Tsunami Wake: Post Apocalyptic Thriller (Calm Act Book 4)

by Ginger Booth

  “You’ll be there?”

  “Hometown team, wouldn’t miss it!” Cam turned and confided to the camera, “I played hoops in high school. Not varsity, though.”

  “Think you’ll beat Navy?”

  “Of course!” Cam laughed. “The UConn women will, anyway.”

  “And that’s a wrap!” I said. “Beautiful, guys. You’ve got this down pat.” I shared hugs with Cam and Amiri. Then Cam left to join Emmett in the office while we shot Amiri’s closing remarks.

  37

  Interesting fact: The Hudson Constitution read, “Citizens enjoy private freedom of religion, private sexual conduct, and marriage and dissolution of marriage between any two citizens.” As free and private matters, marriage and divorce required no paperwork.

  I flicked open a bit of sumptuous gold damask curtain, tasseled in silk, to view Central Park through a thin veil of expensive lace. The lace graced the window, not my wedding dress, thank God. My couturier Jewel Colvin and I were of one mind on that score – this bride faced the world straight on. No veil.

  The day of the wedding looked unfortunately similar to most of the April and May that preceded it. A high overcast scattered the sun, leaving the day squinty bright, but precluding the sharp shadows that made colors pop with contrast. Not that much color was available to showcase. The sky was pale grey. The smattering of baby trees, grown Upstate and installed last fall, wisely remained bare. The grass was still winter-dead in May. Nights still saw temperatures in the 20’s. Guy-lines fortified the saplings against the wind, but we’d inevitably lose some of them.

  I could see faint vestiges of landscaping from before the epidemic. Just across the street, a slight rise once featured a cheerful bank of spring bulbs, daffodils and tulips, narcissus and hyacinths, with their dark green leaf blades. Some of them had survived the cruel years, only to lie now dessicated and smashed, wilted onto the pavement.

  So far this spring had been dismal. Cool weather crops should have been in the ground over a month now in Jersey, a few weeks in Connecticut. Instead the brutal wind snapped the tarpaulins lashed to lamp-posts as wind-breaks. My thousands upon thousands of wedding guests were getting bludgeoned out there.

  “Time for your hair, Dee,” Jewel encouraged, gently tugging me away from the window. “We’ll go with the braids.”

  Yeah, that was a foregone conclusion. Complete with a lacquer-thick layer of hair spray to keep wisps of escaping hair from whipping my eyes.

  I sank to the velvet-padded bench in front of a triple-mirrored vanity, gorgeous in ebony wood inlaid with iridescent multi-hued mother-of-pearl. We borrowed this upscale condo for my dressing room. Whoever once owned the apartment, before the Calm, had exquisite taste and money to burn. Such people were not in short supply once, on New York City’s Central Park West.

  Nowadays the Coco Juba squatted here, whom I’d met at the Thanksgiving feed during Project Reunion. The upper floors of her posh building were condemned for lack of working elevators and power to pump the water column so high. The other lower-floor residents were turned out of their homes to view our procession down Park Avenue later. Juba was in the park, or would be. But her neighbors weren’t among the twenty thousand elite ticket-holders for the actual wedding. Security for this venue was provided by the warm bodies of trusted fans.

  Brandy O’Keefe, my nemesis reporter from Indie News, and my chosen maid of honor, whipped out a camera and kept up a running commentary with the hair stylist. Mercifully, the two of them left me alone with my thoughts while they dove and pecked at my hair. Brandy faithfully captured the transformation of sweat-shirted over-aged tomboy to bride. Jewel caught my glance once in a while, kind laughter in her eyes.

  I couldn’t complain. I had a fun bridal crew. For my shower last night, I stayed at Jewel’s loft studio in Tribeca. We met up with other girlfriends and contract employees to party at a Roman bath-house nearby. The establishment provided the full multiple bathing pools, toasty warm, with shallow shelves to sit and kibitz while we sipped wine, and deeper sections where I could swim laps. The baths and columns, wall sconces and lower walls, looked straight out of classical Rome. The upper walls and ceiling showed elderly industrial brick and black rafters. We hired the place to ourselves for the evening.

  Well, us and my troop of guards from Brooklyn Prospect. I don’t have that many women friends. The guards outnumbered the guests. I definitely hoped to party there again, with my guy friends included next time.

  Emmett, of course, was off doing his bachelor party last night. Cam selected Chinatown, premiere winner among the red light district competition for sailor patronage. We had no rehearsal dinner, nor rehearsal. More of a combat ops briefing, supplied via video chat with Ash Margolis yesterday morning.

  I wondered if Emmett would have preferred my party. Perhaps not. He’d been a bachelor and soldier for decades. No, the rowdy life wasn’t what he chose now for everyday. But for a sort of wake on leaving bachelorhood behind, I bet he enjoyed the rare raunchy night out with the guys. And unlike me, he had a lot of same-sex friends in town for the wedding.

  Emmett and I were being good today. We wouldn’t see each other until the ceremony. It added a nice touch of suspense to a day that, knock on wood, held no surprises in store.

  “Check out the flower lady,” Sergeant Becque said. He and Specialist Cherie were the in-suite representatives of my guard detail, provided by the Brooklyn Prospect militia and supplemented by Captain Sump’s company.

  I ignored Becque, so he stuck a tablet in front of me, pushing my stylist aside in mid-stroke of foundation makeup.

  “Pam Niedermeyer,” I identified for him. “Editor of PR News. That’s my bouquet.”

  Satisfied, Becque withdrew to fetch Pam up from the lobby.

  Jewel paused the stylist after the foundation layer, leaving my face disturbingly monochrome. All my natural coloring and freckles were painted to one tone, with none of the contours and highlights added back yet. My face looked like a plastic doll’s. With great care not to disturb hair and makeup, and several sets of helping hands, I peeled out of jeans and sweatshirt, bra and panties, and into the base layers of The Dress. To save Becque’s gentle sensibilities, I had silk camisole and tap pants back on before he could return with Pam.

  “Oh, Emmett is going to love unwrapping you, just like a present!” Pam cried.

  “Funny, I was just thinking how much I’d enjoy that part,” I commented. “Why do we do that, pretend all this is for the guy?” I asked that gazing straight into Brandy’s camera. “I think it’s pretty clear women dress up because we like it,” I confided to the world. “We like getting undressed, too.”

  “Do we ever,” Brandy concurred.

  “With a fun playmate,” Pam added. “Which I trust Emmett qualifies as.”

  “Oh, yes,” I agreed. “Would I marry him otherwise?”

  We accomplished all the waxing last night at the party – plus pedicure and manicure – leaving me smooth as an eight-ball from chin to toe. Jewel affixed garters replete with steampunk whimsy, then shimmied flawless silk stockings up my legs to attach to them. The garters provided something old and blue, in fabric taken from a worn-out army dress uniform.

  “What’s borrowed?” I asked. Almost everything was new.

  “The watch fob,” Jewel supplied. “It’s an antique. Are you warm enough, Dee? We could add the petticoats.”

  The draft was raising goosebumps on my extra-bare skin. Brandy made me model the stockings a bit more first, then we pulled on the petticoats. Although multi-layered, these were all one sub-assembly garment. A skin-tight zippered top panel suspended them from my waist, with all the flounce attached lower.

  Brandy handed off the camera to Pam for a moment while we did a can-can number to show off the petticoats, Brandy still in her jeans.

  “I’m surprised there’s no lace-up bustier,” Pam commented, as Jewel selected the jacket next.

  “Wait til you see how this jacket fits,” Jewel ass
ured her.

  Like a glove, is how it fit. The jacket itself was the bustier. The wide-open lapel neckline was gorgeous. Two lines of brass zipper rose along the princess seam lines in front. Good taste won out, and the zipper pulls at the top were modest, rather than stress the resemblance to tassels.

  “Brandy’s turn,” I declared. My top was shrouded in a hair-salon cape for safety. Then Pam and I recorded Brandy’s slacker look before her own transformation, and the beginning of her hair-braiding. Brandy had the most gorgeous dark red hair, not entirely natural anymore at our age. But on camera every day as a reporter, she kept her dye-job meticulously fresh.

  “Oh, the flowers!” I said, handing off the the camera to Jewel for a bit. In delight, I opened the big box Pam brought. And I laughed. “Narcissus! How appropriate!”

  “Daffodils. They symbolize regard,” Pam said. “Oh. Those are narcissus, aren’t they.”

  “And they symbolize self-centered egotism. Narcissism, in fact,” I confirmed, laughing out loud.

  “I’m sorry, Dee,” Pam pleaded. “I’ve protected my garden all I can. Spring just never sprung.”

  I patted her consolingly, though I was still chuckling.

  “It suits you, Dee!” Brandy chimed in. “Run with it!”

  Jewel stepped in, and held my shoulder. “You’re going to ruin your makeup. Calm down, and don’t touch your face. Just in case, I brought red roses. They’ll go with the dress better anyway.”

  “Can’t run with the joke, huh?” I said, blotting the tears of laughter from my eyes with a scrap of makeup tissue.

  “No,” Jewel confirmed. “Because we are playing grownup today. We are pursuing important civic goals, and making a perfect impression.”

  We all shrieked with laughter at that.

  It was true, of course, I thought as as my laughter died back.

  “Any doubts, Dee?” Pam asked.

  Brandy was never going to get her makeup done if she kept picking up the camera like that to record me. “Say that again, Pam,” she ordered.

  “Any doubts, Dee?” Pam asked again, hand to my shoulder, dripping feigned maternal concern. We all doubled over laughing again, of course. Yeah, it took several tries before Pam managed to deliver her straight line.

  Then several more before I delivered a straight answer. I looked straight into the camera, clear eyed and with lousy-looking base makeup, and claimed evenly, “No doubts whatsoever. Emmett MacLaren is my hero.” I dropped my eyelashes demurely, with a private smile.

  “And cut,” Brandy proclaimed. “God, that was sappy. Oh, wait, no. We need another one. Pam, Dee’s mother and sister aren’t here.”

  Pam crouched next to my seat, put a tender hand on my stockinged knee, leg bouncing among the flounces, and said, “I’m honored you let us stand in for your mother and sister today. I’m sorry they couldn’t be here with you.”

  I’m not sorry. This wouldn’t be half as much fun if they were here. But I couldn’t say that on camera – my mom and sister would see this. Besides, it would be a childish thing for a national leader to say. So I just smiled and clasped her hand back.

  “Perfect,” Brandy declared, and turned back to her makeover.

  There was some machine noise outside, helicopters or something. I wasn’t surprised. Army security on this circus was extreme. Ash Margolis wanted to show off the military on parade, a happy occasion for a show of force. For our final act, we would drive all the way home to Brooklyn Prospect on display in a literal parade. Emmett called our bullet-proof carriage-to-be ‘the effing Pope-mobile.’

  Pam sat back and crossed her arms in consideration. “Camera off, is there anything you’d want from your mom and sister today? How can we support you?”

  I shook my head. “This is perfect. You’ve all been great. Really, Pam. Thank you.”

  “No baby girl, all grown up?” Pam asked.

  “Baby girl’s been an adult half her life,” I assured her. “No blushing brides here. Emmett is already my husband. This is a PR stunt for public morale.”

  Sergeant Becque lurched to the window, and threw the curtains open. “What the –?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him, until I saw a corner of something falling. Then we all ran to the window to see.

  “Down,” Becque commanded me, and pushed me to my knees. Where I resumed peering over the low windowsill. “Report, dammit!” Becque demanded into his mike.

  Several figures were parachuting into the park across the street. Which was a hair-raising thing to do, into a park full of party-goers, in a vicious cold cross-wind. I suppose I should have been concerned about the invasion, as Becque was. Instead, I shuddered, imagining how little I’d like being buffeted around up there.

  Besides, the parachutists were sitting ducks. We had snipers on the surrounding buildings.

  “All clear,” Becque announced.

  “Cool,” I replied. “But what are they?”

  “Expected guests,” Becque replied, with a smirk.

  I clambered up and shot him a dire look. “Expected by whom?” Guest paratroopers certainly weren’t expected by me. They weren’t covered in the wedding ops briefing.

  Becque pointed to the first to land, and Emmett running toward him. Her, I corrected myself. Now that she was on the ground, with the crowd helping to capture the parachute, her size was more evident. She was about the same size and shape as me.

  And Emmett caught her up in the air, still trailing parachute cords, and swung her around in glee. He put her down for a long slow hard hug. “Emma MacLaren?” I breathed.

  Becque nodded, and pointed to the next one to land. This was a big guy, who planted his landing like a pro. Unlike the other two, he wore a backpack. “Master Sergeant Jeremy Spring, they said. Friend of the colonel’s dad. Retired, 101st Airborne.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. Emmett had spoken of Sergeant Jem, who continued to take an interest in Emmett and his mother after his dad was killed in action. As a teenager, Emmett visited Jem in the summers, to attend a youth military camp at Fort Campbell. The man used to call and chew Emmett out sometimes, as a father surrogate, when Emma didn’t know what to do with her son. I suspected Emmett’s ideals on how a leader cared for his troops owed more to Sergeant Spring than his officer father.

  The third parachutist still battled in the air. Cam, another Airborne officer like Emmett, was trying to direct him how to land. A bunch of soldiers, possibly also Airborne alumni, circled round, ready to help if they could just get him down.

  Cam pantomimed, hand over hand, that the hanging man needed to pull in his shrouds and spill some air. The flying figure did so on one side and went flying left. Cam exaggerated pulling in on the other side, too, and the man lurched right. Finally he came scudding in for a rough landing, and Cam and crew ran along to catch him and the parachute.

  Meanwhile Emmett, arm in arm with his mother and the black master sergeant, strolled up in nonchalance. Eventually the last man from the sky untangled enough to reach out a hand to shake with him.

  “Some physicist from New Mexico,” Becque said, with a grin.

  I turned to Brandy and her camera, drinking up every moment. “You knew!” I accused.

  “They arrived last night at the staging area at West Point,” Brandy confirmed. “Ash Margolis wanted someone to parachute in, for an airborne officer’s wedding. Showboat.”

  A horrid thought struck me, which would have been impolitic to show. As neutrally as I could, I asked, “There aren’t any more, are there? My parents and sister?”

  “You’ll have to ask your brother.”

  Emmett’s mom, Emma, stopped by to meet me in the dressing room later, after she was whisked away to change from fatigues into a handsome long-skirted red suit.

  “I borrowed the outfit,” she confided. “Now, let me look at you! Lord Almighty. Emmett does pick women by body type, doesn’t he?”

  We both laughed. Body type I never knew, over the years of phone calls I’d shared with Emma. We were the
same height, roughly the same hair color, and same build, though her waist had thickened a bit with age. My hubby had married his mother, a daunting thought.

  Emma did her level best to admire my dress, despite not even owning one nice enough to attend a wedding. “More of a jeans and shit-kickers gal myself,” she admitted. “Can’t abide dresses. Anyway, Dee, I’m just tickled pink to meet you in the flesh at last! Just wanted to stop by a minute. Wouldn’t do at all to meet in the receiving line.”

  Before she had a chance to depart, Jay arrived, wearing crumpled fatigues. “Hey, there! You wouldn’t happen to have clothes for me?”

  “Yes, we do!” Jewel volunteered. She introduced herself with a hand-shake. “That box,” she pointed.

  “Jay!” I cried, in my best breathless Scarlett O’Hara impression. I had time to think this through. “At last! The soldiers are forcing me to marry against my will! But brother! Oh, how will we escape through the whole Hudson Army?”

  Jay splayed himself against the wall in horror, as melodramatic as I could wish. “Face the entire Hudson Army? Hell, sister, they can have you, and good riddance! You’ll survive the wedding bed. Keep a stiff upper lip, and think of New England!”

  Both chuckling, we swapped a feather-light hug and air kisses, to favor my makeup. Then we stood off and took each other in, from head to toe.

  “Five years,” Jay said. “You look great, kiddo. He makes you happy.”

  “He does,” I agreed. “He makes me brave, anyway.”

  Jay shook his head, smiling. “We survived. It’s truly good to see you again. Didn’t think I would.”

  Jewel clapped twice. “We’re on a deadline, people. Dr. Baker –”

  “Jay,” he corrected. “Please.”

  “Your sister isn’t named Em, is she?” Emma inquired.

  “No, the runt is Phoebe,” Jay supplied. “Mom is Essie. Dad is Q.”

  Jewel grinned, and led him away to make sure he knew how to don the Edwardian formal tails she’d prepared for him. Which he surely did not know.