A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [61]
“Well, if you weren’t there, you can’t judge. Julie and I were there. We saw the bodies. Giuliani was magnificent. The police, the firemen, they loved Bush when he showed up.”
One might have guessed Rob a Democrat, but Jerry a Republican?
“You literally saw the bodies?” Agnes asked from her end of the table.
“Jumping,” Jerry said. “Falling. You could hear the thuds. My office was right across the street.”
There was a silence as each of them imagined the horror of having to jump, the moment of letting go. One hundred and two stories down. Bridget closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she glanced at Matt, who had gone pale. Matt had seen the television images, but would his imagination have encompassed thudding bodies? She looked across Matt’s plate to Brian, who was poking at a carrot. This would not do.
“Jerry,” Bridget said in a tone that caused everyone to look in her direction, “I’m sorry that you had to witness what you did firsthand. And I think everyone here would agree that those who lived in New York on September eleventh bore the brunt of the horror. But no one at this table was untouched or unmoved. The catastrophe hurt all of us.”
“That’s the thing about catastrophe,” Rob said, wiping his lips with the heavy damask napkin. “It’s so often the most democratic of events.”
“You say you were moved by it,” Jerry insisted, though Bridget could see that the steam was leaving him, “but you can’t really know about it if you weren’t there.”
“Jerry,” Julie said, “I don’t think anyone here wants to own it.”
Jerry scowled at his wife.
“Jim Mitchell once said that,” Agnes added from her end of the table. “The democracy of catastrophe. Don’t you remember? When we were reading All Quiet on the Western Front?”
“Your memory is better than mine,” Harrison said.
“Of all the teachers I ever had,” Agnes said, “he was the best.”
“Yeah. Mitchell,” Jerry said. “He was the man. He still teaching at Kidd?”
“No,” Agnes said. “He moved to Wisconsin. He’s teaching at a private school there.”
“Wisconsin,” Jerry said. “Was Mitchell from there?”
“No,” Agnes said. “He was from Massachusetts. We overlapped for three years when I first went back to Kidd.”
“Was it weird being a colleague of a teacher you’d had yourself?” Josh asked.
“A little. At first. But you quickly get used to it.”
Agnes’s face flushed pink. She must get hot flashes, too, Bridget thought, though it might be a little soon for menopause for Agnes.
Other teachers were remembered. The spray painting of the front of Ford Hall was recalled. Bill mentioned the night Rob “borrowed” a truck from the work shed and drove all the way to Portland and back. Four years at Kidd were retrieved in bits and pieces, making a kind of memory mosaic: not the whole picture, just the highlights. The night Jerry rented a motel room and gave a party and the cops came. The time Harrison got up on the stage and did a Mick Jagger impression (“I never did that,” Harrison said). Julie seemed as lost in this litany of anecdotes as Matt and Brian were. Nora, with impeccable timing, told the assembled that they would now move back into the library for coffee and dessert. There would be after-dinner drinks for those who wanted them. Predictably, Bridget guessed, it would be those who had had the most to drink already who would ask for the cognac or the Drambuie. Harrison stood with care. Jerry blew his nose into what looked like his dinner napkin.
How did Julie stand it?
Bridget thought she would make her exit. She would not say good night because that would simply call attention to the fact that she was abandoning them. So far, no one had said the word “cancer,” for which Bridget was grateful. It was a miracle, considering Jerry and his penchant for the jugular.
Bill held back. Nora disappeared into the kitchen. Bridget wanted to thank Nora again for the meal, but it would have to wait until the morning.
“Where are Matt and Brian?” Bridget asked.
“Apparently there’s a pool table in the basement,” Bill said.
“That’s what made them perk up so. Make sure they hang