I had moved to Breckenridge in March of 2001, giving the back of my hand to the city that had started to feel like an abusive boyfriend. I love you, come here, let me smack you, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I do it because I love you, why do you make me hit you? One December day, I decided I'd had enough and two and a half months later I was gone.
Breckenridge was good. I loved it there. The scenery was beyond beautiful, the people were nice, the men were all handsome and outdoorsy and had hands that looked as if they could actually do things -- callused and scarred, as if they could do more than dial a phone when something needed to be done.
I got a little part-time job in a clothing store, then found a full-time job doing something similar enough to what I had done in New York that it wasn't so much learning a new job as transferring my skills to a different vernacular.
I was starting to thrive there, and so I started looking to put down some real roots. I spent the summer driving around Summit County with Tony C, the nice real estate guy with East Coast roots who had been living there since Main Street (yes, it was called Main Street) was barely paved and you could stop and have a conversation out your truck window for minutes at a time and no one was behind you honking impatiently. I liked him because there were still traces of the East Coast in his speech.
Nothing I looked at seemed right until late one afternoon when Tony called me about a townhouse that had just been listed. After work, he drove me up Boreas Pass Road, then turned onto Baldy Road, and we continued up, up, up, and he swung his SUV onto a gravel road and we parked in a driveway with the sign "Silver King Lode." It had a good sound to it. It was a tiny row of townhouses, stepping down the side of the mountain, so you had to walk down about 50 steps to get to number 4.
We walked in, and as soon as we were past the mudroom (every house in the mountains has a mudroom; mountain people are like the Japanese about removing their shoes as soon as they walk into the house), I turned to Tony and said, "This is it."
I put it under contract immediately; it had been on the market for about an hour and a half.
Two weeks later, on August 28th, I was handed the key, and I was a homeowner. I moved in with the cats, Mambo and Zack (Dr. Zachary Smith, of the Boston Smiths!), and started moving my belongings "up the hill" from my storage unit in Denver.
One September morning, I came downstairs at 7 o'clock, as usual, and flipped on the "Today" show, as usual, and I was arrested by the sight of one of the towers of the World Trade Center with a gaping hole in the side and black smoke pouring out. It was 9 o'clock in New York.
In the hours that followed, I remember the dozens of phone calls.
To my sister, whose husband is a pilot for American Airlines.
"Is Mark flying today? Where? WHERE? What the fuck is happening to us?"
To my friend Kathy, who lived over the hill from me, as we watched the north tower collapse, and the long silence before she said, "Aileen, I'm so, so sorry," as I began sobbing.
To my friend Frank, who worked for the Federal Reserve and said, with wonder in his voice, "They were like little rag dolls, Aileen. Just like rag dolls, and I could see their clothes fluttering."
And to Bill, or rather, to Bill's answering machine, and it was more like a prayer than a message, "Please tell me you aren't down there. Please call me and tell me you are okay. Please. Please."
The next day, when I hadn't heard anything, sending a dread-filled email to my friend Pat, who owned a bar on 8th Avenue: "Please walk up the street to the firehouse and see if they have any information." and getting a terse email later that day: "14 men missing. No names yet."
I remember falling out of my chair in my office, keening, while my co-workers gathered around me, not knowing what to do.
My boss finally sent me home. I don't remember the drive up the mountain.
1 comment:
Now you've moved ME to tears.
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