Nine, Ten Read online

  “What? This place?” her dad joked. “Well, for my special little girl, why not?”

  Suddenly Aimee felt sick.

  Was this going to be the big announcement? Were her parents getting a divorce? Was that why they were here at this expensive restaurant?

  That’s how it always happens in the movies, the dad and his daughter, the china plates, the shiny glasses of water, maybe even a Shirley Temple with a too-red cherry, and then he breaks the bad news.

  “But what about Mom? Isn’t Mom your special girl?” Aimee blanched. Her insides wrenched up into a knot.

  Aimee’s father looked at her. He tipped his head and sort of crinkled his brow. “What’s this all about, honey? What’s wrong?”

  Aimee felt tears burning behind her eyes and that sharp, knifelike twinge in her throat that always signaled a flood of tears. But she held them back. There was so much. There was too much. At the same time she didn’t want to go back to school tomorrow without knowing. She needed to know the truth about her parents once and for all.

  “Are you and Mom splitting up?” Aimee heard herself asking.

  Her father dropped his menu. It clattered on his plate. He looked hard at Aimee. “No, Aimee. Not at all. Why would you even ask that?”

  So Aimee told her dad about her first day of school, Vanessa, Bridget, Tom Cruise, and Ryan Phillippe. She had never heard her father laugh so hard. In public.

  “I’m sorry, Aimee.” Her dad composed himself. “I don’t mean to make light of it. But no, your mom and I are not getting divorced. We love each other very much and we love you.”

  Boy, did that sound suspicious. Her dad must have read her face.

  “Seriously, Aimee. Stop it,” he told her. “You’re just going to have to believe me. Your mother and I have never talked about it. Never. Not once.”

  Aimee took a big drink of water. “Then who’s Chris?” she asked.

  “Chris?” her dad said. “From your mom’s office? Chris Weissman? She’s your mom’s new boss. Why?”

  “She?”

  “She.”

  When her appetite returned, Aimee was able to eat everything she had ordered; salad, steak, french fries, and dessert. She ate like she hadn’t eaten in days, when in fact she hadn’t eaten in one whole day. Food never tastes as good as when you are really hungry.

  * * *

  It was pitch black at five thirty in the morning in Los Angeles, but the sun would be up in Manhattan. Her mother would be getting ready for her big meeting at the whatever-it-was building. She would be all dressed in her gray suit and black high heels—which Aimee had put her stamp of approval on—maybe putting on another coat of mascara. She might even be making her bed in the hotel. Aimee smiled. Her mom was like that.

  Aimee held the phone in her hand, sitting up in bed, and listened to the ringing.

  C’mon, Mom. C’mon. Pick up already.

  Please. Please. Please.

  I miss you so much, Mom.

  Just pick up.

  September 11, 2001

  8:14 a.m. EDT

  Brooklyn, New York

  An unexcused absence meant detention, but for some reason the principal decided to give Sergio a second chance. Possibly Sergio was still riding the wave of his math award, giving the school a good name. Or maybe it was because everyone deserves a second chance.

  The principal had called him into her office first thing that morning. “But, Sergio, next time . . .”

  She sat across from him, behind a desk piled with papers and envelopes, files—apparently, she had a lot of work to do. Still, she was nice about the whole thing. “Next time I can’t cut you any slack. Don’t miss school again, Sergio. I don’t have to tell you, showing up already puts you ahead of the rest.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sergio nodded. “I won’t. I will. I mean, I know.”

  “Okay, then get to class. Oh, and Sergio . . .” She stopped him just as he got to the door to her office. “I hope whatever you had to do yesterday without your grandmother’s permission was well worth it. I hope it wasn’t any kind of trouble. If you are in any kind of trouble, you know you can come and talk to me.”

  “I know that,” Sergio said.

  It wasn’t trouble, and it had been worth it, spending the day with Gideon. Sergio thought about yesterday all the way down the hall.

  He was even wearing one of the new T-shirts Gideon had bought for him. Gideon had said it was payment for saving that guy’s life and it was the least he could do. And then he offered to take Sergio to lunch.

  They had sat across from each other in a booth at the diner. Sergio’s grandmother hadn’t been happy about the call from Gideon’s cell phone. She wasn’t happy Sergio had missed school, but whatever Gideon told her must have meant something. When Sergio got on the line, she was calmer. She said she wasn’t going to cover for him at school, but she wouldn’t punish him either. And he just had to be back home by dinner.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Sergio said. “And I doubt that guy would have died, anyway.”

  “He probably had a hemorrhage, a bleed in his brain you couldn’t see,” Gideon said. “He might have died. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen. Last year we pulled a young girl from a car after an accident up on the West Side Highway. She had lost control and hit a pole and then a wall—barely any damage to the car. Or to her. She hit her head in just the wrong way, I guess. She looked like she was sleeping.”

  “But she wasn’t?”

  “She wasn’t.” Gideon shook his head from side to side, slowly, as if he was feeling it all over again.

  Sergio had ordered a chocolate milk shake. Gideon, vanilla. And they had just talked.

  “Who gets the chocolate? I’m guessing your son?” the waitress said. She stood at their booth holding up two large canisters, both dripping with condensation from the cold ice cream inside.

  Gideon looked at Sergio. “He’s not my dad,” Sergio said. “But, yeah. The chocolate is mine.”

  “Well, you two look alike.” She set the shakes down.

  They did, in a way. Maybe in that way white people think black people all look similar. But then again, they both poured their shakes into their respective glasses and then lifted the metal canisters to their mouths, drinking down the leftovers first. And then again, there was a kind of facial likeness between them, a shade of skin color. Sergio found himself looking at Gideon, watching him. Listening. When he looked down at his own hand, he saw his fist clenched, like it always was, and he let it unfurl.

  Gideon wanted to know about the math award. He seemed interested and impressed.

  “You could do anything,” Gideon told him. “Anything you want with your life.”

  “Maybe I want to be a fireman.” Sergio bit into his burger.

  “Fireman, huh? You could do that,” Gideon said. “I’d be proud to work next to you one day.”

  “Or a doctor.”

  Gideon nodded, like he didn’t think that was strange at all.

  * * *

  Now, sitting in class, Sergio looked up at the clock over the door, at the white face, at the black minute hand, which moved unbelievably slowly, until another sixty seconds had gone by, it clicked into its place, locked, and the first school bell rang out.

  Six hours more and he’d be free again for the day. It was 8:44 exactly, and Sergio knew where he would be going right after school. He could look out the window and see Lower Manhattan, the financial district, where he knew Gideon’s station house was.

  Gideon had told him to come by anytime to the firehouse. If they weren’t on a call, all the guys would be there. Sergio could even hang out. Gideon would introduce him around. Show him the station.

  “If it’s okay with your grandma,” Gideon said. “I’ve always wanted a little brother. Oh, and hey, if it’s okay with you.”

  Sergio was already dreaming about it. He barely listened as his teacher droned on about something. For the first time in a long time, he felt a kind of eage
rness for the day ahead.

  One hundred and twenty seconds clicked by. Flight 11, a commercial airliner carrying eighty-one passengers and eleven crew members, which had been hijacked shortly after taking off from Boston’s Logan International Airport, flew directly into the North Tower of the World Trade Center and exploded.

  Someone standing at the window started rambling about a dark mushroom of smoke rising from across the river, and the bell, without any awareness of what was going on, rang for first period.

  September 11, 2001

  8:54 a.m. EDT

  Columbus, Ohio

  Flight 77—with fifty-eight passengers and six crew members on board—on its way to Los Angeles International Airport, deviated from its course, turning south directly over Ohio, where, thirty-five thousand feet below, Naheed was sitting in language arts class, listening to Virginia Whitworth give her book report on The Outsiders.

  “Oh, I read that book,” Naheed whispered to no one in particular. “I loved it.”

  But then Naheed hardly heard the rest of Virginia’s report. She was working out in her mind what she was going to say to Eliza and how she could make things better. Instinctually she reached up to pull down her headband and adjust her veil. It was her thinking cap.

  Naheed knew she’d never get everyone to stop teasing Eliza, but she herself could be nicer. She could be a friend to her, and maybe that would help. It was the right thing to do, and the truth was, nobody was going to stop being Naheed’s friend just because she was Eliza’s friend.

  She hoped.

  The bell rang as Virginia was finishing, but the teacher made everyone wait until she had given the homework for tomorrow, which meant they all had twenty-five seconds less time to get to their next class.

  Today was Tuesday and it was B week, which meant a double period of science. Which meant Naheed could start implementing her making-amends plan right away. Eliza would be in class. Today, Naheed had taken her science book with her so she would be on time.

  But when she got there, nothing looked right.

  A bunch of kids were bouncing around, some were standing at the back of the room, but no one was sitting down. It was like the lunchroom on a Friday afternoon before school vacation when the cafeteria monitors weren’t paying attention.

  In the far corner the television was on, and Mrs. Salinger was staring at it, with her back to the classroom. Sure, sometimes they watched videos in science, but today they were supposed to continue working on their theories and experiments. And since when did Mrs. Salinger let things get so out of control? She didn’t even turn around to yell at the boys who were playing with the Bunsen burners.

  Eliza was standing at their desk, facing the wrong way, toward the back of the room, not moving. Naheed had never seen her so still and so quiet.

  A few more kids went to stand next to Mrs. Salinger and stare at the TV, but Mrs. Salinger didn’t seem to notice anything but the screen. This wasn’t like her at all. It looked as if the television was turned to a news channel. The CNN “live” logo was stamped across the bottom, but that was all Naheed could see. She always hated the news. Why was everyone watching it? And why were they so quiet about it?

  But now was as good a time as any to talk to Eliza, with all this freedom. With nobody paying attention.

  “Hey, Eliza, can I talk to you a minute?” Naheed started. She might not get another chance.

  “Something terrible has happened,” Eliza said. She looked upset, but then again, Eliza got frantic if her pencils weren’t lined up.

  “I know,” Naheed said. “And about that—I am so sorry. So why don’t I make it up to you, and you sit with me, with us, at lunch today?”

  Eliza took her eyes away from the television. “Really?” Her face brightened.

  Naheed nodded.

  Hey, that was easy. And it actually felt good. “Really,” she said.

  “Okay, that’s enough. Everyone back to their seats,” Mrs. Salinger suddenly yelled out.

  Naheed looked around the room. Mrs. Salinger had turned off the television, but the kids who had been watching didn’t move. Something was wrong. Maybe that’s what Eliza had meant when she said something terrible had happened. She had been watching the news.

  Now Naheed felt silly, but when she turned to ask Eliza what had happened, Mrs. Salinger preempted her.

  “No more talking,” she ordered. “Take out your work. This has nothing to do with us.”

  What didn’t?

  Mrs. Salinger repeated it, as if trying to convince herself. “This has nothing to do with us.”

  September 11, 2001

  5:31 a.m. PDT

  Los Angeles, California

  The phone rang so many times, Aimee was amazed her call hadn’t gone to voice mail yet. “Hello? Hello?” She thought she heard the connection click. Someone answered, but there was a lot of noisy interference.

  “Mom?” Aimee said.

  Her bedroom was dark and she whispered quietly, as if she might wake up her sleeping stuffed animals, each one from another time in her life, when things were less confusing. Barney the purple dinosaur had been given to her by her grandpa Jerry. The giant, soft rabbit, missing a nose, she had had since she was a baby. She didn’t even know the woman who had given it to her when she was born, an old college friend of her mom’s. There was a smiling Bart Simpson doll, with a hard plastic head and soft arms and legs. She had gotten that from her dad when she was in second grade. She had never watched the show, but she loved that doll. Bears and camels and an imaginary creature sewn from patchwork scraps, all holders of hugs and kisses, friends and family soaked into the fabric, the fur, and the stuffing.

  The ringing had stopped, and the static coming from the other end got louder.

  “Mom? Are you there?”

  Aimee looked at the clock radio glowing next to her bed: 5:31 in the morning. It would be 8:31 in New York. Her mother’s meeting would be starting soon. She’d be frazzled and rushed and she wouldn’t be able to listen. But if Aimee could just get a word out. If they could connect for one second.

  “Mom?”

  Static.

  And then, “Aimee? Aimee, what are you doing up so early? Is everything all right?”

  Relief washed over her body, hearing her mother’s voice coming across a whole continent and three time zones right into Aimee’s bedroom. Everything was going to be all right.

  “Hey, Mom. I’m fine. I’m just sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to hang up and be so rude. I’m sorry, but I just wanted to—”

  “Oh, Aimee, I’m . . . mad. I’m just . . . there. I know there’s something . . . on. And I want you to tell me all about it when I . . . I . . . you’ve been hurting and I haven’t been there.”

  Almost every other word was lost, and then there was static again.

  “Mom, I can’t hear you.”

  “Can you hear me now?”

  “Mom, it’s just that—”

  “But, sweetie, I’m running so late this morning. I’m supposed to be downtown by nine, and I haven’t even left the hotel yet.”

  “Mom, I just want to ask you a question. One thing.”

  “I . . . ten minutes to . . . Trade Center and up to their offices. Oh, what floor are they on again? My car service . . . come . . . morning. We . . . to grab a cab.”

  Aimee could hear her mother’s voice a little better now, against the sounds of New York City streets, horns blaring, and sirens rising in pitch and zooming away, but it was clear her mom couldn’t hear her at all.

  “Sweet . . . I’ll call you when I’m . . . I promise. Taxi!”

  “Mom . . . but, Mom . . .” She gave up trying to shout into the phone. Her mom was so far away. It wasn’t only the miles, it was everything that had come between them. Aimee started to cry. Again, just like last night.

  “Aimee?”

  All Aimee could manage was to sob. Once she had started crying, she couldn’t stop. Her mother couldn’t hear her.

  A man�
��s voice broke through the buzzing. “Sure, lady. Where to?”

  “Never mind,” Aimee’s mom was saying to someone. “Sorry. What? Yes, oh sure, you take the cab. I need to talk to my daughter. Yes, I’m sure. I’ll meet you back at the hotel later.”

  Aimee heard a car door slam. The reception was better. The static suddenly lifted. Her mother’s voice was clear.

  “Now, talk to me, Aimee. I’m going to go back in the lobby and sit down. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, but . . .” Aimee sniffed hard and gulped it down. “But what about your meeting?”

  “I’ll make something up. They can do without me,” her mom said. “But you, my Aimeleh, I can’t do without you.”

  September 11, 2001

  9:53 a.m. EDT

  Brooklyn, New York

  When a second plane, Flight 175, with fifty-six passengers and nine crew members on board, flew directly into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, there was no mistaking what was happening, and nothing was going to keep the older kids in school. Flames were leaping from the two towers now, reaching into the blue sky. Gray smoke formed a giant cloud that hung over the buildings and expanded outward like paint slowly being spilled onto an empty canvas.

  Sergio could hear sirens coming from all directions, wailing and screaming out, and he thought immediately of the firemen. It was an old and far away, but very familiar, feeling of loss that leaped into his gut. The kind of feeling that had no words, that his body had held on to even if his memory had not.

  Gideon would be running toward the fire, running to help. Heading directly toward that mess. Running right into it.

  “That’s what we’re trained to do,” he had told Sergio just yesterday.

  Sergio stood at the window of his classroom with the rest of the kids, hoping to see what was going on. He didn’t want to feel this dread that was building up inside him. He didn’t want to be scared, but he was.