The sky looked brooding and foreboding and there was a yellowish cast to everything. It had been oppressively hot; the air was heavy. Tina noticed that there was an ominous stillness. The birds had stopped chirping and there was silence. She knew from experience that meant a storm was brewing, possibly tornadoes. It made a shiver of fear go down her spine.
This was tornado country and she had lived here all her life. It was all too familiar to her. She hurried to get the tomatoes picked for supper. It started: one huge drop splashed on her face and then another and another. Grabbing the basket of vegetables, Tina started running for the house.
By the time she got to the back door she was drenched. Water was dripping off a tendril of hair that was wet and matted to her forehead. The drops slid down her nose in a steady stream. Her clothes were so wet they stuck to her body. Tina hoisted the basket of vegetables up onto the counter in the kitchen and rushed into the bathroom to grab a towel so she could dry off a little bit. Then she hurried into the bedroom and started peeling off her wet clothes.
Tina grabbed some clean jeans out of the closet and a shirt. She was shivering as she pulled them on. The temperature must have dropped fifteen degrees, she thought to herself. She slid on a pair of slippers by her bed and hurried back into the kitchen.
Grabbing a cup out of the cupboard, Tina poured herself some hot coffee and thought that it tasted so good as it warmed her up again. She could hear the huge drops of rain pelting the roof. Tina walked over and looked out the window to see the rain blowing sideways, coming down in sheets. The house creaked and groaned in the wind.
She carried her coffee into the living room and curled up on the couch with it. In a short time the rain had abated slightly and was now coming in a steady cadence on the roof. Picking up the remote, Tina turned on the television to see if there were any weather reports. She especially wanted to see if there were any tornado warnings. It was summer in Missouri and that brought with it some nasty weather at times. Then a thought occurred to her, she hadn’t seen Shadow.
Shadow was her dog, a huge Doberman. She had named him that because he was usually right by her side, wherever she went. Tina got upand started looking through the house for him. Finally, she found him in the family room sound asleep on the couch. When she approached he woke up and looked at her with a guilty expression on his face.
“Well, that’s a first, big guy, you slept right through the storm!” Tina laughed.
By now he was up and stretching, and wiggling his stub of a tail as she talked to him. Tina had had him since he was a tiny black bundle of fur. It had been love at first sight when her mom and dad had given him to her for her sixteenth birthday. A friend of Tina’s had a Doberman named Sam. He was a great dog. Because of Sam, she had fallen in love with the breed and had wanted a Dobey for a long time. So on her sixteenth birthday when she got Shadow she had been thrilled. He was two years old now and huge. Although Shadow was large, he was as nimble and graceful as a deer when he ran. Tina thought he was one of the most beautiful dogs she had ever seen; she and Shadow were inseparable.
Her boyfriend even liked Shadow, which was a good thing, because if a guy she was dating didn’t get along with Shadow she didn’t date him anymore. Actually, her boyfriend Justin was just as crazy about animals as she was; in fact he was starting college in the fall to be a Veterinarian. She had known Justin since third grade and he had always wanted to be a veterinarian. Tina didn’t have a clue what she wanted to be. She was starting college in the fall as well, but she didn’t have the foggiest notion what she was going to major in at this point. She was hoping she would figure that out as she went to school. Her mom kept telling her that it would all work out in time.
Right now she was just enjoying the summer off. Well, sort of. Actually, she was taking care of the house and animals for her mom and dad while they were on vacation. They would be gone for a month taking a cruise around the Caribbean Islands; kind of a second honeymoon. They’d planned this for a long time. Tina was happy for them. They both worked really hard as Veterinarians. She remembered many nights when one or both of them would be up all night taking care of someone’s sick pet.
Tina realized the rain had finally stopped, and it looked like the sun was trying to come out. She went into the kitchen and started rooting around in the refrigerator for a snack. There was some cold pizza from last night, so she grabbed a slice of pizza and a can of soda, and went back into the living room. Flopping down on the couch, she started flipping through the channels on the television. There was nothing on, so she decided to check out her clothes situation. She and Justin were going out later to a movie with their friends since grade school, Heather and Matt.
She was going to cook supper for all of them before they went out. Tina had always loved to cook. She remembered following her mom around the kitchen when she was little, and watching her every move. When she was about ten, her mom started letting her cook simple recipes. At one point, Tina had even considered becoming a chef; but she wasn’t sure she would love cooking as much if she had to do it for a living.
Just as she was heading into the kitchen the doorbell rang. Shadow started barking and running around in circles at the door. Tina thought to herself. “Who could that be?” She hurried to answer the door, the doorbell rang again. She grabbed Shadow’s collar and said “quiet big guy” and opened the door.
Standing there was a very pretty, petite woman with dark auburn hair that just touched her shoulders. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties. Tina had never seen this person before, and yet she felt like they had met somewhere. The stranger wore a Cobalt blue pantsuit that brought out the intense blue of her eyes. For a second, the woman stood and just stared at Tina. Tina felt a little uncomfortable.
Finally, breaking the silence, Tina asked, “May I help you with something?”
The stranger cleared her throat and said, “Um, ah, yes, I, I was trying to find an address. Do you know where 210 Grande Avenue is?”
Tina thought she knew the town pretty well, but she had never heard of Grande Avenue. “I’m sorry I‘ve never heard of that street before, not around here, anyway.”
The strange woman was nervously fidgeting with her ring. She stared at Tina for a second and stammered an apology. She turned and hurried down the front walk, toward a dark blue car parked at the curb. Hurriedly, she got in and sped away.
Tina just stood in the door staring after the stranger. The woman seemed strangely familiar, and yet she didn’t remember ever seeing her before. As she closed the door she thought that maybe it was someone she had run into at her parent’s vet clinic where she helped out sometimes after school.
The experience with the stranger had been a little unsettling and Tina kept going back to it in her mind.