Marsha Evans: Worry Beads

"Sometimes," he said.

When Marty wakes up, Jerry brings her orange juice. While Marty showers, "I run down and make her latte." He also shops, cleans and does the laundry. "That's my ironing pile," Jerry said, touring the bedroom. "Don't look."

"He's very happy to take care of the house," Marty said. Jerry slid into a green leather recliner to watch golf. Marty leaned over her beads, under an arched, gold ceiling. He was wearing a red golf shirt; she wore a captain's Ralph Lauren blazer with gold buttons and an anchor patch. A wrenched back had set her salute-straight posture on edge.

"It's mindless," Marty said, crimping a droplet to a latch. "It's therapy. It's the one time I'm not wound up in who's saying what on Capitol Hill about the Red Cross, what million-dollar donor you have to repair a relationship with." Reading doesn't do that: "When I read, I can't turn off the high-intensity thought process of disaster response."

This hurricane season, she beaded her way through the storms.

"This is a Katrina necklace," Marty said, unraveling a braid of silver, pearl and blue. "These teeny seed beads were a devil to string." After she'd opened more than 1,000 Red Cross shelters, after she'd assessed blood supply and demand, after she'd appeared on "Larry King Live," she came home, the adrenaline pooling in her fingers, to string three inches of sea-foam luster beads. She spilled the whole strand on the floor.

"This is the Rita necklace," she said, uncoiling fat jasper and gold beads. "I was ready for something really easy."

She made a tsunami necklace with an aquamarine she bought in Sri Lanka. It will be a Christmas present, as will others. "This is my favorite," Marty said, suspending a triple-strand of shells, Bali filigree and a carved Thai butterfly. "This I made as Hurricane Dennis was approaching. We were getting half-hour updates from the operations center."

Beading is step one of the "decompressing" routine. Step two: a soak with Jerry in the Jacuzzi. The bathroom overlooks the Potomac. "It's not very sexy to prepare for disasters," Marty said.

"We have a disaster plan -- we run to Balducci's down the street," quipped Jerry, drinking red zinfandel.

Marty looks for ways to ease the tension. On her five trips to survey the damage from Katrina, she walked through the operations center in butterfly-patterned Stuart Weitzman lace-ups drizzled with sparkles and studs. "When I get so serious about the disaster, I look at my shoes," Marty said. "I wear them with my boring disaster outfit" -- a Red Cross T-shirt and khakis.

On this evening, she wore Weitzman mules: "These are my winter disaster shoes." They are leopard print. "I can't wear them in a flood."