“Listen, private interest has been trying to gain control of Puerto Rico—the land, the agencies—for ages. The government has always been their coconspirators. As I speak, this administration still hasn’t lifted the Jones Act! People are suffering—starving for food—but still being penalized with taxes on produce and other goods just for living on an island the U.S. government stole from them in the first place! That’s criminal! It shouldn’t be law. They are going to starve the Puerto Rican people of resources and support and, because there is a cap to what people can take—no power, no clean water, no schools, no jobs—they will effectively smoke people off the island, and then, that’s when the vultures will sweep in. They are already circling.”
Olga stopped and noticed that Tammy was rapidly rotating through variations of a smile: a mask of sympathy, puzzlement, and possibly even a grimace of fear flitting across her face as she attempted to find the proper expression in the lexicon of morning TV responses. Toni had her hand to her earpiece.
“Well, Olga,” Toni said, “it’s very clear how passionate you are about Maria recovery. We are going to need to cut to break, but before we go, any final words for the president? He is an avid news watcher!”
Olga was a little surprised they would let her speak again.
“Yes. Yes, I do.” She paused to think of exactly what she wanted to do with this opportunity. “Mr. President, I hope that the ghosts of every Puerto Rican who died at your hands in this catastrophe haunt your dreams each night, dancing an all-night salsa party in your twisted mind.”
* * *
SHE HAD JUST hailed a cab home when Matteo reached her.
“Now that’s what I call going full Kanye!” Matteo said.
“On a positive,” Olga said, “I don’t need to figure out how to get out of the wedding business.”
“It was so hot.”
She laughed. “It was semi-psychotic. You just think it’s hot because you like me.”
“Because I love you.”
And she knew then that she loved him, too.
THE GANG’S ALL HERE
Despite the fact that the ten Eikenborn & Sons retail locations on Puerto Rico had suffered millions of dollars in damages, Dick found himself with a full and happy heart as his plane began its descent onto a private airstrip near San Juan. He glanced at his daughter, Victoria, who sat across from him, craning her neck to take in the aerial view.
“Holy shit,” she said, “it’s like a giant came and just stomped it all to pieces.”
Dick now looked out the window as well. She was right. The stores had opened two days before and many workers hadn’t made it to their shifts. He now had a sense of why. The once green island now a patchwork quilt of electric blue. FEMA tarps where roofs once were.
“Worried about the damage, Dad?”
Dick didn’t mean to smile, but he did. This was the first modicum of interest or concern that Victoria had shown in him since he and her mother had separated. She’d been working at an NGO focused on women’s health and when she heard, through her brothers, that her father would be coming down, she asked to tag along. It’s not every day we get to see third-world conditions in a first-world country, she had said.
“Hmm,” Dick replied now. “A bit. More on an operations level. Insurance will take care of the rest. I’m a little worried about you, though. Those volunteer tents won’t have AC, I hope you realize that.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
“I work in humanitarian relief, Daddy. I can live without creature comforts for a few days.”
“Well, that makes one of us!” he said. “If Nick hadn’t assured me his house is fully up and running, there’s no way I’d be staying the whole weekend.”
“How?” Victoria asked.
“He’s got his own solar grid. Apparently, the property sustained some damage, but generally speaking, it’s all cosmetic. He says he’s barely missed a beat.”
* * *
ONCE THEY LANDED, Dick arranged for Victoria to be safely dropped at the FEMA headquarters to shadow some workers, while he boarded a helicopter to tour his facilities. With most of the local employees unable to make their way to work, due to lack of gas, blocked roads, or their own tragedies, Dick’s head of retail had begun flying in managers and assistant managers from across the mainland as soon as the airports reopened. Several locations had sustained significant flood damage, rendering much of the equipment and lumber in questionable condition for sale. There had been a thought to simply give the “irregular” supplies away, but their general counsel determined that too much of a liability, so they were restocking these locations. Of course, in order to collect insurance on the damaged goods they would need to be destroyed, but the communications team decided that had to wait, for fear of bad press. No matter. This had hardly been the first storm weathered by Eikenborn & Sons.