Two days before Halloween. I was at my desk working on some reports when the computer dinged, announcing an incoming email.

Click.

The boss. Invitation to a web meeting. We all know what it’s about. The weather has been the common topic this morning. An unheard of tropical storm in the Gulf. Well, it’s not exactly unheard of, but this late in the year, three days before the end of October, it certainly meets the definition of ‘rare’.

“The latest track has it dead-centered on our office.” Boss’s comment.

“It’s a Category One,” someone inserted. “Diddly squat.”

“Uh,” I spoke, “our weather service says maybe a Two...”

“Minimal Two,” came the reply.

“Regardless,” the boss said, “y’all are cut loose. Go take care of your houses and families. Make sure you update the location roster online. Pay attention to your phones. We’ll make a decision as to when we can show up here again.”

“Day after tomorrow,” came an anonymous comment.

“Make sure all your electronics are off the floor. Take your laptops, yada, yada...”

Hardly a year goes by that we don’t get this speech.

Meeting over. In my company truck, headed home. Thirty-five minutes, skirting the town around to the north side, down a country road, there’s the house.

Was Mom and Dad’s house. They’re gone. I bought my brother’s share out, ceding to him a few acres next door that had three slots for mobile homes.

Don’t get me wrong – mobile home parks don’t have to be trashy. You set rules, make sure they’re followed, things stay nice. I know some. My brother didn’t do that. Three ratty trailers, two of them he owned and rented, and he wasn’t too choosy about who he rented to.

Between the trailer park and my house is an eight-foot privacy fence. I have no idea what goes on in that trailer park and I’m happy that way.

Well, almost. There’s a teen girl who moved in last year. She heard me and Harvey playing. Harvey? Big, goofy caricature of a basset hound. I invited her over to play with Harv. He likes her. Hell, he likes everybody. Her? Brittania. Who with half a brain names a kid ‘Brittania’? I’ll tell you – the same kind of mom who left a perfectly good kid to her mother to raise until said mother died of cancer.

I get a kick out of Brit. She’s a bit too tall and a bit too angular and a bit athletic, but she’s also smart, the subject of a few sessions of “You’re an engineer. Can you help me with this trig?” Actually, this year it’s calculus.

I walked to the gate on the side of the house, got greeted by Harvey. He’s glad to see me, unlike the ex-wife who announced four years ago she WASN’T glad to see me anymore. I opened the gate, gave Harv the first of an evening’s attentive pats, then surveyed the yard. A couple of lawn chairs and a little table went through the back door of the garage, just in case the wind really gets up as predicted.

Last step was to do a quick check of the house’s backup generator. Uh, yeah ... I’m an electrical guy, and I own a house at the end of a long semi-rural utility line in a pretty well wooded area. Hardly a week passes without at least a multi-second blink of the lights. It’s annoying, so back there’s a little generator tied to my natural gas line for fuel and to a re-purposed automatic transfer switch to dispense electricity whenever the power from the utility drops for more than five seconds. I wasn’t going to be in the dark. I know this place has been out of power for weeks after major hurricanes, but all it takes are a few downed lines and it can overwhelm the utility company’s ability to repair.

The sky was already looking strange and the wind picking up when I herded Harv inside.

A lot of people have never experienced this tropical storm/hurricane biz. Let me tell you something: It’s not a steady rise in wind to some sort of peak and then a slow dying away. Nope. There are bands of thunderstorms. Squall lines form with localized bursts of wind. Pockets of thunderstorms, sometimes with the added joy of tornadoes. And these can be varying, sometimes surprising distances from the storm’s center. That’s the way it is.

So the sky was dark, not because it was late, but because the sun was blocked out by a mountain of clouds from one of those lines. The rain hit. I heard the wind. And the lights went out. I counted off five seconds, heard the generator crank, not because it’s loud, but because I was listening for it. It cranked. Five seconds later I heard the transfer switch swap over and the lights were back on.

Harv looked to me mournfully. Basset hounds have that to an art form and Harv is a grandmaster. I reached into the drawer of the side table and retrieved a can of treats, giving him one, laughing as he clowned for a second. I spoil that dog.

Along with the noise of the wind and rain and thunder, I thought I heard another noise, not really identifiable. It didn’t return, so I went back to reading, a favorite music playlist going in the background, toying with thoughts of preparing something for dinner.

Another dozen pages, a bit more thinking, and ... Harv’s up, barking.

Who could be knocking at my door in this mess?

More knocks and familiar voice, pleading. Brit. I opened it carefully, holding it against swirling gusts of wind and rain. She dashed in, soaking wet, disheveled.

“Go dry off,” I said. She dashed as I closed the door.

From the bathroom up the hall – “I’m drenched, Rick!”

“Hang on,” I said. I went to my bedroom. I have scrubs for lounging around, a leftover from being married to a nurse. Drawstring on the pants will take care of fit. The top? Either this or a T-shirt. I grabbed a T-shirt from a drawer.

“They’re right outside the door,” I said loudly. “I’ll be in the living room.”

“Can I use the shower?”

“Sure! Towels in the cabinet.” I was a small bit of glad that I’d showered when I got home and took a bit of time to tidy up the bathroom.

I went back into the living room, sat down, grabbed a battered tennis ball from a basket beside my chair. I waved it at Harv to get his attention, then rolled it. He loped after it, brought it back to me. I patted my lap. That gets me sixty pounds of hound who thinks he’s a lap dog. Harv’s the archetype of ‘good boy’. He revels in attention, but he’ll also lie beside my chair quietly. And he’s a good watchdog.

Like now. His head popped up and he gave an authoritative “Boof!”

“Calm down,” I said, petting him. “We have company.”

The ‘company’ walked in, wet headed but smelling fragrant, carrying a bundle of sodden clothes.

“I hope this is acceptable. And your soap - I smell like a pine tree.”

“Sorry, I LIKE pine trees. If I’d known you were coming I would’ve stocked something with lilacs. You wanna wash those?”

“Can we do that? I mean, I hear your generator running.”

“It’ll handle the washer and dryer. Let’s get those on.” I patted Harv. “Get down, you big lump.”

Harv gave me a mournful look, over-played in my opinion because he had an audience in Brit, and he slid down with all the grace one expects of his breed. I followed Brit into the laundry room. Yes, she knows the inside of the house. I have used her as an attendant for Harv when I had overnight trips for work.

With the laundry on, we returned to the living room. “Okay,” she said, “Electricity, I know. You have a generator. But TV?”

I pointed upward. “Satellite dish in the attic. Streaming TV. Internet. So what do you want to watch?”

“I dunno ... Cable’s been out at the house since Mom skipped the bill a couple of months back. I found out how to do local stations with an antenna.” She sat down, patted the sofa beside her. Harv galooped (not ‘galloped’. If you’ve ever seen a basset in a hurry, you’ll identify ‘galoop’) over and positioned himself against her thigh. She petted him, made gooshy noises. He looked at her with signs of worship.

“Anything but the Weather Channel,” she sighed. “Pine tree fell on our trailer.”

“Huh?!?”

“That big pine tree by the ditch? A big gust, and BAM! Right out the center of our trailer. I had to climb out a window.”

I have security cameras. I opened the app on my laptop, picked the one at the corner of the house nearest to the trailer park, swiveled it to look...

First thing – the privacy fence is flat. Eight-foot fence and eighty mile an hour wind don’t play well together.

Second – the tree is down. When the drainage board was widening the drainage ditch in front of the property, I warned my brother that they were weakening the roots for that tree. It didn’t die, so he told me he was vindicated. The tree lying down across two mobile homes? He may have to rethink that.

She looked over my shoulder. “Yeah ... I guess I was the only one home. Everybody else evacuated.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Long walk. Mom took the car two days ago, left me home by myself.”

“Really?”

“Well, I AM eighteen, so no big deal.”

“Except this storm.”

“She told me that if it got bad, I could call emergency services. There’re shelters...”

“Not in the middle of this ... Well, maybe...” I was looking at the weather I could see on the display. “It’s not that bad, at least not yet.”

“You want me to go to a shelter?”

“I think you’re good right here. You’re the one who’s trapped in a house in the middle of a hurricane with a creepy OLD guy.”

“You’re what? Thirty?”

“Thirty-two.”

“You’re not creepy at all.”

“Almost twice your age.”

“Not quite. Two years ago I WAS half your age. One day I’ll catch up.”

I grinned. I know she’s got a quick intellect. I’d poked her over a couple of hurdles in advanced placement math.

“I know about those shelters. I knew people who had to use ‘em. If I have a choice...”

“You’ve got a choice.”

She twisted over and kissed Harv on the head, cooing, “I’m gonna stay with you a while.”

The nasty thing lolled his head over on her thigh.

We found an interesting movie on TV. I got up to fix a couple of soft drinks. She followed me into the kitchen.

“I could’ve done this,” she said.

“Maybe next time. You see where everything’s at now.”

Back in the living room. Small talk about the movie. I found that her words on the male-female social interaction were revealing

“That guy’s playing a game and she isn’t. She ends up getting hurt.”

“You’ve seen this?”

“Yeah ... before we lost cable. Nobody else ever commented on the guy. I mean, he’s good-looking and smooth and he’s funny around her, so she’s dropping her guard.”

Harv has a doggie bed. I spent good money on it. Naturally he ignores it. He curled up in front of the cabinet that holds the TV. He stretched out. He’s male, so about four inches of bright pink dog dong exposed itself. I guess the cool air alerted him, so he curled around and licked himself.

“Harv! A little decorum, man!” I said loudly. Got a mournful look. He straightened out, retracting his tool.

Brit giggled. “He’s just being a dog.”

“Maybe so, but still...”

“Mom says that if guys could do that, women would be out of the picture.”

“That’s a lovely thought.”

“You don’t know Mom.” She studied my face with a gaze. “You don’t agree?”

“God, no.”

“Mister Joe (my brother) told Mom you used to be married. So apparently you have some insights into the game.”

“That’s just it. It might be a game to a lot of people, but it wasn’t, to me.”

“Oh.”

“I’m over it now. Glad it’s done. Didn’t find out she was cheating until after the divorce.”

“What’s wrong with some women?” Brit asked. “Mom. Mom’s reasonably good looking. Not stupid. Just makes crap choices.”

“So no step-dad?”

“I’m never met one she brought home and thought “That’s the guy who will serve as a father figure in my life.” Sigh. “Now I’m eighteen. It’s too late. I get to live with whatever neuroses I’ve nurtured along the way.”

“I kinda thought you had it together,” I said.

She looked at me with a little smile. “Why thank you! I do the best I can.”

“Lots of opportunities to do otherwise,” I said.

“I know. I’m eighteen. DON’T have a baby or a reputation or diseases.”

“Dating?”

“I have. Mom didn’t exactly encourage me, but she often wondered why I wasn’t out every night. I think she was when she was in high school. I traded an active social life for a grade point average.” Smile. “You’ve helped. I’m on the radar for scholarships and grants. That’s the ONLY way I’ll get to college.”

“We never talked. Major?”

“Something that I can make a living with. NOT teaching. NOT medical. NOT soft stuff like social work.”

“You’re narrowing it down.”

She smirked. “Guidance counselor said I might want to think about engineering.”

“You’re being mean.”

“Am not.” She patted the sofa. “Harv!”

Galoop. Galoop. He was there. She cooed as she petted him. He lolled his tongue out at the attention. “Companionship reduces the need for your baser urges.” Her eyes twinkled when she looked towards me. “So, you ... since the divorce ... no new sweetie?”

“Nope. Not really looking. Just about the time I think about it, somebody I know announces one of THEIR disasters.”

“Do you think it’s always disaster?”

“I keep hoping otherwise, but I also keep turning down offers to set me up. Most of the prospects are the female side of somebody else’s disaster.”

We flipped the TV over to The Weather Channel to get the latest on the storm. It serves a purpose, humor, mostly, with the over-the-top excitement.

“Oh, look! It DID make Category Two,” she said.

“That means it blew over TWO empty beer cans,” I snorted. Jaded? Yes. Louisiana had been smacked by a bevy of storms. We’d taken a direct hit from a Category Four – right at the cusp of a Five, then a few weeks later, same path, a Category Three. Minimal Twos were beneath contempt. Of course, I didn’t have a big pine tree down across MY house.

“Trick or treat,” she said. “Gonna be tough for the kids to make their rounds this year.”

She kept looking at me. Made me a bit nervous. She started to speak. Stopped. “Wonder how much of the electricity is out?”

“I can check that,” I said. I picked up the laptop off the table beside my chair, tapped, clicked. “Looks like most of the parish,” I said. “Figures.”

“And how long before we get power back? I mean, besides your magic machine back there?”

“Depends on the damage. The big one blew down or damaged every bit of the distribution and transmission system. Took weeks. This one? I doubt it’ll be that bad. Most places oughta be back in a week or so.”

She kept looking at me like she was adding a column of numbers. “For people that have places.”

“Did your mom have renter’s insurance?”

“Yeah, sure ... Mom was all about planning ahead and taking precautions. I’m probably one of the precautions she didn’t take.”

“You’re ... I think you’re an excellent addition to the planet.”

“That’s a cute but non-committal way to put things.”

“Well, you’re one member of the human race that I’m always glad to see.”

“Really? You’re like my most trusted adult. And male, at that.”

“That makes me happy.”

“Makes me sad,” she said.

“Sad?!? Why?”

“Because if you were younger, I would have been dating you.”

I took a deep breath, said nothing.

She caught the pause. “That is, if you found me acceptable dating fodder. I mean, too tall and kinda flat and this brown hair and brown eyes...”

“What do any of those things have to do with me saying I’m always glad to see you?”

“Friends. I have friends at school. Some of ‘em are guys. But that’s as far as any of it goes.”

“Uh, have you pushed the situation?”

She shook her head. “No, not really. I have standards. I see how they are in public, around others. I don’t want to be treated like that or talked about like that.”

“I understand that. I’m not so ancient that I don’t remember my own time in school. I’d’ve probably been one of those. Took a few years to learn what’s important.”

“Blonde hair and tits. Bodacious booty.”

“Intelligence. Wit. Personality. Personal hygiene that doesn’t involve an hour and half in front of a mirror before appearing in public.”

She reseated herself, legs folded, one under her. Harv moved too, putting his big head on her thigh. She played with his ears.

“His best feature,” I said. “Those ears. Even when he was a pup.”

She picked up a front paw and wiggled it. “I think his feet define him.”

Harv reveled in the attention, lying his basset ass off, because I gave him plenty of attention myself.

“My dog likes you.”

Giggle. “You sure changed the subject. And sometimes he’s MY dog, right, Harvoooo?” Harv raised up and licked her cheek.

“I didn’t change the subject. I just can’t say too much...”

“Me neither, ‘cuz you’ll toss me out of your house in the middle of a hurricane.”

“Okay, then. Operating on the assumption that there are NO circumstances under which I will eject you into the storm, what is it you would say?”

“You first.”

“Okay ... this is risky. I chance getting labeled an old perv...”

“You’re not THAT old,” she smiled. I think she thinks she’s winning and I didn’t even know we were playing a game.

“Thank you. Brit, you’re attractive to me in all the right ways, but you’re too young...”

Determination shaded her expression. “I’ve been attracted to you for a long time and every time I think about it, the age thing becomes less and less of a problem.” Pause. And I thought Harv had the corner on expressive brown eyes. “So, no?”

“I can’t say that word, Brit.”

“Can we treat last school year and this past summer and this school year, me visiting Harv, you and me over the books, can we call that dating?”

“You don’t know anything about me, Brit.”

“I think I know a LOT about you, Rick. I know you’re smart and patient and you keep a neat house and your brother thinks you’re the brains in the family and that you got a raw deal when what’s’ername left. And Harv likes you. We could’ve been dating...”