Chapter 2
The world does not end with a whimper or a bang, but with silence. The sirens grow fainter as I am swept into a tide of refugees, all trying to escape. We travel, shoulder to shoulder, across the Brooklyn Bridge.
It’s a tide going out. I let myself be swept into the flow, unable to process what I’ve seen.
It is impossible, inconceivable—-a skyscraper that was there a moment before.
Is now wiped from the landscape. When I look over my shoulder, I can still see it—-the ghostly image of the building burning on my retina, like the sun does when you dare to stare at it too long.
At some point, the second tower collapses. It feels like a bookend, a closing parenthesis. It creates a surge that propels us a little farther, a little faster.
I don’t let myself think. I can’t, because my mind goes to Dr. Kumon. Was she sitting at her desk, waiting for me? Reviewing notes?
Am I the reason she is dead?
Adam. The name is a silent scream. He was supposed to meet me. Was he late? Is he somewhere in this exodus, too? Was he early?
That’s when my brain simply shutters.
After we are across the river, people peel away to find phones, stores, transportation.
I pass through webs of conversation: this was a terrorist attack; four planes crashed, not two.
(Planes—-what planes? Adam’s?) I strain to hear details and learn one flight was headed to L.A.
, one left from Newark. Thank you, Jesus.
Adam’s flight path was the reverse—-leaving L.A.
toward Newark—-and the relief I feel makes my knees falter.
I let myself be buoyed, sandwiched between strangers who want to get home and hug their kids and cry.
My mind is oddly quiet. I do not hear voices telling me what to do or outlining how I’ve failed. I fill the empty space with the conviction that Molly is safer without me.
I don’t know Brooklyn very well. We pass a park and several intersections. I imagine walking to Queens, Rockaway, Long Island. I imagine walking to the edge of New York, and diving into the water.
A blister rubs on my left foot. It feels indecent to wince at such mundane pain. I adjust the strap of my sandal, and when I look up I see the Greyhound bus station across the street.
My mother used to say God works in mysterious ways, and I believed her, until I realized that mystery was another word for secret, and that secrets had killed my sister. But maybe some sliver of me hasn’t been claimed by the Devil yet, because God gave me a reason to stop here.
The bus terminal is packed with people trying to get back to Manhattan. People punch numbers into cellphones that do not connect, hassling the beleaguered employee who explains over and over that no buses are going into the city. All routes connect through Newark.
A sick feeling washes over me when I realize I’ve left my purse, with my wallet, in the cab that was taking me downtown. I can’t pay for a ticket. I don’t have a bank card or a credit card or an ID or a single dollar.
I lean against the wall beside a woman who is trying to nurse a baby discreetly underneath a blanket. How foolish was I to think I could escape? I could walk until my feet bled, but even then, where would I spend the night? How would I pay for food?
“Can you believe it?”
My head whips around to the woman beside me.
She is about my age, with lank blond hair and chapped lips.
Her gaze roams over the businessmen in their ashy suits, the stockinged women who have literally run out of their high heels.
“My husband, he’s in the military, stationed in Texas?
” She says this like she’s asking, instead of telling me.
“He told me this is an act of war. He wants me to go to my mother’s. ”
My attention is snagged by the baby she juggles in her arms. She’s older than Molly by several months. She blinks at me and jams a hand in her mouth.
The woman looks down at her baby. “You making friends?” she coos.
I feel myself ripping down the center. There are two of me now. The one who was a mother, and the one who won’t be.
Angry yelling at the ticket counter distracts me. A man growls, feral. “I’ve had it with this shit. There’s gotta be a car rental place around here.” His outburst seems contagious, as several people in line follow him out the door.
“Are you trying to get back to the city?” the woman asks.
I shake my head. “I was there. I saw it happen.”
Her eyes widen. “Holy shit.” I can tell she wants to ask me more, but her nose wrinkles and she lifts the baby’s bottom to her face.
“Ugh,” she says. “I don’t know how someone so small can make a smell so toxic.
” She starts to reach for her tote, as well as a diaper bag and a large suitcase, while still holding the baby.
“Is your bus leaving soon? Is there any way you could watch this stuff for me while I change her?”
“Of course,” I say.
When she smiles, she is almost pretty. “You’re a godsend.”
I watch her carry the baby and the diaper bag to the bathroom.
You’re a godsend.
I am the farthest thing from a godsend.
As soon as the woman is out of sight, I rummage through her tote. There’s a dog--eared paperback and a burp cloth and a Sony Walkman. A brush, sunglasses, a sweatshirt, a pack of Oreos, tampons. But there’s also a wallet, and sticking out from it, a bus ticket.
I slide the ticket into my pocket and open the wallet. Inside is her driver’s license. I am stealing from Nina MacAllen, 32, of Macon Street in Bed--Stuy.
I make sure she has a credit card before I take the wad of bills inside. She’ll be able to get another bus ticket, at least.
At the last minute, I take the Oreos, too.
A tinny loudspeaker announces the next departure.
I leave the woman’s luggage and tote bag against the wall and hurry to the boarding zone.
The driver who checks my ticket doesn’t notice that it says I’m supposed to be on a vehicle leaving thirty--five minutes from now.
I guess all the schedules are a mess. “Change at Newark,” he says.
I take a seat, turning my face to the wall of the bus until the driver pulls away and I can breathe easier. Then I look down at the ticket that was handed back to me, noticing for the first time where I am headed.
In twenty--two hours, I will arrive in Atlanta.
For Christmas my freshman year of college, I made Evie a mosaic paperweight that said fuck off. She got me a makeup palette of my own, which she might have bought, but probably shoplifted.
One Friday night in February, Evie told me it was time for a makeover.
She made me put on a sequined miniskirt and her Doc Martens, along with a see--through blouse and a black bra.
She did a smoky eye for my makeup and unraveled my braid so that my hair hung in crimped waves over my shoulders.
“Perfect,” she announced, and she pushed me in front of the mirror.
“I look like a streetwalker,” I said.
She scoffed. “Who says streetwalker anymore? It’s sex worker.” Evie shimmied into a pair of leather pants, black heels, and a cropped sweatshirt that hung off one shoulder. “It is time for you to go to a party. We’re going to Brown,” she announced. “Sigma Chi, to be precise.”
Brown was less than ten minutes away from RISD by foot, and a million miles by ethos. Rich kids and legacies went to Brown. I didn’t know why Evie wanted to go to a frat party.
We huddled against the whipping wind as we walked over. “I’m in love,” Evie confided. “I met him at Louis. The waitress mixed up our orders, so he came to my table to swap. He’s a regular there, so I’ve been going back every day just to run into him.”
“To Louis?” I clarified. It was an old diner on Brook Street, far enough from campus to not be convenient.
She nodded. “Today, he recognized me and sat down at the counter. I asked him which omelet to order, and he got the Drunk Johnny while I got the veggie, and then he let me eat half of his so I could try them both.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I guess we should start planning the wedding.”
“Well, he also told me that he’s in Sigma Chi and I did a little recon and found out they’ve got a band playing there tonight. If he happens to see me at the diner and at his frat on the same day, it has to be fate, right?”
“So why I am here?”
“You’re my wingman,” Evie said. “I can’t look desperate.
Plus, this is an opportunity for you. Unlike at RISD, the guys here are straight.
” She spoke as if I was interested in attracting someone.
Although by now I had shed my skin of childhood repression and had drunk alcohol and taken a hit (just one) of a joint, there was one line I had not crossed, and that was it.
It was hard to forget the consequences I’d suffered once from being alone with a boy.
The flutter of desire and the smack of a belt on my thighs were inextricably linked.
Sometimes in the studio, I imagined living out the rest of my life as a Byzantine nun, piecing together mosaics in a cloister.
But we were no longer in the Byzantine era, and I was not going to give any more of my life to Jesus.
Once we reached Wriston Quad, the seat of fraternities at Brown, it wasn’t hard getting into Sigma Chi. We were swallowed into a funk of sour beer, sweat, and perfumes. Somewhere, a bass pulsed. “I’ll get us something to drink,” Evie said.
I started to call out that I didn’t want a drink, but Evie was already gone.
The party was a living thing, and I was pulled and pushed along with its tide. When a topless drunk girl ran by with a guy chasing her, she knocked into me, and I fell awkwardly against what I thought was a closet. The door gave way, and I found myself in a bathroom, blissfully alone.
Closing the door, I leaned against the sink counter. I did not want to be at this party.
The door opened, revealing a guy with dirty blond hair who reeked of beer. One side of his button--down was soaked. “Oh, it wasn’t locked. I’m sorry.”
“No, I am. I shouldn’t be in the men’s room.”