Allegra Goodman - The Cookbook Collector

Mel drove along the river to Logan, and he had no idea how close Jonathan was at that moment, nor did Sorel and Orion. They didn’t see Jonathan coming. No one ever did.

“I’m thinking of writing a dot-com opera,” Sorel said, leaning against Orion, head on his shoulder.

“How would that work?” he asked.

“It would be sort of Tommy meets Ring of the Nibelung.”

They heard Jonathan’s voice first. “What are you guys doing here?” And then they saw him, bright-eyed, sweaty, jogging in place.

Sorel sat up straight.

“Jonathan,” Orion said heartily. “How’s it going?”

Jonathan looked at the two of them with his dangerous smile. “Come here often?”

“Bird-watching,” Sorel said, gesturing toward the fat black geese waddling and honking on the bank.

“Not much to look at,” said Jonathan.

“I’m quite nearsighted,” Sorel explained, embracing the absurdity of the situation. “I can’t see the smaller species, so we come here for the … large-print birds.”

Humor helped. Jonathan’s smile softened, and he shook his head ever so slightly. Then Orion knew he wouldn’t tell. He was never sure which Jonathan he would meet, but this morning he lucked into his old friend, the joker and the rugby player; the boy, not the tycoon.

Under the redwoods, the early-dawn air was chilly, and George tucked the blanket around Jess. “You were tired, after all.”

Jess didn’t answer. She was still asleep, even as Leon and the Tree Savers camped in Wood Rose Glen, and Daisy shielded Galadriel, and Emily called Jess’s cell phone, which was now lost, forgotten in the tree along with her waterlogged Thoreau. Emily left messages. “You said you were coming home on September 11. I’m just wondering where you are, Jess.”

At ISIS, programmers drifted to work with cups of coffee. In Central Square, Molly was arriving home, postcall from Beth Israel Deaconess. She was winded, climbing the stairs. She had no time for the gym. She had no time for anything. She had eaten a blueberry muffin for dinner. Blinking in the bright sun, she thought of babies, because all night she had been assisting in deliveries. She had worked for a day and a night inside the hospital, and now it was morning again, and as she walked, she thought of tiny bodies, eyes opening in surprise, mouths opening to cry, forming perfect little Os.

Years later, they remembered where they had been. At their desks or in their beds, indoors or out. Driving, walking, working, alert, or half asleep. Each recalled momentary confusion. An airplane hit the World Trade Center. Pilot error? Technical glitch? And then the shock. A second plane. No accident. No mistake. The flames were real, as everyone could see on television. The Twin Towers burning, again and again. Bodies falling, again and again. The same towers, and the same bodies, and the Pentagon in flames. The scenes played constantly, at once heartbreaking and titillating, their repetition necessary, but also cheapening. Who, after all, could believe such a catastrophe after just one viewing? And who, after viewing once, could look away?

Finishing the night shift at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Mrs. Gibbs saw the fire on every TV, in every patient’s room.

Waking early in Los Altos, Laura found her children staring at the giant television in the den. She stood transfixed with her three little ones in their pajamas, until she began to understand what they were seeing, and snatched the remote control away.

Across the country, Chaya Zylberfenig was running on her treadmill in the bedroom, and she called her husband. “Shimon! Come quick!” even as her feet kept moving under her.

Shimon didn’t hear. He was sitting outside with his New York Times , reading headlines already out of date. As so often, Chaya would be the one to tell him what had happened. Hands on hips, she watched him watch the planes smash into the towers on TV. With dark fierce eyes, she glared at her quixotic husband, as if to say: I dare you to find the good in this.

At ISIS in his corner office, Dave was meeting with Aldwin, when Amanda ran in. “Look at CNN!” That was when Dave saw the breaking story on his desktop. He watched along with Jonathan’s friend as the words American Airlines Flight 11 flashed across the screen.

“That wasn’t Jonathan’s flight, was it?” Aldwin asked. “That wasn’t …”

Amanda was covering her mouth with her hand.

“Call the airline!” Dave screamed at her.

She burst into tears as she fled back to her office.

Orion lay in bed, asleep after the all-nighter, and his cell phone started ringing on the floor. When he found the phone and opened it, he heard Sorel crying on the other end.

“What?” Orion said, and his voice was fuzzy with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

“Jonathan’s flight,” she said.

“I can’t hear you,” Orion told her. “Slow down. Sorel, Sorel …”

At that moment Molly rushed in from the kitchen, and he closed the phone.

Molly looked so pale that he thought she’d heard him talking, but she had not heard him murmuring Sorel’s name. She’d heard the news, and now they watched the flames on television. They watched together, and he read his e-mail, the ISIS announcement that Mel and Jonathan were on American Flight 11 and presumed dead.

Molly leaned against him, and he wrapped his arm around her as he stared at the inferno on the screen. Of course, Jonathan had been Molly’s friend too. The news shook her too. He felt the weight of Molly’s head on his shoulder, the softness of her face. Despite their troubles, her long hours, her nagging, their estrangement, they absorbed this shock together.

And yet he had to talk to Sorel. He had to be with her. He knew she needed him as well. They had been the last to see Jonathan, and Jonathan had been the first to see them together.

He remembered Jonathan’s smile at the river, his expression mischievous but forgiving, his slight shake of the head, as if to say, I won’t say anything. He remembered Jonathan’s laughter, and his aggression. The way he turned from fun-loving to steely, cold—until he switched back again, once he got his way. Be very careful , Jonathan told Orion once, and for a moment Orion had hated his old friend, but Jonathan was impossible to hate for long. Of course Orion pitied Mel, poor guy. He remembered Mel too, but in death, as in life, Jonathan was the one you couldn’t shake. He was the world beater, the history maker. He had a force field all his own. He drew you in. Oh, Emily, Orion thought. What are you feeling now? How are you getting through?

She heard on the radio just as she sat down for breakfast. She was sitting at her white table, with her bags already packed for L.A. She was bringing them to Veritech and then going to the airport straight from work. That was the plan, anyway. That had been the plan….

Breaking into Susan’s report to give you breaking news from New York City where planes , two planes, have hit both towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan—the upper floors of the World Trade Center, a hundred and ten stories high …

That’s terrible, she thought, as she sliced a banana into her cereal. The first plane is said to be a commercial airline, and the second, also thought to be a commercial jet …. Software failure? she wondered, as she began to eat. The indications are that one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center was in fact a hijacked plane. The American Airlines plane from Boston …