Miri was about to volunteer to take the cashmere sweaters herself, but Corinne saved her. “We’ll give away anything you haven’t worn in two years.” So Corinne knew about Rusty’s two-year rule. Two years meant since Miri and Natalie had been best friends. It felt like way longer than two years to Miri. She could hardly remember life without Natalie. That she was able to covet Natalie’s cashmere sweaters at a time like this, when the people who’d lost everything in the crash had nothing, made her feel ashamed. She, after all, had Charlotte Whitten’s hand-me-down dresses. Wasn’t that enough? What was wrong with her? Why was she thinking such selfish thoughts?
At school they had a drive for pots and pans, canned goods, toys and books. The Red Cross was collecting boxes from all over town. Ben Sapphire was picking up and delivering. Irene was cooking and baking by day and knitting by night. After work, Rusty volunteered at the Red Cross house, putting together boxes of household goods and clothing to match each family’s needs. Some nights Rusty would stay out late, serving coffee and sandwiches to the volunteers working at the morgue. It was much harder to identify the victims this time. This time they were all burned beyond recognition. Dental records were often the only way to find out who they were. Except for the pilot. He was the first to be identified by what was left of the stripes on his uniform.
The busier they kept, the better they felt. At least they were doing something positive.
Elizabeth Daily Post
WHAT WENT WRONG
Will They Ever Know?
By Henry Ammerman
JAN. 28—The initial findings in the probe of the Jan. 22 crash of an American Airlines Convair point to a sharp, almost vertical drop of the plane. When it was noted that this must have resulted from a radical equipment breakdown, chief CAB investigator Joseph O. Fluet said he was not yet ready to draw any conclusions.
But another official, speaking off the record, speculated that the pilot might have tried to pull the plane upward in a desperate effort to redirect the crash away from Battin High School, leading to a stall, which caused it to plummet directly to earth. He noted that the pilot, Timothy Barnes, had grown up in Elizabeth and had graduated from Hamilton Junior High and Thomas Jefferson High School. He lived only a few blocks from Battin.
Captain Barnes surely realized the possible implications of crashing into that particular building on a school day.
17
Miri
“Life goes on” became Irene’s mantra. If Miri heard that expression one more time she was sure she would explode, just like the planes. If life goes on, then why shouldn’t she go with Frekki Strasser to the Paper Mill Playhouse?
“Out of the question,” Irene said.
“Because…” Miri prompted.
“Because you can’t trust the Monskys.”
“You think Frekki is going to kidnap me and send me to another planet in a flying saucer?”
“You’ll discuss it with your mother.”
“Ben Sapphire wants to take you to Miami Beach,” she told Irene. “Who’s to say he’s not going to kidnap you and take you on a flying saucer?”
“I should be so lucky.”
“You’d like to get on a flying saucer with Ben Sapphire?”
“What’s all this about flying saucers?”
It was true that Ben Sapphire wanted to take Irene on a trip to Miami Beach. He reminded them his wife was heading there when her plane went down in the Elizabeth River. As if they needed reminding. Miri still saw that plane in her sleep. She could feel the heat. She’d wake up drenched with sweat and have to change her pajamas. Once she was awake she found it hard to get back to sleep. To calm her nerves, to take her mind off Plane Crash City, she’d look into her kaleidoscope, telling herself, You’re getting sleepy, you’re getting very sleepy…If all else failed there were stories in the paper that gave her other things to think about.
ACTION! CAMERA!
One of many candid camera shots taken during the play “Goodbye, My Fancy,” presented by the Vail-Deane School Dramatic Club, assisted by the Pingry Players.
You could tell the pretty blonde in the photo in the paper wearing the strapless dress with a full skirt was the lead. She was probably the most popular girl at Vail-Deane. Miri imagined herself at Vail-Deane, wearing a blue jumper and white blouse, the school uniform. All the girls at Vail-Deane were rich. They dated the boys at Pingry, who came from the same kinds of families. Some of the boys crossed themselves before basketball games. Miri had been to a game once with Suzanne, who had a cousin at Pingry. All of them went off to fancy colleges. Then they married each other and lived in single-family houses with big backyards, had chubby babies and drank themselves to death. Miri knew the part about drinking themselves to death wasn’t necessarily true. She was just trying it out to make their lives seem less perfect.
Irene