paid attention, she'd been working hard, she had learned a lot. And now she knew: it was all for this.
For this one story.
Laura walked out of Harry's apartment without looking back. She meant to continue purposefully down the hall—she was a reporter, on her way to cover a story—but she was engulfed, staggered, by a wave of panic when she heard Harry's door click shut behind her. She plunged her hand into her pocket, terrified she'd forgotten the key, and when she felt it, she dug it out to make sure that's what it was, not a whistle or a penknife or some other hard object masquerading as the way back into Harry's place. She stared at it, cold silver on her palm. Then, clutching it, she ran down the hall, chased by her echoing footsteps, and punched the elevator button, willing the elevator to come fast, fast, fast.
MARIAN'S STORY
Chapter 6
Marian had had a heavy morning of meetings: the Downtown Council, among others. There, the topics of the Fund, of Harry Randall's poisonous story, of Jimmy, of Marian's association with what had gone before, pulled at everyone's words, at their thoughts, like tree roots clutching at travelers attempting to pass through a cheerless forest.
She spoke twice, to averted eyes and yes-fine-let's-get-on-with-it nods, and after that she kept silent, one hand conscientiously taking notes on a yellow pad, the other in her lap twisting a scrap of paper into a tight hard knot. She swept from that meeting as soon as it broke, though she herself had always been the first to say the business of a meeting is truly conducted before it begins and after it ends. One or two of the others started to say something as she passed by them, but she did not stop.
The other two meetings had gone better. The downtown arts organizations involved were, in the wake of the attacks, in desperate need of money, and the MANY Foundation had money. Marian's questionable morality, her sordid past—well, that was the way Harry Randall's third story had made things appear, there was no use pretending otherwise—these things, it seemed, were important to people in absolutely inverse proportion to how much they felt she could do for them.
Marian was disappointed by this reaction, but not surprised. She'd been in the nonprofit world, cajoling money out of Peter to give away to Paul, for too long to find herself caught off guard by anyone's agenda, anyone's motives.
But she was tired. Tired from her morning, from all the other mornings this autumn, from the phones that didn't work and the diverted subways and the dust and the children's drawings from South Dakota and Virginia that were taped to schoolyard fences and announced “We Love You, New York.” She was tired from the list of times and places of firefighters' funerals, half a dozen a day, that scrolled silently down her TV screen when she watched the evening news. Tired of having to fight for a place for the Downtown Council at the Lower Manhattan redevelopment table. Of acting strong so that her weary staff would take courage and be able to go on. Of declaring, over and over, that the Jimmy McCaffery she had known—the Captain McCaffery, Marian was always careful to say, to whom so many owed their lives, not just on the basis of his heroic and ultimately self-sacrificing actions in this unprecedented disaster but because of his breathtaking bravery over the years—that this man would never have been a part of any scheme of corruption or cold betrayal, as some were hinting now.
Marian wondered what would happen if she stood and walked out the door. Now, before Laura Stone arrived. She would smile at Elena. Elena would smile back, expecting Marian was going on an errand and would presently return. But she would not. She'd make her way to Grand Central Station and board a train heading north. After a day of sitting perfectly still watching the trees and the towns and the river flash by, she would get off at some nowhere stop in the Adirondacks, find a one-room cabin no one else wanted in the dense shadows of pungent pine trees that blocked the sun. She would clear a patch of earth, turning the worm-rich, fragrant soil so she could plant a garden for next spring. She'd sit wrapped in sweaters and shawls drinking herbal tea as winter shortened the days. She would give up coffee, give up wine and flesh, subsist on the bounty of the earth, which she would nurture, returning, in her labor and husbandry, more than she took away.
And who would miss her, really? Sam? He was wrapped up in the pretty actress he'd met in June—and what a relief that had been, his mooning over Marian having gone on far too long after she had ended their lovely but, from the beginning, finite affair. (She'd seen the potential, and the limits, from their first flirtatious glance; he obviously hadn't. But that was the way it had always been with Marian, since Jimmy. Jimmy was the only lover who had ever left her.)
Her friends—Jeana, Tomiko, Ulrich? Yes, of course, they'd miss her, wonder why she did it, why she'd given up so much, to go live
Sally? Kevin? Yes, they would feel a loss, an empty place in their lives, if she were gone. But Kevin was young; his life spread boundlessly before him, an infinite number of beckoning choices. She was his aging aunt, and not even that by blood: treasured, to be sure, but occupying a place in his life smaller and less vital with each passing year. And Sally had so many friends, and Sally had Phil. And perhaps—Marian was startled to find she was permitting herself this thought; it was a sign of the difficulty of the times that her self-discipline had not been powerful enough to forbid it—perhaps Sally would be in a small way relieved to have the twenty-year war between Marian and Phil finally ended, as Marian ceded the territory and went into exile.
And her work? Well, it was true some of the projects she was involved in would crumble without her. MANY might even collapse. That thought stirred her, made her sit up, straighten her shoulders. That would be bad. Clearly, bad. This was important work. Helping. Giving. Saving. She left her desk, went to get more coffee. And stood holding her mug at the coffee machine, confused as to which pot to take from, the fresh or the old, the decaf or the strong, and what to put in it, and how much she'd been intending to have.
Marian was halfway through her coffee when Elena buzzed to tell her Laura Stone had arrived. Marian put down the proposal she had been reviewing (a graphic artist who had escaped from the south tower's sixty-third floor with his life but none of his materials was asking for a grant to rent new space and to restock; Marian was inclined to approve the application provided the space he selected was below Canal Street). She shrugged on her suit jacket, gave her glasses a quick polish, and arranged the muscles of her face into a comforting, reassuring smile, but not one too broad or welcoming. Laura Stone knew that Marian had not wanted to give this interview and would not trust her if Marian pretended to be pleased that she was there.
So she put on a smile that said, We can agree that truth is important, and the search for it equally so; come, let us reason together.
