The early shift at the Spee-D-Mart was one of those things that Emily had gotten used to in the almost fifteen years she’d been working there. At one time it had been a pain in the butt to have to get the kids ready for school, especially when Kevin was also at work. Now Kayla and JJ were old enough that they could get themselves put together and off to school, though like a good mom, Emily usually gave them a call from the store to make sure they were up and running. They were good kids and always up and going when she called, but she called anyway, just on general principles and to let the kids know that she was thinking about them. Recently it had started to boggle her mind: she’d started work in this place as a teenager, and in only a few more months she’d have a teenager of her own.

But this morning was special; just as Janine had been cashing out, Vicky’s mother Mignon had called with the happy news that in a few hours Vicky would be joining her in the realm of motherhood. Jason had taken her to the hospital about four in the morning, so it wouldn’t be long, now. Mignon had, with great difficulty, managed to avoid going to the hospital to await word, but Jason had promised to let her know as soon as he heard anything.

So, as Emily was doing the morning chores and riding herd on the doughnuts the store prided itself on making right there on the premises, she was thinking back over the last few months, especially to the day in February when Vicky had called her to announce that she was pregnant! It had been her dream for many years, and now was finally becoming reality. How excited she had been – and for that matter, Jason was excited right along with her! Things were really going to change, she thought, as JoAnne Patterson came in the door. She worked out at General, and usually got a doughnut and a large cup of coffee to get her through the morning. She went on at nine, so she was cutting it a little tight. “So what’s happening today, Emily?” she smiled.

“Well, it’s not the same old same old,” Emily told her, and explained that Vicky was having her baby as they spoke.

Just then Mike Daugherty came rushing in. “Emily, you got a TV?” he said excitedly. “Turn it on!”

There was a small color TV behind the counter. It was rarely turned on in the day – it was bad business practice, and Sharon didn’t like the clerks watching it anyway, but in the long, slow hours of the early morning it sometimes helped keep the clerks awake. “What channel?” she asked.

“Probably any channel,” Daugherty said quickly. “A plane just flew into the World Trade Center in New York.”

“Oh, my God!” JoAnne cried. “Julie works there!”

Emily had never met Julie Patterson, JoAnne’s daughter-in-law; in fact, she’d only seen her classmate Dave three or four times since high school, never for very long, a few sentences exchanged while he got gas when visiting town. JoAnne, a long-time widow, had once told Emily that Julie didn’t like Bradford, thought it was a real Hicksville, came there only when she had to, and stayed as short a time as possible. Still, she was supposed to be a pretty neat person, at least according to JoAnne, if almost a stereotype young urban professional. Those facts didn’t need review as Emily pulled the little portable color TV from beneath the counter and turned it on.

There on the screen was a live picture from another skyscraper, looking at the twin towers of the World Trade Center, with smoke pouring from the side of one of them. “Oh, my God,” JoAnne said, her face white. “I can’t tell if that’s the tower that Julie works in, but she’s up toward the top.”

Any thought of JoAnne’s going to work was washed away in seconds; there was no tearing her away from the unbelievable scene. “Jeez,” Daugherty commented, “A pilot would have to be pretty damn blind to miss something like that.”

“I’ve seen planes flying low there,” JoAnne said vacantly. “But never that low.”

“You’ve been there?” Emily asked.

“Julie took me up to the observation deck one time,” she said. “They don’t live far away, in an apartment complex called Battery Park Village. It’s pretty nice, but you wouldn’t believe the rent they … Oh, My God!” she blurted as a second airplane appeared out of the corner of the picture and crashed into the side of the other tower.

Silence reigned for several seconds. “Something tells me he was looking out the window,” Daugherty finally said softly.

“Dave wouldn’t be there, would he?” Emily asked.

“Probably not,” JoAnne said hopefully. “He stays late to get the boys to kindergarten, and then walks to work. It’s not in the WTC complex, but it isn’t far away.” She stared at the screen for a moment, and then asked, “Emily, can I use your phone?”

“Here,” Emily said, handing JoAnne her cell phone.

Very little was done in the Spee-D-Mart for the next hour; a few people got gas or bought doughnuts, but there was minimal conversation. Emily just took the money, kept her attention on the TV screen, and several times went to stand next to JoAnne, one arm around her. Mike also spent a good deal of time trying to give her some support and courage. Time after time JoAnne hit ‘redial’ on the cell phone, but each time got a ‘not available’ reply.

Then, without warning, the already unbelievable sight became even more unbelievable: one of the towers just sighed and gave up; the top falling majestically until it was lost in a cloud of dust and smoke. “I don’t think that was the building Julie works in,” JoAnne said hopefully in a small voice.

“They said they were evacuating the buildings,” Emily offered. “Maybe she’s out of there.”

“She would have been above the fire,” JoAnne said, obviously hoping against hope. “She’d have had to get down past it somehow.” Once again she took Emily’s cell phone and hit ‘redial,’ getting the same response as before.

Emily took another look at the screen, and at the ashen-faced JoAnne, who she knew lived alone. Quickly she made up her mind; she picked up the store phone and called Janine. “Get down here, right now,” she said in a flat order and hung up the phone. Then, she turned to the TV again, the thought on her mind as she was sure it was on the mind of everyone else: if one tower could go down, what was to keep the other from following?

Nothing. Just as Janine walked in the door twenty minutes later, the top of the second tower leaned a little bit, then started to fall. For the second time in half an hour, the top of one of the tallest buildings in the world collapsed into a cloud of smoke and dust of its own making. “Come on, JoAnne,” Emily said softly. “I better take you home. When Dave calls, he’ll probably try to call you there.”

JoAnne said nothing, just gave a weak nod.

Emily had ridden the Sportster to work, but took JoAnne’s keys and drove her to her home. She helped JoAnne to a living room chair, and together they sat and watched the TV silently, hoping it would give them some hint of good news but expecting nothing but bad. It was a little before noon when JoAnne was finally able to get Dave on his cell phone. “She must be dead,” he reported in a dull monotone. “I was talking to her when the building went down.”

“Oh, My God,” JoAnne said in a weak voice. “Dave, I’m sorry.”

“I’ve got to get to the boys,” Dave said, desperation in his voice. “They need me now.”

“They were in school, right?” JoAnne asked. “They said on TV that they were evacuating the school in Battery Park.”

“I’ll have to go look for them,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”

There was no way that Emily was going to leave JoAnne alone that afternoon. At one point in the horror of the day, she remembered that Vicky was in the hospital in Hawthorne, having her baby. Absently, she called Mignon at one point, to get the news that the little girl had been born about 10:30; as expected, Vicky and Jason had named her Melissa, after Vicky’s college roommate. But there was no word from Dave; either his cell phone was off or he was talking to someone because all they got was an intercept.

Finally, when both of them were about frantic with worry, he called again. He’d spent hours searching for the boys and had found them; they were all right, in an evacuation center in a church gym away from Battery Park and where the World Trade Center had stood until that morning. “Dave, is there anything we can do to help?” JoAnne asked.

“No,” he said in a dull, disinterested voice on the speakerphone. “There’s not much anyone can do now.”

“Dave, I can be there in twelve hours if there’s anything I can do,” JoAnne insisted.

“I don’t know,” he said, clearly devastated by the events of the day. “Everything’s such a mess.” They talked for a few more minutes, then the call went dead.

“He’s not good,” JoAnne said flatly. “He’s about to lose it. I can tell. I wish we could just get in the car and go help him, except it’d be tomorrow morning before we could get there.”

“And he’s right,” Emily agreed. “From what we’ve seen on TV, lower Manhattan is pretty much sealed off, we might not be able to get to him anyway.”

“Oh, the poor boys,” JoAnne said. “I wish there was something we could do.”

The thought hit Emily in an instant: her classmate Shae! “Maybe there is,” she said, picking up her cell phone to call home. “Shae Kirkendahl lives in Staten Island, she works on Manhattan at least some. She’d be right there in New York and would know her way around.”

In a moment, Emily had Kayla on the phone, getting Kayla to give her Shae’s number out of her class notebook. In a minute more, Emily was dialing the number – but there was no answer, just an answering machine with a cute recorded message. “Well, hell,” Emily said. “If she’s got a cell phone, I don’t have the number at home.”

“We can try again in a little while,” JoAnne offered hopefully.

“Yeah, but I wish there was something else,” she said, and got an idea. “If Shae has a cell phone, Eve would know the number. Besides, Eve is in Philadelphia, she’d still be closer to New York than we are.”

Her classmate Eve McClellan had changed more than anyone else from the Class of ’88 had – shockingly so. Emily tried to keep up on what classmates she could, but had lost track of Eve for good reason, until the reunion three years before. She was really an incredible person, and her number was one Emily could do from memory.

There was no answer there, either. “Well, nuts,” Emily shook her head. “We can try there later, John will probably be home with the kids pretty soon.”

In the next few minutes she dialed both Shae and Eve again, but only got the answering machines. “Darn,” Emily said. “There’s got to be some way. John and Eve should be home by now.” She frowned for a second. “Unless maybe they’re with her dad, they usually leave the kids there. Damn, I’d like to get Eve there too. Shae can give him a place to go but Eve is really who he needs to talk to.” She thought for a second more, then called home again, to ask Kayla to look up Bill Riley’s phone number, which she’d picked up on a memorable weekend at Eve’s over a year before.

“Bill Riley?” JoAnne said, surprised. “Is that the Bill Riley that used to be the manager out at General? The one who’s son …”

“Is now a clinical psychologist named Eve,” Emily finished for her as she dialed the Riley’s phone number. She was surprised that there was anyone in Bradford who didn’t know that Denis Riley had become a transsexual – and was a much better person as a woman than she could have ever been as a man. “With two of the sweetest kids you ever saw,” she added.

Bill Riley was at home – at last, someone! – and John was there with him, with several pieces of news, the most important of which was that Eve was visiting Shae; she had consultations in New York a couple times a month, and usually stayed with her friend when that happened. “I don’t know where they’re at,” John said, “but Eve called a few minutes ago and said that she and Shae didn’t feel much like dinner, so they’re together.” He was also able to give Emily both Shae and Eve’s cell numbers.

It turned out that Shae had her cell phone off, but Eve didn’t, and finally Emily was able to get through to them. It turned out that they were both in Brooklyn near Shae’s studio, and getting set to head for her place on Staten Island. “Sure, we’ll go find him,” Eve told them. “Just understand it may take a while. From what I understand public transportation is shut down in lower Manhattan, and we may have to walk in and out.”

“Good deal,” Emily said. “Eve, right now you’re the best person I know of to help Dave out, and from what I can pick up on the phone he’s going to need your professional help.”

“Class of ’88 to the rescue,” Eve snickered. “Give me your cell number and JoAnne’s home number, we’ll keep in touch.”

“Good,” Emily told her. “I may not be here for a while, I need to head to Hawthorne. Vicky had her baby this morning, and I need to say ‘hi.’”

They didn’t waste any more time in small talk. “Man, am I glad we got hold of them,” Emily sighed as she shut the cell phone off. “I’d better call Lloyd and tell him to hold the front page of the Courier. I’m sure he’ll want to get the news about Julie in the paper.”

“I suppose,” JoAnne said, now a little perkier with the news that someone was on the way to help Dave and the boys. “But Emily, would you mind terribly if I went to Hawthorne with you? I really don’t want to be alone right now.”

“I can understand,” Emily said. “JoAnne, I won’t leave you alone if you don’t want to be alone. In fact, I’ll spend the night with you, either here or at my place, if you’d like.”

After making the phone calls, they got in JoAnne’s car and headed to the hospital in Hawthorne. Visiting hours were nearly over with, but Emily thought that Vicky would appreciate at least a few minutes’ attention – and she’d be very understanding about why her best friend hadn’t been able to give her more of it on this day of days for her. Emily was tired – today had been a record setter for stress and tension – but at least Shae and Eve were on their way to Dave, probably the best of any people who could be sent. She still had things to do, and they’d have to get done, but this small visit would at least remind her that there was life beginning as well as ending on this day – and maybe JoAnne would get that message too.

Vicky was tired as well – she’d had a very long day. She was all smiles over the tiny little girl cradled in her arms, but she was concerned as well – she hadn’t watched much TV, but she’d heard enough. She had not heard about Julie Patterson until Emily told her, and gave a thumbnail of what she’d done to help. “So this is Melissa,” Emily smiled. “You look like a cute baby. Welcome to the world, Melissa. There’s good people and bad here, but your folks are among the best.”

“Looks like a good kid to me,” Jason smiled from his chair across the bed from his wife. “I always wanted to raise a girl, and now I get my chance. The world may have changed for the worse at 10:29 AM today, but it changed for the better, too, as far as I’m concerned.”

Just then, Emily’s cell phone rang. She went to the back of the room to answer it, leaving JoAnne just touching little Melissa with a tear in her eye. Emily spoke on the phone for a couple minutes and rejoined them. “That was Eve,” she reported. “She and Shae have Dave and the boys. They had to walk in over the Brooklyn Bridge, and now they’re walking out again. Shae is carrying both the boys, but Eve didn’t think it was a good time to talk. They’ll call again from her apartment, it’s going to probably take a couple hours.”

They really hadn’t gotten much done at school today, Kayla thought; in their classes they mostly watched TV and talked quietly. Even phys. ed. hadn’t been much; Mrs. Halloran had tried to get the kids interested in soccer, but everyone was too shocked to do much more than stand around, Kayla included. Finally, Mrs. Halloran had called “showers” early, and everyone took their time and sat around the locker room in dull shock. Once school had let out, and with cross-country practice canceled, Kayla had given some thought to going home the long way, through the woods, and getting in at least a short nude walk, but as she headed for the door she found Megan and Bree going the same way. Right at the moment she felt more like being with friends, so they walked home together the short way.

In spite of the time she’d spent with Andrea and alone in the woods over the summer, she’d still spent a lot of time with Megan, Shannon, and Bree, just hanging out and having a good time. She hadn’t told the three about her other activities, of course; well, they knew she liked to go walking in the woods by herself, but they didn’t know her clothing preferences when she did it. But today, the girls were as bummed as she was, and no one felt like hanging around. When Kayla got in the house, she didn’t even think about turning on the TV; she’d seen enough of it all day. What she badly needed was some peace and quiet, some time to put the events of the day together.

When her mother’s first phone call came, Kayla had been taking advantage of JJ being at Brandon’s and getting some badly needed nude time in on the patio in the September sun, hoping to improve her attitude if nothing else. It was cooler today. While it was a nice day, fall was in the air, and there wouldn’t be many nice ones like this left. Even though cold didn’t bother her very much, winter around Bradford usually had many gray and dreary days, and she’d miss the sunlight. As far as she knew, neither her folks nor JJ had any hint of her new activity nor did she plan on telling them anytime soon. It was a pain to have to keep it secret, but if her folks knew about it they’d probably make her quit and give her a pretty good lecture. She treasured her nude time too much to allow that to happen.

When her mother called the second time, asking for Mr. Riley’s phone number from her book, she’d also told Kayla about Julie Patterson. She also said she didn’t know when she was going to get home and that it would be nice if Kayla made supper for her dad and JJ. It wouldn’t have to be anything special, just hot dogs or something, and Kayla agreed she could do that. That made her realize that things might be more unpredictable today and someone could easily come home before they were expected, so just to be on the safe side, she went into her bedroom and pulled on a bikini before heading out to the patio again. Though she was still mostly in skin, the bikini somehow took away much of the pleasure of laying in the sun; somehow it seemed to draw attention to the parts that were covered up more than the covering up was worth. But she wouldn’t have to explain being in a bikini, and there’d be an awful lot of explaining to be done if she were found nude.

It proved to be a wise move on her part. She’d barely gotten back out on the patio when JJ showed up, reporting that everyone was pretty bummed out over at Brandon’s and he thought he’d play a video game so he didn’t have to think about what had happened. Somehow that and having to wear a swimsuit brought her back down to being bummed out herself. She’d never met her mom’s classmate Dave, but she knew that her mom liked to keep up with her classmates when she could, and that some people called her mom the unofficial permanent class president because of it. She knew that Mr. Patterson had two little kids, maybe in kindergarten – two little kids who had just lost their mother. The poor kids! She wished there was something she could do to help, but her mom seemed to be doing all that she could.

But still, there had to be a way. She knew that every now and then there was a fundraiser to help out a family that had had a hard time, usually something like a spaghetti supper or a bingo night. Maybe someone ought to do something like that for Mr. Patterson. Even though he lived in New York, he was from Bradford, after all. Besides, doing something like that would help with the useless, helpless feeling she’d been having, that everyone had been having. That was a good thought; she’d have to talk to her mom about it the first chance that she got.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.