"How about we throw you back into the hurricane," Ida says.

"Hey, who else is gonna sponsor you old relics? It ain't Mercedes and Versace and Helena Rubenstein. Bupkes, Bupkes, that's what you old broads will get. that's what you old broads will get. Bupkes. Bupkes. No one cares about what you want to watch!" No one cares about what you want to watch!"

I sigh. That's our old Hy, back again by unpopular demand.

I leave the living room with everyone screaming epithets at him. Entering the kitchen, I'm surprised to see Hy has followed me. As I drink a gla.s.s of water, he grins. "Like the show?"

"You were pretty disgraceful."

"Yeah, ain't I always, but I sure took everybody's mind off the hurricane."

Touche.

18.

Aftermath

We are awakened by the sound of people shouting. And sunshine peeping through the uneven slats of my boarded windows. I can't believe I actually fell back asleep, especially since Hy's snoring nearly drove me crazy. But he did look cute cuddled up with Lola.

I jump up from my mattress, grab my sneakers, and quickly shove my feet into them. In the hallway, I open the front door carefully, then, realizing it's safe, I pull it wide. In moments, Sophie, Bella, and Lola, awakened by my activity, follow behind me as I hurry outside onto the balcony. Sophie and Bella cling to each other, jumping up and down. It's really over. Blessedly over. And we'd survived.

We see our neighbors down below, walking around, surveying the damage. What a mess it is. Most of the cars were hit. Some crashed into one another, some landed on roofs of others. Trees have fallen. Telephone poles are down. The street is a sloppy mess of wet trash. Broken gla.s.s is everywhere, and plywood slats that failed and fell. My neighbors wear boots and walk carefully amid the rubble, calling out to one another.

From inside, I hear Evvie say, "Phone's still not working. Power's still off."

Hy, in my kitchen, is complaining, "I'd kill for a cup of hot coffee."

Tessie and Sol, downstairs, in robes, wave up to us. She calls, "Everybody okay?"

Sophie calls back, "We're good. How's your group?"

"We're still here."

I can't stand the suspense. Why isn't Jack looking for me? He would have rushed over by now. I start down the stairs and yell back up, "I'm going to look for Jack."

Evvie calls, "Wait for me."

Still wearing the clothes we slept in, looking utterly disheveled, we hurry down what's left of our cement staircase, which, thank goodness, we can manage by holding on to the dangling wroughtiron rails. Behind us we leave the others dazed and bewildered, heading for their own apartments to a.s.sess what has happened during the night.

We cut through Phases Four and Five, pretty much the same scene we just left. Stragglers wandering around looking for friends, going to neighbors' apartments to check the damage. The buildings are still intact, except for broken windows and destroyed Florida rooms; many of our screened-in porches didn't make it.

When we round the corner to Phase Six, I stop and cry out, "No!" I can't believe what's before me. Building Z-Jack's building-has collapsed! Evvie sees it, too, and grabs my arm. We start running as best we can through the debris.

A small group of people stand in front, staring and talking quietly. I look across the courtyard. Building Y is undamaged. But in Jack's building, the third floor has caved in onto the second floor, where Jack's apartment is . . . Was. I can't see his apartment. It is crushed underneath the floor above. I remember Ida's chilling remark. I'm frantic. I finally see people I recognize. One of Jack's bridge partners, Carol Ann Gutsch, is there. As is Abe Waller. Carol Ann is crying. A woman I can't identify has her arms around her. Carol Ann's clothes are torn and her face is cut and b.l.o.o.d.y. We run over to them.

My voice is shrill, I hardly recognize it. "What's happened to the people in there? Where's Jack?"

Abe clutches at the yarmulke on his head as if to make sure it is still there. "We don't know. When I came outside I found Mrs. Gutsch here on the ground."

Carol Ann shakes her head, waving her arms impotently, crying harder.

I can barely let myself look back up. My G.o.d, are they still in there?

Abe continues. "We were lucky." He points to his far-corner first-floor apartment, which is about all that's left standing of the building. "Our people were able to escape when the building started to fall."

Evvie, who knows the list, says, "Jack also had Louise Bannister, Dora Dooley, and Carmel Graves staying with him."

I want to shake Carol Ann until she tells me what I need to know. I cut in. "What about Jack and the other women? You have to tell me what happened. Please."

Her words tumble out through her tears. "All I remember is we were sleeping on the floor in the living room. Then the crashing noise started above us and the ceiling began to cave in. Jack yelled for us to run. I was nearest the door and I got out first. I dashed to the steps as fast as I could. I was so afraid the steps would be gone, and I'd be trapped, but they were still there. I tried to look back, but I couldn't see with all the dirt and pieces of the building falling. I could hear Dora screaming, and Carmel crying that she couldn't find the door. I made it downstairs and ran into the middle of the street and I fell down. That's all I remember. I must have pa.s.sed out. By the time I came to"-she indicates her neighbors-"they were bending over me-"

I interrupted. "But Jack and the others. Did you see them again?"

Carol Ann shakes her head.

A man holding a towel to his bleeding head

says, "I live in building Y. I saw something. After Z building fell I ran back home to grab my flashlight. When I finally made it out again, I saw a car drive out. Amazing that any of the cars could be running."

I feel hope. "Maybe someone picked them up." I look around. "Does anyone have a car that hasn't been hit?" I'm miserable when all I see are heads shaking and all I hear is them mumbling no.

Suddenly a piercing scream comes from behind Jack's building. We all run. The easier way around the building is from the side of Abe's apartment, which had the least damage. Oh, G.o.d, I fear the worst. Will all their dead bodies be lying there?

When we turn the corner, we see a young couple standing there staring down into what seems like a very deep pit where part of the building used to be. The man has his flashlight illuminating downward.

"What is it?" the man with the towel asks. "What did you find?"

The young man says, "We were heading to look for our friends in Phase Four and we took the back way because it was less of a mess, and we almost fell into this hole."

The young woman can barely stutter. "There's a dead body down there."

Abe's group crowd around, but I cannot move. Evvie holds on tightly to me. I shut my eyes.

"You're not gonna believe this," the man says. "It's someone dead, all right. But it couldn't have happened last night. That's a skeleton down there!"

19.

The Hospital

It takes a few moments for me to process the in formation. A dead body. Buried deep. A skeleton. Thank G.o.d it can't be Jack-that's the only thing I care about. So where did he go? It had to be the hospital. Someone was hurt, or he would have come to me.

The hospital is right across the street. But Oakland Park Boulevard might be impossible to maneuver. We can take the shortcut through the back of Lanai Gardens. I grab Evvie and pull her with me. "Come on, we've got to get to the hospital! Now!"

We race through mud and dirt and rubble and more milling people stunned by what has happened to their lives in one night. The hospital seems not to be too damaged, but it's chaotic. Outside, dented cars that can still be driven are parked haphazardly; n.o.body bothers to use designated areas today. The streets are silent except for sirens. Probably every police car and fire engine is out and about today.

Inside, it looks like a war zone: Crowds of b.l.o.o.d.y, battered people are waiting to be helped. Crying relatives look bewildered and shocked. I try to get the attention of someone at the check-in desk, but it's mobbed. I'm not alone trying to locate lost people. The harried woman behind the desk, dressed in sweats, hair uncombed, who must have rushed over this morning, makes it clear she has little information yet. We will all have to wait.

Not my Evvie. She grabs my arm and we head for the stairs. We have all of us, one time or another, been here. We know the place backwards and forwards. We also know most of the staff. Most of our doctors use this hospital facility. We head for Emergency.

It, too, looks like a war zone. Bandaged heads and bodies everywhere. People lying on gurneys, waiting to be seen. Nurses and doctors hurrying from room to room.

"Let's split up," Evvie suggests. "Signal when you find them." She refers to the whistle we invented when we were teenagers and would lose each other in department stores.

I go from cubicle to cubicle, sometimes seeing people I know, asking if anyone has seen Jack. No luck at all. It's almost surreal, our friends and neighbors all at once in such a situation.

I have a preposterous thought-I wonder where

Grandpa Bandit is. Is he somewhere nearby? Never mind.

I'm at the last possible section, dismayed and frustrated, when I hear Evvie use our familiar whistle. I follow the sound around and about the nurses' station until I find her.

And Jack.

As I run toward him I see immediately that he looks all right. Unharmed. Dirty, disheveled, cuts and sc.r.a.pes on his face, but definitely still in one piece. He sees me and runs to meet me. We kiss and hug. I feel like we're in a scene in a romantic movie.

"When I saw your building . . ." I begin.

"I couldn't leave my women charges to come to you. I was silently sending you messages and hoping your ESP was working."

We kiss again. "Is your gang all right?" he asks.

"Yes, we were very lucky."

He brings me to poor Dora Dooley, who is thoroughly miserable. "I broke my arm," she tells me. "I'm waiting for someone to put on a cast. And the TV isn't working. I could be watching my soaps!"

Poor one-track-mind Dora.

Then we check on Carmel Graves, who is swathed in bandages. "I feel like a mummy," she says with humor.

"Where's Louise?" I ask. "Is she all right?"

"She's fine," Carmel says, pointing. "She's over there visiting people she knows."

"Did you see Carol Ann?" Jack asks.

Evvie says, "She's okay, just shook up. She's with Abe."

"Thank G.o.d," he says. "I knew she got out, but I couldn't find her in the dark."

Carmel smiles at me. "He's quite a guy, your boyfriend. He carried Dora over his shoulder and held on to me tightly with his other arm. And with Louise hanging on to his jacket and staying very close, he got us out of there. I don't know how he did it. It was totally black and we only had my flashlight, which needed new batteries and was almost useless."

She and Jack smile at each other. "Some Boy Scout I was," Jack says. "First thing happened I lost my flashlight."

When we return to Jack's building hours later, having left Dora and Carmel with some friends, he is astonished at the damage. "That we got out alive is a miracle," he says. "And you tell me there's a skeleton?"

I take him around the back. By now there is a sizeable crowd circling the fissure in the ground and yellow tape has been hung to keep people away. A couple of police cars are parked nearby.

"Dad!" We turn to see Jack's son, Morrie, rushing toward us. Father and son hug. "Thank G.o.d you're all right," Morrie says.

"I asked every policeman I saw at the hospital if anyone had seen you," Jack tells him. "Then I ran into Oz Washington and he told me you were safe."

Morrie hugs me, too. Hard. Clearly he was worried about me, bless his heart.

"What's going on here?" Jack asks.

Another voice is heard. A familiar one. "That's what I want to know!"

I turn to see Stanley Heyer. The sprightly eightyfive-year-old comes hurrying toward us with, as usual, Abe Waller. Poor Stanley. A few days ago he thought it was just a roof that needed repair. Now he'll have his hands full with all of Lanai Gardens to deal with. He stares down into the deep crevice where the skeleton lies.

Morrie says to him, "We need to get the body out and do an autopsy, but obviously this is not a priority today, with the city in so much disorder. Can you tell us anything that might help?"

Stanley looks at the bones soberly. "One thing is clear: He or she is in the substructure of the building. I can tell from the cement and what's left of the framed trench around him. This poor soul must have been buried under the building before it was completed."

"Oy, such a terrible accident," Abe says, shaking his head dolefully.

"If I recall," Stanley says, "we were having many storms around that time, too. I guess he or she might have fallen in."

"Or," says a bystander, "maybe a person dug a hole in their apartment and threw someone in. On purpose."

Onlookers react with shudders at this gory imagination.