Tomato soup

This one's about lunch.

At lunch, Annika and I had burgers and she asked me if I remember 9/11. I told her, No, I was five, my firsthand recollection of 9/11 is ninety scratch that ninety-nine point nine percent consisting of things I was told after the fact. Memory is fun that way, I said. At this, she sucked on her milkshake and mumbled around the straw, Are you kidding? I remember where I was, I remember how I felt, I remember what light-up sneakers I was wearing, I remember that my father hadn’t shaved. But how? I asked Annika. Then our waitress came to check on us and she had goosebumps like she was cold but would get in trouble with the big man boss if she put on a sweater and I felt sad for her. Annika said, I’m fine. I said, I’m also fine. The waitress left and Annika said, I don’t know, I just have a good memory I guess. 

So I asked Annika, Okay, where were you on 9/11? because I wanted to know and also because I am a good conversationalist. And Annika told me: I remember I was at school, but then my mom came to pick me up, lots of the parents did. I got into the front seat when she drove up, which is where adults sit, but I remember she didn’t notice. She was eating a slice of lemon cake with the hand she wasn’t using to drive. I remember she didn’t ask if I wanted any. When we got home, my dad was watching the news but I wasn’t allowed to watch. My mom called me into the kitchen to have a bowl of tomato soup, but I remember she gave me the big wooden spoon, the one for stirring pots of things, because none of the others were clean. I remember the soup was warm and, even though I was so young, I remember wondering if people were good, and if the world was going to end. 

Annika and I ate our burgers. On mine I got no pickles, but hers was normal. We talked about Sam’s Kickstarter campaign and flu season shots and how much sex we’re having. We walked the block back to the office and I spent the next few hours organizing spreadsheets and begging myself to stop biting my nails. At home I watched housewives scream at each other and couldn’t help but think about Annika. To be honest, I don’t even like Annika all that much. She makes far too much eye contact and rarely the kind that makes you feel important. I did believe, though, that she believed she remembered. We each of us sprouted, both biologically and ideologically, from the same west coast mid-nineties dream — thus obliterating any actual truth from her account. Time zone-wise it made no sense, brain development-wise it made no sense. But still I was jealous. I wanted to remember too. 

Somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. The administrators wake up, peck their spouses, burn their English muffins for the motherfuuuuuuucking fourth time this week. They need to vacuum later but they're always so tired when they get home so who knows. Finally they pull into school, ready to mold minds and discipline mistakes, but someone turns on a radio or a television or gets an email or a fax. It’s a shock, and their coffees run cold, and they call New York, and they squeeze a prayer out from knocking teeth. They are wondering what to do, how to live, when their parents suddenly got old, which roads to trust, whether they forgot to turn the oven off. In a swirl of urgent clarity, they step to the window looking out across the recess yard to check on the children. They stare at the children. And the children are laughing.