The Suite Life (31 page)

“Pleasure to meet you, Samantha.” Marvin smiled broadly.

“Likewise,” Gregory added with a smile to match.

“The pleasure is all mine,” I said in return.

“I'm going to do everything I can to make sure there's more pleasure than pain in delivering this play to the public,” Mary assured us.

“Sort of like childbirth, I suppose,” Marvin said.

“He's the writer in the group,” Mary said to me as we sat down.
Not the only one.
“Probably belongs on the
Saturday Night Live
staff, but he's stuck teaching English lit and composition in a high school up in Rhode Island.”

“It has its rewards, you know,” Marvin said.

“Of course it does, darling,” Mary said. “But Gregory has designs on a huge PR career, and if he handles the promotion for this play as well as I think he can, there's going to be a lot more of a payoff right here in the big city.”

“I'm looking forward to that,” Marvin said, resting a hand on his partner's. “We've been together fifteen years and this is the most exciting thing we've done together.”

“Careful there”—Gregory laughed with a raised eyebrow—“or you'll ruin my reputation.”

It was obvious they were excited about what they were doing, and obvious, too, that they were in love, which I already knew from reading the play.

“You're my kind of people,” I said.

“Now it's your turn to be careful, Samantha,” Mary said. “No telling what these two will do to you if you fall under their spell.”

“Just between us girls,” I said to all three, “I can handle myself.”

The group laugh was just what this girl needed to forget her problems, at least for a while. When I opened my eyes early Sunday morning I felt refreshed for the first time in a week, even though I had stayed at the theater until nearly midnight. It was a joy to be with creative people who accepted me at face value and wanted to work with me, and to feel, for the first time since my whirlwind wedding to Alec, that I was beginning to reclaim control over my own life, my own destiny.

Alec wasn't due back until late Monday night, so I had two whole days to work on budgets and schedules, make the calls that needed to be made, and, best of all, think about the door that was opening up for me. Sadly, there was no one with whom I could share my excitement, especially not with my husband. I wasn't in the mood yet to talk to him about anything, but even if I were, he wouldn't understand what could be so exciting about an artsy project involving a couple of gay men and not much monetary reward.

I was under the covers and barely awake when he lumbered into the room and got undressed on his way to the bed.

“Trip go okay?” I mumbled.

“Coulda been better,” he said as his head hit the pillow. “See you in the morning.”

“G'night,” I mumbled, squeezing the rosary beads under my pillow and saying a prayer for a better tomorrow.

Alec's alarm clock woke both of us up, as usual, on Tuesday morning. He groaned, poured out of bed like molasses in winter, and plodded into the bathroom. Hearing Alma already in the
kitchen, I jumped out of bed, quickly got dressed, and went to get Isabella so that she could say good morning and good-bye to her father as soon as he got out of the shower.

I sat down on my daughter's bed and, as she wiped the sleep from her eyes, had some fun pointing to the blue sky and puffy clouds visible through her window and telling her we would be out there soon on this glorious late summer day. After a quick bowl of her favorite cereal in the breakfast nook, I got her dressed in her favorite outfit—jeans (the umpteenth reminder that I hadn't been allowed to wear jeans, favorite or otherwise, until I was ten years old) and a frilly pink T-shirt—and escorted her to her father, who stopped fussing with his tie to fuss over her.

When I got back from walking her to nursery school Alec had already left, so I camped out in the breakfast nook with my laptop and started to make some notes for the show. I was soon lost in my work and a half hour or more had flown by when I heard a muffled explosion somewhere in the neighborhood.

What the hell was that?

Before I could get to the window, the phone rang.

“A plane just hit the World Trade Center, Sam,” Alec said, his voice as cold as ice. “No one knows what the fuck happened. Could be some moron flying a commuter plane back from the Hamptons for all I know. But it's only a couple of blocks away and I'm not taking any chances. I'm going for Isabella.”

He hung up without waiting for a reply.

This has got to be bullshit.

I switched on the TV. There was no mention of a commuter plane, but there was plenty of information about a full-sized commercial jet crashing into the north tower.
What on earth is going on?

I couldn't pry my eyes away from the television as I, along with the rest of the world, watched a second jet hit the south tower only minutes later.

The phone rang again seconds after that, and Alec huffed on his cell phone. “We're getting the hell out of here, Sam. Meet us at the garage.”

Still in a state of shock, I grabbed my purse and Hercules's leash, and Alma, the dog, and I all bolted out the door, down to the lobby, and out onto the street, headed for Isabella's nursery school.
I'm not taking any chances, either.

I craned my neck toward the top of the towers as we hustled along. The smoke, the flames . . . the
holes
 . . . seemed surreal. But the blaring sirens and frantic activity everywhere—thousands and thousands of people running in all directions—were all too real.

Please, God, keep my Isabella safe.

I broke into a run and arrived at the school almost at the same time as Alec. Despite the chaos all around, I suddenly remembered the first time I'd run into him in that very same neighborhood. The children were gathered in the bomb shelter belowground, so Alec and I raced down the steps as he ordered the first woman he saw to “
get me my child
 . . .
NOW
.”

Alec swept Isabella up into his arms and we all hurried back up to the street. Alec-the-former-football-player barreled and cut his way through the crowds with me on his tail, and more than one person ricocheted off his midsection, spinning around and almost falling in his wake as I had that day just over five years before. By the time we got to the garage and joined the line at the attendant's booth, we were gasping for air as if there would be no tomorrow, and in all the chaos it seemed as if there might not be.

We were just about at the head of the line when a collective scream rose on the block as people started to jump from the burning towers. We shielded our daughter from that horror, but before we could even process what was happening, the south tower started to crumble onto itself. The roar when it crashed was from the bowels of hell itself.

“Oh my God!” a chorus of people nearby screeched as the possibility that all of us would soon perish became all too real.

I was afraid I'd lose my mind first.

“The train went
boom,
Mommy,” Isabella said.

We reached the attendant's window just as a wall of smoke and debris blew down the street and a mounted policeman showed up in the driveway.

“No one's driving into or out of this area,” he barked. “Everyone below Canal Street has to evacuate on foot—
now
.”

“Where the hell are we supposed to go?” Alec and a host of others shouted.

“There's a ferry being set up at the Battery Park marina.”

“Let's go!” Alec shouted, and I was never more grateful for his ability to move fast as he led our escape.

We arrived at the ferry point completely out of breath again, and we stood in line for a spot on one of the boats making round trips to the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. It was less than a mile away from where we were and I prayed to the Blessed Mother that we would be among those who made it out alive.

I was still praying when we finally made it onto a deck that was enveloped in gray smoke and more crowded than the worst subway at rush hour. The ferry shoved off as everyone on board looked back at Lady Liberty being swallowed up in smoke and at the fire that still raged near the top of the north tower.

When that tower started its collapse, we gasped as one. More than a few clutched their hearts, and scores cried.

I have no idea how many were crying inside, as I was. I reached for my daughter, pulled her head to my lips, and closed my eyes.

I'm a refugee again.

My heart was in my throat as everyone shuffled off the ferry in eerie silence, and I had no idea how we arrived at the Newark Armory. I could, however, explain the car that was waiting for us there, as Alec maximized comfort in whatever situation he found himself; he must have made a call from the ferry while I was losing my mind. Thank God his cell phone was working, because many were not.

Getting into a limo restored a measure of sanity to the DeMarco family, even though we were surrounded by camouflaged military trucks and National Guard soldiers. The driver snaked his way to the George Washington Bridge, and we made it across just as the Guard was sealing it off to civilian traffic. By that time I'd regained a semblance of sanity, but it still seemed as if we were in some kind of post-apocalyptic war movie.

We made our way out to Long Island, a trip that took six hours instead of the usual two. Franco and Monica were already there, physically if not mentally, and he informed us that there had been no way to talk Filomena into leaving the Brooklyn home she had shared for decades with Giovanni. If we were all going to die, she said, she wanted to do it there. Gary, who had
managed to get a call to her while he was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, said that Gianna was meeting him there and they would stay with her in Brooklyn. Alec said we'd stay on the island until things calmed down and then join them when we could.

My laser-focused husband scrambled to work long-distance while I scrambled to keep my sanity over the next two days. He holed up in his father's office, and I camped out on a couch in the solarium or a chair in Isabella's room while she played or slept.

I'd been having enough trouble trying to make sense of the life I was living; now I found myself trying to make sense of life itself.

Who would do such a thing?

I hadn't made much progress by the time we pulled ourselves together for the trip to Brooklyn. I went to the TV to switch off the nonstop coverage of the destruction mere blocks from my home and froze in my tracks when I caught the image of the most recent discovery amid the ruins.

As I stared at the perfectly formed steel cross sticking out from a pile of rubble under a clear blue sky, a spark of hope for the future ignited in my soul.

Over the course of the next month, it was a mixed bag of hope and despair at the DeMarco residence in Brooklyn. Alec made a couple of trips by limo into Manhattan to take Hercules to stay with our dog walker, to get us some clothes, and to enroll Isabella in a West Village nursery school, so a semblance of order was restored. He took me with him on one excursion to our apartment so I could scrounge up any personal items I wanted, but other than the first book I'd read to Isabella and my rosary collection, the only thing I cared about was my manuscript. The apartment was covered in soot and dust that got in through a window I had left slightly ajar at the time the buildings
collapsed and the place would have to be professionally cleaned before it was even safe for us to live there.

I reconnected with Mary, Marvin, and Gregory as soon as possible, and we got back to working on the play.

Compared to so many others, I was safe in a world that had just been turned upside down. Every night after my head hit my pillow I said prayers of thanks for my family's safety and for Alma's reassuring presence. I also prayed for Filomena, who was still so devastated by the loss of her husband that the terrorist attack barely registered, and for Franco and Monica, whose marriage was disintegrating before my eyes. Still, the irony wasn't lost on me that, because of Alec, I was once more back in Brooklyn, whether I liked it or not.

The last thing I prayed for every night was for enough strength and wisdom to narrow the distance between us, created not only by his short temper and inexcusable treatment of Hercules but also by the fact that he was working late in Manhattan almost every night and entertaining without me most of the time. These days, even when we did go out together socially or to a business function, he barely acknowledged me, and when he did it was usually pointing out how hot I was to one of his cronies. He was barely more than cordial whenever he was at home, and usually medicated in some fashion, legal or otherwise. He issued orders about everything from having dinner ready to getting Isabella to and from school on time, and there were few opportunities to connect with him, let him open up, let him know how I really felt about things. No matter how hard I tried to talk to him, he blew me off every chance he had, saying that he had no time for my selfishness.
My selfishness
 . . .
really?
And I could count on the fingers of one hand the times I remembered that we were husband and wife in bed. It was as if he had put me and Isabella in a nice little box that he kept on a shelf to be opened up when he was in the mood to do so.