Before the Storm. Diane Chamberlain

mother as he helped me out of my leather jacket.

      “I hope you’re hungry.” Daddy L leaned against the doorjamb. “Mama’s cooked up a storm this afternoon.”

      “It smells wonderful,” I said.

      “That’s the meringue on my banana pudding you’re smelling,” Miss Emma said.

      “Where’s Marcus?” Jamie asked.

      I hadn’t met him yet, but I knew Jamie’s fifteen-year-old brother was something of a bad boy. Eight years younger than Jamie, he’d been a surprise to parents who’d adjusted to the idea of an only child.

      “Lord only knows.” Miss Emma stirred a big bowl of potato salad. “He was surfing. Who knows what he’s doing now. I told him dinner is at six-thirty, but the day he’s on time is the day I’ll keel over from the shock.”

      Jamie gave his mama’s shoulders a squeeze. “Well, let’s hope he’s not on time, then,” he said.

      An hour later, we settled around a table laden with fried chicken, potato salad and corn bread. Marcus was not with us. We were near one of the broad oceanside windows and I imagined the view was spectacular in the daylight.

      “So, tell me about your people, darlin’,” Miss Emma said as she handed me the bowl of potato salad for a second helping.

      I explained that my mother grew up in Raleigh and my father in Greensboro, but that I lost them on the cruise ship and was raised by my aunt and uncle in Ohio.

      “Lord have mercy!” Miss Emma’s hand flew to her chest. She looked at Jamie. “No wonder you two found each other.”

      I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Jamie smiled at me and I figured I could ask him later.

      “That explains your accent.” Daddy L looked at his wife and she nodded. “We were trying to peg it.”

      Daddy L helped himself to a crisp chicken thigh. He glanced at his watch, then at the empty chair next to Jamie. “Maybe you could talk to Marcus about his grades, Jamie,” he said.

      “What about them?”

      “We just got his interim report, and he’s fixin’ to flunk out if he doesn’t buckle down,” Miss Emma said quietly, as if Marcus could overhear us. “Mostly D’s. And it’s his junior year. I don’t think he knows how important this year is for getting into college.” She looked at me. “Jamie’s Daddy and I never made it to college, and I want my boys to get an education.”

      “I love going to UNC,” I said, although I was really thinking that she and Daddy L had done quite well for themselves without a college degree.

      “I’ll talk to him,” Jamie said.

      “He spends all the time he’s not in school on that surf-board,” Miss Emma said, “and then is off with his friends on the weekends, no matter what we say.”

      “Boy’s out of control,” Daddy L added.

      I’d been in the house only an hour, but already the primary Lockwood family dynamic was apparent: Jamie, despite the long hair and the tattoo and the motorcycle, was the favored son. Marcus was the black sheep. I hadn’t even met him and I already felt sympathy for him.

      We were nearly finished when we heard the downstairs door open and close. “I’m home!” a male voice called.

      “And your dinner’s cold as ice!” Miss Emma called back.

      I heard him on the stairs. He came into the dining room barefooted, wearing a full-length wet suit, the top unzipped nearly to his navel. He had a lanky, slender build that would never fill out to Jamie’s bulk, even though Jamie had eight years on him. A gold cross hanging from his neck glittered against the tan that must have been left over from summer, and his hair was a short, curly cap of sun-streaked brown. He had Miss Emma’s eyes—blue, shot through with summer sky.

      “Hey.” He grinned at me, pulling out the chair next to Jamie.

      “Go put some clothes on,” Daddy L said.

      “This is Laurel,” Jamie said. “And this is Marcus.”

      “Hi, Marcus,” I said.

      “You’re a sandy mess,” Miss Emma said. “Get dressed and I’ll heat you a plate in the microwave.”

      “Not hungry,” Marcus said.

      “You still need to change your clothes if you’re going to sit here with us,” said his father.

      “I’m going, I’m going.” Marcus got up with a dramatic sigh and padded toward the bedrooms.

      In a few minutes, I heard the music of an electric piano. The tune was halting and unfamiliar.

      Jamie laughed. “He brought the piano with him?”

      “If you can call it that,” Miss Emma said.

      Daddy L looked at me. “He wants to play in a rock-and-roll band,” he explained. “For years, we offered to buy him a piano so he could take proper lessons, but he said you can’t play a piano in a band.”

      “So he bought a used electric piano and is trying to teach himself how to play it,” Miss Emma said. “It makes me ill, listening to that thing.”

      “Ah, Mama,” Jamie said. “It keeps him off the streets.”

      After we’d eaten the most fabulous banana pudding I’d ever tasted, I wandered down the hall to use the bathroom. I could hear Marcus playing a song by The Police. When I left the bathroom, I knocked on his open bedroom door.

      “Your mother said you’re teaching yourself how to play.”

      He looked up, his fingers still on the keys. He’d changed into shorts and a navy-blue T-shirt. “By ear,” he said. “I can’t read music.”

      “You could learn how to read music.” I leaned against the doorjamb.

      “I’m dyslexic,” he said. “I’d rather have all my teeth pulled.”

      “Play some more,” I said. “It sounded good.”

      “Could you recognize it?”

      “That song by The Police,” I said. “‘Every Breath You Take’?”

      “Awesome!” His grin was cocky and he had the prettiest blue eyes. I bet he was considered a catch by girls his age. “I’m better than I thought,” he said. “How about this one?”

      He bent over the keys with supreme concentration, the cocky kid gone and in his place a boy unsure of himself. The back of his neck looked slender and vulnerable. He grimaced with every wrong note. I struggled to recognize the song, to let him have that success. It took a few minutes, but then it came to me.

      “That Queen song!” I said.

      “Right!” He grinned. “‘We are the Champions.’”

      “I’m impressed,” I said sincerely. “I could never play by ear.”

      “You play?”

      “I took lessons for a few years.”

      He stood up. “Go for it,” he said.

      I sat down and played a couple of scales to get the feel of the keyboard. Then I launched into one of the few pieces I could remember by heart: Fur Elise.

      When I finished, I looked up to see Jamie standing in the doorway of the bedroom, a smile on his face I could only describe as tender. I knew in that moment that I loved him.

      “That was beautiful,” he said.

      “Yeah, you’re good,” Marcus agreed. He tipped his head to one side, appraising me. “Are you, like, a sorority chick?”

      I laughed.