Hope and Other Punch Lines(5)

Standing there in the bathroom with my wad of bloody tissues, like I had stumbled into a crime scene, it became clear: I was next. In a single moment, my expected life span shortened from decades to, if I was lucky, years.

You would think I’d have screamed for my mother, like I did when I peed on Orange. That I would have handed the responsibility over to someone more qualified to deal with it. That I would have, at the very least, freaked out.

I didn’t.

Instead, I flushed the tissues and cleaned the red stain on the bath mat. I washed my face and hands. I deleted my Google history from my phone, in case somehow it showed up on my mom’s computer. In short, I covered my tracks.

In the days that followed, whenever I felt my lungs start to close and the cough claw at the back of my throat, I’d make an excuse to leave the room. And in that paralyzing calm, I came to a decision. I knew I couldn’t keep this a secret forever; eventually, I’d need medical intervention. But I could give myself one small gift in the meantime: eight weeks.

One last summer. One last summer before the mobilization of troops and the cavalry of doctors’ appointments and the paper hospital gowns. One last summer of ignorance is bliss, when the cough could be nothing more than a cough. One last summer when no one talks about Baby Hope. (If I need to have coffee with a strange boy to make that happen, so be it.)

I want one last summer packed full of pure joy: of learning how to box-stitch a lanyard, of singing camp songs, of dancing on fluorescent squares.

When you think about it, in the context of everything to come, that really doesn’t seem like too big an ask.





Here are the cold, hard facts: All the people identified in the Baby Hope photo—Chuck Rigalotti, Constance Kramer, Abbi Hope Goldstein, Jamal Eggers, Sheila Brashard, and Raj Singh—survived the attacks of September 11. They were later profiled for the newspaper in the November 1, 2001, issue, where they discussed running to the Brooklyn Bridge. To this day, three people in the background of the photo remain unidentified, and no information is publicly available about any of them:

         A woman in a ruffled blouse and a tight skirt with a big pair of glasses covering most of her face.



     A bald man in a suit and a striped tie, looking over his shoulder, so he’s only caught in profile.



     A man in a blue University of Michigan hat, jeans, and an untucked flannel shirt with two days of stubble; he’s staring straight at the camera.





No one has ever come forward and identified themselves, though all are believed to have survived.

It’s number 3 who keeps me up at night.





“Why don’t you want people to know you’re Baby Hope?” Noah asks as we turn out of the camp gates. We are walking to Starbucks, which, according to his app, should take us no more than eight minutes.

Did he have to start with the photograph? I could use a little warm-up before jumping into such complicated waters. We could talk about camp. How Zach and Julia like to do yoga together on the south lawn in the morning and it’s weird for everyone. We have a lot of conversational options.

I shrug and stare straight ahead at the road unfolding before us. There are fewer trees here than in our neighborhood, and the summer afternoon sun gleams hot and bright and unobstructed. I watch my shadow, notice how my arms seem too long relative to my short body. Like a chimpanzee’s.

“It seems a weird thing to want to hide,” he says again, clearly not understanding that my shrug was supposed to say, in not so many words, Let’s not talk about this. Definitely not now, and maybe not ever. “You’re a national hero.”

“I am not a hero,” I say.

“Fine, a national treasure, then.”

I snort, and then wish I could time travel and stop the sound before it happens.

“I wanted to leave some of that stuff behind this summer, that’s all,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“I wonder if it will rain later,” I say, apropos of nothing—there isn’t a cloud in sight—but I need a subject change. I decide to fold my arms across my chest instead of letting them dangle by my sides. I wonder: When did I forget how to walk?

“Abbi, I need to confess something to you right now and get it over with,” Noah says, with excessive seriousness, and I feel my stomach drop. He must have some terrible ulterior motive for going for coffee. “I’m the worst at small talk. Like I am biologically unable to chat about things like the weather. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” I say, loosening up. “Tell me, what are you biologically able to chat about?”

“How about big life plans? That’s sufficiently not-small-talky. What do you want to do post-Oakdale?” he asks.

“Like for a job?”

“Yeah, and please don’t say weather forecaster. Because then I’ll feel like a jerk for belittling your life’s passion.”

“Nope. No big plans as of yet. How about you?” I decide to play it vague. No need to step into the land mine of my future.

“I want to go to college, in an ideal world, in the Ivy League. Then move to New York. Work in politics. Do stand-up at night. And ultimately have my own political comedy show. Online, I think, because the networks will be totally obsolete by then.” He ticks his fingers with each step, as if this is often repeated or written down somewhere. “Just so you know, I realize how that sounds. Disgustingly ambitious. Also obnoxious. Probably pompous. Supercilious, though I don’t even know what that means, but I like the sound of it. Crap, I’m out of -ous words. I thought I had a few more.”