Play Dates (29 page)

In the winter when the weather is clear, the kids are allowed to have recess on the roof, an uninspiring, black-topped, fenced-in affair overlooking Central Park. There’s room enough up there for games of tag or an organized sport like kickball or basketball, or to play hide-and-go-seek—or make out if you’re a

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Leslie Carroll

hormonal adolescent—in the science shed, which houses off-season or additional equipment like microscopes and gardening tools.

So here we all are on the roof (I am refereeing a game of poison ball) when Zoë runs up to me sobbing and blubbering all down the front of her parka. She hurls herself into my arms, spreading snot and tears along the lapels of my camel-hair coat.

“What happened, sweetheart? Did you get hurt?”

It takes a few moments before she can regain her composure enough to tell me her tale of woe. “I gave . . . I gave . . . I gave . . .”

I hand her a crumpled but clean Kleenex from my coat pocket.

She accepts it and does a lousy job of wiping her nose. “I gave the cookies to Xander, and . . . and . . . and . . .” More hysterical tears.

I stroke her hair and hold her, trying to calm her down.

“What’s the matter? Didn’t he like them?”

“He crumbled them up and he gave them to the pigeons!”

she bawls. “And then he threw some of them through the fence to see if he could hit people on the street.”

“My poor baby,” I whisper. Men. Maybe we females were raised all wrong. The way to a man’s heart isn’t through his stomach at all. I’m no radical feminist, but an ice pick would be a far more effective method in some cases. How dare that brat break my little girl’s heart! And someone ought to tell him it’s not nice to pelt pedestrians with baked goods. Do I bring this to Mrs. Hennepin’s attention? Or to Mr. Mendel and Mr.

Kiplinger? Should I go straight to his mother; or dare I take dis-ciplinary matters into my own hands?

“Did he eat
any
of them?” I ask Zoë.

“Uh-huh,” she admits, still snuffling. “He had one and he said it was good, but then he said he had more fun giving them to the birds. Or seeing how far he could throw them. And we worked so
hard
,” she sobs. I stop myself from saying that Xander Osborne may, alas, be the first in a long line of inattentive, PLAY DATES

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undeserving guys for whom Zoë will extend herself, only to find her tender feelings smashed, her little heart crushed. Maybe, I tell myself, with crossed fingers,
her
destiny will be different.

Happy Valentine’s Day? Bah, humbug.

The forty-five-minute recess period ends and the kids are shuttled back downstairs to the classroom, where it’s time for social studies. They’re covering a unit on “Our City and How It Works,” which I find amusing, wondering if the students will get to navigate a murky, labyrinthine section on municipal bureau-cracy, including: Getting Off Jury Duty, Beating a Parking Ticket, and What to Do If Your Noisy Neighbors Still Won’t Keep It Down after 3 A.M.

I’m sitting in the back of the room, listening to Mrs. Hennepin recap last week’s lesson on the fire department, which en-compassed the recent class trip to the local firehouse. I’m hoping the section on sanitation won’t entail an off-campus excursion to a landfill.

Perhaps it’s just the power of suggestion, but I smell smoke.

Couldn’t
be. Could it? I’d insisted on opening the windows this morning because it was too stuffy in the classroom and the kids were getting logy. Now I watch an acrid curlicue the color of burlap spiral past a windowpane. I may be paranoid but I’m not nuts.

I leave my class parent post on the uncomfortable gunmetal-colored folding chair and stroll to the front of the room where Mrs. Hennepin is talking about why recycling is important. I hope Zoë remembers this, because I can never recall, with the frequently shifting rules being handed down by our mayor, what we recycle and when. I hate to seem cynical about it, but yesterday’s news ends up as roofing material in China.

In the calmest voice I can manage, I whisper into the teacher’s ear that I think the school is on fire. She gives me a startled look, bug-eyed with alarm, then inhales deeply and sniffs the air. She is inclined, however much she may personally dislike me, to agree.

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Leslie Carroll

Mrs. Hennepin claps her hands and commands the children to grab their coats and line up along the wall by the door. “We’re all going to go downstairs to the sidewalk and across the street,”

she announces.

A chorus of whys is answered by the increasingly powerful smell of smoke. No doubt about it, now, something, somewhere close, is burning. I step outside the classroom into the hallway, crack the glass on the little red box affixed to the wall and pull the alarm, which alerts the other classes as well as the fire department.

There is a shuffling of feet, a scuffling of students to make it to the stairwells in an orderly fashion. Fourteen grades—pre-K

through twelfth—must be safely evacuated. We get to the street and I help Mrs. Hennepin do a head count of our charges.

Shit. One missing.

She knows the roll backwards and forwards, not I, but I do know enough of Zoë’s classmates by name and appearance to do my own mental tally. Smoke is now billowing off the roof, fueled by the winter breeze and whatever combustibles are burning.

Xander Osborne is not here. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure he never returned to the classroom after recess, and somehow, his absence eluded our notice.

The fire department has arrived and the men start to enter the building with their hoses. A cherry picker is being unfolded toward the rooftop in a zigzag of metal framework.

I remove my heavy coat and thrust it into the surprised hands of Mrs. Hennepin. Then I make a mad dash across the street, which has just been closed off to vehicular traffic, and into the building.

“Mommy!” Zoë screams. “Where are you going?” A chorus of adult voices echoes the same.

But I know where Xander is; I couldn’t be more sure of it.

And because I know I know this and the firefighters don’t, I be-PLAY DATES

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lieve, in this very instant, that I can get to him before they can.

I’m not lugging heavy equipment and, for once, there’s a payoff for my misspent youth. The only thing that would burn in such a concentrated location on the Thackeray Academy’s roof is the only structure on it: the science shed.

What I haven’t taken into account is that the roiling smoke, now beginning to fill the central stairwell, has rendered it difficult to breathe without proper ventilation equipment; and, in these conditions, I have a hard time seeing where I’m going.

I’ve made it to the second floor landing—I think.

As sure as the sun sets in the west, I am certain that Xander Osborne, seven-year-old arsonist—I’m sure of this, now, too—is somewhere near the science shed, if not inside it—in which case, it could be too late.

Third floor. I’m still ahead of the firefighters.

I’m counting the landings in my head, trying to keep track of them. I yank my sweater over my head and bring it to my mouth, using the wool as a filter.

I’m on the fourth landing. I need to get down the corridor and locate the door that leads up the stairs to the roof. It feels like I’ve swallowed a sharp object that’s pushing against the walls of my throat. Behind me I hear the heavy footsteps of the firefighters and the rattle and thud of lifesaving equipment.

They are shouting to one another but the sound is no more than a series of guttural grunts to my ears. I have a single focus: to find that door and make it one more flight to the roof.

I’ve climbed the final staircase. One barrier remains. The metal door is hot as hell. I burn my fingers on its handle and on the knob that must be twisted to release the lock. I have the same kind of lock on my apartment door. My fingers should know it, but the surface is too hot. The sleeve of my pullover becomes an erstwhile “potholder.” I throw my less-than-significant weight against the door. Adrenaline tells my body it doesn’t feel the searing when it makes contact with the steel.

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Leslie Carroll

I’m now out on the roof, making choking sounds that I hope sound like “Xander!” In one of my recurring nightmares, one I’ve suffered since childhood, I’m being attacked and I open my mouth to scream, but no sound will come out. I feel like I’m living it now. Where is this kid? I make my way toward the burning science shed and then I think I glimpse him through the billows of black, just outside the shed, tented underneath his hooded parka. I can’t tell if he’s moving. Behind me, the firemen have made it to the roof. Do they see us? I don’t know. If they don’t, we’re in the direct line of fire of their hoses. The force of the water could injure us—or worse.

I reach Xander. He’s unconscious, I think, but breathing. I don’t know what to do, don’t remember any of the lessons we’re all supposed to memorize, except “stop, drop, and roll.”

Since his body is not on fire, the mnemonic is moot.

“Xander, wake up!” I shake him. Try to get a response. “Wake up, goddamn you!” I’m flinging the crumpled heap of child back and forth as though he’s a Raggedy Andy. “You have to go, now,”

I insist. “You have to go downstairs.”

Through some miracle I manage to rouse him. And through the charcoal denseness, I can make out the figures of two, maybe three firefighters coming toward us.

Xander’s eyes open, but the smoke is stinging them. He shuts them again and clings to me. “You have to go, sweetie.

Crawl on your belly. That’s it. Pretend you’re a snake. Crawl on your belly toward the door.” But he doesn’t want to let go of me. I manipulate his little body into a prostrate position and try to pull him along with me. Who knows what the hell is really stored in that shed? Could be heat-sensitive chemicals. I’ve got to get him back to the stairway before there’s a Jerry Bruckheimer-style explosion.

I hear a voice, muffled, filtered through an oxygen mask.

“We’ve got you now, ma’am. Is the boy okay?”

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“He’s alive. Take him,” I say.

I don’t remember what happened next.

“Well, look at that, your eyes are blue.” I have just opened my eyes—I think. I’m on the sidewalk outside the school, surrounded by a crowd of adults. I think I see an ambulance amid the jumble of emergency vehicles. I am peering into the concerned, carbon-smudged, sweating face of a firefighter.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says. “Welcome back.” He removes an oxygen mask from my face. I have no idea how long I’d had it on.

“How’s . . . ?”

“The little boy? He’s gonna be all right. We’re going to send him to the hospital, though, just to be sure. His mom is on her way over here.”

“That’s good. Thank God.” I close my eyes again.

“Nuh-uh. No Sleeping Beauty act. We need you awake right now. I don’t want you slipping back under.”

“I want . . . where’s Zoë?”

“Who’s Zoë?” the firefighter asks me. His eyes are the color of bittersweet chocolate.

“My daughter. My little girl.” My own voice sounds unfamiliar to me. “I want her to know her mommy’s okay. I’m okay . . .

right?”

The fireman nods. “You’re better than okay. You’re pretty fucking—excuse my language—pretty damn brave.” He chuckles. “I guess ‘damn’s’ not much better than ‘fucking.’ ” Is he blushing under that soot? “Brave, but maybe a little nuts. Running into a burning building to save a little kid. You’re going to do me right out of job, Mrs . . . ?”

“Marsh.
Ms.
Marsh. Claire. Call me Claire. I’m . . . did . . . ?

Did you give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

He nods again but doesn’t elaborate. “You were saying something, just before you asked me . . . about the mouth-to-mouth.”

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Leslie Carroll

His dark eyes seem to flicker with interest. Or maybe it’s just a fleck of soot and I’m imagining things in my new glad-to-be-not-dead state of semi-consciousness.

“I was? What was I saying?”

The fireman looks embarrassed. “A
Ms
. You were saying that you were a
Ms
., Not a
Mrs
.”

“I’m divorced.” Which reminds me . . . “Where’s my daughter?

I need to see her.” With my hero’s help, I raise my head and look around. All the kids are still on the sidewalk. The rest of the firemen are leaving the building, starting to pack up their gear. I guess they’ll give the word when it’s safe to bring everyone back inside.

“Zoë. Zoë Marsh Franklin. Can you find her for me, please?”

The fireman doesn’t leave my side, but calls to one of his colleagues to find a seven-year-old kid named Zoë Marsh Franklin.

“Tell her her mom’s okay and wants to see her!” Fuzzily, I guess that they must have kept the kids away from me in case I wasn’t going to be all right. That would have been a terrible thing for small children to witness.

“Mommy!” Zoë hurls herself between me and the fireman, throwing her body over mine. “You’re Fireman Dennis!” she says, looking at him.

“You two know each other?” I ask.

“We met him when we went to see the firehouse,” Zoë says.

“Remember when you signed my permission slip? He gave us the tour. And I wrote all about him in my report for class, remember? He showed us how they slide down the pole and everything. And how to cook chili. And I got to sit on the fire truck and ring the bell and even slide down the pole, too. Did you save my mommy’s life?” she asks him.

“I think I might have helped,” he says, his manner slightly

“aw-shucks.”

“Wow,” Zoë breathes. She looks like she wants to hug him but thinks twice when she gets a closer look at his grime-coated exterior.

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“I think what we both mean is ‘thank you,’ ” I say. “Thank you very much, Fireman Dennis.” I hold Zoë close, very, very happy to be alive. “So,” I begin awkwardly, realizing I’m nervous, “so . . . my mother taught me that the proper way to say thank you is to write a note. Although she was never quite clear on the protocol involved when someone saves your life. So, I guess what I’m asking is . . . to whom should I address it? My note. Fireman Dennis . . . ?”