The Girl He Used to Know(68)

My logical mind cannot wrap itself around the directive they’ve been given to stay put, because it makes no sense at all. Brad doesn’t know what I know, what all of us watching TV know because it’s unfolding live before our eyes. This is not a fire that will be contained.

“Jonathan, listen to me. For the first time since the day you met me, I know I am finally right about something. Just do what I say. You can see what things are like on the ground once you get down.” I’m sure he thinks I’m overreacting. That I’ve misread this.

But I know I haven’t.

Fire means go. Fire means get out, get lower.

“All right, we’ll go.” In the background, the shouting grows even louder. Jonathan is telling everyone to leave the room, take the stairs, head for the lobby, where they’ll reunite to assess the situation. I hear Brad telling them to stay, and Jonathan telling him to fuck off. That makes me happy because Jonathan believes me.

“We’re heading toward the stairwell. I couldn’t get everyone to go with me. Some of them stayed behind. Brad wouldn’t leave.”

“Okay,” I say. I’m breathing so fast and trying to listen to what Matt and Katie are saying now. Jonathan’s phone is breaking up and I can’t hear everything he’s saying. I dig the cell phone Jonathan bought for me out of my purse, but I don’t have the mental capacity to simultaneously handle another call. As soon as I know Jonathan has reached the bottom floor, I’ll call Janice, Will, my mom.

I wish I had more phones.

“Jonathan, where are you now?” I scream, but maybe he can’t hear me, because he doesn’t answer. “Jonathan, tell me what floor!”

It takes me a few seconds to realize that Jonathan isn’t answering because something has severed our connection.

And I know exactly what it is because Matt and Katie have cut to a brand-new clip, and the thing that has severed our connection is another plane, except that this one has just hit the South Tower, which is the building Jonathan is in.



* * *



I’m flicking my hands so frantically, I can hardly dial the phone. I’m trying to reach my mother but receive only a busy signal. Pacing from one side of the room to another, I redial for what seems like forever but is in reality less than five minutes.

“I was on the phone with your brother,” she says in lieu of a normal greeting. “He’s okay.” Though I’m desperately worried about Jonathan, and Clay, too, I’m relieved to know my brother is safe.

“Okay, good,” I say. I’m panting and shaking, because there is so much adrenaline flowing through me and my body doesn’t know what to do with it. “Mom. Jonathan is in New York right now, and he is in the South Tower.”

Deadly silence greets my announcement. Then my mother says, “Annika,” and I can hear that she’s crying. “Don’t go anywhere. We’re coming.”



* * *



I remain glued to the TV while I wait for my parents to arrive. Though I know the phone lines are jammed, I call Jonathan’s number every thirty seconds with my cordless phone, and Janice’s with my cell. Busy signals from both.

When my parents arrive, my dad is moving slowly and with apparent difficulty. I’ve completely forgotten about the hip-replacement surgery he had a couple of weeks ago, because even though I don’t mean to be, sometimes I am a horrible daughter.

The surgery went off without a hitch.

My mother is waiting on him hand and foot.

I moved on.

It is my mom’s idea to try to reach someone in Jonathan’s Chicago office after she gets my dad settled on the couch. “Surely they have information for family members,” she reasons. She calls, but it’s to no avail. They are every bit as confused as we are, and the information trickling out of New York is hampered by the fire, the crush of emergency vehicles, the people streaming from the buildings. It’s all happening so fast, yet there is an agonizing slowness as well.

My mom makes tea, but I can’t drink it. I want to pace and flick. Rock and bounce. I do all of those things, some of them at the same time, but none of it helps.

I decide to call Will. Maybe he can go down to the World Trade Center and tell me if Jonathan has made it out of the building.

The call won’t go through, and I slam my hand down on the arm of the couch. On the TV, they are showing things falling out of the towers. Paper rains down like some kind of nightmarish ticker-tape parade.

The heat has become too intense, and people are jumping out of the windows and the gaping hole in the side of the building. Some of them are holding hands. A woman’s skirt billows up as her body plummets toward the ground. How can they show this on TV?

I cannot watch any footage of the jumpers. The thought of Jonathan being one of them, the thought of anyone choosing that option because it was preferable to the others, reduces me to a rocking, sobbing, hysterical puddle on my kitchen floor. No amount of comforting from my mother will calm me, and the intensity of my emotions puts me in an almost catatonic state.

I am not equipped for this.

No one is equipped for this.

I think that it cannot possibly get worse than people jumping out of buildings, but I am so wrong, because at 9:59 A.M., on live TV, the South Tower, which Jonathan was in, collapses and falls. Twenty-nine minutes later, the North Tower follows suit.