This statement had propelled Clarissa through the doors of Rainbows to observe a class. The director, dressed in flowing, silk robes and with large, lidded eyes that made her resemble a woodlands creature from a fairy tale, walked Clarissa through the airy rooms. The director said that the children particularly enjoyed “Medieval Studies,” which apparently meant that the children dressed up as kings and queens. Clarissa watched the children of successful lawyers, doctors, executives, and various moguls stack blocks, roll trucks, and cry. One child had tried to hand her a block. When she smiled at him, a teacher gave her a laminated list of rules for class observation. Number 5 was: Do not engage with a child who tries to talk to you. It interferes with their work. She was ashamed that she had smiled at the child, and that shame convinced her that the school was the only place for Sammy to go.
“Ten thousand dollars,” said Josh, “so that he can scribble? No. No. No.” She mailed in the application anyway — and when she received the acceptance, she felt it was a sign of some greater good fortune. Their son gazed at them with his beautiful, pure brown eyes, his future gleaming, unsullied, new.
“At least visit the other schools,” pleaded Josh, and she tried. At one, she peered through a square window in a door to see a crowd of children screaming to be let out. One child punched in a security code, a red light flashed, the door opened, and he shot out, to the roaring approval of the others. That was it. They had enough room on their Visa for the first tuition installment; they loaded it on.
Then Josh heard about a job for the two of them teaching art at a small university in Virginia, three weeks paid in September, accommodations for all of them in a hotel. They could hurl the money toward Sammy’s tuition. Their apartment would be empty for a month. It occurred to them they could sublet their apartment and pay off part of their substantial debt load. “Let’s charge a fortune,” said Josh.
Josh’s college friend, Gary, an investment banker, delivered the tenant to them. “I think you can get three thousand,” he said. Their rent was $550 a month. Josh wrote the ad: Fabulous Tribeca apartment. Two bedrooms, terrace. Three thousand for September. Gary sent his friends a mass email, and the call came the next day.
“My name is Kim. Gary gave me your name. He says you have apartment to let. I live in Montreal, and I am looking for accommodations in the city for September.”
“Right,” Clarissa said. “Thanks for calling. Well, we’re by the Hudson, beautiful views, wood floors. . uh. . we have a dishwasher.” She paused. “Down the block,” she said carefully, “is Nobu.”
“No-bu,” said Kim solemnly. There was silence. “I’ve known Gary for three years,” Kim said. “We met in the south of France with his friends Janna from Paris and Juan from Brazil. . we were in town for the day with the Beaujolais festival. We became friends. Now we follow the Michelin Guide all over Europe together. We have a race to see who has the most frequent flyer miles. . I have 67,000, but he has more.” She paused. “I want to go to Nobu. I want to go with my friend Darla. She is my best friend. I want to walk to all the restaurants there!”
“Now, it’s not fancy,” Clarissa said, alarmed.
“I want to walk to Montrachet!”
Kim wanted to send the money immediately; she magically wired $3,000 into their checking account, and that was that.
It was September 1. Kim held the keys to their apartment. They checked their ATM as they headed out of town. The three thousand dollars registered on their account. Josh whistled when he saw it. They drove toward a month’s employment, a couple in front, a child in the car seat, across the bridges, out of the city. She and Josh held hands. Clarissa turned once to look back at the city, the skyline rising, glittering, frozen and grand in the clear autumn light.
SHE HAD DROPPED JOSH OFF TO LOOK AT TELEVISIONS AT BEST BUY when she heard the news on the car radio. Her body startled. Howard Stern’s show came on, and the tone of the hosts was terrifying: lost and humorless. “We know who did it,” said a caller, “and we need to go kill them.”
Her hands were trembling, so it was difficult to grip the wheel. She raced back to the store, where the staff and customers stood, statues, rapt, in front of the television screens.
She stood with the group in the electronics section, in front of dozens of screens. They saw the Towers on fire. A giant tower buckled on the screen in front of them, frail as a sandcastle. Grown men around her yelled, No! in shocked, womanly voices. Sammy was immediately attracted to the picture. “Booming sound,” said their son. She let him watch. “Booming!” he yelled.
THE FACT THAT THEY LIVED BY THE TRADE CENTER MADE THEM objects of concern. “I’m so sorry,”’ said strangers. They stood, awkward, marked with an awful, bewildering luck. “Where would you have been?” asked someone eagerly, as though they had been potential victims and they craved an intimacy with the disaster. “We would have been one block away,” Clarissa said. Her arms became cold. This admission felt strangely like bragging. It occurred to her that others thought they could have been dead. She remembered that they had signed Sammy up to attend the preschool on Tuesday/Thursday mornings. Around nine o’clock they would have been steps away, bringing Sammy to his first day of school at Rainbows.
The chair of the art department told them to take the day off, and they spent it in the hotel. It was stale and hot, full of a thousand strangers’ breaths. She was not supposed to be here and did not know what to do with herself, grubby, ashamed, alive. The TV droned casualty estimates into the room. The curtains were drawn, and the room was dark. They tried all day to get Sammy to nap. He popped out of his room, awake, excited by their fear. “Hello!” he called gaily. “Hello.”
Somehow, the day ended. They drove down the dark streets. Almost no one was on the road, and it seemed that everyone had fled to their homes. They passed the stores that resembled giant concrete cubes, Walmart and Target and Old Navy, the buildings strangely devoid of windows, like bunkers. Sammy screamed with exhaustion until he fell asleep. A student had said to them: providence had brought them here. “You have been blessed,” the student said in a respectful tone, before inviting them to church. Clarissa declined, though she kept thinking about this. She asked Josh, “Do you think we were blessed?”
“No,” he said. “We’re not special. Don’t feel special. It could be us next time. It could be us any minute.”
She looked out the window. This was not the answer she wanted. “Why do you say that?” she said. “How do you wake up in the morning? How are you going to walk Sammy down the street?”
He reached for her hand. His fingers felt strange, rubbery; she clung to them, bewildered by the raw facts of fingers, hair.
“HELLO,” SAID THE VOICE, AGGRIEVED, THREE DAYS LATER. “HELLO, Clarissa. It’s me.”
“Hello?” asked Clarissa. “Who is this?”
“I was on my way there. I wanted to go to the observation deck. I went the wrong way on the subway, or I would be dead. I got out, and there were all these people running. Then I saw the second plane. I started running, and then I couldn’t get the windows closed because I’ve never seen windows like yours—”