Ten Girls to Watch (37 page)

Now that that was done, I could go ahead and escape my burning building. For a second, I even felt elated, like I’d rescued the only thing that mattered, so who the heck cared if the rest of it burned. I coughed, choking on the smoke, and took as deep a breath as I dared through my scarf before opening my door once again and charging into the stairwell.

Could the stairs really take so long to descend? They felt like Escher stairs. I banged on the other apartment doors again, just to be sure. And then, at last, I reached the front door and tumbled out into the pouring rain. Across the street, I joined the huddled collection of neighbors, people I recognized from mailbox interactions, but none of whom I actually knew beyond pleasantries. Still, a quick survey of faces was enough to know we were all out. Another quick survey—this one of the building—was enough to know we weren’t going back inside. Actual flames lit the windows on the first and now the second floor.

We talked to one another with surprising calm, as if this were a fire drill, not an actual fire. The guys from the ground floor had 911 on the phone. We watched the fire climb for another minute. It was like watching one of those fireplace DVDs, logs charring on your TV screen—that’s how removed it felt from any actual peril or trauma. I looked down at the way the light from the fire lit my hands. The glow on my skin looked warm and cozy, except for the plinking raindrops that ever so slightly ruined the effect. We heard sirens in the distance.

Two neighbors had been smart enough to grab umbrellas, and I joined the mass pressed together for protection from the storm. Here I was, the twisted version of Teresa Anderson peeking out from beneath her umbrella in the inaugural TGTW photo spread. Velvet dress replaced with monkey pajamas, tuxedoed date replaced with burly, bathrobed neighbor. No need to reach from under the umbrella to check for rain. How strange it was to watch a building burn in the midst of a deluge.

By the time the trucks showed up in force, Mohamed, the owner of the twenty-four-hour bodega on the corner, had taken our shivering, sloshing mass of humanity into his store. As it grew apparent that our building and all our worldly possessions were quickly becoming nothing but soggy ash, he even started taking orders for egg sandwiches. Whatever style we wanted, on the house. When his griddle momentarily burst into a ceiling-high grease fire, I didn’t move a muscle, except for the contraction of my stomach, gasping with a shocked half gasp, half laugh. Luckily, Mohamed wasn’t laughing. Moments later, fire extinguisher clouds and fumes filled the bodega. Our huddled mass returned to the sidewalk.

Eventually firefighters and neighbors from up and down the block mingled among us. By that point, rain still gushing down, most of us had given up on umbrellas. I was leaning against the iron fence across the street from what had been my apartment, waiting for emotion but still feeling blank. It was like I’d blistered over, a haze insulating me from the injury for the time being. The haze was helpful. I was staring out into the rain when Trevor the firefighter ambled by.

“You again,” I said.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” I deadpanned. “It’s fate bringing us together.”

He froze.

“I’m kidding,” I said.

He nodded seriously. “This happens way too often in old buildings. Water damage and electrical fires.”

“I thought electrical fires were made up,” I answered, my voice flat, the energy required to make it otherwise beyond me.

“Well, they don’t usually burn buildings to the ground. But this one started in the basement, and it looks like there were lots of flammable materials down there. Paint stuff, scrap wood.”

Paint stuff and scrap wood? The paint stuff and scrap wood I’d hauled down there in Sylvia’s wake? I hadn’t cried yet, but now the tears started. Luckily, the rain rendered them invisible. Trevor ambled along.

By five thirty or so, the Red Cross arrived to dole out coats, shoes, whatever we needed. Except umbrellas, no umbrellas. Also no fancy dresses for gala events. I took a pair of socks instead. As the fire crew and Red Cross volunteers mingled among us, news spread—flooding rain was overwhelming the subway pumps. Water on the tracks meant F train service was suspended. The A train was still running, but who knew for how long. Really? It was almost funny at that point, except it wasn’t at all.

During the hours in the rain, I realized that without my cell phone I knew exactly two numbers: Robert’s cell, and my childhood home phone. Perfect since Robert wasn’t answering my calls and was probably off on a holiday vacation with Lily somewhere. Doubly perfect since my mom had disconnected that line and only used her cell phone now, a number I’d never bothered to memorize. I also realized I had nothing in this world but the “outfit” I was wearing, the laptop in the plastic grocery bag under my arm, and the stuffed animal collection I’d wisely kept back in Oregon. This included having no money. Not even any access to the thirty-one dollars I had in the bank—paying my January rent had proved to be a poor decision.

I might have tried to talk the subway booth operator into letting me through the turnstiles, even without a card. But apparently, thanks to the flooding, that option was out. If I’d had a few bucks in my pocket I might have tried to hail a cab or flag a livery car. But that option was out too. So finally, I just started walking. At first I wasn’t sure where, and then a few blocks in, I realized. I was heading to midtown, to the Mandalay Carson building. It was, for now, the only place I had left to go.

Danni Chung,

Yale University, 2001

_________

THE DIVA

Fluent in French, Spanish, and Mandarin, this multi-talented East Asian Studies major is also a gifted soprano. After founding the Yale/China Summer Academy, which provides teaching opportunities for Yale undergraduates and offers courses that encourage critical thinking among gifted high school students in China, she spent the past two summers as the program’s student director. This summer, Danni will be joining the Apprentice Singer Program at the Santa Fe Opera. “I want to be one of opera’s great performers,” says Chung.

Chapter
Sixteen

T
he cloud cover kept the morning unseasonably warm, but even at fifty-five degrees, I’d been shivering standing around outside my building. Now, walking, I was sweating beneath my sopping coat. The heat of my body against the cold of the rain made me feel like I had the flu, that feeling of blazing away under a heavy blanket, knowing chills are coming any second.

Trudging along Court Street toward the Brooklyn Bridge, I also started to feel like the star of my very own postapocalyptic movie, everyone else vanished, just me and whatever other marauders I would undoubtedly come upon, traveling the open road. It actually
was
my own postapocalypse. Everything really was in ashes.

By the time I hit the bridge, the red brake lights of cars and trucks trying to get into Manhattan despite the flooded roads were backed all the way to Cadman Plaza, and I started randomly cataloging my losses. My favorite family photo, starring me and my sister as perfect little versions of our adult selves, my hands in fists at my side, she standing behind me with her hands on my shoulders. My diploma. They replaced those, but still. My retainer. I still wore it sometimes when I felt out of sorts. No more. The pillowcase my grandma embroidered for me. My books. Sure, I could buy them again, but the new copy of
Must We Find Meaning?
wouldn’t have any of my underlining or Helen’s “I believe in you” note tucked away inside. And there was no re-creating my journal from seventh grade with its details of the triumphs and traumas of my gym class badminton. Then of course there were all the important files I’d scrupulously kept—my taxes, my immunization records, my student loan documents—gone. I’d recently upgraded to some nicer mascara. That was certainly twenty-two dollars wasted.

I hugged the plastic bag that held my laptop tight against my chest. Here I was, everything else gone, clinging to the files on my computer. It was just me, a bunch of profiles of
Charm
girls, and the Sound of Music story. For the second time that morning I thought of Teresa Anderson. She became a teacher because she just couldn’t stop thinking about teaching. It was the idea that stayed in her head after all the other ideas were gone. Maybe the fact that it was just me and this laptop meant something? The idea that there was some cosmic message here made me want to shake my fist and yell, “Hello, Universe! You didn’t have to burn my building down! There are less aggressive ways of communicating!”

The geometric splendor of the bridge never failed to capture my attention, but on my walk across now, I didn’t look up even once. I barely glanced at the Manhattan skyline approaching, the lights of buildings still glowing in the predawn gray. I passed the high point of the bridge, the exact spot where Elliot and I had first kissed, and I didn’t stop to wallow. I walked right by. But I did think, with some satisfaction, that this was the first time he’d so much as entered my brain that morning. I hadn’t fantasized about him rescuing me. Good for me. Except the second I thought about him not rescuing me, I thought just how happy I would be if he and his dented Honda were warm and waiting for me on the other side of this bridge crossing. But they weren’t. I kept my pace, and soon enough I was in Manhattan.

I could have kept walking, but I decided surely all the city’s subways couldn’t be out. As many people were walking out of the City Hall 6 train stop as were walking into it, but I went down the stairs anyway. I didn’t have a MetroCard, but I figured eventually someone would walk out the emergency gate and I could slip in. In fact, this happened almost immediately, a whole stream of passengers leaving the packed platform, finally giving up on waiting for the delayed train. I pulled the ropes of my drenched hair into a ponytail and wrung out what felt like gallons of water. I wiped my face. I waited for the train.

It took thirty minutes for a train to come, but I had the time. Finally, after another short walk from the subway, I arrived at the pristine clean of the Mandalay Carson building. The lobby glowed out through the windows, the tree glistening, the floors radiantly white. You could have told me the marble was actually unicorn horn in that moment, and I would have believed. Outside the windows, I ran my hands down the arms of my coat to squeeze out as much water as I could.

It was just after seven thirty when I pushed through the revolving door. Water squished out of my sneakers with each step. The guard eyed me. If he’d had a gun in a holster, his hand would have been on it.

Despite my hair wringing, water still dripped on the counter as I leaned forward and cordially said, “Hi, I work for
Charm.
But it turns out my apartment building burned down this morning, and I don’t have my ID with me since it was in the building, with the fire. My name is Dawn West. I’m not in the directory because I’m a freelancer.”

The words all came out surprisingly easy, as if I were explaining a minor mishap. Like oops, forgot my keys at home. It felt for a second like I could minimize the trauma this way. Say it breezily enough, and it hardly hurt.

“Is there someone upstairs I can call?” he asked warily.

I told him to try XADI. If anyone would be in early, it was XADI.

“I have a woman down here,” he said when she answered. “Dawn West. Says she works with you?”

He hung up and begrudgingly nodded. “Up to 18.”

I could have been upset that he hadn’t been more sympathetic, given my situation, but I was just happy to be inside. I took some deep breaths in the elevator and moved away from tears.

XADI was waiting at the doors. Instead of her usual magenta lipstick, today she was wearing bright red.

“My building burned down,” I said. This time it didn’t feel so easy to say. It felt like I was coming in from the snow, the way your hands melt and hurt as the numbness leaves your fingers. I was, in fact, coming in from the cold, and my body shivered all over as it took in the warmth. “My building burned down,” I repeated, feeling even more pain.

“Come here,” she said, and that was all, she didn’t ask anything or say anything more. I walked toward her and she put her hand on my shoulder, the first time she’d ever touched me. A hand to the shoulder was XADI’s version of a hug. After she lowered her hand, I followed her through the deserted hallways to her office. “Sit down,” she gestured to a chair when we arrived.

“Are you sure?” I asked, holding out the arm that wasn’t holding my laptop so she could see the water dripping.

“Sit,” she ordered. “I’ll be back.”

In the dark of her interior office, the circle of light from the single lamp on her desk felt cozy. I felt warmer. And grateful that XADI was XADI. Had she reacted with cooing or real hugging or shock, I would have cried. But with her steady, calm distance, I could maintain.