When I was five or six, I drew on my bedroom wall with a red crayon. I don’t think I ever told you this story. Anyway, as I was drawing hearts and trees and suns and moons and clouds, I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. But I couldn’t stop myself—I wanted to do it so badly. My room had been decorated in pink and yellow, but my favorite color was red. And I wanted my room to be red. I needed my room to be red. Drawing on the wall felt completely right and absolutely wrong at the same time.
That’s how I felt the day I met you. Kissing you in the middle of tragedy and death felt completely right and absolutely wrong at the same time. But I concentrated on the part that felt right, the way I always do.
• • •
I SLID MY HAND into the back pocket of your jeans, and you slid your hand into mine. We pulled each other closer. The phone in your room rang, but you ignored it. Then the phone in Scott’s room rang.
A few seconds later, Scott came into the kitchen and cleared his throat. We broke apart and faced him. “Stephanie’s looking for you, Gabe,” he said. “I put her on hold.”
“Stephanie?” I asked.
“No one,” you answered, just as Scott said, “His ex.”
“She’s crying, dude,” Scott told you.
You looked torn, your eyes going from Scott to me and back again. “Would you tell her I’ll call her back in a few minutes?” you said to him.
Scott nodded and left, and then you grabbed my hand, weaving your fingers through mine. Our eyes met, like they had on the roof, and I couldn’t look away. My heart sped up. “Lucy,” you said, somehow infusing my name with desire. “I know you’re here, and I know that makes this strange, but I should see if she’s okay. We were together all last school year and only broke up last month. This day—”
“I get it,” I said. And weirdly, it made me like you better, that while you weren’t dating Stephanie anymore, you still cared about her. “I should head back to my roommates anyway,” I said, even though I didn’t want to go. “Thank you for . . .” I started the sentence without knowing how to end it, and then found I couldn’t.
You squeezed my fingers. “Thank you for making this day about something more,” you said. “Lucy. Luce. Luz is light in Spanish, right?” You paused. I nodded. “Well, thank you for filling a dark day with light.”
You’d put into words the feeling I couldn’t express. “You did the same for me,” I said. “Thank you.”
We kissed again and it was hard to tear myself away from you. It was so hard to leave.
“I’ll call you later,” you said. “I’ll find you in the directory. I’m sorry about the nachos.”
“Stay safe,” I said. “We can always eat nachos another time.”
“That sounds good,” you answered.
And I left, wondering if it was possible for one of the most horrific days I’d ever experienced to somehow contain a small nugget of goodness.
• • •
YOU DID CALL ME a few hours later, but it wasn’t the conversation I’d expected. You said you were sorry, so sorry, but you and Stephanie had gotten back together. Her eldest brother was missing—he worked at One World Trade—and she needed you. You said you hoped I understood and you thanked me again for bringing light to such a horrible afternoon. You said it meant a lot to have me there. And you apologized once more.
I shouldn’t have been crushed, but I was.
I didn’t speak to you for the rest of fall semester. Or spring semester either. I changed my seat in Kramer’s class so I wouldn’t have to sit next to you. But I listened every time you spoke about the way you saw beauty in Shakespeare’s language and imagery—even in the ugliest scenes.
“‘Alas!’” you read aloud, “‘a crimson river of warm blood, / Like to a bubbling fountain stirr’d with wind, / Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips.’” All I could think about was your lips and how they felt pressed against mine.
I tried to forget that day, but it was impossible. I couldn’t forget what happened to New York, to America, to the people in the towers. And I couldn’t forget what happened between us. Even now, whenever anyone asks, “Were you in New York when the towers fell?” or “Where were you that day?” or “What was it like here?” the first thing I think of is you.
• • •
THERE ARE MOMENTS that shift the trajectory of people’s lives. For so many of us who lived in New York City then, September 11th was that moment. Anything I did that day would have been important, would have been burned into my mind and branded on my heart. I don’t know why I met you that day, but I do know that because I did, you would have been a part of my personal history forever.
v
It was May and we’d just graduated. We’d handed back our caps and gowns, trading them for diplomas written in Latin, emblazoned with our names, first, middle, and last. I walked into Le Monde with my family—my mother, my father, my brother Jason, two grandparents, and an uncle. They seated us next to another family, a much smaller family—yours.
You looked up as we filed by and you reached out, touching my arm. “Lucy!” you said. “Congratulations!”
I shivered. All those months later, feeling your skin against mine did that to me, but I still managed to say, “You too.”
“What are you up to?” you asked. “Are you staying in the city?”
I nodded. “I got a job working in program development at a new TV production company—kids’ shows.” I couldn’t help grinning. It was a job I’d been crossing my fingers over for almost two months before I got it. The kind of job that I’d started thinking about soon after the towers fell, after I admitted that I wanted to do something more meaningful than advertising. A job that could reach the next generation and had the potential to change the future.
“Kids’ shows?” you said, a smile playing across your lips. “Like Alvin and the Chipmunks? Will they have helium voices?”
“Not quite,” I said, laughing a little, wanting to tell you that it was our conversation that led me there, that the moment we shared in your kitchen meant so much. “How about you?”
“McKinsey,” you said. “Consulting. No chipmunks for me.”
I was surprised. I hadn’t expected that, after our talk, after hearing your analyses in Kramer’s class.
But what I said was, “That’s great. Congratulations on the job. Maybe I’ll see you around the city sometime.”
“That would be nice,” you answered.
And I went to sit down at the table with my family.
“Who was that?” I heard someone ask. I looked up. There was a girl next to you with long wheat-colored hair almost to the middle of her back and her hand on your thigh. She’d barely registered, I was so focused on you.
“Just a girl I know from class, Stephanie,” I heard you say. Which, of course, was all I was. But somehow it stung.
vi
New York is a funny city. You can live there for years and never see your next-door neighbor, and then you can run into your best friend while getting into a subway car on your way to work. Fate versus free will. Maybe it’s both.
It was March, almost a year after graduation, and New York City had swallowed us up. I was living with Kate on the Upper East Side in that huge apartment that had once belonged to her grandparents. It was something she and I had talked about doing ever since we were in middle school. Our childhood dreams had become a reality.
I’d had a six-month fling with a coworker, a couple of one-night stands, and a handful of dates with men I’d deemed not smart enough or not handsome enough or not exciting enough, though in hindsight there probably wasn’t much wrong with them at all. Actually if I’d met Darren then, I might have thought the same thing about him.
Without the constant reminder of Philosophy Hall or the East Campus dorms, I’d stopped thinking about you—mostly. We hadn’t seen each other in close to a year. But you did pop into my mind at work when I was skimming storyboards with my boss, when we were reviewing episodes focused on acceptance and respect. I thought about your kitchen and felt good about the decision I made.