It had been raining for three days straight, the unrelenting rain one normally associates with floods that drive the Mississippi over its banks, only not in New York. Computer nerds don’t pay much attention to the weather anyway, except while standing on the platform waiting for a commuter train. As Director of Information Technology, whether it was fair or foul outside made little difference to me.
I was busy configuring a new laptop when the overhead lights went out and the emergency spotlights lit. I ran through the connecting door from my office into the server room and saw the flashing light on the power control panel that told me the office was running off the emergency generator on the roof. I grabbed the phone and punched in the override code that activated the intercom everywhere in the office.
“May I have your attention, please. This is an emergency. There has been a massive power failure in the building. Log off the network and back up your machines. The servers will be going off-line in two minutes. Move it or lose it, people!”
I cut the servers loose from the network and shut them down. When that was done, I walked to the main part of the office, half-expecting to find a lynch mob waiting for me. Instead, I was met by the CEO.
“Jack have you heard?”
“Heard what, boss?”
“The Mayor has declared a state of emergency. All this rain has overwhelmed the drainage system. Water is shorting out electrical lines all over town, the subways are being shut down and the radio says Grand Central is about to close. The Mayor says anyone who doesn’t live here should go home right away. You better get out of Manhattan while you still can!”
I grabbed my coat and raced to Grand Central Station as fast as I could. I was too late.
The cops at the 42nd Street entrance told me the electric trains couldn’t move due to flooding in the tunnels and the last Metro North diesels had left 10 minutes before, crammed so full that a passed-out drunk couldn’t fall down before he sobered up. I splashed my way back and climbed the four flights of stairs to the office in a foul mood.
Everyone had left except Jasmine, our receptionist. She was a few years younger than me. Jasmine was a foxy black chick, cute, leggy and busty, with an acid wit that she used to keep the guys that constantly hit on her at arm’s length. I got along with her because I treated her like a person and not a sex object. She was putting on her raincoat when I squelched in.
“What are you doing back here, Jack?” she asked.
“Grand Central is closed, dammit. The subways are out too. I’m stranded.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Try to get a hotel room, I guess. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to sleep in my office.”
She looked at me for a minute. “Let me make a phone call,” she said at last. She pulled out her cellphone and dialed someone, walking away from Reception as I pulled off my shoes and dumped the water in them into a potted plant. She came back and said, “You’re coming home with me tonight, Jack. Don’t get any ideas, though. All Lia and I are offering is a couch to sleep on.”
“It’s better than I expected,” I said. “Thanks. If we can find an open supermarket I’ll cook dinner. You like Italian? I do a mean chicken cacchiatore.”
We went downstairs and hailed a cab. On the way to SoHo, Jasmine filled me in on where I’d be staying.
Her grandfather, a half-French, half Senegalaise, had emigrated here after World War II. He’d met and married her grandmother in Washington and then moved to New York. They’d started a little import-export business and bought a couple of buildings in SoHo, an undesirable area back then. They had converted the loft in one of the buildings into an apartment. Jasmine and her older sister Lia lived there rent-free while they went to school and worked in the city. Their folks lived in the suburbs now.
We were traveling along Canal Street. I leaned forward and asked the driver to stop outside an army-navy store.
“I just want to get dry clothes,” I explained. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes.” She laughed, understanding my reluctance to prance around their loft buck-naked
It took about 3 minutes to pick up a pair of khaki pants, a green T-shirt, some tube socks and a pair of black oxfords. No underwear, but at least the military surplus was dry. I rejoined Jasmine. We continued on to the grocery and bought dinner makings and a jug of good red wine.
An old freight elevator brought us up to the loft. As we walked in, we met a girl walking out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, vigorously drying her hair.
“You must be Jasmine’s stray,” she chuckled, completely unselfconscious. “Hello.”
“And you must be Lia. Hi,” I said woodenly.
Lia stood five foot eight in her bare feet. Golden-toast in color with straight black hair and shapely long legs, she put me in mind of Halle Berry, only with a pair of boobs in the Dolly Parton range the towel barely managed to cover. Jasmine nudged me with a shoulder.
“Okay, Jack, stop dripping on the floor. Bathroom’s over there and kitchen is next to it, through the great room there. Towel off, change, give me the wet clothes and I’ll throw them into the wash while you start cooking.”
I walked past Lia like a badly maintained robot and did as I’d been told. A few minutes later I was in dry clothes and learning my way around the kitchen as I got things going. The two girls disappeared into their bedrooms. From conversation shouted between them, I gathered both had dates with boyfriends later.
Dinner was casual, served in the great room that adjoined the kitchen. Jasmine and Lia were in bathrobes, halfway through date-prep. They ate like ravenous wolves and praised my cooking to the skies. After dinner, they dove back into the primping while I did the dishes and settled on the couch to watch the news. It was still raining, with no sign of a letup. Good thing it was Friday; if the rain stopped over the weekend the diesels at least might roll on Monday morning. My musings were interrupted by Jasmine’s whistle for attention.
“Hey, Jack! What d’you think?” I looked up and my eyes popped out of my head.
Jasmine was in tight black leather pants and a red leather top that fit like a second skin, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Lia was wearing shiny black tights and pumps with what I though of as dancer heels, a green and black camouflage miniskirt, and a black silk top with a plunging neckline that made her standing as a member of the taxonomic class Mammalia crystal clear. Her hair shone, dropping straight to her shoulders like a blue-black curtain. Both were made up in the restrained way that manages to gild lilies that need no gilding. Overall impression: lust, drool, lust, drool.
As soon as I could get my tongue to work, I said, “Jasmine, you look absolutely stunning. And the only word to describe you, Lia, is ‘WOW!’ How come I never meet girls who look so good?”
They laughed and dropped mock curtseys to me. Downstairs, a cab honked. Over dinner, they’d agreed to share a cab and went down the elevator to take it. I shut off the TV, put the classical music station on the stereo, and picked up one of the computer magazines I had brought with me.
I was lying on the couch, deep in an article describing research into nanodrive technology, when I heard the elevator switch on. I looked at my watch. It was only 9:30. What could this be?
Lia got off the elevator and slowly walked into the apartment. Her raincoat was sodden, her hair hung in strings around her face, she was soaked from the knees down and her shoes looked ruined. Streaks of mascara told me that she had been crying. I went to her and helped her out of her coat.
“Lia, what’s wrong?” I asked.
She turned and buried her face in my shoulder, sobbing. I held her gently, patting her back and trying to soothe her. After a couple of minutes, between gulps and tears she told me what had happened.
She was supposed to meet her boyfriend at a hot new club in the meatpacking district. She’d had a couple at the bar waiting for him, but he hadn’t shown. When she headed toward the ladies’ room, she saw him. He was in one of the banquettes on the far side of the dance floor with another girl. He had been french-kissing her and had had one hand up under her skirt. A knock-down, drag-out screaming match had followed that ended with Lia slapping the poachin’ ho-bag across the face hard enough to knock her down and punching her EX-boyfriend in the gut so hard he’d dropped like a poleaxed steer and puked all over her shoes. She’d grabbed her coat and made it three blocks before she’d started to cry. She had walked back all the way from the club.
“Two months I’ve been going with the guy, and he pulls this on me!” she said, sniffing back tears. “I’m done with him. What a loser!”
“He has no idea what he’s missing,” I agreed, stroking her hair. “Some people don’t know good when it’s right in front of them. He’s a fool in every sense of the word.” I tipped her head up and said, “Go get out of those wet things. I’ll hand you in a towel. Go on, now.” I gave her a gentle push towards her bedroom.
I hung her raincoat next to mine in the kitchen and brought Lia a towel fresh from the dryer. I knocked on her door and, eyes closed, opened it and reached the towel in. I felt her take it and closed the door before retreating to the great room. I got the wine and two glasses out. I had a feeling Lia might want a drink.
