"Does the admiral have his own urinal?" Kerry returned the wry attempt at humor. "I'll go down there. Let me get some usefulness out of my PMS before I'm as miserable as you are."
Dar sighed. "I'm in hell." She straightened up. "We'll all go down there. If I don't kill someone we can stop by a bar I know near there and get me some alcohol and see if that helps."
"Aw, honey." Kerry kissed the top of her head. "You're making me crazy watching you be so miserable." She wrapped her arms around Dar from behind, resting her cheek against her hair. "I wish I could do something besides ache for you."
"Life sucks." Dar sighed mournfully. "Someone once asked me if I wasn't pissed off I was born a woman instead of a man. I told them absolutely. For about four or six hours every goddamned month."
Kerry chuckled wryly. "Buy me a beer at that bar?"
"Buy you the bar if you want." Dar gathered herself and stood up. She followed Kerry around to her laptop and waited for her to start to shut it down. Then she came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her, returning the hug and the emotion behind it. "We get this office up, you and I are going to our hotel, and chilling."
Kerry glanced at her watch. It was almost 2:00 p.m. and she figured it would be at least two hours before they had an even chance of getting the problem on the river resolved. That would make it four. "We can schedule more stuff from there," she agreed, "and at least get comfortable."
"What have we done to get someone into lower Manhattan?" Dar asked."That's going to be a lot tougher than fixing this damn office of the mayor's."
"I called my contact at AT&T. He's arranged to get us credentials down there. I haven't told him what we're doing. I just said we might be able to help somewhere."
"Mm."
"Well, it's true." Kerry closed her laptop. "Just not how he's going to think of it." She went still, taking a moment to savor the warmth of the body pressed against her back, finding herself rocking gently as Dar did.
How crummy and unbearable it would be if Dar wasn't here, she mused. No matter how lousy they both felt. "I love you." Dar didn't answer. She hugged Kerry a little harder and nibbled the edge of one of her ears.
Then they both sighed at the same time, and Dar released her so she could slide her laptop into its case and zip it shut. "Let me call Dad."She grabbed Kerry's phone and opened it, half turning as she heard footsteps outside the door. "Grrr."
"C'mon honey, remember where we are," Kerry murmured."They've had it really rough."
"Rowr." Dar's eyes narrowed, but she subsided, juggling the phone in one hand as they waited.
The door lock worked, then opened, and Alastair came inside, shutting the large wooden panel after him and leaning against it. "Y'know, I could get to not like people after a lot of this." He studied them. "You two off somewhere?"
Dar's brows twitched. "We're going to the emergency office. Try to get the cross-connects done and get those people off our backs at least."She paused, holding the open phone in one hand. "Wanna go with us?"
"Yep." Alastair didn't even hesitate. "One more person calls this office from somewhere in New Jersey and tells me they're down I'm going to take my Longhorns coffee mug and stick it right up their behind."
Kerry's eyes widened. "Wow."
"I didn't think so many people these days didn't read the newspaper. Or watch the evening news. Or have CNN in their houses. Or lived in such a bubble," Alastair said. "I simply don't understand it. The blacksmiths on my damn ranch know more about what's going on in the world than some of these folks."
"You mean, they really didn't know what happened?" Kerry asked,in an incredulous tone.
"Apparently not." Alastair sighed.
"C'mon." Dar was at least glad for this startling distraction to her cramps. "I think you could use a beer too." She indicated the door as she put the phone to her ear. "Let's get out of here for a while. I need some fresh air." She paused. "Hey Dad. Meet you downstairs?"
"Air," Alastair agreed, waiting for them to exit and following along. "Don't much care if it's fresh or not at this point."
Dar hung up as they got to the elevator, pausing to exchange a brief smile with the receptionist. "Sorry if I startled you earlier. It's been that kind of day."
"Oh." The woman smiled back. "Actually, what you did was really cool," she said, "and I forgot to say thanks."
"What did you do?" Alastair asked, as the doors slid open.
"Told a customer to kiss my ass." Dar entered the elevator and impatiently waited for them to follow before she punched the door button. "Dad's downstairs at the bus."
"Ah."
Kerry leaned against the back wall of the elevator, swallowing a little as it descended and she felt the familiar pressure against her inner ears. It reminded her of their last diving trip on the boat, where Dar had taken the Dixie out deep to a wreck in nearly 140 feet of water.
They had descended in the blue, clear water until the wreck had morphed out of the depths, half on its side, filled with ghostly schools of fish robbed of their brilliance by the depth.
Gorgeous and spooky, startling when a huge grouper came nosing around from the gloom around the wreck, and reeking with mystery they could barely get a few minutes to look at. The loneliness of the wreck's position, settled in its bed of white sand had triggered her poetic side and she'd thought about the site frequently since.
What story was behind it, she mused?
"Ker?"
"Huh?" Kerry looked up, to find the elevator doors open and her partner gazing back at her with mild bemusement. "Oh. Sorry." She pushed off the back wall and scooted out of the car, feeling a little embarrassed. "Day dreaming."
Dar patted her on the back as they walked across the huge lobby and out the side door, to a large parking area complete with two of their buses were. There were a few people around them including Andrew,and they walked quickly across the lot to join him.
"Hamilton's gone down to represent us at the big shindig," Alastair commented. "I figured it wouldn't do for me to be showing the flag there with all this stuff yet to be done."
Dar gave him a wry look.
"Glad I'm not trying to fly out of here today," Kerry muttered. "I'd be stuck on the tarmac at LaGuardia until the circus leaves town."
Alastair gave her a wry look.
"Kerry had an unfortunate ground hold the last time the president was in Miami," Dar explained. "She got stuck in a 737 in the middle of July for six hours with no air conditioning. It made an impression."
"I can still smell the inside of that airplane, matter of fact," Kerry said."Closest I ever came to going postal in public."
Alastair grimaced, "That does sound painful." He dredged up a smile up as they arrived at the bus, and people turned to greet them."Hello, folks. How's everyone doing?"
"Lo there." Andrew cocked his head and regarded Kerry and Dar. "How are you kids doing?"
"I've been better." Dar didn't bother to dissemble. "Let's get a cab and get down to the pier. The faster we do that, the faster Alastair can go preen for the press."
"Well, hey." Her boss turned around, startled. "I didn't mean you should go make me into a hero, Dar. For Pete's sake!"
"Don't worry about it," Kerry whispered to him. "She's just in a really bad mood."
Alastair frowned. "I'm in a really bad mood too. Should I say mean things?"
"If you want to." Kerry exhaled, blinking into the cool air. "I don't think she meant to be mean. It's been a long couple of days and she doesn't feel well."
Alastair grumbled under his breath, but kept his comments to himself and stuck his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants instead.
"C'mon then." Andrew pointed to the curb. "Dardar said you all's got some folks down at the flattop giving you a hassle?" he asked Kerry, as they steered between the buses and headed for the road. "What's that all about?"