Emerson: Chart the Course Day Two of the Hurricane

SWITCH TO PEACHTREE BLUFF. SWITCH to Peachtree Bluff, I silently willed the Weather Channel, which was playing softly on the large, flat-screen TV hanging over the lacquered console in Caroline’s apartment living room. The good news was, since Jim Cantore was in Peachtree, my beloved town was getting a lot of screen time. The bad news was that it was getting so much screen time because it was getting hit so hard. I glanced down at my phone again, knowing that my mother couldn’t text me, knowing that nothing had changed. It was nearly four a.m., which meant that Hurricane Pearl had been mercilessly pounding Peachtree Bluff for almost eight hours. I perked up when I saw Jim Cantore appear on-screen. As if she sensed it, Caroline walked in and sat beside me. Moments later, Sloane appeared at the other side. I knew neither of them would be sleeping. How could they? It was bad for Sloane and me, but it was worse for Caroline. Her daughter was in the midst of this chaos.

Jim Cantore was screaming into the wind. “Hurricane Pearl was downgraded from a Category 4 to a Category 2 right before it made landfall here in Georgia, but this hurricane’s true power for destruction lies in how slowly it’s moving.” We all scooted up in our seats as the camera panned behind Jim. The water was definitely covering the streets now, but it was hard to gauge how high it actually was. Was it inside Caroline’s house? Jack’s? Surely, it couldn’t be inside Mom’s house, as high as it sat. If it was, the entire town was destroyed.

“We’re expecting the eye to blow over in the next few minutes, but we have hours more of this monster storm here on Georgia’s coast.” A tree limb sailed by the camera.

“Who in their right mind would stand out in storms for a living?” Sloane asked.

I shook my head. Caroline looked pale. “I just wish we would hear from them,” she said.

“The second unique factor of this storm is the tornadoes it has brought,” Cantore continued, yelling over the wind and rain. “Waterspouts forming over the ocean are making landfall all over the area.”

I hit the power button on the remote. Caroline hit it again as a voice off camera said, “We’ll keep you posted, but if this storm doesn’t start to move out, I can’t even imagine the damage it’s going to do. God bless those brave souls that stayed on that island.”

“Great. That’s just great,” Caroline said, hitting the power button again. She sighed.

“I tried to turn it off,” I said.

“I know, but I needed to see it. It makes me feel weirdly in control.”

I nodded.

“That makes sense,” Sloane said. “Information is power, even if it’s bad information.”

“It’s only a Category 2,” I said. “Think of how many Cat 2s we’ve ridden out over the years.”

“That’s exactly right,” Sloane said. “They’re going to be fine, Car.”

Caroline took a deep breath, sitting up straighter. “Right. You’re absolutely right. Those houses have been through hundreds of hurricanes, many of them much worse than this one.”

I was about to respond when a bang on the front door made me jump. I looked at my sisters, puzzled, and then got up and put my eye to the peephole. Definitely not a stranger. I opened the door and James barged into the living room, still in his ski coat. “Car!” he said, practically falling into her on the couch. “What do we do? How can we get to her?”

I felt like saying, Well, if you hadn’t been such an idiot and had an affair with Edie Fitzgerald and made my sister have to leave you, which turned my niece into this demon who had to be banished to her grandparents’, then none of this would have happened. But James looked so upset I didn’t say it. Plus, he had gotten plenty of similar earfuls from me already. Actually, the fact that he’d taken them like a man made me respect him slightly more—ever so slightly.

“They won’t let us fly there,” James said.

Caroline wordlessly hit the power button on the remote, and James’s eyes widened at the total destruction happening on the Weather Channel. “That would be why they won’t let us fly,” Caroline said.

“Then let’s get in the car,” he said frantically.

“James.” Sloane was very soothing and sweet. I was glad someone could manage that tone right now. “You can’t drive there. For one, there’s a huge storm that you’d be encountering all up and down the East Coast. For two, even if you could get there, the bridge is up. There’s no way on or off that island now.”

He shook his head, and Caroline jumped up off the couch. “Oh my God! The boat!”

“What about the boat?” he asked.

I felt my butterflies rising. “Caroline, no,” I said. “That’s really crazy.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why is it crazy? The boat has a water maker, which we know everyone is going to need, and we can fill it up with food and supplies.”

James jumped up now too and hugged her. “Yes! You are a genius. Yes!” Then he paused. “Wait, no wait. The boat is in Palm Beach. Remember?”

Caroline put her hand on her forehead.

They were having kind of a weird divorce. Mostly weird in that he still loved her so much and she still tolerated him so fully. But I got it: tolerating someone wasn’t love. Tolerance did not a happy and fulfilling marriage make. In fact, it did, quite often, make for a lot of resentment.

“Google if the storm is in Palm Beach!” Caroline instructed me.

She was really scary right now, so I typed as quickly as I could. I shook my head. “No, it’s farther north and projected to head inland as it dies down, not back out to sea.”

“Perfect!” James said. “It’s perfect. We can fly to Palm Beach, and it should only take us two or three days to get to Peachtree Bluff on the boat. If we had to leave from here, it would take at least five or six.”

Caroline stepped back. “Who said you were going? Someone has to stay here with Preston.”

“She is my daughter too,” he said, raising his voice.

“Shhhh,” we all said simultaneously. There were a lot of sleeping children crammed in Vivi’s bedroom.

“Well, I’m sure as hell going,” I said. I didn’t even have to ask Kyle. I knew that if we could figure out a way to get to Peachtree, we’d go. All of us.

“Me too,” Sloane chimed in.

“Do you think Adam will want to come?” I asked.

Sloane faked a puzzled expression. “Will Adam want to conduct a rescue mission? Hmmm…”

In spite of everything, Caroline smiled.

“I don’t even know how many staterooms the new palace at sea has,” I said. “I’ve never had the privilege of an invitation.”

Caroline rolled her eyes.

“Four,” James said. “And two V-berths.”

“We can make that work easy,” I said.

“I call master!” James and Caroline said simultaneously.

Caroline crossed her arms. Then she said, “Actually, Adam and Sloane get master because AJ and Taylor are going to have to share a room with them and AJ can sleep in their V-berth.”

“You get Preston because our captain needs her beauty sleep,” I said, smiling at James.

Caroline nodded seriously. “Truth.”

Sloane pointed at the TV. “Um, Cap, we can’t exactly ride into that.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know that, Sloane. Thank you. But it will be at least two or three days until we get to that, and the storm will have passed over by then.” She smiled sweetly at her almost-ex-husband. “Can you help me chart the course?”

“We’ll just use the GPS,” he said. She glared at him, and he acquiesced. “Fine. Fine.” Caroline was big on her charts. She didn’t trust her GPS when she was out in open water. I, for one, always felt much safer because of that.

She looked back at me. “Take James’s credit card. I need you to book us all tickets to Palm Beach.”

“So I guess I’m paying for this…” James said. Caroline glared at him, and he dug his wallet out. Sloane grimaced. Poor Sloane. She was still afraid to fly, and these past two days had been a real trial by fire.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Caroline asked. “You can stay put and fly in as soon as the bridges open.”

“This is the fastest way, right?” James said.

“It’s the only way,” Sloane chimed in. “Best case, that bridge opens next week. I’m not waiting that long. Even then, probably only power and construction crews will be allowed in and out.”

James’s eyes widened. “No. That can’t be true. They can’t just leave people like that.”

“That’s why it’s called mandatory evacuation,” I chimed in. “Because if they can’t keep people safe, they want them gone.” I looked back at the TV. There was no keeping them safe right now.

“Oh God, Vivi,” James said. “And poor Ansley. I just hope they’re all okay.”

We all nodded quietly, in unison, the very scary reality sinking back in.

I held my phone up. “There’s an eleven fifteen flight that would get us to Palm Beach before two.” Okay, so, honestly, there was also a seven a.m. flight, but it was already four thirty. I didn’t think we could get packed and to the airport in time to make it, but I knew Caroline would want to try if I told her.

Caroline nodded. I could see the light had returned to my sister’s eyes. We still didn’t know if our mother was safe. We didn’t know if Vivi was okay. But we weren’t sitting around helpless. We weren’t waiting. We were going to get them.

Caroline’s boat, Starlite Sisters, was essentially a self-contained universe, with all the systems needed to not only survive but thrive, to withstand any trouble that befell it. As I looked at Caroline and Sloane, the other two members of the real Starlite Sisters, I couldn’t help but think that maybe we were the exact same way.