Brian labors through the dawn, already a welter of humidity, the storm’s approach churning invisibly through the air. He’d meant to replace the panels with easier accordion shutters. The pieces of aluminum are heavy and the edges cut into his fingers, even through his cotton work gloves. Worse, the small holes refuse to line up with the brackets; there is much clumsy hoisting, dropping, and realignment before he can manage to twist in a single screw at the top, at which point the lower brackets no longer line up. In two hours, he’s managed to install three panels, covering two-thirds of one window. He’s sweated through his work shirt, his hand shaking as he drags it across his forehead.
Craving respite, he creeps back inside. On a cooling rack in the kitchen, he recognizes his wife’s slim, buttery langues de chat and the plump croissants aux amandes filled with almond cream and Kirsch. The counters are wiped down and the kitchen gleams with emptiness. There is a sense of absence and self-sufficiency here that shortens his breath, a pointed ache in his chest. Perhaps Avis is back in the neighbor’s yard, sitting with the young stranger. Attempting to ignore this discomfort, Brian consults the Weather Channeclass="underline" the first feathery wisps approach the Florida peninsula. A couple of forecasters argue over the tropical storm system as if it were an upcoming sports event: “So is it still a hurricane watch or a warning?” “NOAA says watch.” “Don’t you believe it — people better get ready for this baby. They’re predicting landfall by late afternoon.” An ominous commercial sponsored by their local Publix asks if everyone’s got their “Disaster Provisions” ready. Then the local newscasters appear, talking intensely about canned foods, dried beans, games to play with the kids by candlelight. Brian has managed only to partially cover one of their twenty windows; he thinks of the driving rain and wind that may come.
On the other hand, he recalls that Javier said he was going in to work today. And what if Fernanda goes in? What if Javier tells her about yesterday afternoon in the field? Or about the disgraceful real estate scheme they’d fallen for? Brian feels a wincing contraction in the pit of his stomach. He showers, returns to the bedroom, and puts on his charcoal-gray suit and the white shirt with the thin blue lines. His jacket creases at his elbows: it’s one of his older suits. Now he seems to be shrinking within it. He sees a thread at the cuff — the softness of such nicely blended cotton and wool, the way it rests on him like a soul. Expensive, fraying thing. He notices he can tighten his belt by almost a notch. The clothes help him feel better — a certain haze that’s lingered at the edges of his eyes, a certain tipsy sensation like that of sleep deprivation, seem to lift a bit. As he emerges, he hears Avis in the kitchen.
“There you are.” He holds his car keys tightly as he leans into the kitchen door.
Avis blinks up at him. She is shaking pine nuts in a skillet, tossing them in an ellipse over the fire. She turns off the flame and wraps her hands in her towel as she comes to the door, frowning. Brian tells her he’s going to work, he won’t be gone long. She touches his left temple, which causes his throat to constrict. “Are you sure you’re—” She hesitates. “Are you sure you want to? With the storm coming. Weren’t you going to work on the house?”
Brian kisses the side of her face. He tells Avis that he has some last-minute document review, he’ll be back well before the storm.
“Nothing you can do from here?” Her tone is mild but grave. It’s almost enough to keep him home, but he lowers his gaze. “I won’t be long. Promise.”
HE HEADS OFF, driving through the first lashings of rain. The highway is crowded — everyone trying to fit in last-minute commerce. Images of Javier and Fernanda fill his head: he sees them laughing, heads tilting together. The rushing, chaotic highway, the backlit sky — white satin clouds outlined in black, the spray of rain, all have an altered, pre-apocalyptic quality. He feels increasingly doomed, assailed by a series of bad decisions, yet he’s determined to be at the office. Captain goes down with ship, he thinks as he pulls into the lot. A private little sinking. He thinks about Mr. Christian and his mutiny. Was it Bligh who’d gone mad or Christian? His knees feel spongy and untrustworthy, his mind tugs, trying to float away from his body as he walks into the building. Rufus seems surprised by Brian’s appearance; something like concern touches his face — as if Brian looked that bad. Rufus barely gets out the words “Mr. Muir,” and Brian rejoins, “Yes, hello, how are you.”
He unlocks the door for Brian. “Not supposed to be letting folks in today,” he mutters. “Supposed to be sending people home.”
The building is half lit with a tinny echo like that of a mausoleum. Brian stares at the painting of vivid, grassy everglades that hangs over the elevator doors. He’d never really noticed it before: it glows in the dimmed lobby. He considers grimly that this is probably an image of the place — glimmering green marsh, corrugated alligator backs, sweep of lazing trees — they destroyed to make this office building. The elevator opens and he wobbles outside himself, gazing upon the thin spot at the back of his head from the elevator ceiling. The corridors on 34 are eerily hollow; his footsteps bounce back, perfect replicas. He watches his own progress down the hall. A line from somewhere — a nursery rhyme? — bounces through his head: I grow old, I shall wear my trousers rolled…
Fernanda’s office lights are out. Of course. What had he been thinking? Relief courses through him, expanding his breath; he’s able to collapse back into himself. Safe. What on earth would he have said to her? He will check his messages, he thinks, and go home, and that will be that. Inter-office mail is piled up against his door. Brian watches himself step over it on his way in. Gazing around the cool solemnity of his office, he feels a distance from his surroundings — stacks of thick contracts, his yellow pad covered with the details of commission hearings, the water-blue surface of his desk. And the view: the causeway, the fields of admiral blue water in the bay. All seems frozen and remote, like a diorama. With a soul-emptying sigh, he turns to the computer, taps the keyboard to awaken it, and lets his eyes focus on the Financial News, the headlines, High Gas Prices Fuel Fear of Financial Hardship and florida girds for the next storm. He scans the websites, searching for some news of the Steele Building fiasco — there is none — then retrieves his mail and combs the papers. A few stragglers and die-hards pass Brian’s office, shuffling folders, determined to work until the moment everything shuts down. The spell of the workday wraps itself around Brian. He flips open a file of recent motions and is able to work uninterrupted by calls or associates. Javier appears around noon, nodding, fingers knotted loosely at the knuckles as he drops into the guest chair. His face is the color of cinders and Brian can smell a waft of tobacco. “Hey, there he is! I thought you might show.”
“You know me,” Brian says. He notices a missed button popping open under Javier’s tie. “The old soldier.”
“You get home okay? You sleep okay last night?”
“Beautifully,” he says, realizing it is true — after much sleeplessness, last night was a luxurious blank slot.
“Ha. Tell me what that’s like.” Javier lowers the top of his head into his hands. “I had two other investors lined up with that goddamned Steele Building. One of them tried to make a wire transfer from his account straight to the developers. It was so much that his broker put a partial hold on it, thank the saints.” Javier crosses himself. “He still gave them about three hundred K.”