SUE: Hard Day's Night

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh's day had been nothing short of exhausting. Damien was more behind than usual, Janice was out of town, and the case he was working on was stressful. He was having difficulty proving that his client had been asked to leave the library premise because of her race instead of her baby crying like she'd been told, but he (and she) were convinced that was the real reason.

He didn't want to file another interrogatory again.

He'd received a phone call in the middle of his meeting with his client about editing work on his campaign ad for the local television station, which he hadn't been able to answer, and when he'd tried calling back he'd gotten a dial tone. He'd worked straight through lunch without any more sustenance than his coffee (which he at least kept refilled to the best of his ability) and a hand full of crackers.

As such, when the clock on his work desktop finally showed 5:00 he was relieved.

Time to head home, for relaxation and supper and time spent in the company of his partner. He cycled as fast as he could in the tired state he was in, pulling into the driveway sore and sweaty but happy to have finally made it to his finish line.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean’s day had also been exhausting, although for vastly different reasons. The power outage had begun at Hammel, with a quick surge through the electrical grid followed by the lights going out abruptly. The backup generator had failed to do its job, and then everything had unraveled from there. At first, there had been confusion over whether this had been a surprise emergency drill, although security confirmed it had not been.

After spending the rest of the day helping the other staff members to keep the students calm, the telepath had driven home to find that they had no power at home either.

He’d checked the breakers before changing from his work suit. Unfortunately, it was related to the grid, a hypothesis confirmed when he called the utility company.

First the boiler this winter and now this.

They had a gas range, so at least they could cook, but he needed to empty the refrigerator and freezer.

As a result, he had gone back out to the grocery store to buy several bags of ice; if he could buy some time to save their food, he would.

Sean pulled back into the garage just as his partner’s bicycle had approached, and he rolled down the window to call out to his partner. “If you wait a minute, I need some help carrying bags.”

He had bought a lot of ice.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh was, as of yet, blissfully unaware of the power outage. Whatever had happened, it hadn't reached his office by the time he'd left and nobody had contacted him about it. Instead his smile lit up at the appearance of Sean, and he nodded his acquiescence as he parked his bicycle.

"Of course."

And so he waited patiently for his partner to pull into the garage. Only, Sean didn't use the garage door opener. No, Josh watched as the other man actually got out of the car and tugged the door up by hand.

"Ahh...do you need help with that? Is the garage door broken?"

That would be just what they needed, after having to replace the heater. But it was an old house, after all.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

If only Sean had been unaware of the power outage. Instead, he had needed to help the other staff and the students through the chaos in the immediate aftermath. He had also learned quickly enough who was responsible, and, once more, he found himself grateful for his powers rather than something more tangible like electrokinesis. While his side effects, and the training period, had been miserable, at least he didn’t short-circuit electronics when he sneezed.

Once the telepath had opened the garage door (and had made certain that it would remain propped open), he returned to the car so that he could pull into the garage. “The garage door is fine.” Fortunately, they need not add that to their list of expenses after the water heater this past winter.

“The power is out.”

At least it was warm, so they would not freeze. And they lived in Vermont, so it was not yet so hot that they would suffer for the lack of air conditioning. Primarily, it was the inconvenience coupled with the fact that they would lose most of their perishable food if the power remained out for much longer.

“I bought ice to try to keep the food longer. And I bought some extra bottled water.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

"The power is out??"

Wasn't that just great. So much for a warm meal after a hard day's work! However, there was nothing to be done about it, and maybe it would come back soon.

Once the car was in the garage he made his way to the passenger door, opening it to begin helping with the bags of ice.

"Is it just our neighborhood? Did a transformer blow out?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean confirmed the first question with a nod. The power was out, their food had already begun to warm, and so he and his partner needed to make haste with the ice if they were to preserve any of their more perishable items.

Such as the meat. He had recently stocked up on meat for what would be their first grill-out of the season, and the telepath did not want to let all of that spoil.

With the car parked and the door open, Sean grabbed several bags of ice, tucking them into the cooler bags to help carry and maintain their frozen state.

He then shook his head, rolling his eyes although not at his partner. “Hammel took down the grid.”

Would that this was an exaggeration.

The telepath stepped around the car to approach the door to the house. He shifted the bags awkwardly to allow him access to his keys, and then he unlocked the door, pushing it open with his shoulder.

Before Josh could ask, he continued, “There was a problem at the school, and I think it fried more than the school grid.”

Given that the neighborhood was without lights, his theory proved true. “I’m told that the town is working on it.”

However, they had offered no estimate for completing this task.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh was sure that his expression said everything he wanted to say in this situation. The power out, and their food imperiled, and heavy bags of ice freezing his fingers as he dragged them through the garage and into the kitchen.

This was not how he had wanted the day to end.

It was surely also not how Sean had wanted the day to end, however, especially if he'd been at Hammel without power, and in this humidity, too!

He couldn't make coffee without power. He couldn't chill a bottle of wine.

"Someone managed to fry the whole grid?" He grunted as he heaved the ice towards the fridge. "That's some power there. What do you want to do about dinner? I can make us sandwiches and we can cut up some fruit, since we can't actually cook anything, and we don't want to be in and out of the fridge too much."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Since they owned a gas range, they could, technically, cook without power, but that was not an experiment that Sean wanted to risk. Instead, they would eat whatever perishables they could that required minimal food preparation.

“It doesn’t take much to fry a grid,” the telepath pointed out. Josh would have no experience with this, but given how easy it was for a single faulty Christmas light to blow out the entire neighborhood, the existence of an electrokinetic frying the grid due to calamity was not as impressive as it might otherwise sound.

He set the bags of ice down in the kitchen sink with a grunt of exertion, followed by a sigh of relief.

“Sandwiches are fine,” the telepath agreed readily. That would allow them to use cold cuts and cheese, preventing spoilage. “We could do fruit and salad for side dishes. That should be simple enough.”

That would tide them over until the next morning, when he hoped that power would be restored.

“Let’s do as much of this as we can right now. I’ll hand you some ice, and you swap it for sandwich fixings which I’ll leave in the sink.”

It was an inelegant solution, but it was all that Sean could offer.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh quickly agreed to Sean's scheme. What wasn't so quick was carrying it out; finding space in the refrigerator for all the ice was a task, even after moving sandwich fixings. Still, they managed to finish the task somehow, by which time the attorney was ravenous.

"What sort of sandwich would you like?" He asked, maneuvering from the fridge to the pantry in order to pull out the bread. "I may need more than one, that was hungry work."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Perhaps, in one sense, Sean had gone overboard when buying ice, since there had been more than he could carry inside in one trip. In another sense, he had no timetable for when electricity would be restored, and he wanted to keep their food edible for as long as possible. At least he and Josh always worked well as a team, and thus they were able to put all of the ice away systematically, if not objectively fast.

With the food saved to the best of their ability, the telepath’s thoughts turned to supper tonight. Specifically, he considered the contents of their refrigerator to decide what he wanted, and, to do this strategically. He would rather eat the more expensive food than let it go to waste, and that guided him for sandwich fillings.

“I think I’ll started with the prosciutto and the Genoa salami, since I bought that Italian cured meat pack the last time I was at the grocery store.”

Since he was going Italian for this first sandwich, he supposed that he should go all the way with it. “And if we have any of the fresh mozzarella left over, I’ll have some of that too.”

He walked around his partner to fetch some fruit to begin washing and cutting up.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"Prosciutto and Genoa salami. Absolutely."

Josh dug through the sink to find the two appropriate meats, setting them on the counter. The evening light filtered in through the window, allowing enough light by which to perform this task despite the lack of power.

"So vinegar and olive oil?" He asked as he looked for the mozzarella. "Do you want anything else on it? Tomatoes? Olives? Lettuce?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

While Josh fetched the bread and the cold cuts, Sean went about washing, and then cutting, vegetables and fruit for their side dishes (or sandwich fixings, if his partner so desired to eat some vegetables in that manner). As summer was on the horizon, they had some stone fruit, but the telepath wanted to be strategic. Stone fruit would keep without refrigeration; he wanted to eat what would otherwise spoil.

“Yes, please,” he said over his shoulder (in response to the first question), as he began to slice cucumbers and berries. Vinegar and olive oil had a combination that so evoked Italian that they had to accompany his sandwich fixings. As for the other question, “Lettuce and tomato. No olives.”

He wasn’t in the mood for olives tonight, as he would already have that flavor from the olive oil. Besides, he wanted to remain strategic about his consumption, and the olives would keep for a bit longer.

As he cut, he placed the berries into a bowl, and then the cucumber onto a small plate. “What would you like to drink?” If he finished his task before Josh finished with the sandwiches, then the telepath would take his partner’s typical evening duty and tend to beverages.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh nodded, reaching up into the cabinets to pull out two plates. He spread two slices of bread on each plate before rummaging in the appropriate cabinets above the stove for the olive oil and vinegar. He sprinkled a bit of both along one side of the bread, then set them aside to begin peeling Genoa salami from between wax paper, carefully stacking it on Sean's sandwich.

"I'll just have juice, I think. Can't go wrong with juice and a freshly made sandwich."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“True enough,” the telepath remarked with a smile. On hot evenings, juice, iced tea, or lemonade coupled with a sandwich evoked a picnic setting. If they focused on that, at least momentarily, rather than the power outage, then perhaps they could relax and make the most of the situation.

Soon enough, he had finished with the fruit salad. After the cucumbers, he moved on to slicing tomato, simply because the strong, acidic flavor – if done at the same time as the fruit – would have tainted the sweetness. Then, once finally finished with that vegetable plate, he moved around his partner to pull two bottles from the refrigerator: grape juice, as that was his partner’s favorite, and grapefruit juice for himself.

The telepath pulled a few ice cubes from the nearest open bag, plopping them into a glass, before pouring the grape juice for the younger man. He did the same for himself, substituting the light pink for the deep purple, and then brought both glasses over to the kitchen table.

There was no reason to pretend that they would be formal tonight. “Do you want anything else? We have the chips and pretzels.” If they wanted to make a true picnic of tonight’s supper.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"Hmm. Do we have any onion dip left?" Josh asked, moving onto the prosciutto. That would make a difference as to whether he preferred chips or pretzels.