3. Annie
Chapter 3
Annie
7 Years Ago
June 24 th
A nnie can come if she wants.
That’s the message Justin gets from Chris on the last day of their official chase season, four weeks after my first and only chase. Maybe gas money is running low, I don’t know. Whatever the reason for the invite, I have nothing to do, so I grab my camera and tag along.
Maybe I’m naive for expecting anything to have changed, but Chris is just as quiet on the drive as last time, talking only to Justin about chase-related things. I guess he hasn’t warmed up to me.
It’s fine. It gives me time to review the details of the photography apprenticeship I start next month. My uncle wasn’t happy I dropped out, but the apprenticeship softened the blow. He’s a photographer, too—he does weddings, graduations, and the like—and my aunt is an artist, so they were at least understanding of my decision, unlike my parents, who aren’t talking to me now. My aunt and uncle have been more like parents to me than my actual parents. I used to wish they were my parents or that I could live with them in Texas and be wild and free. And loved for who I am.
The apprenticeship is an excellent opportunity, and it’ll mean travel, too. Wylla Carter, the photographer, takes impressive shots that tell a story about life in a given place at a given time. I’m excited to learn from her.
We get to our target area and stop for a late lunch. Justin goes outside to take a phone call from his brother. Chris doesn’t talk to me. I can’t think of anything to say that won’t earn me a scowl, so I prop my elbow on the table, rest my head in my hand, and scroll through the photos from my first chase, thinking about how I might do things differently if we’re lucky enough to see a tornado today. It’s an exercise in pointlessness since there are so many variables—the lighting and contrast, how much time I have to get a shot—but it keeps me busy enough I can almost forget the silent man sitting across from me. Not entirely, but enough that I don’t notice he’s leaning forward to look at my phone until he speaks.
“Those are good,” Chris says.
“Thanks,” I say, but my face is heating, and suddenly I feel fluttery. I’ll never get used to compliments, it seems. My aunt and uncle have always been good at saying nice and constructive things about my photos, but to my parents, a photo is just a photo. Photography is a hobby at best and always a distraction from the “real world.”
But I got an apprenticeship. That can’t be a mistake. I have to be good enough. Hopefully, good enough to make this my real life.
Chris is still watching, so I turn the phone so we can both see as I scroll through.
“This one.” He taps the edge of the phone. It’s the photo of the white cone-shaped tornado over a brilliant green field, a rainbow beside it. “I took the same photo, but mine doesn’t look like that. How’d you do that?”
I tell him how I enhance photos digitally to make them more eye-catching, and by the time Justin returns, we’re discussing composition, and Chris is showing me the sped-up version of the time-lapse he captured on his camera. I need to bring my other cameras and a tripod to do time-lapses of my own.
If they invite me back next year. It’s not something I’m willing to count on yet. Things are going well with Justin. I like him a lot. But this thing is new, and a lot can change in ten months.
We finish lunch and pile into the SUV, heading north out of town to regroup as storms fire to the southwest. Chris and Justin choose their target—it’s a little farther than the others, and we have to bust ass south to get there. We skirt the forward flank downdraft and find a tornado already in progress.
It’s impressive, a monster stovepipe extending from dark clouds to the ground. It’s too far away for the roar to be audible, but I bet it sounds like a freight train or a jet engine. The contrast is remarkable, though. My first tornado was beautiful, graceful, and ethereal, lit by the sun. This one is menacing, a creature of shadow. Little tendrils skirt up the outside, reaching out before dissipating.
“Vorticity noodles,” Justin tells me. “Means it’s a strong tornado.”
We park on the side of the road, where we can watch it slowly come closer.
“It’s coming this way,” Chris says after studying the storm for a minute, “but we’ve got time if you want to set up.”
We do. Justin gets his tripod out for a time-lapse, and Chris tinkers with one of the instruments mounted to the top of the SUV. I focus most of my attention on photographing the stovepipe.
Warm wind from the east tugs at my hair. Chris gives up trying to keep his baseball hat on his head and tosses it into the SUV. I take a sneaky shot of him without it for proof that it’s not permanently affixed to his skull before I go back to the tornado.
I can hear it now; it sounds as angry as it looks.
A truck blasts by, and I jump at the sound even though we’re far enough off the road. We’re alone. There’s hardly any traffic and none of the chaser convoys that crowded the roads on my first chase. It’s eerie.
“Is it weird that we’re the only ones on this storm?” I ask.
Justin shrugs. “There’s enough tornado-warned storms around. Other chasers could be to the east of us. Plus, there’s another target up in the high plains.”
Makes sense, I guess.
I jump when lightning cracks further north of our position. I swear I feel it in my bones. Chris stops tinkering with the instruments mounted to the SUV’s roof, grabs his camera, and joins us. In addition to finishing up his PhD in Meteorology, he’s also working on one in some kind of engineering and makes many of his instruments. My eyes might have glazed over when Justin told me about it.
Another bolt of lightning strikes the ground, the clap of thunder shaking me. I glance up at the sky and decide to enjoy the show from inside the SUV. Except the sky looks funny, and I don’t know if it’s normal funny. Above us—not directly overhead yet but moving our way—is a bowl-shaped cloud a little lighter in color than the clouds nearby. It’s spinning. I open my mouth to ask.
“Oh, shit,” Chris says abruptly. “Get in!”
My heart leaps in total panic, and I bolt into the vehicle.
Justin grabs his camera, still on the tripod, and stuffs the whole thing at me before slamming my door. Chris swings into the driver’s seat. Justin’s door barely closes before he takes off down the road. I turn in my seat as a new tornado spins up, crossing the road roughly where we were parked thirty seconds ago.
“Good catch,” Justin says, watching the tornado out the back.
“I didn’t see it,” Chris mutters, turning down another road. “Annie did.”
Justin looks at me. “You did?”
I shake my head because I had no clue what I was looking at. Wait…was Chris watching me instead of the storm?
Chris swings a U-turn and parks. He’s out of the SUV before anyone can say anything else. Justin gets out. I hand him the tripod with the still-rolling camera, and he quickly sets it up.
“Multiple vortex,” Justin says, pointing to the little vortices spinning under the not-yet-fully condensed funnel.
The first tornado is rain-wrapped now, visible as a hazy, indistinct blob in the distance. My hands are too shaky to photograph the new tornado as it slowly moves through the fields. It’s moving away from us at an angle that will keep it in view for a while.
“Annie.” Chris is standing next to me, holding his tripod out to me. “Should be compatible with your camera,” he says. We’re both shooting with Nikons, although the one in my hand today is a little newer and fancier.
“Thank you.” I reach for the tripod, but he doesn’t give it to me. Instead, he quickly sets it up and holds out his hand for my camera.
My hands are shaking too much for me to screw the mounting plate onto my camera, so I give it to him. It doesn’t take him long. He locks the camera onto the tripod and steps back.
He’s missed a solid minute of this tornado on the ground all because I can’t stop shaking. I want to apologize—or maybe thank him again—but he’s already walked away.