After the Storm

by Amy Knupp

  Penn shook his head and peered at the pot of boiling pasta. There was a reason he wasn’t the cook in the family.

  Don’t suppose you want to define “almost done,” he typed.

  Taste it. Mostly tender but just a little hard when you chew it.

  Just perfect. He eyed the open vodka bottle, then reached to the back of one of the cabinets and dragged out a shot glass. Filled it with Absolut and downed it.

  Aah, yeah. The burn could only help his cooking adventure.

  He took the spoon he’d used to stir the penne and fished out a couple of pieces to taste. He stuck them in his mouth, forgetting to blow on them, and howled and sucked in cool air to soothe the burn on his tongue. Swallowing the scalding pasta whole, he let out a creative stream of swearwords.

  The cream sauce in the other pan gurgled, reminding him to stir it. Then he captured another piece of pasta, blew on it and sampled it.

  Perfectly almost done, as far as he could tell.

  He drained the penne and stirred the sauce again, starting to feel like he was on the verge of conquering Rome.

  “What’s cooking, honey?” Cooper asked in a falsetto voice as he walked into the kitchen. His hair was wet from the shower and his face was sunburned. He came up to the stove to peer into the pots.

  “Penne alla vodka,” Penn said grumpily. “If you get the hell away from me, I might share.”

  “Smells good. Where’s the box it came from?” Coop opened the lid of the wastebasket as if searching for evidence that Penn had cheated.

  “Going out tonight?” Penn asked, ignoring the accusation. He added the pasta to the oversize pot with the sauce.

  “Nah. Got my fill of beer and socialization at the beach today. Felt like June out there, not late October. You missed it.”

  Just as he’d missed everything else for the past month. Penn bit back the words and reminded himself that his roommate wasn’t trying to rub it in.

  “Shit, I’m sorry, man,” Coop said, making Penn suspect he hadn’t hidden his reaction as well as he’d thought. “You need to come out with me next time.”

  “We’ll see. Beach volleyball is the least of my worries.” Penn flipped off the burner and poured the pasta and sauce into a large bowl that had previously only ever been used for microwave popcorn.

  Coop took a couple of beers out of the fridge, opened them and slid one to Penn. In return, Penn handed him a plate.

  “Help yourself.”

  After they’d filled their plates, Coop sat at the bar and Penn stood at the counter to eat.

  “Damn,” Coop said with his mouth stuffed full. “You can cook for me anytime, sweetheart.”

  Penn replied with some choice descriptive words.

  “Seriously, this is really decent.”

  The thing was, Penn agreed. He sort of impressed himself, not that he’d admit it out loud. “Call me Betty and I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

  The sound of their forks scraping the plates filled the room.

  “So. Any luck deciding what the heck you’re going to do?” Cooper asked after a while, still shoveling the food in.

  “Do?”

  “In general. Got any ideas yet?”

  “For a job?”

  “Yeah. Gotta earn beer money somehow.”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “Have you checked job sites?”

  Penn frowned as his gut tightened. “Hell, no. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Cooper slid Penn’s laptop over and starting typing.

  “What are you doing?” Penn asked, not masking his annoyance.

  Without answering, Coop typed some more. Waited, clicked. “Let’s see… ‘Number one furniture company is seeking professional sales associates. Previous experience preferred but not required. Weekends mandatory.’”

  Penn shot his roommate a killer look.

  “Okay, true, can’t see you in a tie,” Coop said. “How about this? ‘Swing bridge operator, midnight shift. English required.’ You speak excellent English. Or you could be a rent-a-cop. That’d be an easy one.”

  “As long as they assigned me to the old folks’ home,” Penn said.

  Cooper finished a bite and took a swig of beer while he perused in blessed silence. “No way. These aren’t your answer.” He shut the laptop and pushed it aside.

  “Could have told you that before you started.”

  “What about something in the department? Dispatch or training or something?”

  Penn didn’t want to think about any of it. He hadn’t yet fully accepted that he wouldn’t be fighting fires. He supposed the idea of still being involved in the fire department was decent but…dispatch? Seemed like second prize—or third or fourth—in a beauty contest. Miss Congeniality, even. “I don’t know. I could make more money as a bartender.”

  “There you go. Have Derek set you up at the Shack pouring drinks.”

  Nothing against Derek or his wife, Macey, but just the thought of it made his stomach turn.

  They wolfed down pasta in silence for several minutes.

  “What would you do?” Penn eventually asked.

  “If I couldn’t be a firefighter?” Coop looked thoughtful for a moment. “Marry some rich chick.”

  “Classy.”

  “You keep cooking like this, you could make yourself one hell of a wife for Nadia.”

  “Hate to blow your fantasy there but I don’t think Nadia’s a rich chick, in spite of the Bimmer.”

  “Is that what’s holding you back from her?” Cooper came around the bar and heaped some more food on his plate. “Money?”

  “We’re going down this dead end again?” Penn asked, pushing his empty plate away.

  “I’m stumped, dude. Beautiful woman who seems to want to spend time with you, and you’re dragging your feet.” He returned to his place. “I’m not trying to be insensitive, but you have spare time out the wazoo right now. Why not get to know her better?”

  “Think about it, Coop. Where can it go?”

  “I’d say that’s up to the two of you.”

  “Exactly. It’s going nowhere.”

  “Why is that, if you don’t mind me asking?” Cooper took his seat at the bar and started shoveling pasta into his mouth again.

  “I do mind you asking.”

  “So answer, anyway. Hot woman who keeps turning up here. Guy with little to do besides rehab. What gives?”

  “Really? You have to ask?” Penn wished he could avoid this conversation, but Coop didn’t seem likely to let it drop.

  “Apparently I do.”

  “She’s the reason I’m sitting here with little to do besides rehab. I can’t seem to get past it.”

  “It was an accident. A freak accident. Depending on how you look at it, you could even argue that she was being responsible by trying to keep up on her workload in the middle of a hurricane.”

  “I tell myself that. Well, not the responsible part because her love affair with her job is over the top, but the accident part. I know she didn’t do anything on purpose, man. You think I’ve got rocks for brains?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  Penn chugged the remaining third of his beer and set the bottle down with a clank. “I tried to apologize to her the other night. For the way I keep treating her. I know it’s not fair. I couldn’t make myself do it. If I were her, I would’ve told me where to go and been done with it long ago.”

  Coop raised a brow at him. “That’s messed up, dude.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s pretty much where I live these days.”

  “I kind of get it,” Coop said sympathetically. “You’ll get there. Doesn’t seem like it right now, but everything will fall into place for you, Griff.”

  “Yeah.” Glancing at the mess he’d made on the stove and the counter, he said, “I cooked. You’re up for KP.”

  Once the possibility of resuming the career he loved, the only thing he knew, was taken away, Penn had no damn clue what “everything” his roommate t
hought would fall into place. Penn didn’t believe that any more than he believed selling furniture was his destiny.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE.” Paul Leder, the night manager, stood in Nadia’s office doorway, concern evident on his face.

  Nadia smiled in spite of the foreboding that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “Hey, Paul, I’m pretty much always here, aren’t I?”

  “Well, so is your mother, but I can’t find her anywhere and she won’t answer her cell phone.” He entered the room and helped himself to a chair opposite Nadia.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got the guy from the roofing company out at the desk looking for her. They’ve run into some kind of a snag and need to talk to her.”

  “What kind of a snag?” Nadia asked warily. She was in on a lot of aspects of the hotel, more than were relevant to the events and marketing departments, but maintenance wasn’t one of them.

  “Something about one of the air-conditioning units being potentially unsafe.”

  “Where’s Lois?” Her mom’s assistant would likely know where she was.

  “Apparently she left this morning for the West Coast. Her grandmother had a stroke.”

  Nadia wondered how she’d missed that news, but then she had been in back-to-back meetings for hours. She stood as she pulled out her cell phone and hit the button for her mom. “You’ve looked everywhere?” she asked Paul.

  “Two or three times. The guy’s been waiting out there for a good twenty minutes. They’re trying to go home for the night.”

  Her mom’s voice mail kicked in.

  “Mom, call me ASAP. You’re needed at the hotel. Bye.” Nadia picked up the landline and dialed the number that connected her to the hostess in the restaurant. “Hi, Mandy, it’s Nadia. Have you seen my mom lately?”

  “I’ve only been here since four, but I haven’t seen her once.”

  “If you do, please tell her I’m looking for her?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Nadia hung up and tried three more departments with the same results.

  “I can’t remember the last time your mom was gone before 6:00 p.m. on a weekday,” Paul said, also standing.

  Neither could Nadia. On those very few occasions, her mom had told her where she’d be and had usually planned to return later in the evening.

  “Where is this roofing guy? I’ll see if I can take care of it.”

  “Thanks. I left him in the lobby.”

  Nadia followed Paul down the hall toward the front desk area, trying her mom’s phone again. She ended the connection as soon as the recording started, wavering between concern and annoyance. Paul led her to a fifty-ish man wearing old, dirty jeans and a navy Island Roofing T-shirt.

  “This is Nadia Hamlin,” Paul told him. “She’s one of our directors and happens to be Joyce Hamlin’s daughter.”

  “Hi,” Nadia said, shaking the guy’s calloused hand. “I understand there’s a problem?”

  “There might be or there might not be,” the roofer said. “How familiar are you with our project?”

  “Not very,” Nadia said regretfully. She’d had no reason to be. “I know the damage was all on the north end.”

  The guy didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “Your mother gave us a strict deadline to get it finished. The presidential suite can’t be rented out while we work.”

  “And we need it by the weekend,” Nadia said, having heard her mother mention repeatedly the bind they would be in if the roof wasn’t done in time for some politician’s stay.

  “Right. We’re on schedule but we just discovered one of the A/C units is loose, probably from the storm. It’s not something my company can fix.”

  “Okay,” Nadia said slowly, completely out of her element. “So we need to get someone up there who can.”

  “Right away. It might be easily fixed, but I’m worried about that unit. It’s not at all secure. Might be a pressing safety issue.”

  He had Nadia’s full attention with that, and her adrenaline started pumping.

  “It needs to be checked out immediately. You get a little wind and that unit could cause all kinds of damage.”

  “Got it.”

  “My crew needs to get started no later than eight tomorrow morning or the deadline might not be possible,” he said with a scowl.

  “I hear you. Thank you.”

  The roofer headed for the door without another word, but Nadia had no time to worry about his irritation. She had no idea what company her mother preferred to work with, whether the unit was under warranty, whether it was old or new or how much effect it would have on the guest rooms if it had to be replaced. She didn’t even know exactly what kind of company she needed to contact.

  She made a beeline for her mother’s office, trying her cell again to no avail, her frustration mounting with every step. Her mom better have a damn good reason for being incommunicado.

  * * *

  “HOW NICE OF YOU to drop in.” Nadia didn’t bother to look up from her laptop when her mother wandered in.

  “Hello to you, too,” Joyce said. “What are you doing in my office?”

  Nadia finished typing the last sentence of an email and hit Send. She closed her laptop and met her mother’s questioning gaze. “Did you not get my message?”

  “I was just about to sit down and check my phone. What’s going on?”

  Nadia’s rage had been put on hold for the past few hours as she’d shifted into problem-solving, fix-it-even-though-you-don’t-have-a-clue-how mode. Suddenly she was shaking with anger as she stood. “Let’s see. The roofers notified me that one of the A/C units was loose and needed to be fixed ASAP so that their tarring schedule wouldn’t be interrupted. It took me a while to track down a company that could send someone out this week, let alone tonight. They got here about seven and confirmed that, yes, there was more damage from the storm than we knew about and that, oh, yes, we damn well better get this taken care of right this stinking minute before the unit causes more damage. Of course, they don’t have the type of unit we need just sitting around, so they had to order one. In the meantime, they’re removing the immediate danger and we’re moving guests to the south wing of the building because the cooling system on the north side is down until they can get the new unit installed.”

  Her mom had dropped into one of the chairs across the desk from Nadia, the color drained from her face. “Oh, my Lord.” She ran her hand through her hair, which Nadia now noticed looked windblown. “Do we have enough rooms available to keep everyone comfortable?”

  “Guests were given the choice to stay where they were, but given that it hit almost eighty degrees today, no one’s interested in being without air-conditioning. It’s crowded but we can get by tonight. Tomorrow…I haven’t even looked at the reservations yet.”

  Her mom stood and came around the desk, having apparently recovered from her initial shock. “What company did you end up getting out here?”

  Nadia handed her the business card with the information on it and answered her mother’s other questions, assuring her that, for now, all they could do was wait as the workers removed the danger from the situation.

  Joyce frowned at the card. “Not my first choice but it sounds like you didn’t have a lot of options.”

  “No.” Nadia spoke through clenched teeth, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Not a lot.” As in, zero.

  Her mom shrugged and Nadia’s pulse hammered through her head. “We’ll hope for the best.”

  That did it. “Where in the hell have you been all evening?”

  Joyce sat in her own chair now and, unbelievably, smiled. “Gene called me this afternoon and invited me to go out on his boat for a picnic dinner.”

  “You were on a date?” Nadia threw her arms up in frustration.

  “Yes,” her mom said firmly. “I was. It was after five o’clock and I didn’t intend to be gone so long.”

  “And you didn’t tell
me—or anyone—where you were going? I called you a dozen times!”

  “I didn’t realize we’d be out of range for my phone.”

  “You might want to check into that before you go off for a little champagne and fried chicken. You know you can’t be out of touch like that, Mom!” She turned her back and took several steps away.

  “Keep your voice down, Nadia.”

  “What?” She spun around in disbelief.

  “There’s no need to let the entire hotel know of our disagreement. That’s never been our way.”

  “It’s never been our way to take time out of a workday to go frolicking around with a man before, either.”

  The grin that once again spread across her mother’s face made Nadia want to scream. “I can assure you I’m too old to ‘frolick.’”

  “Mom! Do you not understand what I’ve been going through for the past few hours? While you were having the time of your life? Because you were having the time of your life?”

  “This is the whole dating issue again, isn’t it?”

  “No. This is a you-were-irresponsible and I’ve-been-at-my-wit’s-end issue.”

  “Would you be this upset if I’d been at a doctor’s appointment?”

  “Yes,” Nadia said without thought. She was too pissed off to try to think straight. “Unless you want to teach me every aspect of your job, then you need to be reachable.”

  Nadia had aged five years in the past two hours. She could handle events crises with barely a blink of the eye, but operations and maintenance…that had always been something her parents had handled.

  “Maybe it’s time for you to learn more,” her mom said, surprising her. In the past, she’d been more apt to try to ease Nadia’s workload than to suggest adding to it.

  “Let me get the events manager hired and brought up to speed and I’ll consider it,” she snapped.

  “That’s fair. Now…when is the new air-conditioning unit supposed to be here?” her mom asked.

  “They can install it Friday, assuming the roofers will be out of their way.”

  “It has to be done for Saturday night. All of it.” Joyce jotted something on a sticky note and stuck it on the bottom of her computer monitor.