The Best of Friends

by Sara James

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Ginger, come on. It’s impossible to get any work done. Let’s go back to the house.” It was Paul van Schalkwyk, our dear friend whose offices we were using and who, with his gracious wife, Rieth, and lively young teenagers, Henri and Nina, had opened up their home to Josef and me while we worked on the film. “Rieth and I were there a couple of years ago.” He shook his head, thinking back, and continued, “We had drinks at the top. It was the best bar in the world.”

  “Oh, Paul. This isn’t happening.” I turned to face him and then nearly turned away at the sight of pain and concern on his face.

  “Have you heard from Sara?” he asked gently, and then I remembered that Paul and Rieth had stayed in Sara’s apartment a few years earlier when she’d been in Australia. They’d gotten to know her not only through my stories, but through the photographs on the piano, the art on her walls, and by feeding her big cat, Jagger.

  “No,” I replied, involuntarily rubbing my arms as they were suddenly, inexplicably freezing cold. “I haven’t heard a thing.”

  I walked in a daze back to the edit suite to get my keys. Josef was standing by the door, my pocketbook in hand. He hugged me and led me down the hall. Now he too knew it was true. That a plane had hit one of the towers that defined the Manhattan skyline, a symbol of power, of beauty, and of a country I loved. But it was so much more than that.

  Those towers were full of people, chief executives, secretaries and clerks, cleaners, accountants and lawyers. No longer defined by their jobs, they were simply husbands who had kissed their wives good-bye that morning, mothers who had dropped their children off at day care with a hug, sons, daughters, friends, all with families who loved them and who were now desperately, horribly scared.

  WE SAT IN stunned silence in Paul’s den watching as horrific images ran across the screen. CNN, BBC, Sky News, it was the only story. Josef rubbed my shoulders, Paul tried to smile. My Swedish editor, my Namibian friend, a mini United Nations, and we all knew the world would never be the same.

  A phone rang in the background. “Ginger”—Paul spoke quietly into the phone before passing it to me—“it’s for you. It’s Nad.”

  In a half whisper, half shock of disbelief, the first thing he said was “Can you believe it?”

  “No, it’s impossible. But how are you? How’s Kimber? And how did you find out?” We didn’t have satellite television, so we only got the news once a day at 8 P.M.., Namibian time, and it was only three o’clock.

  “We were just walking home from the Institute and Piet called to us to come quickly to his house. He had the TV on, and even though they kept showing those horrible images over and over, none of us could believe what we were seeing.”

  “Did Kimber watch the news?” I asked. “Does he understand?” I thought of my son, just three years old, such a light, joyful child, of him and his father walking hand in hand down the road at Okaukuejo. Zebras braying in the background, the warm sun on their faces. Then I thought of explosions and chaos, the thousands of innocent people trapped in airplanes and skyscrapers with no way out. In a wave of sadness that threatened to engulf me, I thought of Maggie and Zan, my dear niece and nephew in the States, of sweet Sophie, and especially of Kimber, wondering, like parents everywhere, what kind of a world our children would inherit.

  “Kimber seems to think it’s a movie,” Nad said, breaking my thoughts, “but then when he really listens, there’s such urgency in the newsreaders’ voices that he gets confused. He’s also worried about you. He’s afraid you might be there.”

  I just wanted to hold him, but all I could do was reassure him over the phone. “Let me talk to him, please.”

  Nad pulled away from the phone. I heard a toy drop and the patter of feet getting louder before the sweetest little voice said, “Hi, Mommy.”

  “Hi, my lovebug. Are you having fun with Daddy?”

  “Yeah. This morning we went to see a big truck that had flipped right over.”

  “That’s exciting. Maybe you can show me when I get home. Remember, just three more sleeps and I’ll be there.”

  “Goody!”

  “I love you, darlin’.”

  “Okay, bye, Mommy.” The receiver hit the ground and he was gone.

  Nad picked it up, stopping the clanging, and said under his breath, “Don’t worry, he’s fine, but what about Sara? Have you heard anything from her and Andrew and Sophie?”

  “I’m not sure where they are. I can’t get through to an international line. But I’ll let you know as soon as I reach them.”

  I hung up the phone, praying that they hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  A few minutes later I picked up the phone again. “Paul, do you mind if I try one more time?”

  On TV, the towers were beginning to crumble.

  “You must.”

  “SARA?™

  “Oh, Gin. It’s you.”

  “Are you okay? Andrew, Sophie, are they okay?”

  “We only just got back from Australia. It feels like a jet-lagged nightmare, but it’s not. It’s true.”

  “So you weren’t anywhere near downtown?”

  “No, thank God. Sophie and I were at home and Andrew’s office is in midtown. All we hear is the noise, the sirens, the jets. And…wait a minute?” I heard a door slide open. “I’m going outside on the terrace. I don’t want Sophie to hear me.”

  The background noise on the phone changed. I heard wind, horns, sirens, the same noises Sara was hearing.

  “Oh, Gin. I looked out the window and thought I must be mistaken, but I’m not. It’s ash, white ash, floating across the city. Her voice broke and then she continued, “It’s falling onto our terrace. Oh God. It’s everywhere.”

  I pictured Sara’s terrace on the eighteenth floor with its long view down Third Avenue. It had been the scene of so much laughter and so many late-night confessions, and now Sara was standing there outside, alone in a mist of ash.

  “Gin, what are you guys hearing over there? Do you know about the plane hitting the Pentagon?”

  “We’ve heard that horrible news and sketchy information about a plane crash in Pennsylvania.”

  “There is so much speculation, and so much fear, Gin. I can’t begin to tell you.”

  But I knew if only from afar that a city that pulsed with life had been hushed by tragedy. A country that I loved had been savagely attacked and I wanted to be there, to hold the ones I loved, and to share the fear and the pain and the anger.

  “Sara, please be careful.”

  “I will, but I must go. I need to call work.”

  “Give Soph a big hug for me, and Sara, we love you all so much.”

  “We love you, too, Gin.”

  After I hung up the phone I said a silent prayer for Sara and her family, for my family, and every other family affected by the events of that tragic day. I shivered again, a wave of pain hitting my core, and I wondered if there would be more attacks, and if the madness that started that day at 8:46 A.M. in America would ever truly be over.

  28

  SARA (2001)

  MY BREASTS ACHED. I glanced down quickly to make sure I wasn’t leaking, as that would qualify as a disaster. I was sitting at the Nightly News desk, wired up with microphone and IFB, ready to anchor any special reports. It was late September 2001 and that had been my assignment since returning to work on September 12. These days, urgent bulletins seemed to occur with alarming frequency.

  “Can I get up for thirty minutes?” I asked.

  “Sure. Brokaw just got in, so we’re covered. We’ll see you later.”

  I headed back to my office, where our nanny, Sherry Daisy, was playing with Sophie on the carpeted floor. Originally from Trinidad, Sherry managed to be both relaxed and thoroughly capable, with a quick laugh and loving personality our daughter adored. I also admired Sherry’s serenity, which she attributed to her deep faith. Sherry had been bringing Sophie to the office for a few days to ease the transition for me and my
baby, as I’d come back to work earlier than I’d expected. Of course I’d also taken the opportunity to parade my first child shamelessly through the halls of Dateline, Today, and Nightly News, introducing her to friends and colleagues.

  Sophie looked up and blew me a raspberry. “Thank goodness you brought her in,” said Mary Casalino, assistant to the correspondents. “She cheers everybody up.”

  Sherry stepped out of my office and I closed the door and settled back on the sofa, relieved to nurse. Outside, the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral pricked the bright blue sky as bagpipes wailed. I usually loved the fierce, ragged music. It reminded me of my last trip to Scotland, where I’d hooked up with dear pals and their families, including Fiona, whom I’d met in Charlotte, and Lizzie, who’d flown to Australia for my wedding. But now the pipes sounded melancholy, forlorn. Another funeral for another firefighter. I pulled Sophie to me tightly and she drew back in puzzled alarm. I forced myself to relax both my body and my expression and she settled back to work.

  I’d witnessed a great deal of heartache and misery in my professional career and had never grown accustomed to it. But the disasters I’d covered had taken place in another town, another state, another country. Terror had been something I could escape. Not this time.

  While we’d been incredibly fortunate, New York was a city in mourning, Manhattan an island of anxiety. You could smell fear in the putrid, smoky air. Hear it in the sound of circling fighter jets. See it on the faces of rifle-toting cops manning bridges and tunnels. Feel it in the way your abdomen twisted when you walked past fading, tattered posters of those beloved men and women who’d never come home, past makeshift shrines of candles and teddy bears, past firehouses draped in bunting.

  As a new mother, I realized I felt both intensely protective and excruciatingly vulnerable, keenly aware that, for the first time in my life, I was responsible not just for myself, but for our baby. Suddenly, living on the eighteenth floor seemed too close to the sky. How would I carry her down so many flights of stairs in an emergency? And if I made it to the street, how would I make it off the island? After 9/11 we’d watched those vital exits slam shut, leaving millions of us under lockdown. Pitching dangerously between extreme emotions, I’d felt as if I might capsize, and had been grateful to return to work, where covering the travails of others was an instant reminder that my small, wonderful family was only one of so many cast adrift in a violent, bewildering storm.

  Sophie sat up. I buttoned my blouse, put on my jacket, and opened the blinds to let the incongruously cheerful sunshine stream in. I gave my bright-eyed girl a parting hug and kiss. I knew it was time to end her visits to the office, much as I enjoyed them. While having her close by made me feel that she was safer, I also knew she needed a rhythm and routine I couldn’t give her at the office. “Thanks for bringing her in, Sherry. I’ll see you both this evening.”

  ON OCTOBER 12, I was alone in my office when the phone rang. “Get down to the studio. Now.”

  I walked as rapidly as I dared toward the studio elevator, knowing that to run would only leave me sounding breathless and out of control. As I got off the elevator, I saw my friend Andi running toward me with a panicked expression. “Sara! There’s anthrax in the building!”

  I stopped and shook my head as if to clear my ears. It almost felt as though she were speaking underwater, the words thick and muffled as they echoed in my mind. “What are you talking about?”

  “Here! There’s anthrax right here, on this floor!”

  It had been just over a week since Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson had stunned the nation, reporting that a Florida photo editor had contracted anthrax. Sixty-three-year-old Robert Stevens had died the next day. Testing by the Centers for Disease Control revealed anthrax spores in his workplace and the chilling fact that several other people had been exposed. Someone, somewhere, had turned anthrax into a lethal weapon and was sending spores through the mail, leaving the entire country on edge less than a month after 9/11. My Dateline producer friend Roberta Oster Sachs, now married and a mom, had confessed she’d begun taking Cipro just in case. “It’s the only antibiotic that’s strong enough. But the supply is limited. They’ll run out of it if there’s a major attack.”

  “But that’s not going to happen,” I’d insisted. All the same, Andrew and I made sure Sophie was nowhere near when we opened our mail. I couldn’t help but think back to the film Ginger had proposed, and how foolish it seemed now to think of anthrax only as an African scourge. It was happening here. How wrong I’d been.

  Suddenly the whispers were everywhere, and then someone handed me the NBC News press release which I would read on the air. An anthrax-tainted letter had been sent to Tom Brokaw and been opened by his assistant, who had contracted anthrax on her skin and was being treated with antibiotics. I felt a wave of nausea. I knew Tom’s assistant, Erin O’Connor. She was a lovely woman and also the mother of a toddler, and I hoped she’d be okay. Meanwhile it seemed the entire third floor—including the studio where I was about to do the special report—was considered contaminated, and uncertainty and anxiety permeated the air, invisible but toxic. Mary Kahler, a makeup artist, had tears in her eyes as she thrust a thin paper mask into my hand. “You take it, Sara. You’re a mom.”

  I shook my head, incredibly touched, and hugged her. “No, Mary! Thanks, you keep it. Though I’m afraid these don’t do much. Listen, let’s try not to worry yet.”

  But as I turned toward the phone, there was no way I could take my own advice. My fear was boiling over and I had just moments before I went on the air. I punched in my husband’s work number, and when he answered, the words tumbled out in a barely comprehensible jumble.

  “Andrew, I’m about to anchor a special report because Tom just rushed out to Mayor Giuliani’s press conference because—there’s anthrax here at NBC.”

  “Sara, slow down.” The calm voice of the man I loved and trusted cut through the chaos. I tried to rein myself in. “I’m not worried about me, Andrew, it’s Sophie! Oh God, I’ve taken our baby all over these halls. We even visited Tom in his office, near where Erin opened the letter, and I’ve got to go now and can you call—”

  “I’ll handle it,” Andrew interrupted, his even voice cracking for the first time before it steadied again as he said, “I’ll call Dr. Lancry, and Dr. Davies, and I’ll find out what we do.”

  “I love you.”

  “You too. It’ll be okay.”

  And then it was time to be on air. In my ear I heard the voice of Specials producer Beth O’Connell from the control room, addressing me by the nickname she’d used since I’d first met her at the Today show nearly ten years before. “Young Sara. Breathe. Just breathe. Okay? We’ll get someone back here to check on Sophie, too.”

  I nodded. It all felt surreal. At NBC we covered news, we weren’t part of it. But I knew my husband was doing everything that could be done for our daughter at that moment, and I had to do my job. I found my voice and pressed down, down, down until I hit a surprising well of calm as the pounding music ended and a deep voice announced, “This is an NBC News Special Report. Here’s Sara James.”

  And so began a report that hardly seemed real to me, a report that began, “We have learned that there has been another case of anthrax, this one a cutaneous one, here at NBC.”

  WITHIN A FEW hours, both the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control had set up a command center at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Everyone in the affected area was given a nasal swab and advised to do exactly what I had questioned my friend for doing—take Cipro. It was the only known antidote to anthrax.

  “But what about my daughter?” I asked after explaining our situation, because I knew she was too young to take the powerful drug. “And what about our nanny?”

  The sympathetic CDC agent spoke in a measured voice. “Your nanny needs to take Cipro, just like you. And your daughter—she can take another antibiotic that is milder.”

  “But that won’t work, will it?” I p
ressed.

  “Let’s not worry about that yet. She may not even have been exposed. And by the way, you’ll have to stop nursing. Cipro penetrates breast milk.”

  I turned away so that he wouldn’t see that I was on the verge of weeping. I had planned to nurse Sophie until she was a year old. He put his hand on my arm. “Look. You’re not the only one. There are women here who are pregnant. They’ve got tough choices, too.”

  The tears froze. How selfish I’d been. Please, God, I prayed. Just let Sophie be okay.

  The next morning was Saturday, but when the phone rang at 9 A.M. it was an investigator from the CDC asking if Sophie had started her antibiotics. I said yes.

  “Good. Very good. And how is she?”

  “She’s fine.” I paused. “She has a rash under her arm and a mild cough,” I confessed, “but I’m sure it’s just a cold.”

  I heard his sharp intake of breath. “I am advising you to take Sophie to your pediatrician. Now. We won’t get the nasal swabs back for a few days. Let’s not take any chances.”

  I felt as if someone else were getting in the taxi, handing money to the driver, unbuckling a car seat, walking into the office. I was tapped out on fear, momentarily numb and ominously calm. Andrew had contacted experts on his own who’d told him that anthrax wasn’t even a footnote in the medical books. Sophie’s pediatrician, Karen Lancry, was intelligent and compassionate. “Don’t worry, this is just a precaution,” she said as she donned gloves. But her eyes gave her away. After examining the rash, she’d said, “She looks just fine. But under the circumstances I think we should send her to a specialist. Just in case.”

  More gloves, masks, poking and prodding. More tests and “We’ll wait for the results.”

  Andrew and I were sick of waiting for answers. What’s more, we knew one person who might be able to help. And that person was married to my best friend.

  “Gin?” As I rushed headlong into a breathless explanation, she stopped me.