PROLOGUE: SEPTEMBER 10, 2001

On Monday, September 10, I talked to both of my bosses, separately, about the pending lay offs at our company.  They each said, “It doesn’t look good for you and there’s nothing I can do.  Talk to your other boss.”

I was very upset.  I should know better, I thought, than to let this get to me.  With the new position I had taken in March, I was out of the loop on organizational decisions; many gears were grinding that I didn’t know about.  Though I did know that the title I had been given--"VP, On-Air/Online Convergence" sounded a lot like "VP, On-The-Way-Out" as soon as I took it, and it was probably just a matter of time.  I knew it was neither personal nor the end of the world to get the ax.  But still, I was upset. 

It was a beautiful, warm night on Monday, September 10, 2001 in New York City.  I walked home toward Battery Park City from the 770 Broadway office through Soho, using the World Trade Center Towers in the distance to stay my course.  I called my mother in California on my mobile phone.  She told me that her sister, my Aunt Joy, had had a massive heart attack the night before.   My Aunt is a very dear person, very generous and loving.  I was overcome with emotion at hearing this and I sat on the steps of a Church on Houston Street to cry.  I cried for my Aunt and her children, my cousins, and for my mother who has lost her mother, aunt and mother-in-law in recent years.  Passers-by stared at me.  I thought, now, even after two years in the City, I’m finally a real New Yorker.  In Los Angeles, you can cry discretely and privately in your car if necessary.  But in New York, everything happens on the sidewalk in front of everyone else.

I finished crying and stood to continue my walk home.  I ran into an acquaintance, someone I don’t know very well but he didn’t seem to notice that I’d been crying and he said, why don’t we go for dinner?  He was a stock broker, 33, former army, he fought in the Gulf War.  Over dinner at the nearby Silver Spur Diner on Houston, we had a long discussion about the kind of woman he wanted to marry.  I would never marry an entertainment vice president like you, he declared.  I assured him that he need not worry about that happening.  He said his ideal wife would stay at home and if she wanted to work that’s fine, she could work out of the house.  He even had ideas for businesses she could run from the house.  So he was basically an egocentric pig, but at least he knew it and I liked him anyway. 

After dinner we walked South from Houston through Soho, until he realized that we were not heading for his place.  He didn’t want to walk any more, so we sat on the steps of a shop and smoked cigarettes.  He said, this town is not prepared for any kind of major disaster.  If something were to happen here, he said, he would put on his nuclear suit, grab a gun, jump on his motorcycle, throw his chick on the back and head out.  I said, but with your military training you could help people, you should stay and help people.  Fuck that, he said, I’m outta here! 

I felt better after talking to him.  Like, my life is really not as bad as I thought it was a few hours ago.  At least I still know who I am on the inside, fancy New York VP job or not.  We said goodnight and I walked the rest of the way home, heading for the Towers and turning right on Chambers to cross Westside Highway.  I stopped at the backdoor of my building on River Terrace in Battery Park City, as I have done almost every time I pass that spot, and gazed at the breathtaking, nighttime city view of the Towers, the World Financial Center and surrounding buildings of Downtown.  This is so beautiful, I can’t believe I live here, I thought before heading inside.