Keeping the Moon(21)
Author: Sarah Dessen

He smiled. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. It got me into art school, anyway. Now I just have to finish the series.” He picked up the painting again. “I only have three so far. But I promised when I finished this one I’d bring it over so they could see it.”

I remembered, suddenly, the portrait of Mira and Cat Norman that hung in the living room.

There was a loud boom right behind us, over the water, and I heard Mira’s front door fly open and slam shut in the wind.

We both looked up toward the house, lit up yellow and bright in the increasing darkness. And then I saw Mira slipping past window after window, her hands pressed against her face.

“What’s going on?” I said, but Norman was already halfway up the lawn, the canvas banging against his leg. There was another clap and it started to rain, hard, splattering my bare arms.

“Cat Norman!” I heard Mira call out as we came up onto the porch, the door still swinging and banging in the wind. “Where are you?”

“Mira,” I yelled, grabbing the door to silence it. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find him!” she yelled back. The wind was blowing through an open window on the porch, a few loose papers whirling past. “Cat Norman!”

“It’s okay,” Norman said. “He’s around here somewhere.”

She stepped into the doorway of the back room, her hair sticking out around her head. “I could hear him a few minutes ago, but now . . . you know how he’s scared of storms.”

I jumped at another thunderclap: it was close. “Stay there,” I said, as Norman rested his painting against the front bay window, out of the rain. “We’ll find him.”

“Damn cat,” she grumbled, disappearing from sight again.

“Cat Norman!” Norman called from the other side of the porch. “Here, boy!”

“Where is he?” Mira said as she passed a second time. “It’s that dog again, I know it. . . .”

“He’s got to be around here somewhere,” I told her. “Don’t worry.” And then I stepped back outside.

It was pouring, the treetops swaying back and forth. Isabel was out on the porch of the little white house, watching the storm roll in across the water.

“Cat Norman,” I said, peering under the bushes. The grass was wet and stuck to my feet. “Here, boy. Come on.”

“Nor-man,” I heard Norman yelling, around the other side.

“Nor-man,” I repeated.

Lightning hit close enough to shake the ground beneath me and flicker the lights in the house, and I was beginning to think Cat Norman would have to ride this one out alone when I met up with Norman in the backyard. He’d been checking his room.

“We should go in,” he said. There was a flash, another big bang, and above us the birdfeeders, swinging madly in the wind, rained down a shower of sunflower seeds.

“He’s probably under the house,” I told him as we ran up the back steps, the rain hard on my shoulders. We huddled under the slim awning and I reached for the knob. It was locked.

“Shoot,” Norman said.

“Mira,” I yelled, banging on it. “Open the door.” The wind came up hard behind us, blowing rain and birdseed against my legs.

No answer. I knew she was probably at the front of the house, peering into the bushes by the steps, Cat Norman’s favorite hiding spot. The open windows had let in enough wind to blow almost everything off the table: napkins were circling in midair, placemats scattered colorful and bright across the floor. I could have tried to force the door, but knew well that the LOCK STICKS OCCASIONALLY.

“Mira,” I repeated, shouting. “Open up, okay?”

“She can’t hear us,” Norman said.

I kept banging as the rain came harder, stinging now, and the windchimes next to my head, clanging crazily, left their nail altogether and flew off into the yard, still singing.

“Mira.” I pressed my hand against the glass as the wind pushed me against the house. “Come on.”

“We have to make a run for the front door,” Norman said in my ear. “Are you ready?”

I turned around. It was raining so hard I couldn’t even see the water, just a blurred gray wall in front of me.

“Ready?” Norman said. He glanced at me.

“I—” I said, swallowing hard.

“Set?” Norman said.

Another flash of lightning, and I knew to wait, to hold my breath for what would follow.

“Go!” he shouted, grabbing my hand and yanking me down the stairs, just as a huge boom rose out of the darkness in front of us. I think I screamed.

We ran right into the noise, the ground shaking as my feet touched it, but we kept going, his hand laced tight in mine. I could feel rain against my eyes, in my mouth, splashing in my ears.

When we ran up onto the front porch, soaked, I was completely out of breath. I leaned against the door and closed my eyes.

Norman was still holding my hand, his palm warm against mine.

“Man,” he said. He was grinning, but shakily. “That was intense. ”

“I can’t believe we made it,” I said.

He smiled, then looked down at our hands. I let go, quickly, without even thinking.

Norman slid his hand into his pocket.

I felt something. Something wet and hairy, brushing across my leg with slow, ambling laziness.

“Meow,” Cat Norman said simply, parking his big butt by my foot and looking up at me. “Meow.”

“I hate you,” I told him. He didn’t flinch.

“Dumb cat,” Norman said, reaching down to scoop him up. He opened the door and dropped him inside.

The wind was dying down now, the rain reduced to a constant stream, rattling through the gutters and overflowing the drainpipe. I was sure Cat Norman had already found his way to Mira’s side, to be gathered up in her arms and forgiven, as always.

“Well,” Norman said suddenly.

“Well,” I said.

He leaned closer to me, squinting. “You look different,” he pronounced. “Don’t you?”

I touched a hand to my dripping hair, remembering my afternoon in Isabel’s hands. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I do.”

He nodded, smiling. “It looks good,” he told me, in that slow, earnest way of his. “It does.”

“Thanks.” All I could think of was him holding my hand, tight, as we ran into the storm. Hippie Norman. So not the guy for me. But still.

Stop it, I told myself. No matter how nice he was acting, he’d heard what Caroline Dawes had said. Of course he wanted to hold my hand. And do everything else that you do with girls like me.