Sarah smiled as she breezed by, turned left, and opened the door next to the rectangular placard on the wall that read, HARLAN J. PHILLIPS, MAYOR. The heavyset woman, who had been eyeing Sarah from the moment she appeared, rose with surprising fluidity. Sarah ignored her and continued on.
Phillips’s office was just as disheveled as her own, every surface covered with papers and folders and whatnot. The prominent odors in the room were stale coffee, copier toner, and the oiled leather of the oversized chair tucked behind the mayoral desk. Knowing exactly where the information that she needed was stored, Sarah went to an ancient filing cabinet and opened the top drawer. Quickly fingering through the files, she removed a single manila folder, opened it, and flipped several pages before she came to the appropriate report. Nodding to herself, she returned the folder to its place and shut the cabinet.
As Sarah left the office, the heavyset woman said, “Excuse me.”
“One sec, Barb,” Sarah told her, speed walking back to her office. “I’ll be right with you.”
She snatched up the phone and said, “It has, Joey. During Sandy in 2012, and twice before then, in 1993 and 1971.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of it,” Sharpe said just as another text arrived on Sarah’s cell. It caused the phone to buzz like a small cadre of angry hornets was trapped inside. She grabbed it, read the message, and responded, all within a span of about five seconds.
“Thank you.”
She returned her attention to a spiral-bound notebook, which was open to a page so thoroughly covered by her manic scrawl that it was hard to tell what color the paper was. On the computer nearby, a PDF document titled “Silver Lake Storm Preparedness Procedures” filled the screen.
“Okay, all the town generators have been filled with propane or gasoline,” she mumbled, starting at the top of a checklist she’d reviewed at least a dozen times already. “All the emergency-response vehicles are—”
“You’re not supposed to go in there.”
Sarah turned around and found Barbara Magnus filling the doorway and looking more than a little peeved. Her navy polyester pants did not match an already unflattering green camisole, and the white-socks-and-Velcro-sandals assemblage acted as perfect punctuation to the eclectic ensemble.
“Excuse me?” Sarah said.
“The mayor’s office. You really shouldn’t go in there without permission. I know you’re acting in that capacity today, but still…” The woman was trembling, although Sarah couldn’t quite tell if it was out of fear or anger.
“I’m sorry, Barbara. I needed an answer on something fast, or of course I would’ve asked. It’s a little crazy today.”
“Still, we have a procedure around here.”
“I know, and I apologize,” she said.
Magnus gave her a last dirty look before turning and drifting away.
That woman has hated me for as long as I can remember, Sarah thought, and I’m still not sure why. Others had given their opinions on the subject—you’re pretty… you’re young… you’re smart… you’re thin… you’re in a position of influence… any combination thereof — but Sarah refused to adopt them as her own. She continued to hold out hope that, just maybe, Magnus’s attitude toward her would defrost at some point. She and the other secretary, Lorraine Harris, had a very pleasant working relationship, but none of Harris’s fondness seemed to have rubbed off on her colleague.
The cordless phone rang again; the call was from a FEMA agent in Washington Sarah had been dealing with for the last few days. Bud Kline came across as sympathetic enough, but his personality was so flat he made Robby the Robot seem like Little Richard. He was calling to request a copy of the latest state assessment of the Silver Lake dam, which sent shivers down Sarah’s spine.
Does he know something I don’t? Is he under the impression it might give way? She had read the report when it was first issued, a few months back. The engineers made it clear that the structure currently holding back the body of placid water from which the town had taken its name was in the lower twentieth percentile of hazard classification, which meant it was not a significant risk. So what’s his concern? She wanted to ask, but there wasn’t time for such a conversation right now. She promised to fax the report ASAP.
When she picked up her cellphone again she found no text messages waiting for a change. Returning to the checklist was tempting, but she decided to lean back in her chair and close her eyes instead. She took several deep breaths and thought about her warm bed, the one she shared with the man she had loved all her life — from a distance until high school, then up close and personal. She still marveled at the person Emilio had become, at once slim and masculine, shy and gentle. It wasn’t an act, unlike so many young men who wanted only to lure a lover and decided a sensitive facade was the best bait for the hook. He was the real deal from top to bottom. One in a million. No, a billion, she thought.
A gunshotlike crack! from the courtyard below yanked her out of this pleasant reverie. She leapt from her seat and went to the window, trying to see through the sheets of rain driving against the glass. It was only then that she realized how bad the storm had become. The skies were a churning and ominous black swirl, the cloud cover so heavy that it looked more like late evening than midafternoon. The only street sign in sight — a yellow pedestrian crossing at the corner of Trudeau and Morris — was gyrating in the wind like a drunken dancer. And the gutters were filling up fast, with flash-streams roaring into the sewers.
Shifting her gaze left, Sarah found the source of the whipshot — a maple tree of modest height was leaning at a new angle, half its base torn out of the earth. The marble-and-bronze commemorative marker that stood in front of it had toppled forward and lay facedown in the waterlogged grass.
“Oh, shit,” she said softly. Her cellphone trilled and she looked down to see the name of Harlan Phillips on the caller ID.
“Shouldn’t you be resting?” she asked without bothering to say “Hello.”
Phillips chuckled in his deep, geriatric basso. “That’s a nice greeting from the person to whom I so generously handed the mantle of power.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot. How did you know the storm was coming? Pretty convenient, having a heart attack the week before.”
“You know us politicians, we’ll do anything to get out of our sworn duty. How are you managing?”
Sarah sighed mightily. “I have no idea. I feel like I’m trying to hold the tide back with a broom.”
“That’s normal. You’ll get used to it.”
“I’ve read every page of the preparedness manuals, contacted state and federal agencies for support, talked to the head of every department fifty times, and made a checklist that seems to keep growing instead of shrinking.”
“Sounds to me like you’re hitting for par.”
Sarah laughed without the slightest trace of humor. “Great.”
“Are the emergency-response teams fully staffed?”
“Yes,” she said.
“All the generators gassed up and ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“Everyone in town has received their communiqués via email, text, and telephone?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And there’s plenty of food and water in the shelter?”
“Enough for a month.”
“Then you can’t do anything more,” Phillips told her.