without even saying hello. “Everyone in town, all the police and firefighters. I promise you we’ll find her.”

“What about the weather?” I asked, my panic rising further.

“Well, it’s holding off for now,” Mom said. She was lying. I could tell.

“Oh my God, Mom. Why did she run off like that?” I mean, not that there had to be a reason. She didn’t like her hair. Her lip gloss was the wrong shade. Mom ran out of Topo Chico, and no one understood her.

“Look, Car, we can hash all that out later. For now, can you track her?”

I pushed the speaker button and tapped on the Find My Friends app. “Huh,” I said. “It says she’s at Marine Supply Warehouse.”

“That’s what James’s said too,” Mom said. “But she’s definitely not at Marine Supply. We’ve done the legwork.”

I managed a small snort. “I could have told you she wasn’t there.”

Then, remembering that my daughter was lost in a hurricane, I said, “What else can we do? Get an Amber Alert or something?”

“I’ve already tried,” Mom said. “But you an only do that if you think the child has been abducted.”

I knew Mom had to have been freaking out, but not as much as I was. She said, very calmly, “Peachtree is very small. We will find her, and we will bring her home, and it will be fine.”

“I’m coming back!” I said frantically.

“Car.” Mom was even calmer now. “You can’t come back. They’ve closed the airport, and the bridges go up in an hour. There’s no way for you to get back here before the storm.”

My insides felt like they were being ripped apart. My daughter was missing. The storm of the century was coming.

I hung up and called James. “She’s going to be fine, Car,” he said first thing.

“You don’t know that she’s going to be fine!” I practically screamed. “She’s lost in a hurricane.”

“Not yet,” he said. “There’s no hurricane yet.”

“Right,” I said, willing myself to calm down. “Not yet. And they’ll find her and get off the island before it gets there.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Look, I tried to get to Peachtree, but they’ve closed the airport.”

So I’m just going to stay in Telluride with my new piece of ass was the implication. But what he said next made me do a 180.

“So I’m coming back to New York so we can figure out what to do next.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. That was kind of nice. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Everything is going to be okay.”

He couldn’t know that. But it did make me feel the tiniest bit better. That was when I noticed that everyone was off the plane but my family, who was standing around looking at me. I knew I needed to get up, put one foot in front of the other.

“My bag,” I said in a small voice as I got up out of my seat. “My baby,” I added, feeling tears begin to run down my cheeks.

She was out there somewhere in the great big world, so far away from me.

A few hours ago, I would have sworn I’d never met a Pearl I didn’t like. But life is like that. Sometimes it changes in an instant.