The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum–open daily.
Perfect, Bev thought, reading the entry: "Houses world’s largest permanent collection of O’Keeffe’s work. A major American artist, O’Keeffe lived in the Santa Fe area for many years. When she first arrived in 1929, she was physically and psychologically ill, but the dry, hot New Mexico climate healed and inspired her, and she painted much of her finest work here."
Perfect. Sun-baked paintings of cow skulls and giant tropical flowers and desert buttes. "Open daily. 10 a.m.—6 p.m. 217 Johnson St."
She looked up the address on her map. Only three blocks off the Plaza, within easy walking distance even in this weather. Perfect. When Carmelita brought her enchiladas, she attacked them eagerly.
"Did you find somewhere to go in town?" Carmelita asked curiously.
"Yes, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum."
"Oh," Carmelita said and vanished again. She was back almost immediately. "I’m sorry, seńora, but they’re closed."
"Closed? It said in the guidebook the museum’s open daily."
"It’s because of the snow."
"Snow?" Bev said and looked past her to the patio where the sleet had turned to a heavy, slashing white.
At 1:20, Jim called from the airport to tell them Kindra’s and David’s planes had both been delayed, and a few minutes later the bakery delivered the wedding cake. "No, no," Stacey said, "that’s supposed to go to the country club. That’s where the reception is."
"We tried," the driver said. "We couldn’t get through. We can either leave it here or take it back to the bakery, take your pick. If we can get back to the bakery. Which I doubt."
"Leave it here," Stacey said. "Jim can take it over when he gets here."
"But you just heard him," Paula said. "If the truck can’t get through, Jim won’t be able to–" The phone rang.
It was the florist, calling to say they weren’t going to be able to deliver the flowers. "But you have to," Stacey said. "The wedding’s at five. Tell them they have to, Paula," and handed the phone to her.
"Isn’t there any way you can get here?" Paula asked.
"Not unless there’s a miracle," the florist said. "Our truck’s in a ditch out at Pawnee, and there’s no telling how long it’ll take a tow truck to get to it. It’s a skating rink out there."
"Jim will have to go pick up the flowers when he gets back with Kindra and David," Stacey said blithely when Paula told her the bad news. "He can do it on his way to the country club. Is the string quartet here yet?"
"No, and I’m not sure they’ll be able to get here. The florist said the roads are really icy," Paula said, and the viola player walked in.
"I told you," Stacey said happily, "it’ll all work out. Did I tell you, they’re going to play Boccherini’s ‘Minuet No.8’ for the wedding march?" and went to get the candles for the altar stands.
Paula went over to the viola player, a lanky young guy. He was brushing snow off his viola case. "Where’s the rest of the quartet?"
"They’re not here yet?" he said, surprised. "I had a lesson to give in town and told ’em I’d catch up with them." He sat down to take off his snow-crusted boots. "And then my car ended up in a snowbank, and I had to walk the last mile and a half." He grinned up at her, panting. "It’s times like these I wish I played the piccolo. Although," he said, looking her up and down, "there are compensations. Please tell me you’re not the bride."
"I’m not the bride," she said. Even though I wish I was.
"Great!" he said and grinned at her again. "What are you doing after the wedding?"
"I’m not sure there’s going to be one. Do you think the other musicians got stuck on the way here, too?"
He shook his head. "I would have seen them." He pulled out a cell phone and punched buttons. "Shep? Yeah, where are you?" There was a pause. "That’s what I was afraid of. What about Leif ?" Another pause. "Well, if you find him, call me back." He flipped the phone shut. "Bad news. The violins were in a fender bender and are waiting for the cops. They don’t know where the cello is. How do you feel about a viola solo of ‘Minuet No.8’?"
Paula went to inform Stacey. "The police can bring them out," Stacey said blithely and handed Paula the white candles for the altar stands. "The candlelight on the snow’s going to be just beautiful."
At 1:48 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, snow flurries were reported at Sunset Point in the Florida Keys.
"I get to officially freak out now, right?" Chin asked Nathan. "Jeez, it really is the discontinuity you said would happen!"
"We don’t know that yet," Nathan said, looking at the National Weather Service map, which was now entirely blue, except for a small spot near Fargo and another one in north-central Texas that Nathan thought was Waco and Chin was convinced was the president’s ranch in Crawford.
"What do you mean, we don’t know that yet? It’s snowing in Barcelona. It’s snowing in Moscow."
"It’s supposed to be snowing in Moscow. Remember Napoleon? It’s not unusual for it to be snowing in over two-thirds of these places reporting in: Oslo, Katmandu, Buffalo–"
"Well, it’s sure as hell unusual for it to be snowing in Beirut," Chin said, pointing to the snow reports coming in, "and Honolulu. I don’t care what you say, I’m freaking out."
"You can’t," Nathan said, superimposing an isobaric grid over the map. "I need you to feed me the temp readings."
Chin started over to his terminal and then came back. "What do you think?" he asked seriously. "Do you think it’s a discontinuity?"
There was nothing else it could be. Winter storms were frequently very large, the February 1994 European storm had been huge, and the one in December 2002 had covered over a third of the U.S., but there’d never been one that covered the entire continental United States. And Mexico and Manitoba and Belize, he thought, watching the snowfall reports coming in.
In addition, snow was falling in six locations where it had never fallen before, and in twenty-eight like Yuma, Arizona, where it had snowed only once or twice in the last hundred years. New Orleans had a foot of snow, for God’s sake. And it was snowing in Guatemala.
And it wasn’t behaving like any storm he’d ever seen. According to the charts, snow had started simultaneously in Springfield, Illinois, Hoodoo, Tennessee, Park City, Utah, and Branford, Connecticut, and spread in a completely random pattern. There was no center to the storm, no leading edge, no front.
And no let-up. No station had reported the snow stopping, or even diminishing, and new stations were reporting in all the time. At this rate, it would be snowing everywhere by–he made a rapid calculation–five o’clock.
"Well?" Chin said. "Is it?" He looked really frightened.
And him freaking out is the last thing I need with all this data to feed in, Nathan thought. "We don’t have enough data to make a determination yet," he said.
"But you think it might be," Chin persisted. "Don’t you? You think all the signs are there?"
Yes, Nathan thought. "Definitely not," he said. "Look at the TV."
"What about it?"
"There’s one sign that’s not present." He gestured at the screen. "No logo."
"No what?"
"No logo. Nothing qualifies as a full-fledged crisis until the cable newschannels give it a logo of its own, preferably with a colon. You know, O.J.: Trial of the Century or Sniper at Large or Attack: Iraq." He pointed at Dan Rather standing in thickly falling snow in front of the White House. "Look, it says Breaking News, but there’s no logo. So it can’t be a discontinuity. So feed me those temps. And then go see if you can scare up a couple more TVs. I want to get a look at exactly what’s going on out there. Maybe that’ll give us some kind of clue."