Jerusha set aside her sewing for the moment. Another quilt, perhaps destined for the gift shops of Cedar Key, and eventually the home of a passing tourist or the beach house of a wealthy Yankee. She glanced at the interplay of blues and greens and grays, the careful stitching and the intricate border pattern called “Storm at Sea,” the one she favored for her quilts. All were hand sewn, and all most carefully wrought. They served not only her primary purpose, but that of providing a comfortable, if not extravagant, monthly income as well.

She picked up the remote and flipped idly past Animal Planet and HGTV. For the last two days-- for the last three months, really -- her attention had focused on The Weather Channel and the travels of Jim Cantore. Jerusha was a beach dweller -- and more specifically, a beach dweller in Florida’s Big Bend -- so following the rhythms of hurricane season and the travels of the television weather chasers was second nature to her. And now, in peak hurricane season, three evenings before the beginning of Labor Day weekend, she checked the charts and the web sites almost compulsively, looking for the big one she knew was out there, lurking somewhere in the Caribbean with her name on it.

A light rain fell outside her window. The bougainvillea rustled lightly -- from a light breeze? -- no, from the cats hunting God-knows-what under its spiky knots of vines. The muted display on the TV caught her attention as it switched, and a four-color logo displaying the words “Tropical Update” flashed onscreen.

There it was. The tropical storm was fully organized now, having lost strength only slightly as it passed over the narrow part of Cuba and into the Strait. Now the warm waters of the Gulf would feed it, nurture it, then draw it northward. By the next time it made landfall, tomorrow night or the next, it would be a full-on hurricane, the tenth named storm of this season.

The man in the gray suit pointed to a chart of the southeastern US. Hurricanes occasionally did some crazy things, but from the looks of this one, the east coast would likely be safe. Not much chance it would pull a complete u-turn and exit over Cape Canaveral, or over Daytona Beach, like Charley did.  No, this one was headed north west, or possibly toward Tampa or Texas or Louisiana or, most likely, Pensacola.

But not hers. The last storm to hit this area had been the summer before Jerusha had made it her home, and there were families who still, seven years later, were just beginning to get back on their feet, who still muttered darkly every summer about FEMA and tarps and blue roofs and the safety of their fishing boats. And her house was fragile, built of cement block with random bits of wooden built-ons, like so many in this community. The newer and more expensive houses closer to the beach were built on stilts; less because the owners saw the wisdom of local codes than because they sought the Key West charm that would have cost them a dozen times the price, eight hours to the south. Some of those had started, over the last few years, to gain semi-illegal additions under the house proper-- a workroom here, a child’s playroom there.  Technically open to allow storm water to pass through, these additions were nearly as elaborate in their feigned simplicity as the houses proper. But here, two blocks inland, the houses had been built long before code enforcement-- long before the codes, even, many of them. A direct hit would flatten the area, or perhaps just wash it away. That would simply be unthinkable.

Not hers, then. Whose? Pensacola was her first thought; they're used to it by now. Certainly anything that would wash away was long since gone, from Bonnie or Ivan or the edges of Katrina.

Jerusha picked up her needle and floss, and stared at the wide expanse of bluish green in the center left of her quilt. She began to envision a spiral, long and low and lazy, at one edge.

Pensacola knew the drill...and it occurred to her thatwas precisely why this storm was not theirs.

She set down the needle again, and looked absently out the window and into the darkness. Somewhere out there, her cats were hunting lizards, or perhaps something a bit larger. The old kumquat tree was dropping as-yet-unripe fruit, and most of the neighbors had elderly lemons and oranges, as well. That, of course, meant rats. In the last week, Slush had laid three half-rats on the porch in tribute to She Who Dispenses Cat Food. Fog, true to her more delicate sensibilities, left the hunting of anything larger than an anole or a palmetto bug to her brother. Neither seemed the least disturbed by the weather. She suspected they knew this area was protected from storms, and went on about their business despite the lies the barometer tried to tell. Even the neighborhood dogs and cats were becoming complacent. Rocking the world of even Mrs. Rutledge’s dachshund broke her heart, and she preferred not to consider it.

Whose storm, then? Not Tampa. Storm chasers had been predicting “the big one” for the Bay Area for nearly as long as they had done for New Orleans.  A hit at low tide would be a disaster; one at high tide would flood the city and turn the bedroom communities of Pinellas County into two small islands. Not a good choice, making it theirs.

She glossed over the possibility of another storm in Mississippi or Louisiana, as well. They'd had their fair share. They'd gotten their fair share for the next several decades, in fact. Another hurricane this close on the heels of the other one would obliterate New Orleans. And though she had never been there, had missed knowing its picturesque pre-Katrina seediness, she preferred to keep her options open for the future. Not New Orleans, then, either.

Jerusha leaned back and closed her eyes, but sleep wasn't the objective.  In her mind the Gulf Coast was clear as a paper map, with the ridiculously vast urban sprawl of Tampa Bay below her, Tallahassee slightly north and east, Pensacola and other rejected targets lying to the west. She could see the clouds, then; see the gathering menace just on the edge of her vision. It grew larger, more ominous, and she could feel the wind, feel the torrents of rain battering her like a leaf. Then she was the storm, churning steadily up the Gulf, and she could feel just where to make the slightest alteration that would spare her home and her kumquat tree, and make this one someone else’s.

She listened to the sounds of the bugs, the faint echolocations of hunting bats, and the rustling of the bushes and old oak trees in the breeze. She remained that way for some time. When again she stirred, the bats and bugs had gone silent, the breeze stiffened to the beginnings of the sort of random rain squall that preceded more major events in these parts.  She sat upright, and squinted at the half-made quilt on her lap. And her decision was made.

Jerusha picked up her needle and began again to sew her spiral; slow and careful and precise stitches forming the outline of a category three hurricane.  On the edge of the quilt was the legend “Hurricane Jerry”, and tomorrow’s date. Just to the right of the spiral was the outline of Florida’s Big Bend, and the easily identifiable shape of Cedar Key.

The cats and dachshunds would simply have to adjust, because this storm would be hers.