There's something I've avoided writing about since I started this blog. A big, gaping something.
One day several years ago, I awoke to the sound of my alarm, slightly groggy. I had an early class that morning and was in a bit of a bad mood. I neglected to watch my usual morning news with my cup of tea, instead preferring the silence. Other than that, it was a perfectly normal day. I was caught up with my schoolwork, and things were going very well and getting increasingly serious with my boyfriend. It was starting to look like we might get married.
It was warm and humid that day, and I selected a blue short-sleeved sweater set to wear with black pants. I figured it would keep me cool enough during my commute to school, but warm enough as I sat in an air-conditioned classroom. Near the sweater set in my closet hung a red dress that I had recently purchased at an Express store in lower Manhattan. I had yet to wear it.
I arrived at school and waited for the elevator. Near me, two other students were discussing something about a plane crash. Singer Aaliyah had just died in a plane crash not too long ago; I wondered if another private plane had gone down while carrying someone famous. I promptly forgot about it and headed to class.
I sat in my usual seat, taking notes in my usual manner. Not long into the class--twenty minutes? Thirty?--a woman that I recognized from the school staff knocked at the door. The professor stopped his lecture and went to the door and spoke with her quietly for a few moments. She shrugged, and gave sort of a nervous chuckle. Then she left. The professor calmly returned to his podium.
He made the following announcement.
"Two planes have crashed into the two towers of the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon is on fire."
A friend that I knew from an extracurricular activity turned to me and said, "What is this,
Independence Day?"
"I know, seriously," I replied. Nothing had yet sunk in.
A few moments later, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker, dismissing class. I can't remember much of what was said, other than the voice urging us to stay in the building and not return to our homes.
Like hell, I thought. Reality was finally starting to hit me.
My boyfriend had some kind of business meeting in lower Manhattan that day, I remembered. I didn't know where.
Was he even still alive???The students filed into the hallway, and I pulled out my cellphone. I couldn't get a signal. Another student asked me, "Arabella, is your cellphone working?"
"No."
"Then the phones are all down," she replied. I looked around; everyone was trying, fruitlessly, to get a signal so that they could call their loved ones.
I ran out of the building and started to run home. Sirens wailed everywhere. It was total pandemonium in the streets of Manhattan. I had no idea what to do. Businesses everywhere were still open, yet cops were all over the streets. I stopped and bought a newspaper, thinking, in my state of shock, that it would tell me what was going on.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that both towers had fallen.
When I got back to my South-facing apartment, a huge cloud of gray smoke was visible in the window. My answering machine was blinking with at least half a dozen messages. I called my mother and told her I was ok. I called C.S.; we were both crying. I couldn't reach my boyfriend.
I didn't know what to do. I ran to the grocery store; there was an ATM there. I tried to get a lot of cash. The ATM said something like, "Try again, but ask for less money." I did, and got some cash. I put some canned soups in my shopping cart and headed for the aisle with bottled water. Two women were standing at the end of that aisle.
"What do we buy?" one asked the other. Her face was blank.
"Pretzels," was her reply. Her face was blank, too.
So I bought pretzels.
I went back to my apartment. Soon after that, Ty showed up. He hadn't yet gone downtown.
"Thank you, God," I said, as I hugged him. He left soon after that; he
had to see for himself what was going on. When he returned, his suit was covered with dust. He had seen the unspeakable.
C.S. came over. We ate sandwiches. The air started to smell like fire.
I spent that night on my couch, crying and clutching a blanket, with the news on in the background. No sleep. I pulled out my visitor's ID from the time I had gone for a job interview in Tower 2, and remembered how stringent security had been. I remembered how I had admired paintings in the office. That building was gone. Those paintings were dust. I looked at my red dress; the Express store had been in the World Trade Center complex. It was gone. I wondered who I had known who was now dead.
For months afterwards, I, and all the other New Yorkers that I knew, got nervous whenever we heard sirens. We could all be sitting at a nice brunch at a nice restaurant, drinking mimosas, but the minute a siren started to wail, a wave of knowing fear would wash over everyone's face. Conversations would momentarily stop.
I had flashbacks to the way the World Trade Center buildings and complex used to look, and the places I used to walk around. Occasionally, I still have them. I'll wake from a dream and picture a sign, or a corridor, or the Borders bookstore, or emerging from the subway station and crossing the street to Century 21.
I was lucky; no one that I loved had perished. I had only lost a few tangential acquaintances. A woman from my church. The brother of a guy I used to know. They could just as easily have been people that I really knew and really loved.
I still have the page from the 2000-2001 Manhattan phone book that lists Windows on the World. I still have the promotional literature from my job interview in Tower 2. I still have the red dress; I can't bring myself to wear it or part with it.
Nothing will ever be the same.
