Track 33

“Somebody That I Used to Know”

Four Hours Ago

Alondra Santiago yawned, too tired to even lift a hand and cover her mouth. Purple-gray oil paint was embedded in her cuticles. No safe amount of turpentine was able to lift it. She didn’t have any energy to scrub anymore. She’d worked all night completing her art class assessment—five weeks in advance. But once she started right after school yesterday, she couldn’t stop. Had to get the images of her dreams out of her head somehow. Now that she was done, she wanted to burn her artwork.

That would have to wait until she handed it in for grading.

A lumpy couch and an afternoon of mildly suspenseful House Hunters reruns with closed captions was about all she could handle. The show was predictable. Her life was not.

She sat up as a “breaking news” broadcast abruptly interrupted a Midwest couple’s search for an affordable fixer-upper.

“Governor Fairbanks is speaking about the severe storm front that has been battering the state in the past hours. Let’s cross live to her now.”

The video cut to the governor at a lectern, addressing reporters. Left of her onstage, a trembling young woman wearing all black interprets in American Sign Language.

“The storm cell has veered east and is expected to bring damaging hail. Winds of up to sixty miles an hour…”

Alondra’s younger brother, Miguel, barreled into the center of the Santiagos’ spacious living room. He stopped dead as if he’d run out of battery power, blocking Alondra’s view of the broadcast. He bellowed in the direction of the kitchen, “Mom, where are my soccer boots?”

Alondra scowled fiercely and stretched a leg out to tap his ankle. She signed, “Move out of the way! You’re not a ghost.”

Her pulse rate tripled as she tried to look around her very solid brother.

Miguel simultaneously spoke and signed, “You could’ve just scooted along the couch.”

“I was here first.” She didn’t care that she came across like a ten-year-old. She and Miguel had bickered like this since they were toddlers, anyway. But today he was particularly grating. Especially since her nerves were stretched thinner than usual. “And you’re blocking my view of the interpreter.”

“They always blow these things way out of proportion. Besides, the storms are twenty miles away.”

“The storm could blow down this way.” Alondra knew her brother was probably right, though.

And as intense as the weather pattern seemed to be for folks upstate, she wasn’t focused on the storms. Rather, she zeroed in on the girl signing. A girl she thought she’d never see again. One who’d barely changed in five years, albeit with an obvious growth spurt.

Cassidy.