Birdie is sitting in front of the TV when I come out of my room. Ray Remondo is drawing colored lines from the massive blob near Barbados all the way up to the Texas coast. Birdie chews a fingernail. Ray Remondo graduated from Crenshaw County High School around the time my dad was there, and a few years later he was one of those dudes they stick out on a pier during a hurricane on the Weather Channel to show you how bad the wind is. He came back home to Texas recently and started working for Action 8 in Corpus Christi. He’s Meridien’s little claim to fame. Plus, he’s been known to wax poetic about Crenshaw football now and again, which makes him one of Birdie’s favorite people. I think he even writes a sports opinion column in the weekly Meridien newspaper that only the old people read.

“What’s old Ray Ray gesticulating about today?” I pat myself on the back for using an SAT word.

“Storm out there brewing in the Caribbean. Maybe it’ll give us some relief from this ridiculous heat wave,” she says, throwing her hand up toward the TV.

She points the remote at the screen and clicks the power button in a huff. She pulls a towel from the laundry basket at her feet and starts folding.

“You think it’s something we need to pay attention to?” I ask.

“Not just yet. That thing may take ten days to get on up here. And you remember what happened with that Ashley,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Everyone on the Texas Gulf coast knows about that Ashley: the Hurricane That Wasn’t. Statewide panic and a bread-and-milk shortage all for a couple of clouds and a barely there thunderstorm that took a turn toward Louisiana at the last minute. Folks in Meridien talk about that Ashley the way they talk about that one uncle who ruined Thanksgiving or the Dallas Cowboys: with complete and utter disgust.

“Did you finish up all your homework?” she asks, wiping the sweat from her brow and pulling another towel from the laundry basket.

“Yes, ma’am.” It’s just a little white lie. I can finish my English assignment tonight after practice. It’ll help put me to sleep.

“You work hard out there,” she tells me, straightening my T-shirt and inspecting my shoelaces.

“I always do.”

“And you tell Coach Marcus he’s got a weak spot on defense on his left. He needs to fix that mess before Taylor.” She winks and squeezes my shoulders while guiding me toward the front door.

“What time is company coming?”

“Should be here within the hour, I suspect,” she says, her voice a little uneven. She looks out the window and wrings her hands. “Now get on out there and do what needs to be done.”