Margaret sits on the boards of three charities—one hospital, one museum, one homeless shelter. She emcees each of these organization’s major benefits; she plays in celebrity softball games; she has been approached by Dancing with the Stars (she said no); and she’s been toying with teaching at the Columbia School of Journalism.

She’s been asked to write her memoirs but she’s nowhere near ready for that—too much living yet to do.

She’d like to write a book describing the magic of being a grandmother, but Leslie Stahl beat her to it.

When Margaret’s phone rings on the third of September and she sees it’s her former boss Lee Kramer, head of the studio, she thinks he’s calling to make an elaborate excuse for why he and his wife, Ginny (editor in chief of Vogue), can’t attend the hospital benefit three weeks hence. That’s fine, Margaret thinks. There are so many worthy causes in this city and you can’t go to everything, though Margaret plans to hit Lee up for fifty thousand at least.

“Don’t say no.”

This isn’t the greeting Margaret was expecting. “Good morning, Lee. How are you?”

“Please just hear me out.”

“How are Ginny and the kids? How does Evie like Cornell?”

“I’d like you to come back for one assignment.”

“Thanks for calling,” Margaret says. “Bye.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“No, but I know how this works. I say yes to one assignment, then another assignment comes along, then Sixty Minutes offers me a ten-segment deal, then you offer me my own half-hour show aimed at baby boomers, and the next thing you know, my grandchildren are seeing me more on TV than they are in person.”

“This is one assignment and it’s your favorite kind of story…”

Margaret’s favorite kind of story is military moms and dads who come back and surprise their children at school. Margaret cries every time. But she knows Lee wouldn’t ask her back for that reason. “What is it, Lee?”

“The weather.”

Ahhh, right. Margaret does love a good weather story.

“Hurricane Inga, down in the Caribbean, is shaping up to be an event. It’s aimed at Antigua and Barbuda right now and will likely hit the Virgin Islands after that. St. Thomas, St. John, Tortola, Virgin Gorda. This is a hundred-year storm, Margaret.”

“Like Katrina?”

“Like Katrina, yes.”

Margaret experiences a surge of excitement so powerful, it’s almost sexual. “What about Dougie? He already fancies himself the next Jim Cantore, and I don’t want to steal his thunder…so to speak. Send Dougie.”

“Dougie won’t go,” Lee says. “His wife is due to have their first baby tomorrow. So he’s going to man the anchor desk on this coverage, and when I asked him who he thought I should send down in his place…”

“He said me?”

“He said you.”

“Even though I retired four years ago.”

“He said you.”

Margaret inhales, exhales, looks at herself in the mirror. They’re sending her into a war zone, essentially, so there won’t be any hair or makeup, which means the entire country will become acutely aware that Margaret is rapidly closing in on sixty-five. It’s flattering; hell, it’s an honor—not only for Margaret but for every woman of a certain age—to be chosen to cover this. Just being asked makes Margaret realize she does miss it.

“When do I leave?” she asks.

“When can you be ready?”

Margaret calls Drake at the hospital from her car service to Teterboro. CBS is sparing no expense—she has her driver, Raoul, back, and she’s flying down on the CBS jet because commercial flights have been canceled.

Drake isn’t happy. “I thought this part of our lives was over.”

“So did I,” Margaret says. She realizes she sounds giddy.

“Please be safe, Margaret,” Drake says. “I need you.”

Four hours later, Margaret lands at the Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas. The weather is surprisingly clear and sunny, and the island pops with all the bright colors that one expects from the tropics—emerald green, turquoise, coral, and near-blinding white. Margaret didn’t tell Lee or Drake this but she has been to the Virgin Islands before. She and her first husband, Kelley Quinn, came for a week’s vacation back when Patrick was three years old and Kevin just a baby. They stayed at the Maho Bay campground in a “cabin” with a canvas roof. Kelley filled a dark rubber bladder with water from the pump and left it in the sun to warm up for a “sun shower.” It had been rustic, funky, unbearably hot, even more unbearably buggy—Kevin’s pale, chubby baby body had been an all-you-can-eat buffet for the mosquitoes—but Margaret had loved every minute of it. Even when they found a scorpion in Kelley’s shoe. Even when they got lost on a hike to Ram Head in the scorching heat with Kevin strapped to Margaret’s chest. They spent luxurious afternoons lying under a cluster of palm trees on Trunk Bay, where Kelley rented one mask and snorkel and the two of them took turns marveling at the manta rays and the schools of brilliant fish.

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.