FRESH YARN presents: My Own Private September 11th... by Susan Isaacs

FRESH YARN presents:

My Own Private September 11th
By Susan Isaacs

Most of us remember exactly what we were doing on September 11, the moment the planes hit the World Trade Center. Well, if you were in L.A., you were still asleep. I was an actor in New York; I was also still asleep. What's hard for me to remember is what I was doing the weekend before. Not because I can't, but because the details could have haunted me for the rest of my life.

The weekend before 9/11, I went on vacation to Miami with my boyfriend of one year. Neither Jack nor I had dated anyone that long, so we decided to celebrate: go somewhere new, lounge on a beach, watch Cuban men play dominoes. And we could stop arguing.

Jack blamed our arguments on us both being competitive. I blamed them on him being an ass. Jack was critical and controlling; but he was also thoughtful and sensitive, and really hot. And I thought a weekend away could help him relax and get back to being the thoughtful, sensitive, hot guy he was when we first met.

Jack took care of everything. He bought us a cheap, non-refundable airline and hotel package on Expedia. He wouldn't even let me get the rental car. Not because he didn't want me to pay for anything but because, in his words, "I don't want you to screw anything up!"

I was secretly pleased when the hotel in Miami turned out to be a dump. It was a 1980s concrete block, built on top of a shopping center that had shut down some time after Miami Vice got cancelled. You could stare over the hotel balcony down into the abandoned mall. A cement disk sat where a carousel had been yanked out. A busted sign read "Miami Moment's." With an apostrophe. There was nothing left but concrete and echoes. And there was nothing left at the hotel, except a bankruptcy seminar, a Landmark Forum meeting, and suckers who booked through Expedia.com.

Our room was decorated in pressboard and pastel and smelled of Lysol and B.O. "They say we have a water view," Jack said as he opened the drapes. It was a view of the retaining wall of the bridge that went to Miami Beach. Jack shrugged. "Well, at least we're freeway close."

I suggested we exercise our logistical privilege and take the bridge to South Beach. We slogged through the humidity, past art deco hotels and tourists taking pictures of the place where Versace got shot. We sought relief in an air-conditioned restaurant. Not that it was going to be relaxing. Jack was hyper-vigilant about restaurants. He only sat in far corner booths, back to the wall, eyes to the door, like he was in the witness protection program. And he was Danish.

"Don't get the omelet," Jack whispered nervously. "Get a salad and we'll share."

"Okay, how about the Turkey Cobb Ranch?" I suggested.

Jack huffed. "I hate cheese. I hate things that are creamy. I like things that are clear."

"Sorry they don't make clear meat."

"Look, I'm having a hard time relaxing," he pleaded.

"Yeah, I get that."

"No you don't!" I followed Jack's eyes. A group of gay men clucked at him.

Jack simmered. "I feel like a piece of meat."

"Well you're my piece of meat," I kissed him.

Jack jumped up. "Let's get out of here."

But there wasn't anywhere to go. Outside it was hot and muggy, and inside there was little to do if you weren't into drugs or bars. So, we got cranky and fought: over the way I drove the car, over who should reload the camera, over whether it was OK for me to answer my cell phone.

"This is a vacation," Jack growled. "You're not supposed to talk to other people!"

"Is that an Expedia rule?" I growled back.

"If you need to talk to your friends, maybe we shouldn't have come."

"Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we shouldn't be dating!"

Jack was silent. I almost felt bad for saying it.

"I just want to feel important in your life."

"Jack, you are important. I haven't gone on a vacation with a guy, ever. I haven't had a weekend with a girl friend since we started dating."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

I was exhausted, and we'd only been there 24 hours.

I took a nap and woke up to three-dozen Gerber daisies on the pressboard nightstand. Jack sat on the bed and touched my face. "Dinner on me. Anywhere you like."

Jack took me to a really nice seafood restaurant with a real nice water view. He bought me a nice salmon dinner. Which we shared. It was lovely. Until the waiter brought us the key lime pie.

"I should get more," Jack sulked. "Guys burn more calories than women."

"Then go drink an Ensure!" I snapped.

"I just get nervous when it looks like you're …"

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

And off we went, into a list of everything that was wrong with the other person. He was controlling; I didn't make him a priority. He was nit-picky; I was sloppy. He hated my friends; my friends were freaks. Well he was a freak!

We argued all the way back to the hotel, through the lobby, past a low-income prom, all the way to our shitty room. Jack apologized. I didn't. I got in bed, rolled over and fantasized of a loophole in the Expedia rules: if your date was a jerk, you could leave early. Alone.

We spent our last afternoon in a movie theater, dodging a monsoon that had moved in. I sat in my chair, silent, brittle. I was the victim here, and I liked it. Jack reached over and took my hand.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know how to do all of this. But I want to try. Please let me try." I leaned my head against his shoulder. It felt good. Until he got angry that I put my feet up on the empty seat in front of me.

On the plane ride back, we played Hangman and spelled out phrases like "Roger Maris," and "Sic Transit Gloria" and "I love you" in Danish. We laughed for the first time since we left New York.

On Monday September 10th, the monsoon followed us to Manhattan. I slopped to and from work. Jack lived only a few blocks from me, but I didn't call and I didn't stop by. Late that night, my cell phone finally rang. It was Jack.

"Hey," he grunted. I didn't want to like it. But it was his thoughtful, sensitive, hot guy grunt.

"Hey," I finally caved.

"I got another hangman question for you" he laughed.

"Miami Moment Apostrophe S?"

"No. 'Look O__t Your W__ndow.' "

I pulled open the curtains. There on the street below I saw his blonde head soaked with rain, and heard his cackling laugh through the phone. The arguments were forgotten.

We went for a walk in our neighborhood. The storm passed; the stars came out. The breeze felt good and clean and forgiving.

"Do you want to come in?" I asked.

"No, I'm exhausted. And I have to go in to work early."

"I can get up early and go in with you" I offered, grabbing his torso.

"No," he pulled away. "I have to be at work at 8 am sharp. And I can't be late!"

"Chill out. You're only going to Midtown."

"No, downtown. We have a conference at the World Trade Center."

We kissed goodbye. Jack walked a few paces and turned back to wave. He always did that when we said goodbye: he'd walk a few paces, turn and wave. Walk and wave. After three waves, he'd turn away for good. But this time he kept turning back, until his pale head disappeared into the pattern of night.

On September 11 at 8:49 AM, my cell phone rang. I almost didn't answer.

Jack's conference was at Windows on the World, the 106th floor of the North Tower. It started at 8:00 am. And Jack, my hyper-vigilant Jack, got up early, had his coffee, got his corner seat on the subway… and fell asleep. He missed his stop. He made it to the World Trade Center lobby, and got into the express elevator. But the attendant wasn't going up until more people got into the car. He looked at his cell phone. It was 8:46.

That's when the plane hit. Everyone in the elevator scattered into the lobby. Some ran out to the street, some down to the subway, some into eternity. But Jack dodged the chunks of falling concrete and debris and body parts. He made it as far as a block and stopped to call me.

What if I had ridden the train in with him? Would I have pointed out his stop? What if the elevator attendant hadn't waited for more passengers? And what if we hadn't argued incessantly in Miami? Maybe he wouldn't have been so exhausted as to fall asleep on the train. What if my last image of Jack was of him turning back one last time to wave goodbye? For some that's all they have: some random memory of something that's supposed to be commonplace.

But Jack ran eight miles home. I met him at his doorstep: hot and sweaty in his one good suit, alive. Jack and I had two more years of arguments and break-ups and make-ups, until one argument stuck and we broke up. Badly. For good. A couple years later we became good friends again and then drifted apart.

You know how you can look back at a relationship and shudder, "Did I even go out with that guy?" Here was someone I was joined at the soul to, and now he looks like a stranger I know I'm supposed to know. But I know Jack and I happened. Because 9/11 happened, and there's a gaping hole in New York to prove it. There is also a gaping hole in my heart to prove it.

I am grateful we ended it. I'm grateful we became friends again, if even for a short period of time. But mostly I am grateful that my last memory of him wasn't some argument over who ate more of the key lime pie.