She turns on the AM radio. “They’re talking about the water barriers being breached. Upper West Side has about half an hour.”
I didn’t know you speak Spanish, he thinks. Well, “to speak” isn’t the right word, because one only needs to understand what the announcer is saying. She doesn’t need to talk back. It’s not like if she was holding a walkie-talkie or something.
“I didn’t know there are still AM stations around,” he says.
“Only in Puerto Rican Spanish or Haitian Creole,” she says.
Sounds about right, he thinks. Everyone else has moved on to Internet-only, and now the Internet is out. All the wires and towers and switch boxes, all the infrastructure must have been soaked at this point. Funny he is still entertaining such thoughts as the water roars louder.
“I have a raft in the attic,” she says.
“Where did you…?” he asks.
“It’s from a different age. My dad left it to me. Saved him from Sandy.”
“You don’t mean you have a fully-inflated anitque raft in your attic.”
“I don’t. I have a pump and backup power. We should have enough to pump it up and get out in time.”
“Ok.”
Twenty minutes later, they leave the apartment. She breaks the attic window, and they are now floating.
There are many things he still doesn’t know about his date. But for what is supposed to be a rendezvous, it is a life-saver.
2023-11-16