that’s the only reason I was able to get through at all. Lots of others have been trying,
we’re lousy with cell phones, but no luck.” That beep again. “Only now my phone’s
almost out of juice.”
“Jimmy, did you know?” This idea has been the hardest and most terrible part for
her—that he might have known, if only for an endless minute or two. Others might
picture burned bodies or dismembered heads with grinning teeth; even light-fingered
first responders filching wedding rings and diamond ear-clips, but what has robbed
Annie Driscoll’s sleep is the image of Jimmy looking out his window as the streets
and cars and the brown apartment buildings of Brooklyn swell closer. The useless
masks flopping down like the corpses of small yellow animals. The overhead bins
popping open, carry-ons starting to fly, someone’s Norelco razor rolling up the tilted
aisle.
“Did you know you were going down?”
“Not really,” he says. “Everything seemed all right until the very end—maybe the last
thirty seconds. Although it’s hard to keep track of time in situations like that, I always
think.”
Situations like that. And even more telling: I always think. As if he has been aboard
half a dozen crashing 767s instead of just the one.
“In any case,” he goes on, “I was just calling to say we’d be early, so be sure to get
the FedEx man out of bed before I got there.”
Her absurd attraction for the FedEx man has been a joke between them for years. She
begins to cry again. His cell utters another of those beeps, as if scolding her for it.
“I think I died just a second or two before it rang the first time. I think that’s why I
was able to get through to you. But this thing’s gonna give up the ghost pretty soon.”
He chuckles as if this is funny. She supposes that in a way it is. She may see the
humor in it herself, eventually. Give me ten years or so, she thinks.
Then, in that just-talking-to-myself voice she knows so well: “Why didn’t I put the
tiresome motherfucker on charge last night? Just forgot, that’s all. Just forgot.”
“James…honey…the plane crashed two days ago.”
A pause. Mercifully with no beep to fill it. Then: “Really? Mrs. Corey said time was
funny here. Some of us agreed, some of us disagreed. I was a disagreer, but looks like
she was right.”
“Hearts?” Annie asks. She feels now as if she is floating outside and slightly above
her plump damp middle-aged body, but she hasn’t forgotten Jimmy’s old habits. On a
long flight he was always looking for a game. Cribbage or canasta would do, but
hearts was his true love.
“Hearts,” he agrees. The phone beeps again, as if seconding that.
“Jimmy…” She hesitates long enough to ask herself if this is information she really
wants, then plunges with that question still unanswered. “Where are you, exactly?”
“Looks like Grand Central Station,” he says. “Only bigger. And emptier. As if it
wasn’t really Grand Central at all but only…mmm…a movie-set of Grand Central.
Do you know what I’m trying to say?”
“I…I think so…”
“There certainly aren’t any trains…and we can’t hear any in the distance…but there
are doors going everywhere. Oh, and there’s an escalator, but it’s broken. All dusty,
and some of the treads are broken.” He pauses, and when he speaks again he does so
in a lower voice, as if afraid of being overheard. “People are leaving. Some climbed
the escalator—I saw them—but most are using the doors. I guess I’ll have to leave,
too. For one thing, there’s nothing to eat. There’s a candy machine, but that’s broken,
too.”
“Are you…honey, are you hungry?”
“A little. Mostly what I’d like is some water. I’d kill for a cold bottle of Dasani.”
Annie looks guiltily down at her own legs, still beaded with water. She imagines him
licking off those beads and is horrified to feel a sexual stirring.
“I’m all right, though,” he adds hastily. “For now, anyway. But there’s no sense
staying here. Only…”
“What? What, Jimmy?”
“I don’t know which door to use.”
Another beep.
“I wish I knew which one Mrs. Corey took. She’s got my damn cards.”