Getting Back

by Cindy Rizzo

  “And I’m Gretchen. That would be lovely.”

  I was quickly called away to sit up front for the reading, but I made sure to secure Gretchen’s phone number.

  “My grandfather was a leading trade unionist in Prague,” she told me a few weeks later. “He knew that he’d soon be rounded up when the Nazis invaded back in ’39, so they moved east into Poland and stayed in Krakow for a few months, but he quickly realized that with Hitler’s hunger for territory, they wouldn’t be safe there for very long.”

  “You’re not Jewish, are you?”

  “No, we’re Catholic, but trade unionists were Communists as far as the Nazis were concerned. Some of them were imprisoned and killed very early on, especially those who were well known like my grandfather. In any case, they made it out with the help of a network of union people, both in Europe and the US. My father was twelve when they arrived.”

  I knew even then as she told me her story that I was in danger of having history repeat itself. Her background was too much like Ruth’s, who’d been more present in my mind that year having just been confirmed by Congress as a US District Court judge. But I scolded myself not to be foolish, that it had been twenty years and I had to let go of these ridiculous misgivings. Gretchen was serious, smart, and interesting. I found her attractive and I knew I wanted to feel her skin against mine and to see how her body would respond to my touch. I was forty-four years old. Most of my friends, both lesbian and heterosexual, had settled down, some on their second go-round. Maybe it was time to try for something that could last.

  But we were both busy: the company occupied most of my time and her attempts to gain a full professorship occupied hers. Now that the Czech Republic and some of its neighbors had joined NATO, she was free to travel for her research. I made her promise not to go anywhere near the war in Kosovo and she assured me she would venture no further south than Hungary.

  The next year, in the summer of 2001, I went with her to Prague. She read through archives, trying to piece together her grandfather’s prewar trade union movement while I toured the magnificent, old city. I paid for a hotel she could never have afforded on a professor’s salary and we ate in all the top places.

  “Don’t I have the best ideas?” Gretchen said as we lay in bed naked late one night, the taste of her still on my lips.

  “Hmm, I believe I was the one who pushed you against the wall in a frenzy a few hours ago.”

  She giggled. “I meant the whole trip. Bringing you along with me, getting you out of the drudgery of New York and your company.”

  “Oh, but I love my city and my company.”

  “More than you love me?” she asked in a teasing voice that I knew was also a challenge.

  I smiled at her. “Not more than I love this.” I slid down her body and took her nipple into my mouth, triumphant at her moan in response.

  She pulled my head up gently and placed both hands on my cheeks. The look on her face was intense with small creases around her hazel eyes.

  “You can never say it. Why?”

  “Because I prefer to show it.” Of course that was a lie. She was right; I couldn’t say it.

  She shifted her body from underneath mine and lay on her side facing me. I dreaded the conversation I knew was coming.

  “Is it your WASP upbringing? Did your parents never express affection or love for one another?”

  She was giving me an out and I lunged for it as though it was a lifesaver.

  “I suppose. We were a pretty unemotional bunch. I always felt cared for and safe, but it was not a very demonstrative household.”

  “I can’t imagine,” she said. “I guess it’s a matter of ethnicity. My brother and I were showered with hugs and kisses, not just by my parents, but by the whole extended family.”

  In reality, my parents were never the ice king and queen I made them out to be. They were loving, and while not the overly affectionate types that Gretchen grew up with, they certainly did on occasion tell me they loved me, usually when it needed to be said. Not every day, but when I was screaming in pain with appendicitis or when I cried for weeks that summer when Ruth left.

  I couldn’t place the blame on them for my silence with Gretchen. But they were a convenient excuse and one that she would believe. The truth was, I’d said the words “I love you” once, and no one had made me feel deeply enough since to get me to say them again.

  We returned from Prague and dove right back into our work. Gretchen’s semester was starting and I had the annual plan to develop for 2002. We were all set with our marketing strategy for the holiday season releases, but the year ahead had only been sketched out in brief. We knew our catalogue, but there was much work ahead to ensure its success.

  Gretchen’s older brother Neil was arriving in town from St. Louis and I’d agreed to a dinner on Tuesday the eleventh. I was even going to leave the office early to cook the meal. Neil was having breakfast that day in the financial district with his former college roommate who worked high up in one of the World Trade Center towers. Gretchen was joining them at a nearby restaurant before her first class and then Neil was going to see his friend’s office to take in the magnificent view of the city and the harbor.

  I was also up early that day and at my desk at seven thirty, on a call with our new Paris-based staff, a meeting conducted entirely in French, which I’d perfected during the two years I spent living in Europe. I was trying to maintain my fluency and took advantage of every opportunity to do so.

  Shortly after the call ended, my assistant buzzed to review my schedule for the day.

  “Ms. Morrison, you’ve got a nine-fifteen appearance at the monthly orientation for new staff. They just need you for a five-minute welcome, as per usual.”

  I nodded. “What else?”

  “Office time, after that, as you’ve requested and then lunch with the new interns from Fowler College. I’ve got everything ordered and will set up the dining room beforehand. Oh, and don’t forget drinks at six tonight with the Twenty-First Century Markets team around the corner at the usual place you like, Metropolis. They know you’ll be coming and will have a table ready.”

  “Good, then we’re all set for today.” That was my signal that our meeting had concluded.

  She stood from her chair but didn’t move. “Ms. Morrison, have you heard anything about a plane flying into one of the twin towers this morning? They’re saying on the radio that it was a prop plane that lost its way.”

  I thought briefly of Gretchen, but figured there was little need to worry about a small plane hitting some glass windows. “No, but keep me updated if there is any more information.”

  I had a few minutes before I needed to leave for the orientation, so I opened the inbox of my e-mail program and began to scan the messages for anything that might require my immediate attention. I saw the news alert e-mail from the New York Times about the plane that my assistant had mentioned. There were some financial updates I’d have to review later and an e-mail from the general fiction VP that we’d signed some new authors. A few minutes later, another news alert arrived from the Times stating that a second plane had hit the other tower. This no longer felt like a random accident by an inexperienced pilot. I got up and rushed into the outer office. The news radio station was on at my assistant’s desk, which was now ringed by a half-dozen other staff.

  “What are they saying?” I asked.

  No one responded. Instead, they stood rapt listening as a reporter talked breathlessly about the second plane, his voice filled with excitement and what I could only describe as horror.

  “We’ve now confirmed that a second plane has hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Flames and smoke are pouring out of both buildings, and”—his voice broke—“people on the scene report that some of those trapped above the site of impact are actually jumping from the buil
ding.”

  I gasped in horror. No one could survive that fall. They had obviously chosen to trade one type of ghastly death for another.

  A voice called out from somewhere. “Come over here, you can see it.”

  We all ran to a large south-facing window and there it was, the smoke billowing out of the towers, which were almost hidden behind it.

  I went back to my office and called Gretchen on her cell. Miraculously, she answered.

  “We’re across the street on Vesey,” she said, her voice shaking. “We were just finishing up when the first plane hit.”

  “Thank God, you didn’t go into that building. Can you get uptown?”

  “I don’t know. There’s stuff all over the street, papers and, and, things, briefcases, metal, I don’t know.” She sounded hysterical. “Elizabeth, there were bodies, jumping out of the building. People flailing…” Her voice choked a sob.

  “Gretchen, get out of there! Be safe, please.”

  “Elizabeth, just know, if anything happens, I love you.”

  “Gretchen.” Tears escaped and rolled down my cheeks. “I love you. Come home. Gretchen, Gretchen, are you there?” There was no answer. I stared at the phone in the palm of my hand.

  “Ms. Morrison.” My assistant stood shaking, all the color gone from her face. “Another plane. It hit the Pentagon in Washington. This might be a war.”

  I stood immobile for a few seconds, my mind still fixed on Gretchen down in the midst of that nightmare. I heard loud voices, gasps, more sobbing. My staff. The company. I nodded out of my stupor and realized there were two hundred people I had to protect.

  Hours went by in a blur of activity—running around our offices, putting emergency evacuation plans into effect, guiding people down the stairwells, taking care of those unable to walk down twenty flights, sirens outside, the beating of helicopters, the terror when we heard any sound over our heads.

  People were yelling, “Both towers collapsed! First one and then the other!” More voices crying, more frightened faces.

  As security escorted me through the now-empty corridors along with Uncle Hank and our other senior staff, I looked out that same window on our southern wall and saw the ominous dark gray cloud obscuring lower Manhattan, replacing what had once been the two stalwart symbols of our city, our little island. Had Gretchen survived those two cataclysmic crashes? Had anyone in that area?

  We were all quiet on our walk down the stairwell. I was no longer rushing around, just walking with determination, my head down, uncertain of what I would do once I was out on the street. In the silence of that unending descent, I was suddenly filled with a new sense of dread. Ruth. She worked downtown in the federal courthouse, not far from the towers. I didn’t know the exact layout of the confusing, narrow streets of that area, but it was so small, so closed in by buildings and people, nothing could have been untouched by the crash of those two towers. I stopped walking and grabbed tight onto the metal stair railing as the walls around me felt as if they were moving, rotating. I took a few deep breaths and let them out slowly. The strong grasp of a hand on my arm steadied me and the deep voice of a guard whose name I didn’t know said, “We’re almost there.”

  I continued walking, trying to imagine living in a world where Ruth Abramson no longer existed, my scrapbook’s final pages left blank. A door opened in front of me and I entered a familiar place, the lobby of our building, with the familiar face of Max, our driver, in front of me. Uncle Hank stood next to him.

  I insisted Uncle Hank come home with me. I didn’t want to be alone, and I wasn’t sure how safe it would be for him to travel back up to Dobbs Ferry north of the city. Was the commuter rail even running?

  When I turned my head and looked up just before I entered the car, I was slightly reassured to see the Empire State Building still standing tall and solid against the backdrop of the dark cloud of smoke behind it. There’d been reports of car bombs, and it was getting too difficult to know what had actually happened and what was mere conjecture and hysteria on a day that no one could have imagined. As Max drove uptown, we listened to the car radio and learned about the plane crash in Pennsylvania and the order that all flights were grounded. At least there’d be no more buildings in danger now.

  We sat glued to the television. I searched every street they showed for signs of Gretchen. There was no phone service. I thought about going down to NYU, but there were many reports of streets being blocked off. It was doubtful I could even get that far.

  At around three in the afternoon, I heard the sound of a key in the door and I flew off the couch. It was Gretchen and her brother, both covered in gray dust, clothing tattered. A makeshift cloth bandage was tied around Neil’s head, with a spot of blood soaked through.

  I took Gretchen into my arms. The smell of smoke and burning metal enveloped me. Her breathing was labored.

  She moved out of my embrace and grabbed her brother’s arm.

  “Neil saved my life.”

  “No,” was all he said in response.

  Uncle Hank joined us. He hugged Gretchen and then clasped his hands on Neil’s upper arms, coughing a little in response to the smell.

  “What happened?” He asked. “How did you get out?”

  I took Gretchen’s hand. It was rough and greasy.

  “We were walking away when the first building collapsed,” she said. “It sounded like a series of bombs going off. I turned and saw this thing coming toward us, this dark cloud, looking like it would swallow us. We ran to get ahead of it and then Neil pulled me over to the wall of a building and shielded my body with his.”

  Neil put his arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Miraculously, neither one of us was hurt badly. When the blast caught up with us, a piece of something hit me in the head. It was a little thing, so I just got this cut.” He pointed to the bandage.

  Gretchen looked at his head and furrowed her brow. “He refused to go to the emergency room. We walked around the area for what felt like hours, but moved slowly away from the worst of it. I guess we were kind of dazed. Then we heard more bomb sounds, and the second tower went down. Again, we ran, but this time we were far enough away and out of danger. People were crying in the street, listening to radios, everyone covered in this stuff.” She gestured to her ruined clothes. “Papers everywhere, cars crushed. It was like something out of a movie, but we were in it.”

  I shook my head slowly. “I didn’t think you would survive, that anyone would,” I whispered. I looked at her wide-eyed and breathed out a sigh of gratitude. “Come, let’s get you both cleaned up.”

  Chapter 10

  July 2008

  As Elizabeth thought back on her conversation with Margaret, she was still surprised that her friend was all but pushing her toward a relationship with Ruth. Could she be right? Was that what Elizabeth should be pursuing? She was not in the habit of giving Margaret’s advice too much weight, except when they talked business. Margaret had taken a small public relations firm and made it into Hollywood’s best-known fix-it shop. Over the years, they’d each grown their businesses in parallel, and when Elizabeth stepped up to become CEO, Margaret had been the one person she could go to with all of her worries and doubts.

  But when it came to women, Elizabeth was more ambivalent, at times drawn to Margaret’s practice of keeping all of her sexual relationships light and casual, but more often convinced that such a life was hollow and devoid of meaning. Yet she’d gone along with Margaret’s occasional set-ups, flying out to LA to be seen with some actress. She wondered if Ruth had come across any of the photos of her posted on gossip sites and gay blogs with captions like “Television’s best-known mom, Pam Randall, fresh from rehab, out on the town with publishing mogul, Elizabeth Morrison.” Probably not. She was sure Ruth hadn’t spent the last thirty years carefully arranging Elizabeth’s press clippings into a scrapbo
ok.

  It was just baffling why Margaret seemed to be encouraging this renewed contact with Ruth, starting with the invitation to speak at the reunion. Maybe Ms. One-Night Stand actually had a soft spot for relationships after all, at least where her friends were concerned.

  She stood at the entrance to the park at Ninety-Seventh Street and saw Ruth coming from the direction of the subway stop. It had been years since Elizabeth had been in one of those filthy stations waiting on a freezing cold or stiflingly hot platform, unable to understand the garbled announcements. Maybe she was spoiled with her Town Car and driver, but she worked hard and could afford such conveniences. She wondered why Ruth hadn’t taken a taxi uptown. It was probably the influence of those early years growing up in Russia, a place that afforded its people few comforts. At Fowler, Ruth had always had them walking everywhere and eating in the least expensive places. She’d taught Elizabeth how to mend her clothes instead of throwing them away and how to make the carcass of a roast chicken into soup for the next day’s lunch.

  Elizabeth pointed down the path ahead of them. “This northern portion of the park is quite pretty,” she said as they made their way down a path. “There’s an outdoor cafe a little farther uptown that looks out over the water. How does that sound? It’s nothing fancy.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” said Ruth. “I was sitting in a trial all day, and only managed to grab a small container of yogurt at lunch. I was stuck at my desk reviewing some materials so I could rule on a few evidentiary matters when we were back in session.”

  They chatted with ease, catching up from their last meeting a few weeks before. Elizabeth updated Ruth on her conversation with Margaret, intentionally omitting the jarring assertion that Ruth was still in love with her. She also talked about Reese and how she was waiting for the right moment to speak more openly about their quasi-mother-daughter relationship.