“Are they sending another train?” a young, perfectly barbered man in a tailored gray suit asked. There was impatience in the tone of his voice and the set of his shoulders: a swaggering Master of the Universe who couldn’t be detained in his quest for the buck. I watched a woman raise her cell phone to her ear, her eyes squeezed shut, lips moving, before she flipped it shut and shoved it back into her bag.
By then, people were pushing toward the exits, some of them on phones, all of them hurrying. I joined the line, climbed the stairs, and stood in the street, in the eerie silence, and saw the pillar of smoke.
“Oh my God.”
“They’re saying a plane hit the Twin Towers,” a woman called.
“Like, a little plane?”
“A commuter jet.”
“Where are you getting this?” asked the Master of the Universe.
“My son’s an intern at CNN. He says eyewitnesses saw the plane hit. They’re evacuating both buildings.”
“My husband’s there.” A woman, maybe a few years older than me, similarly dressed for business, looked around, wide-eyed. “My husband’s there,” she said again, as if someone had contradicted her, before pulling out a cell phone of her own.
Then the street started shaking, a slow, low rumble that rose to a deafening pitch. I thought I felt the ground tilt. In my good Coach bag, my phone was ringing, and, without thinking, I reached for it, flipping it open and raising it to my ear.
“Rachel? Rachel, honey, where are you?” My mom sounded the way she had when I was six, and she’d come into my bedroom to find me blue and gasping for breath.
“Astor Place,” I said. “I was going back home on the subway. Do you know what’s going on?”
“Daddy and I were watching the Today show.” As they did, every morning of their lives. “Two planes hit the Twin Towers. They’re saying it might be terrorists.”
“Who’s saying that? If it’s Mr. Lifshitz, please don’t listen.” Mr. Lifshitz was the neighborhood conspiracy theorist.
“CNN,” said my mother. “They’re saying that terrorists hijacked planes and they flew them into the World Trade Center; they don’t know how many people are dead . . .”
I heard her voice start wobbling. “I’m fine, Mom. I’m okay.”
“You need to get out of there right now, Rachel Nicole, right this very minute.” She was talking to me like I was six and she’d caught me picking my nose in front of company. The crowd in the street was frozen, still staring south, when we heard what we’d quickly find out was the first tower falling.
“We need to get out of here,” someone said.
Amy, I thought. Amy lived in Park Slope. I could cross the bridge, go to her house, wait until the trains were running again . . . and if she was already in the office, I would find someplace, a coffee shop or a bookstore, and stay there until either she came back or I was free to go.
Thank God I have sneakers in my bag, I thought as I started walking. Policemen with bullhorns were directing us toward the Williamsburg Bridge. Everyone seemed to be talking on cell phones. Some of them were crying. Thank God I have a bottle of water. Thank God none of the families that I know live down that way. I’d tucked my cell phone into my bra—a bad habit, Amy had lectured, and one that would probably either ruin the phone or give me breast cancer. Now I felt it trill against my breast.
“Hello?”
“Rachel?” I recognized his voice, even though I’d never heard it like this. Andy Landis sounded scared . . . and that, more than anything, made what was happening real to me.
“Andy?” I started to cry. It didn’t occur to me to ask how he’d gotten my number. “Do you know what’s happening?”
“Where are you? Are you somewhere safe?”
“I was on the subway, but they stopped it, and we all got out, and I saw all the smoke, and then we felt it, and we heard. Is it true?” I was starting to shake, my whole body quivering. “Is it terrorists?”
“Where are you?” he asked me again.
“I’m going toward the Williamsburg Bridge. I was going to try to go home, but they aren’t letting anyone through.”
“I was in the gym. The TV was on.” He paused. “They’re saying there were two planes. Passenger jets. They’re saying people are jumping out of the buildings.”
“Oh my God,” I said, and looked up at the sky, like I was expecting a plane to come swooping down on us. I’d been to the World Trade Center. I’d shopped at the Borders in the concourse; I’d been, with one of my New York City beaus, to Windows on the World at the top of the North Tower.