Nine, Ten

  He should have noticed the man wasn’t wearing a vest. The guy was just jacked, broad-chested with strong, brown-skinned arms. He wasn’t a cop. He couldn’t do anything. He was just a fireman.

  “I just thought . . . I just wondered why you weren’t in school. I have a nephew your age. It’s Monday.” The fireman laughed. “But a good day to play hooky, I suppose. Hey, look, that’s what I’m doing.”

  Sergio leaned in and looked for the next train. The tunnel was dark.

  “I’m not skipping. My school has the day off.” Sergio straightened himself up and answered where there was no question. They stood in silence for a long while.

  “Well, technically, you know, I’m not either.” The fireman seemed to feel the need to explain. “I swapped days with a guy in my company. And you wouldn’t believe why.”

  The roar of the distant train whooshed into the station. A tiny light grew closer. Sergio had absolutely no interest in this guy or why he had the day off, but the unsettling sense of his authority lingered, as well a kind of yearning for it at the same time.

  “Okay, I’ll play. Why?”

  The fireman smiled. “It’s this guy’s anniversary tomorrow, and he wants to surprise his wife. Take the day off, you know? So he’s working my shift now, and I’ll work his tomorrow, no big deal. But that’s a nice story, right? Wanna tell me yours?”

  No.

  Sergio shook his head, and when the train stopped and the doors opened, he got in. The fireman, too. The doors hissed closed and the train lurched forward. The car was mostly empty. Across from him sat an old lady with a grocery cart folded and leaning against her legs. If Sergio didn’t know better, it might have been Mrs. Peterson from his building, but this lady was Chinese. There was a white man in a business suit and tie playing with some little device in his hands, one of those PalmPilot things, tapping the screen with a skinny pen.

  The subway hummed along, rocking rhythmically, like the washers in the basement did. Hummed so that girls in his apartment building sometimes put their babies up on top of the machines and let the vibrations lull them into sleep. The lights flickered for a second. The train started to slow and then sped up again, then slowed again, and black steel girders covered with years of oil and dirt became dimly visible outside the windows.

  Sergio looked up and over at the fireman, who was sitting on the opposite side of the train, a bunch of seats farther down. The train jerked once more and then stopped altogether. The lights went out and the low emergency bulbs lit up. Everyone turned and looked out the windows at the blackness. And waited.

  This was New York. It happened all the time. It could be thirty seconds. It could be thirty minutes.

  After about five minutes the grocery lady tipped her head back and started snoring.

  The businessman must have checked his watch at least a dozen times in the last minute, and then finally he let out a loud groan. But it didn’t bring the train back to life.

  Sergio stretched out his legs. What difference did it make? He didn’t have anywhere to go. Though he wasn’t thrilled about all this empty time to think. He didn’t like thinking too hard, except about math. Math had no feelings. It never let you down. Math made sense. People did not. Sergio deliberately made sure not to look toward where the fireman was sitting, or make eye contact with him. No use inviting any more unwanted friendly conversation.

  Another few minutes went by, snoring and time checking, checking time and snoring. But the train itself remained silent.

  “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it,” the white man suddenly said out loud. He stood up and walked over to the window on the other side of the train, as if he might be able to see the problem from that angle.

  “It can’t be much longer,” the fireman said. He recrossed his arms, modeling patience for the impatient man.

  “Easy for you to say.” The man sat back down. “I have to get to work.”

  Sergio looked up.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  They were all stuck on the train. Why did this guy think he was the only one with someplace to go? Because he was white?

  Another minute passed and the man jumped up again. “I can’t take it.” He headed for the door that led from one car into the next. He pulled on the handle, but it didn’t open.

  The fireman stood. “Sir, that’s not a good idea. If the train suddenly starts moving . . . it’s dangerous. You should probably stay seated.”

  “And who the hell are you?” the man shot back.

  The tone of his voice was like a volt of electricity in Sergio’s body, unpleasant, familiar. Without being aware of it, Sergio tightened his hands into fists.

  What had his grandmother taught him? Stay out of fights. Stay away from men who fight. When you see a fight, turn, walk the other way.

  There was nowhere to go, though. Nothing to do but sit and watch, still his body. Stay alert.

  “I work for the city of New York. Now, will you kindly take your seat. Sir,” the fireman answered.

  The man yanked at the handle again. “The city of New York. Well, that explains a lot.” He pulled harder, and suddenly the train lit up, bells were dinging, and the wheels screeched into motion, pitching the man forward. He hit his head hard on the door and slumped to the ground.

  Only then did the grocery woman wake up.

  “Oh my God. That man is bleeding!” she screamed.

  September 10, 2001

  2:45 p.m. EDT

  Columbus, Ohio

  Naheed’s very first hijab had been a gift when she was nine years old, from her mother. That day, instead of feeling different, it made Naheed feel connected.

  It made her feel grown-up and special.

  Her first hijab was robin’s-egg blue, the color of Naheed’s own eyes. That night her mother showed her how to pull back her hair and slip the solid blue headband over her head. Then her mother lifted up the long, lovely scarf and gently folded it around and around, enveloping her daughter in tradition and love. She gave Naheed her own strawberry-shaped pincushion, and together they sat in front of the mirror, practicing, wrapping and unwrapping, pinning and unpinning, until they both were laughing, and until Naheed’s own hands could nimbly fold and wrap and pin all by themselves, and until she looked almost as beautiful as her mother.

  “Now you have your thinking cap on, Naheed,” her mother said. “Do you know why I call it a thinking cap?”

  Naheed had wrapped the scarf counterclockwise around her head. Her mother was left handed and had wrapped clockwise. When her mother had been demonstrating, they had worked like mirror images, their hands and arms in unison. Naheed was only nine then, but she knew the answer to her mother’s question.

  “Because when I observe hijab, I am always reminded who I am.”

  Her mother nodded and smiled. “That’s good. That’s right. Always remember you can wear the silkiest, most beautiful hijab in the world, but what matters is what’s in here.” She tapped her heart and then her head. “And here. And how you treat people. Yourself included, dear one.”

  Naheed couldn’t wait to get to school and show everyone. All the girls wanted to know about it. They wanted her to show them how to put it on. They wanted to touch it. But that was then, fourth grade.

  That was before the boys stopped including everyone in their recess basketball games. And before the end of fifth grade, when girls formed blockades to the bathroom during lunchtime, allowing some girls in, while others had to wait.

  It was before middle school.

  And that was before this afternoon, when a bunch of kids in the cafeteria started a slow chant, all because of what Naheed had started in an effort to take the attention away from her hijab. It wasn’t what she’d intended, but now it was too late.

  “Annoying Eliza. Annoying Eliza.”

  At first it was quiet, under their breath when Eliza walked by with her tray, but it seemed to follow her and get louder when she didn’t react. Eliza kept her eyes straight ah
ead, as if she had been trained how to behave in these kinds of situations. She sat down alone, and eventually the collective caroling stopped. But when she got up to put away her tray, someone picked up the chant again, though not with quite the same zeal.

  “Annoying Eliza.”

  Naheed wanted to bury her head, hijab and all, in the ground and hide. She wanted to tell everyone to stop. The right thing to do would have been to stand up and help Eliza, even if she hadn’t been the cause of this whole mess. That would have been the right thing. Not to mention that she was the cause of it all, and Eliza looked so miserable.

  And alone.

  Instead Naheed sat at her table with her best friends, the three girls she had known since kindergarten. She sat with her back to the rest of the cafeteria, and she tried to eat her lunch.

  * * *

  Uncle Iman and Aunt Judith flung the front door wide open before Naheed could reach the handle.

  “Azizam, you are home.”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “How was your day in school today?” he asked.

  Naheed hadn’t even slipped her shoes off yet. It was a trick question anyway. Uncle Iman didn’t want his nieces in public school. He often fought with his brother about why he wasn’t sending Naheed and Nouri to a Muslim school.

  “Fine,” Naheed answered, though of course nothing was fine.

  Annoying Eliza.

  Annoying Eliza.

  Naheed ducked under her uncle’s arms and dodged past.

  “What kind of answer is ‘fine’?” Uncle Iman turned and followed her into the kitchen. “Did you do prayers today?”

  “Leave her alone, Iman,” Aunt Judith tried.

  That was a lot for her to say. Naheed’s uncle was very observant, and he did not believe a wife should ever contradict her husband. Naheed’s parents were nothing like that at all. The whole thing was very confusing, especially since Aunt Judith was a convert. She had not even been born into Islam.

  “I am leaving her alone. I am just asking if she prayed today,” Uncle Iman said, and they all walked into the kitchen.

  Naheed’s mother was at the sink. “She makes up her prayers at third prayer, Uncle Iman. Now go and get ready, Naheed. Nouri will be home soon. You can help her learn proper wudu tonight.”

  That seemed to quiet Uncle Iman.

  And maybe it was what Allah wanted her to do. But it wasn’t just your beliefs, her father had said many times, it was your behavior.

  Maybe praying would help, but fixing things with Eliza was going to take a little more planning.

  September 10, 2001

  3:25 p.m. EDT

  Shanksville, Pennsylvania

  One by one, without piling on top of one another, Will, Alex, Ben, and Claire skidded to a fast stop, dropped their bikes by the side of Skyline Drive, and headed toward the giant draglines that had been left behind in the abandoned strip mine. It was still bright out, though the sun had shifted to the other side of the horizon, above the tops of the far line of trees. The light had that tinted orange look that meant fall would be coming soon, and then the darkness of winter. But for now the summer extended just a little bit longer, and all four of them ran across the open ground until they were out of breath.

  “Wow, holy crud. They’re so freakin’ big.” Alex stood at the top of a small hill of dirt, in the midst of a huge hill of dirt, cleared long ago and now stretching empty, except for the two pieces of mining equipment resting in the distance.

  “They’re massive,” Ben said.

  Claire put her hand up to her forehead to shield her eyes from the lowering sun. “They look like two knights bowing to each other.”

  They did. The two huge machines faced each other, with their tall metal booms stretched out at an angle, like two medieval horsemen with their long swords tipped forward. Or sentinels, keeping guard, waiting patiently and silently.

  But only a girl would say something like that.

  Or Will’s dad.

  When Will and his sisters were little, their dad would lie with them in the grass in their backyard, looking up at the sky, at the low clouds and the way they moved over the tops of the trees. It always looked like the earth was spinning so fast. If you stared at them long enough, you felt dizzy.

  “I’m getting carsick,” Will’s sister Rooney said one time.

  And they all laughed.

  Will’s dad would see things in the clouds that no one else ever could. Fantastical things. Amazing things. Playful things that made the girls laugh, and magical things that made Will want to run inside and write stories about them.

  Why did he do something so dangerous, so stupid?

  Didn’t he think about us when he got out of his truck?

  Didn’t he think about me?

  * * *

  Everyone called his dad a hero, but it didn’t make sense. Heroes did heroic things, they saved lives, they pulled people out of burning buildings. They risked their lives to save others, but they didn’t die doing nothing. Of course he knew his father had done a good thing, or had tried to do a good thing. But what had come of it?

  “Hey, remember when we used to play WWF in your basement?” Will turned to Alex.

  “Yeah, but what made you think of that?”

  Anything to stop thinking about his dad.

  “This!” Will took a flying leap from the small hill of earth he was standing on and landed on Alex’s back. They both went down onto the loamy soil.

  It was like old times instantly. Ben spread his feet apart, to ground himself, lifted an imaginary microphone to his mouth, and began the color commentary.

  “And in this corner, weighing two hundred and ninety-five pounds, from Indian Lake, Pennsylvania . . . it’s the Earthquake, doing his signature move.”

  “Oh no,” Alex yelled, laughing, but it was too late. Will bounced from invisible rope to invisible rope, as if gaining momentum. He sat right down on Alex’s chest and stayed there, ostensibly holding him captive, while Alex flailed his legs and arms around helplessly. Ben slapped the ground, declaring Earthquake the winner.

  “This is dumb,” Claire said. She folded her arms over her chest and watched.

  It was dumb, but they couldn’t stop. Will couldn’t stop. It was too much fun. The boys took turns refereeing, winning, losing, being beaten, twisted and torn, from dropkicks, the flying clothesline, and the ever-impressive flapjack spine crusher.

  He was a kid again, and everything was going to be all right forever.

  “Hey, let’s do something else,” Claire called out. “Someone’s going to get hurt.”

  It wasn’t like she was wrong about that. Back in the day, down in Alex’s basement, Ben had once cut his head on the metal heating vent. Alex had gotten a rug burn so serious his mom had to take him to the doctor the next day. Will himself had gone home from their wrestling sessions aching, and wondering if he hadn’t cracked a rib or two.

  But it felt good to fight again. To fight back.

  To play hard and mean it.

  And not break.

  “Hey, I’m serious,” Claire yelled. “Stop!”

  Somehow her complaints just egged the boys on. What was a good fight without an audience? The more upset Claire got, the more fun it all seemed. The harder they fought.

  Will looked up from his face-plant. He could see that Claire was really getting annoyed. After all, he was the one who had asked her to come. And then Will remembered how many times he had thought about spending time with her.

  But not like this.

  It felt strange, like there were two halves to his body. One wanted to get up and hold Claire’s hand and just sit and look out at the clouds and the sky, maybe even talk.

  And who knows?

  And the other half wanted to struggle and roll and sweat and twist this person’s arm behind his back and not be worried about anything at all.

  “I’ve had it,” Claire said finally.

  Will could see her getting up and walking away. In another se
cond she’d be on her bike and heading back to her house, and in one more second she’d probably never want to talk to him again.

  They always had needed someone to tell them when enough was enough. Usually when someone got a little hurt and Alex’s mom came running down the basement stairs, telling everyone it was time to go home before someone got really hurt.

  Or when Alex’s little brother looked as if he might have gotten knocked unconscious for real and it was time to bribe him to keep his mouth shut.

  Or when Claire was walking away, lifting her bike off its side, swinging her leg over, and leaving.

  And she was gone.

  September 10, 2001

  2:10 p.m. PDT

  Los Angeles, California

  The last class of Aimee’s first day at her new school was her least favorite, physical education. Aimee considered opting out by claiming low blood sugar from involuntary fasting, but she decided against starting out the year as the class hypochondriac.

  Besides, everyone else looked so excited to be outside again in the scorching Los Angeles heat. She didn’t want to call attention to herself. She figured she could just blend in. Although out here in the bright sun, which was reaching higher into the sky, the other students’ hair looked even blonder. And in shorts, they all looked like Olympic track stars. Tan Olympic stars.

  “Okay, everyone, you can socialize later. I’ll give you time at the end of the period. Right now line up into the same teams we made last week.” The gym instructor was a ridiculously good-looking young teacher named Tom Cruise.

  For real.

  But maybe it wasn’t spelled that way.

  Of course, Aimee had no idea where to stand as the other kids started to separate themselves into two teams, meandering their way to one end of the grassy area or the other. If she didn’t move, she’d end up right in the middle, like a monkey, like a hot roasted monkey.

  It wasn’t that hot, to tell the truth. It was exactly as Aimee’s mother had promised, mild and dry, perfect Southern California weather.