His eyes didn’t stay closed much longer. As Sebastian and Brynn regaled Malik with tales of Vietri Sul Mare and the Amalfi Cathedral and boat excursions and grottos galore, he and Laila sat in awed silence as Manhattan spilled out before them. He’d spent a fair amount of time in Denver, and of course he’d lived in Boulder for a couple years. He’d traveled throughout the Four Corners states pretty extensively and had even gone to LA with his mom when he was younger. Once, when he was twenty-three, he’d driven all the way to Houston so his grandfather could reunite with his brother, Burt, one more time. And he and Laila had spent one of her birthdays in Vegas. But none of that could ever prepare anyone for what his brain was trying to make sense of in New York.
It wasn’t just that it was bigger than he’d pictured it or that he couldn’t see the tops of skyscrapers that rose up past the clouds. It was that every direction he looked was familiar . . . and yet unlike anything he’d ever experienced. They gawked at the recognizable highlights of the skyline—the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, other buildings that they knew but had no idea what they were called. Cole had never so much as imagined what it would be like to visit New York. He hadn’t spent time studying coffee table books of NYC architecture, and he certainly hadn’t watched as many movies as Laila and Brynn had—though he was suddenly anxious to track down some locales from Home Alone 2—but he still somehow felt like he’d been plucked up from his everyday existence and dropped into the middle of something he’d experienced in a dream and forgotten about by the time he awoke.
“Cole.” Laila’s voice jolted him from his wonder, though her voice was barely strong enough to form his name. Nevertheless she got his attention, and he turned to follow her gaze out his side of the vehicle.
It was a strange thing to have lived in a place like Adelaide Springs during a scary, uncertain time like 9/11 and everything that came after that day. They’d sat in Mrs. Stoddard’s classroom and watched the coverage all day like everyone else the world over, and it had been shocking and heartbreaking, of course. But it had also felt so distant. Like it impacted them, but it also had so very little to do with them. The closest anyone in town got to knowing someone directly affected by the attacks was Lucinda Morissey’s dad having spent some time working at the Pentagon, though he had long ago retired from the Defense Department and had moved on to installing xeriscaping in the Tucson area. Doc Atwater and his late wife had taken a trip to New York for a medical conference once, and Doc said they had bought tickets for Phantom of the Opera at the half-price TKTS booth in one of the twin towers. That was it, as far as anyone knew.
Before anyone knew any facts, the citizens of Adelaide Springs had sat around speculating and theorizing just like everyone else had—Where had Flight 93 been heading? What would be the terrorists’ next target?—but there wasn’t a single theory, realistic or otherwise, that put them in direct danger. Security was supposedly heightened around the Hoover Dam, and Fenton Norris had speculated the ultimate target was Area 51, but that was as close as the fears ever got to them. As relatively conscientious teenagers coming of age in a suddenly very confusing world, Cole and his friends had been less relieved by that and more stricken with guilt: when they probably should have been counting their blessings that they were able to go to sleep in peace, breathing in clear, ash-free air and not having lost a single person they knew, much less loved, they dreamed of getting out instead. They didn’t feel protected. They felt sheltered. Agitation sparked rather than grateful peace.
And now the World Trade Center was just out their window, reflecting the moonlight that pierced the clouds the shimmering building rose into. Cole couldn’t tell how far away it was—he didn’t know how to compute the size of the city, only that skyscraper ratios and proportions skewed differently than the mountains he was used to—but he figured he could walk there without breaking a sweat. And since he’d be taking that walk at sea level for a change, he was almost sure of it.
“Brynn, how did you ever get used to this?” Laila asked.
Brynn turned in her second-row seat to face them, just as Malik slowed down and then shifted the vehicle into Park. “Who said I have?” The driver’s door opened, causing the interior light to come on, and the smile was evident on Brynn’s face.
She jumped out when Malik opened her door, and then it was Sebastian’s turn to look back at Cole and Laila in the third row, still staring out the window, though their view of the tallest of the buildings had been blocked by much shorter buildings that were still taller than any they’d ever stepped foot in. “For the record, your mountains have a similar effect on those of us who grew up with the man-made wonders. I’ll never get used to having fourteen-thousand-foot peaks outside my window. Peaks that are . . . what? Seven or eight One World Trades stacked on top of each other? I’d imagine there are days when you don’t even notice them anymore.”
Sebastian climbed out on his side, and then Brynn poked her head back in to add, “I’m so excited that you guys are here. Seriously. I can’t wait to show you the city.” And then she grabbed another Red Bull from the cooler and trilled, “Let’s go!”
Cole sighed as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “She doesn’t mean tonight, does she? She can’t mean she wants to show us the city tonight.”
Laila laughed and climbed out the door. “Hmm. Who’s wishing they’d been passed out all day now, huh? See? I knew exactly what I was doing.”
* * *
Thankfully Brynn’s middle-of-the-night tour of the city was brief.
“So this is Tribeca. JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette lived . . . oh, I think about eight doors down that way.” She pointed to the right of the redbrick building she was standing in front of. Sebastian and Malik had already gone inside with all the luggage.
“You ‘think’?” Laila asked. “Who do you think you’re talking to here, Brynn?”
Cole hadn’t necessarily been able—or even tried—to keep up with all of the girls’ celebrity crushes through the years, but he vaguely remembered one of them dramatically refusing to eat or shower or something until JFK Jr.’s plane was found. They would have been fourteen or so, right? It certainly made the most sense that the boy-crazy, pubescent, and yet somehow still mature-beyond-her-years Brynn Cornell of his recollections would have been the one conducting the round-the-clock vigil.
Her sheepish grin shone under the streetlamp. “Okay, yeah. They lived exactly eight doors down that way. I can make it there in eleven seconds. Nine if there aren’t any lookie-loos around, and I don’t have to be extra careful not to trip. Wanna see?”
Cole laughed. “How many energy drinks did you consume, woman?”
Brynn looped her arm in his. “Come on. Let’s go. Run with me.”
“I have zero interest in that. Maybe less than zero. I mean no disrespect to the deceased celebrities that none of us ever met, but I’m exhausted. Right now, all I want is to—”
“Did you tell him that the Ghostbusters firehouse is just across the street?”
Cole’s head snapped toward Sebastian, standing on the black metal landing in front of the building that, presumably, was where they lived, though there was a sign for a pediatrician on the door. So far, New York didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him. But Ghostbusters? In a world of chaos and confusion, Ghostbusters would always make sense.
“What are you talking about?”
Malik laughed and stepped down from the landing after telling Sebastian good night, and then cordially said goodbye to everyone. He pulled the Escalade away, and the street was quiet and mostly dark again.
Brynn kept holding on to Cole’s arm and pulled him out slightly into the empty street. She pointed in front of them. “See number twenty? That’s John-John’s apartment. Then there’s that bar on the corner. And then see right there? Across Varick Street? That brick building with the red—”
Holy crap. “Race you there.”
Brynn guffawed. But even as she laughed, she hiked her skirt a little farther above her knees, looked down at the sensible-by-Brynn’s-standard-but-definitely-not-meant-to-be-run-in heels she was wearing, and lowered her body into the stature of a sprinter, waiting for the pistol to fire.
“Ready, set, go!” Cole shouted, too quickly, taking Brynn by surprise and bringing an abrupt end to her laughter.
Cole’s exhausted, time zone–confused, thirty-nine-year-old body that had been lugging his comatose best friend from sea to shining sea all day took in a couple lungsful of sea level–dense oxygen and ran like the wind toward a relic from what had been his obsession when he was fourteen.
Yesterday afternoon he’d been in mourning.
Last night he’d been abandoned.
This morning he’d been lost and wandering.
But now? Now he was running toward his boyhood fantasy of taking on the Gatekeeper. Not a bad way to turn around a crushing hand being dealt, all in all.