When Margaret’s marriage to Kelley hit the skids, she’d suggested a getaway to revive the romance. She went so far as to book a week at Caneel Bay—but they never made it.

Margaret has always wanted to come back. Now, here she is.

The crew from the CBS affiliate picks Margaret up, and although they’ve reserved her a room at the Ritz-Carlton on St. Thomas, the storm is predicted to be so fierce that the Ritz is no longer deemed safe. Plan B is an emergency shelter in the basement of the CBS studio building. It has cinder-block walls, a buffet “catering spread” that includes Kind bars and packages of ramen noodles. They have a generator. There’s a men’s room and a ladies’ room on the first floor but no shower. Margaret is shown a cot. She thinks longingly of the Ritz-Carlton. She thinks even more longingly of the king bed in her apartment on the Upper West Side overlooking Central Park, where the leaves are just hinting at fall.

“We should get our outdoor shots now,” the producer, Rhonda, says. “We’ll take footage on Sapphire Beach first—”

“And then we’ll go over to St. John?” Margaret asks.

“Yes, we’ll shoot from the dock in Cruz Bay,” Rhonda says. “Then we’ll come back here and hunker down.”

Good afternoon, Dougie. I’m reporting from the Sapphire Beach Resort in St. Thomas, where, right now, the water looks pretty inviting. However, by this time tomorrow, the scene will be quite different…

Good evening, Dougie. I’m reporting from Cruz Bay on the island of St. John, where both locals and visitors are preparing for what will very likely be a direct hit from Hurricane Inga…

Rhonda hurries Margaret into the boat. The waves are much choppier on the way back to St. Thomas; the wind has picked up and there’s a line of gray clouds on the horizon. Is that the hurricane? No, not yet, Rhonda says. Tomorrow afternoon. If the weather is clement tomorrow morning, they might do one more live report from St. Thomas.

“Let’s get you a proper dinner,” Rhonda says. “How do you feel about goat?”

Maybe she’s kidding. Maybe she’s trying to see how tough Margaret is. Well, Margaret drank cow’s blood in Nigeria; she ate rattlesnake in China. She’s tough.

“Love it!” Margaret says.

That night from her cot, Margaret tracks the storm. It’s now 215 miles to the east and has sustained winds of 155 knots. This is going to be devastating. Maybe Margaret isn’t so tough after all. She’s sixty-four years old and the grandmother of eight. What is she doing here? Has she lost her mind?