After the Halloween Hurricane

Excerpt from Chapter Eighteen of Girl, Unemployed, “After the Halloween Hurricane”

I pulled hard and fast until the fat wooden blinds reached the top of the windowsill.

“Huh!” Conchita struggled to inch out of bed. She moved forward in slow motion like a zombie in a trance. Then, she clasped her hands together again to make a prayer across her lips.

“Oh, come on, Conchita, it’s not that—” I swung my head back. “Ma—je—s—t—i—c.” But it was. It was majestic. It was magic. It was magnificent.

“Yessica,” she whispered. “It’s the high highs and the low lows. Last night, the hurricane, and now—” Conchita kept her praying hands together and turned her head back and forth in disbelief.

The harsh wind and rains of the hurricane had ceased. But not without ushering in the first quiet snow of the season, the complete opposite of the storm’s chaos and destruction. Like confetti, the snow sprinkled and scattered along the water towers, rooftops, and skyscrapers above us. The sun had not risen, but we didn’t need it. Instead, the snow cast a white light, a blanket, a canvas across the city.  It took its time flying and spreading across the sky. Like the still-dark windows of the city’s tall buildings, the snow postponed the morning and its eventual landing; a million little specks crossed our window, spinning in circles and coalescing together in a cloud of peace above us before finally landing below like a fluffy pillow.

“Another performance.” More flurries pirouetted in front of us, painting our Midtown postcard white. A few rested on the windowsill. “It’s rare. To get snow after a hurricane, you know. The likelihood of that happening is…” I turned to Conchita and laughed. “I guess that’s about as likely as you and me ending up together in New York.”

“I get it now. You have to be here to see it. And to understand it. To see is to believe.” A small tear moseyed down her face. “Oh, Yessica, how can I—how can anyone—ever go back home after all this?”

“Another note to add to that book?” I was concerned for Conchita, but it wasn’t time to say anything, so I put my arm around her shoulder. She lowered her head against my neck. “Welcome to New York.”

Conchita unlocked the window and pried at the bottom to open it.

I thought of Gloria Grace but tried to hide my sad face. “It only opens a quarter of the way now. You know, so you can be bad and smoke a smooth Dunhill every once in a while.”

Conchita’s stunned eyes jumped to mine. “What?”

“Not that I would know or anything.”

I went to wash my face over the sink. Wiping off my forehead and cheeks with a hand towel, I grabbed a crumpled envelope under the door. “It seems the power, water, and subways below Thirtieth Street are down. How about that?”

I thought it remarkable that residing four blocks north meant that we had every necessity and even the excesses of Forty-Second Street. Work and school were canceled since power below Thirty-Fourth Street was out. But since the hurricane postponed Halloween the night before, many of us marched north toward the lights in our costumes and coats. Conchita had been quiet since the snow at my window, so I put my arms inside hers like a chain as we walked east and north toward Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street.

I began first with small talk. “Thank you for your pink ballerina costume. I do love all the sequins and frills. But are you sure you’re allowed to wear your Miss Fiesta dress and crown during non-official Fiesta events?”

Conchita kept silent. Then, she finally responded in a low monotone. “It is to take pictures in front of the sites for the Fiesta Commission.”

“You mean to tell me you’re like one of those army guys who wear their uniform on the plane?” I slowed. “Oh, you should wear it on the plane. Cause you also serve the community.” I made a big salute. “Thank you for your service, Miss Fiesta.”

Conchita laughed softly, then quickly reeled in her smile as a snowplow scratched against the street.

“Out of my way,” a young voice yelled. Dressed as a mummy, a teenage skateboarder crashed through us, briefly breaking up our chain.

“Say excuse me, next time,” I yelled, looping my arm through Conchita’s again, as I noticed the skater had yet to phase her.

“And skateboarders.” Conchita finally spoke in the low monotone of a muffle.

“Skateboarders?” I questioned.

“You said that roller-skates, no, rollerblades, are making a comeback in the city. But you forgot to mention the skateboarders.”

I played along. “Oh, sorry about that. We can add that to our lessons. Be on the lookout for the sixteen-year-old mummy skateboarders that just arose from the dead. They are making a comeback.”

“Yes.” She dragged me forward, periodically slowing down to stare up at the skyscrapers.

I looked at her. “The buildings climb higher the farther you make it into Midtown. Supposedly, a skyscraper is anything above forty stories.”

Conchita stopped to finally get a full view of the Empire State Building behind us. She scanned the icon, up, down, then back up again. 

“Forty stories for a skyscraper doesn’t seem that high of a standard.” We spun our heads back north. “But it does feel good to know that…” I trailed off, considering she wasn’t listening.

Except that she was. “It feels good to know that what, Yessica?”

“That even though there are skyscrapers in the world as tall as mountains, that doesn’t mean the rest of us still can’t touch the clouds—.”

“At just forty stories.”

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