Life, After

by Sarah Darer Littman

  She looked right at Jess when she said it, and everyone in the gym followed her gaze. Jess had that tight look on her face, the same look she had whenever there was any mention of her dad, except for that one time we talked in her room. She forced a smile and nodded her head as a few people started clapping, and then more joined in, until the whole gym was filled with thunderous applause.

  I wonder if as happy as she was that the money was going to such a good cause, if she was finding it hard to be Jess the 9/11 Girl again, when she was out having fun and trying to forget about it all.

  The minute the lights dimmed and the DJ started again, I saw Jess head for the gym door.

  “Excuse me a minute, Brian,” I said, and I headed after her.

  I found her in the bathroom, locked in a stall.

  “Jess. It’s me, Dani.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice sounded watery, like she was crying but trying to sound like she wasn’t. “Can’t a girl even go to the bathroom in peace?”

  “I know that was hard, Jess. I mean it’s great what they’re doing, but…did it feel like the vampires were out again?”

  The stall door opened, and Jess came out, red-eyed, holding a piece of toilet paper to her nose.

  “You remember that?”

  “Of course. How could I forget?”

  I put my arms out and she fell into them, crying. “I didn’t come to the dance last year because it was too soon after Dad died. But this year I thought…I thought it would be different. All I wanted to do was come out and have a good time. To try and be normal again. To be like everyone else and pretend, just for one night, that it didn’t happen,” she sobbed. “And then, when I least expect it, it’s there. I’ll never be able to be normal, will I?”

  I wished I knew what to tell her. But it’s not like I even knew what it meant to be normal.

  “I feel guilty for being upset and angry, because it’s great they’re doing something for the families,” Jess sniffed. “A lot of them aren’t as well fixed as we are. But…”

  “But why now? Why tonight? Why can’t you just go to the dance and be Jess Nathanson instead of Jess the 9/11 Girl?”

  “You understand, Dani. Not like…”

  The bathroom door opened and Coty came in. She looked at me strangely, and I dropped my arms from around Jess, even though it felt like the wrong thing to do.

  “Jess! I was looking all over for you! Are you okay? You poor thing…you must be so moved that they are donating all that money in memory of your dad…I was getting all teary eyed myself when Valerie first announced it. Come on, I brought my purse because I figured you might need some makeup repair.”

  She moved between us and put her arm around Jess, drawing her closer to the sink so they could begin facial repairs.

  “Thanks, Coty, yeah, I look like one of the zombies from the “Thriller” video.”

  Coty opened her purse and started taking out makeup, and I caught Jess’s eye in the mirror.

  “I’m going to get back to the dance, since you’re in good hands,” I said.

  She mouthed “thanks,” but the message she gave me with her eyes went way deeper than that.

  I found Brian talking to Jake near the bleachers, just as the DJ announced he was going to play a slow song.

  “Perfect timing, Ms. Bensimon,” he said. “May I have the honor of this dance?”

  I smiled and gave him my hand. Then he led me onto the dance floor and took me into his arms. His cologne smelled comforting and exciting at the same time, and I rested my head on his shoulder and breathed him in.

  “That’s a heavy sigh. Is Jess okay?”

  “She will be,” I said. “That announcement came as a shock to her. And then with everyone looking and watching for her reaction…”

  “Yeah, it can’t be easy.”

  He drew me closer and lifted my chin with his fingers.

  “And how are you, Dani? Do you feel like you are getting the full American cultural experience?”

  I shook my head no. He looked puzzled.

  “My American cultural experience is distinctly lacking in kissy stuff.”

  He laughed softly, and then bent his head toward me.

  “I think we can rectify that.”

  And he did. Rather nicely.

  “So did you have a good time at the dance?” Jon asked me at lunch the following Monday.

  “Oh yes. It was wonderful,” I told him. “How come you didn’t come?”

  He looked away from me, obviously uncomfortable.

  “Too many people. I don’t like the noise.” And then, looking down at his food, he muttered, “And who would go with me anyway?”

  I felt bad for him.

  “Come on, Jon, I’m sure someone would go with you, if you asked them. I would have gone with you if Brian hadn’t asked me first.”

  He looked at me, amazed. “You would have?”

  “Why do you sound so surprised? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Well, yes, but…there’s a difference between having lunch in the cafeteria and going to a dance.”

  “Only that I’d be wearing high heels so I’d be taller. And my feet would hurt more. Oh, and I’d be wearing more makeup. And a dress. Probably borrowed from your sister, but a dress, nonetheless.”

  “And I would have had to wear a suit and a tie, which I hate. That’s another reason for staying home and watching movies and writing in my notebook.”

  “But honestly, Jon, when you saw Jess getting ready to go out, didn’t it bother you one little bit that you weren’t going, too?” I asked him.

  “You sound like my mom,” Jon said. “And my therapist.”

  “Ouch. Well, I don’t mean to. But seriously. Didn’t you wish you were going one tiny little bit?”

  “I don’t know. Kind of. But I still think I probably had a much better time at home with my movies and my notebook.”

  I felt sad for Jon. It seemed like he was missing out on so much. But I couldn’t tell if he was sad for himself or if he was content with things the way they were. Maybe I shouldn’t judge how things were for him by the way I’d want them for myself. Still…I wouldn’t have missed the experience of going to the dance with Brian for anything.

  “You know, everyone always tells me I should talk to people more instead of spending so much time writing in my notebook,” Jon complained. “But I like to write in my notebook. My notebook doesn’t get sad and cry and go to its room. It just is.”

  Where did that come from? I was really wondering what he wrote in there. I took a deep breath and finally got up the nerve to ask him.

  “What do you write in your notebook, Jon?” I asked. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s really none of my business. I guess I’m just curious, since we’re friends.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat!” Jon said, smiling.

  I laughed. “That’s right. I suppose that means you’d better start making my funeral preparations.”

  Then I cursed myself for talking about funerals. ¡Idiota! Like Jon needed to be reminded of death.

  “I’m sorry, Jon. I didn’t mean to joke about death like that.”

  “Don’t worry, Dani,” he said with a grin. “It’s water under the bridge.”

  I smiled back, weakly, because I still felt terrible. Like I’d put my foot in my mouth. A sudden image of Brian taking off his shoe and pretending to put it in his mouth flashed in my mind.

  “I could show you if you want,” Jon said. “The notebook, I mean.”

  A thrill of excitement shot through me at the thought of finally seeing what was in those pages. But at the same time I knew that whatever was in there was deeply personal for Jon, and I didn’t want him to feel like I was prying.

  “Would you? Are you sure? Only if you…you know, feel comfortable having me see it.”

  “You’re my friend, Dani. I trust you,” Jon said. And he handed me the notebook.

  I wiped my hands on a napkin and carefully o
pened to the first page. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see, but I know it wasn’t this:

  Dear Dad,

  Today it is three months and four days since 9/11. This is my second notebook. They still haven’t found you yet. Jess and Mom keep hoping you are alive but I’ve watched the collapse of 2 World Trade Center over and over on TV, watched the floors collapse into each other and then the huge cloud of dust. I know that as much as Jess and Mom hope, there is no way anyone could survive that. It would be statistically impossible, so it’s illogical for them to hope. I try to tell them, Dad, but they just get mad at me. Jess starts screaming and crying and yesterday she called me a cold-hearted bastard. She came into my room and apologized later. More crying. Dad, I think we’ve used more tissues in the last three months than we used in the previous three years. And that’s including the cold and hay fever seasons.

  I just want them to find some small part of you, some proof that you were there and now you’re gone, so that Jess will stop thinking you are in a hospital in New Jersey somewhere suffering from amnesia and Mom will finally let us have a funeral for you.

  I miss you, Dad.

  Love, Jon

  I felt my eyes begin to water as I turned the page. The entire notebook was filled with letters to his father.

  Dear Dad,

  Mom got a call that they found you today. Well, that they’d identified part of you through your DNA to be precise. Your foot. Not even your whole foot. Part of your foot. But it’s enough. Enough to convince Jess and Mom that you really are gone.

  I thought I would feel happier about this. Maybe happy is the wrong word. I thought I would feel more relieved. That now we can finally have a funeral, that Mom and Jess will finally stop hoping that a miracle will happen and you’ll walk in the door. But instead I feel terrible. Even though I knew you were gone, now that it’s official, it’s like we lost you all over again.

  I miss you, Dad.

  Love, Jon

  There were sketches of the Towers, and of Jess, and her Mom, and of teachers and kids at school. Some of the entries were short, but still…

  Dear Dad,

  I miss your pancakes. Mom’s don’t taste the same. And I miss going to the bagel store with you on Sunday morning while everyone else was still in bed and it was just you and me and we talked about stuff in the papers.

  Love, Jon

  All that time, everyone thought Jon didn’t understand what had happened to his father. All that time, everyone thought that because he wasn’t crying like his mother or acting out like Jess, because he seemed so emotionless about the whole thing, that he wasn’t feeling the same pain as everyone else.

  Well, everyone was wrong, so very wrong. As I turned the pages of Jon’s notebook, tears streamed down my face, because in each letter, even the simple “Dear Dad—I miss you. Mom isn’t the same anymore. Love, Jon,” I felt his loss.

  “I should have known you would cry,” he said. “Everyone always cries.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my tears away with my arm. “I didn’t mean to start crying…it’s just…”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, but I knew I needed to say something, and I had to try not to sniffle while I was doing it, because crying seemed to make Jon uncomfortable.

  “It’s just beautiful, what you’ve written,” I told him. “It really touched me. Here.” I pointed to my heart. “Did you ever show this to your mother or Jessica?”

  Jon shook his head so vigorously I was afraid his glasses would fall off.

  “Maybe you should, someday. I think it would touch their hearts, too.”

  “Maybe. A long way away someday,” he said, but he looked doubtful.

  “Well, thank you for showing me. It means a lot to me.”

  “You’re my friend.”

  I thought about how we were both strangers in our own ways—me, because I was from another country so I thought and spoke differently, and Jon because his Asperger’s syndrome sometimes made him seem like he was. It was because we were both different that we became friends, and because we were different that I defended him from Trevor and became friends with Jess. And now he’d given me this gift of trust, allowing me to see those letters to his dead father, letters he hadn’t even shown to Jess or his mother.

  “Yes, Jon,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder briefly, because I knew he didn’t like being touched, but I wanted reach out to him somehow. “We are friends. Good friends. And that makes me very happy.”

  A week after the dance, I was doing homework at the library when I got an e-mail from Roberto.

  Hola Dani,

  I expect you hate me by now, and I don’t blame you if you do. I just want you to know that I never meant to hurt you. What we had in Buenos Aires will always be special and if it weren’t for the Crisis and us having to move so far away from each other, maybe we’d still be together. Or maybe not. We’re both young and who knows what the future holds?

  But I do know this, Dani. You’re a very special girl, and I’ll always consider you my friend. I hope, sometime, when you are less angry with me, that you’ll consider me your friend, too.

  Beto

  I was still angry with him for not telling me sooner about Amber, for letting me believe that we were still an “us” when we weren’t. I understood that I was the girl he loved, the girl he still cared about when he was Beto. It had been almost a year since we said good-bye, and now he was Robbie—that part of him had moved on to new things. American things. Things like Amber.

  If I was honest, I’d moved on, too. Brian was sitting at the carrel across from me, and when I looked up from my computer his eyes met mine and I felt a rush of warmth seeing him smile. But I would write back to Roberto. Because there was a part of me, the Buenos Aires Dani part, who would always love him and miss him and want to be his friend, the same way I loved and missed Gaby. He was a part of my old life, a memory to be looked back on and treasured.

  Brian and I were creating something new.

  Chapter Seventeen

  PAPÁ PRACTICALLY BOUNCED in the door when he came back from Jewish Family Services on Friday. He had a bouquet of chrysanthemums, bright red, wrapped in fancy paper. “For your mother,” he said. “Make sure you set the table nice for Shabbat.”

  When Mamá came home, carrying two bags of groceries, her eyes widened at the sight of the flowers in the vase on the table next to the Shabbat candles.

  “What’s this, Dani?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know. Ask Papá.”

  “Eduardo?” Mamá called to the living room. “What’s going on?”

  Papá came in and took the grocery bags from her.

  “Go sit down and relax for a few minutes. I’ll tell you over dinner.”

  I finished making the potatoes and took the chicken out of the oven, but all the time I was wondering what mystery Papá was going to reveal while we were eating it.

  Finally, Mamá lit the candles to welcome the Sabbath. For the first time in months, Papá started to sing “Aishes Chayil.”

  “A woman of worth who can find? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no lack of gain…Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laugheth at the time to come…Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying: Many daughters have done worthily but thou excellest them all.”

  I saw Mamá’s eyes shining with tears. Whatever Papá was going to tell her, it wouldn’t be a greater gift to her than this.

  After we’d said the blessings over the wine and bread, and everyone was served, Mamá said, “Eduardo, please. What is it that you’re going to tell us? The suspense is killing me!”

  Papá put down his knife and smiled.

  “I have a new job, of sorts. Now don’t get all excited, Estela, it’s not a paying one yet. But starting next week, I’m going to be mentoring relatives of 9/11 victims.”

  “Mentoring?” Sari said. “What’s that?”r />
  “Talking to them and listening to them and trying to help them get through the grief and the anger about what happened.”

  “That’s wonderful, Papá,” I said. “But…why you?” I couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t that long ago he lay morose and unshaven on the sofa, watching television for most of the day.

  Mamá gave me a quieting look as if to ask how I could bring this up now, when Papá appeared finally to have turned a corner. But Papá just looked at me gravely and replied, “I wondered that, too, Dani. Even now, I wonder who am I, Eduardo Bensimon, to think that I could do anything to help these people who have lost so much in such an awful way. But I have lived through this, too. I lost my sister to terrorists suddenly, violently, and unexpectedly. I went through the waiting, the not knowing, the hope of finding her alive, and the despair of knowing that she was really dead. I’ve lived with the rage at the terrorists for taking innocent lives, and the anger at my own government for not doing more to stop them.”

  Mamá took his hand and squeezed it, as if to give him the strength to go on.

  Papá smiled at her, tenderly, looking so much like my old papá, it made my heart turn over.

  “These people I talk to, Dani, they are going through the same thing. July 18, 1994, or September 11, 2001—Buenos Aires or New York City, a truck bomb or a plane, it is the same. Terrorists shattering innocent lives, and the relatives trying to piece their lives back together afterward.”

  “I’m proud of you, Eduardo,” Mamá said. “It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing.”

  “Me too, Papá,” I told him. I meant it, too.

  “Well, I’m just happy you aren’t so mean and grumpy anymore,” Sarita said. “I didn’t like it when you shouted at us all the time.”

  A few weeks before I would have been afraid of that setting Papá off, but he just laughed and ruffled Sari’s curls.