When he sighed, I picked up his train of thought. “I know. I’ve seen the papers. Any move the president or Mrs. Campbell makes is scrutinized and analyzed ten times over.”
His eyes didn’t hold the twinkle they usually did. “Sometimes the news needs to step back and let people just be.”
We were silent for a long moment. I took a sip of my frothy concoction, and enjoyed the sweet, hot trickle down the back of my throat. “You’ve heard about the bomb scare, too?” I said, knowing he had. In this day and age, one would have to be as hermitlike as the Unabomber to avoid the deluge of news that constantly sluiced over us.
“Were you evacuated?”
I told him about being sequestered in the bunker with the First Lady and Sean. I watched emotion tighten Henry’s eyes, and I shared with him my impression that Mrs. Campbell had intended to set me up with Sean.
Henry patted my hand. “This has been hard on you, too.”
I swallowed, finding it a bit more difficult this time. “Yeah.”
We talked about Bucky’s constant temper tantrums, Cyan’s burgeoning talents, and Marcel’s quiet genius. When I told Henry about Agda, he laughed.
“Bucky was quick to remind me that you would never have hired her with such a language barrier.”
Henry stared up toward the ceiling, as though imagining the kitchen. “He’s wrong about that. We aren’t there to talk. We’re there to create superb food. To make the president of our United States forget his troubles long enough to enjoy a wonderful meal.” He launched into one of his patriotic speeches. I smiled as he waxed poetic on the virtues of a good meal and how national leaders made better decisions when they were well cared for. I’d missed Henry’s pontifications. “We’re there to contribute to our country’s success. We aren’t there to make friends.”
Now I rested my hand on his. “But sometimes we make lifelong friends anyway, don’t we?”
He grabbed my fingers and held them. The twinkle was back in his eyes. “That we do.”
Walking to my car after saying good night, I blew out a long breath, watching the wispy air curl in front of me on this cold night. Partly a reminder that I was alive, partly a sigh of frustration, I realized that, despite being able to visit with Henry, I was happy to be on my way home.
Back at my apartment building I wasn’t terribly surprised to find James napping at the front desk. I tried sneaking past without disturbing him, but he woke up when the elevator dinged.
“Ollie,” he said, getting up.
Politeness thrust my hand forward to hold the elevator doors open. “Hi, James,” I said. “How are things?”
Making his way over, he waved his hand at the open car. “Let that one go. I’ve got some information for you.”
Reluctantly, I let the doors slide shut. “Information?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said quickly. Still blinking himself awake, he amended, “Well, I guess I mean Stanley has information for you. He told me to let him know when you got in.”
“Did he say-”
James raised his hand, and looked both ways up and down the elevator corridor. “It’s about that incident the other day. You know, the one where you work?”
“The electrocution?”
James nodded, shooting me a look of mortified annoyance.
My curiosity piqued, I thanked him and pushed the “up” button again. “I’ll stop by his place. He’s on eight, right?”
The same elevator opened.
“Ah… you might try him at your neighbor’s… Mrs. Wentworth’s.”
“Okay, thanks.” I got into the car and wondered what electrical issues were plaguing my neighbor’s apartment that required attention this late at night.
James blushed scarlet as the elevator door closed and it wasn’t until Mrs. Wentworth opened her door, dressed in only a bathrobe-with Stanley behind her similarly attired-that I understood.
“Oh,” I said. “I… I heard Stanley was here. Hi, Stanley.”
“For crying out loud, Ollie, don’t stand there gaping like a grouper,” Mrs. Wentworth said. “Come in here. Stanley has lots to tell you.”
They settled themselves together on Mrs. Wentworth’s flowered couch and I suddenly realized I didn’t know her first name. Stanley was always Stanley to me. She was always Mrs. Wentworth. Not knowing how to address them together added to the discomfort I was feeling right now, facing these two sleep-clad seniors, both wearing a contented sort of glow…
“I had a thought, Ollie,” Stanley said, breaking into my thoughts. Thank goodness. “Remember the day of the accident? It stormed that day, right?”
It had. I remembered Stanley commenting on it. “Yeah…”
“Well, I got to thinking that your electrician there-what was his name?”
“Gene.” My voice caught as I relived the past few hours and Gene’s wake.
“That’s it.” As Stanley talked, Mrs. Wentworth smiled up at him in the way lovestruck teenagers do. All of a sudden, my discomfort vanished. They weren’t bothered by my interruption, so why should I be? These two were adorable. “Yeah, I wager he didn’t get to be the top electrician at the White House by being stupid. If he knew he was going anywhere near high voltage, he would’ve taken precautions.”
“Gene knew the layout of the electricity better than anyone.”
“Exactly my point,” Stanley said. “Which is why I’m betting Gene was killed by a floating neutral.”
“A what?”
“A floating neutral,” he repeated. “Dangerous, and unpredictable.”
Mrs. Wentworth patted Stanley ’s knee. “Show her the thing you made.”
Stanley blushed. “I put together a mock-up to explain it better.” He padded out to the kitchen, with Mrs. Wentworth watching him until he was out of earshot.
“He’s been at this all day making the mock-up to show you. And he’s really proud of himself. Even I understand these neutral thingies now.”
When Stanley returned, he carried a board, about eighteen by twenty-four inches. On it, he’d mounted five sockets. Two held forty-watt bulbs, three held fuses. In the center was an on/off switch. All of the parts were connected to one another with wires and the entire contraption was attached to a scary-looking triple-thick gray cord that sported a round plug as big as my palm. On it were three very long, odd-shaped metal prongs.
“This is a 240 plug,” he said, holding it up. “You don’t see too many of these around the house. But I bet you got one on your dryer.” He waited for me to shrug-I had no idea. “No matter. Some appliances need 240 instead of the regular 120 volts. Like dryers. Check it out when you get back, you’ll see.”
“I will.”
“I’m going to keep it short and simple, but you stop me if you got questions, okay?”
I promised I would.
“Storms can knock out your neutral-your ground. And that’s a bad thing, because your ground is what keeps your house from catching on fire from too much voltage.” He licked his lips. “You got a curling iron?”
“A couple of them,” I said, even though lately I’d been foregoing using them in favor of a quick ponytail.
“Curling irons don’t produce enough heat to catch your house on fire. So if you ever get worried you forgot to shut it off, don’t sweat it.”
“I have one of those auto-shut-off ones-”
“Even better.” He waved that away. “But you most likely don’t ever have to worry. Because your appliances are using 120 volts, and most of the time, if everything’s working right, that ain’t going to give you any headaches. But,” he said, warming to his subject, “your house has to have 240 volts coming in so you can run your clothes dryer. It’s too dangerous to send in 240 at once, so you got two wires coming in sending 120 each. Follow?”
“So far.”
“The neutral acts like a buffer between them. I could get really technical here, but there’s no need. All that’s important to know is that if your neutral is broken, then the two 120s don’t have anything keeping them apart. Your curling iron or your heating pad or your toaster can go crazy and heat up hot enough to catch fire.”