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.
