Annie looked at the screen above the bar. On instinct, her stomach clenched.
The feelings never changed, no matter how many times she watched the footage. A second plane into a building. The smoke-crush of the towers to the ground. Mayhem erupting on camera. All the mayhem that could not be seen. Even after a hundred viewings it didn’t seem real.
“Jesus,” she said, recoiling with the impact.
Here they were, nearly two months out, and the news would not move on, not even in some other country.
“Haven’t the faintest why they keep showing it,” Gus said.
“I agree.” Annie’s eyes remained glued to the screen. “It’s messed up.”
“Did you know anyone?” He pointed toward the television. “Lost that day?’
“Yes,” she said. “No one close. But yes.”
She had a friend, a sorority sister named Megan, who died in one of the towers. Megan worked a bond-trading desk, whatever that meant, and was engaged to be married. She would always be that. Engaged. Her future lost in the rubble.
Most people who lived on the East Coast knew someone who worked at the World Trade Center, or someone who knew someone. Megan was a few years ahead in school so they weren’t close, despite being “sisters.” But it was hard not to be sad about her death. And harder still not to feel like a jerk, as though Annie were using Megan for some twisted claim to fame.
“I’m sorry,” Gus said. “About your friend. A damned tragedy.”
“Thanks. And it was. But like I said, we weren’t close.”
“Doesn’t make it any less awful.”
“I guess you’re right. It feels weird—unnatural—to think she’s not around.”
She heard the quiver in her own voice.
“And yet,” Gus said. “The deaths carry on.”
“It really is sickening how often they replay the footage. Here’s hoping a celebrity does something awful ASAP.”
“I was referring to the new deaths,” Gus said. “The servicemen and women. All those young people now going off to war, and to what end?”
Her face blanched.
“Sorry, Annie, I know he’s your president and all,” Gus said. “But I’m suspicious. I mean, hell, not too hard to get a nation behind you if everyone’s afraid and desperate to believe in something.”
Annie covered her mouth with a hand. Desperate. Is that what they were?
Eric was fine. He would be fine. At any rate, he was at that moment safe, on a float, in the middle of the ocean. Annie had nearly convinced herself that it was the only place he’d be until they saw each other again.
“The prez had to do something, right?” Gus continued. “Make a show. And people are rallying because revenge is sweet. It’s like what Mrs. Spencer said about Hitler. ‘Well, he had the whole world up in arms!’”
“I hardly think Bush is Hitler.”
“No, no, of course not. I don’t mean to get political. I know this is a sensitive topic for you Yanks. Easy to criticize when it’s someone else’s damned country. Even if we’re sticking our necks in it, too. Blimey, Annie, you’re downright green. I’m the biggest arse around.”
“Don’t, uh,” Annie sputtered. “It’s just, um, unpleasant. Sad. Whatever your politics. Sometimes I don’t even know what to think myself.”
Gus nodded, took a sip of cider.
“‘The war has not accustomed me to death,’” he said, changing the tenor of his voice.
“Proust?” she said.
“Bingo.” He pointed the glass toward her. “Mrs. Spencer’s favorite. I adore you bookish girls.”
“I’m engaged,” she blurted. “To a marine. He’s on his way to Afghanistan right now. That’s why I got so upset about the war comment.”
“Oh Christ,” Gus said. “Jesus f’ing Christ. I noticed the band on your finger, and that you twirl it continuously. I should’ve asked but figured you’d tell me if you wanted me to know. What an arse. What a goddamned arse.”
“No. It’s okay,” she said, although it wasn’t. Not exactly. Annie closed her eyes. “I wish he was in a different line of business. An accountant. Going to law school. But this is what he chose. And he was a marine long before we met.”
She opened her eyes again and was surprised to find herself taking a sip of Gus’s drink.
“The ironic part is that Marines aren’t deploying to Afghanistan, as a rule,” she said. “He just happened to be going on an MEU, a marine ship, that was already deploying. And now they have the pleasure of being some of the first associated with the war. Oh, excuse me, Operation Enduring Freedom.”
“Shite. Wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Yep.”
Then again, had he not been deploying, they never would’ve met. Less than one percent of Marines were going out. Inconceivable odds, though her best friend Summer called them the odds of finding true love. Annie and Eric were destined for each other, she insisted. It sounded giddy and perfect on three glasses of pinot noir, but a war was a big price to pay.