Thankfully, the rest of our troupe, namely Elton, Paul, and John Holmes, had only just begun to scour their side of the Park, so we found them relatively soon.  And I do mean, relatively.  Manhattan traffic had reached a nauseating level by this point in the evening; had half of us walked and the other half ridden to Central Park's north side, the riders would only have beaten the walkers by maybe ten minutes. 

But there they were, just the same, clustered together on the forked path, in a heated argument about which direction they ought to go first.  Well, Elton, ever the cool cucumber, was generally just standing back and watching; John and Paul were the ones really going at it.  When they saw Freddie and me, their gripes turned to chuckles, as we were apparently quite windblown.  "Street urchins," I think someone called us.  ("Stray cats, he means," I mouthed to Freddie.)

Elton in those days wasn't all that unique in his physical appearance, and to the average Joe was only as recognizable as his costumes.  As we came closer I saw he had removed his cap and all-important glasses ("That was a f---ing stupid thing to do," he remarked later, "I couldn't bloody see the tip of my own nose, let alone you two runaways!"), so that he came off as just some random guy who needed to see a barber some time in the next week. 

The price of fame, I said to myself.  They almost have to have secret identities just to be able to walk down the street without being whispered about or stared at.  I couldn't live like that for money.

"For God's sake, Fred, do you want the world to know we're here or not?" Elton chided. "We were two steps away from calling the coppers."

"This chap here was about to absolutely flip, weren't you, Paul?" John laughed.

 Paul said nothing, but he didn't have to; the look in his eyes when they landed on me suggested he now would prefer to kill me much more slowly and painfully then with a simple, quick gunshot into the cranium.  I just smiled.

Nice.  Paul's upset.  I don't care.  Burn, baby, burn. I don't mind screwing things up for ol' Pudding Face. It's Mary I worry about.  Oh, what would she think, Freddie kissing me like that?  I know they're not "together" anymore, but still... And David Minsy -I mean, Minns.  What would he- oh, goodness...

Nobody appeared to be excessively annoyed that Freddie and I made them wait; they'd enjoyed a fantastic meal, and their faces were rosy and jovial with excellent wine. Only Paul Prenter looked like he felt violently cheated.

"We're nearly an hour overdue," Rudy reminded us all.  That was our cue to head back and start piling into the Cadillac limousine.  So we miscreants did that very thing.  You would think a group as large as ours would draw attention, but the music festival itself had siphoned a majority of Central Park's visitors.  We were safe.

"So much for a day trip," Freddie said to me.  "We'll have to get hotel rooms when we get to Vegas.  I'm whacked."

"This sure would have been easier if we just waited," I hummed.

Freddie folded his arms.  "Do you wish we had?"

I shook my head. 

"Well, then, there you are."

"But I'm just saying, we probably could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we stuck aroun-"

"Oh, would you huuuush." Freddie covered my mouth and began pushing me toward the front seat when he stopped.  "Wait, no.  There's no reason you should be so far away."

"But there's no room back there!"  The rest of the fellows had staked out their seats by this point.

"Look!"  Freddie slid in next to Elton, then patted his thigh.  "See?  Lots of room.  Come on!  Don't keep us waiting."  He waved his hand.

With another roll of my eyes (the action was becoming almost as involuntary as breath itself), I clambered in and sat in Freddie's lap.  He slipped his hands around my waist as if they were the seat belt.  Peter snickered and said something along the lines of "I'll make room for you next time, Evie."

The chauffeur, who spoke with a thick Russian accent, asked us, "So we go straight to JFK, or do you have 'nother stop to make?"

All the guys were raring to sail out of the Big Apple, and said so.  Las Vegas lay in wait for them, like a grown-up's Disneyland.  But I remembered that bittersweet sight as we had crossed over into Manhattan.  The unmistakable skyline, yet so drastically different from the one with which I'd grown up.  I had to see them for myself.

Quietly I piped up, "Will we be passing through the financial district on our way?"

The chauffeur shook his head.  "Is not en route.  You want to head there too?"

I looked at Freddie.  "Freddie, would that be all right with you?"

"What do you want to do down there?  Too late for trading, I think."

"I want to see the World Trade Center."

"What for?  They're just really tall buildings.  There's lots of those-"

"Freddie, please," I pleaded softly.  "I need to see them.  It's- it's important."

He opened his mouth, perhaps to convince me this wasn't nearly as important as I was making it out to be.  I tried to look sincere, for what it was worth; since Freddie was less than gung-ho for the idea, I knew it would be an uphill battle.  But he gazed into my eyes and saw something else- something that made his own soften inside.  A concerned little crease formed between his brows.  I felt my heart quicken and my insides flutter.  I'd never seen this look before.

"It'll just be for two minutes, I promise," I said. 

"Y-yes, of course," Freddie stammered, struggling to re-apply the mask.  "We can do that.  You don't ever ask much, we can at least do this.  Just a drive-by, right?"

I nodded.  Everyone groaned, grumbling about the time and the distance, but Freddie ignored them.  He was the emcee, this was his idea- and therefore he was the final authority on where we went as a group.  Freddie gave our chauffeur the word.

It took forever, I admit, to crawl down to the Wall Street area.  But once we turned the corner, and the Twin Towers loomed before us in their awesome entirety, my whole body seemed to go numb.  We rolled closer, the World Trade Center complex consuming a mind-boggling chunk of the city.  I stared, transfixed, my heart pounding. 

I'm going to do it.  I have to.  If it's good enough for Freddie, it's good enough for me.

"Okay, there they are," John Holmes sniffed, "big buildings, big business, big money, big f---ing deal.  Now can we-"

I opened the door of the moving limo and ran toward the Twin Towers.

"Oh, come on!" I heard them cry.  "Not again!"

I really didn't run very far, or fast.  Traffic was moving slower than I was.  I stopped at the North Tower which was nearest to the street.  I leaned back and squinted up, following this steel wall's rise up, up into the air, so high up I couldn't see precisely where it ended.  I had no idea they were that big.  In the old photographs the Twin Towers dominated everything around them, but it was when I came right up close to them I truly realized their enormity.  Thousands of people must have been in those buildings at that very moment, even as late as it was.

I had fuzzy memories of that day, being only four years old at the time.  But as young as I was, I was conscious that something horrible had gone down- and the horrors of that September morning's attack all Americans now acknowledged as the day the Earth turned inside out, became a place of fear, as the ugliness of evil was exhibited on full display.  A lump formed in my throat. 

My God.  All those people.  There's so much evil in the world.  Oh, sweet Jesus, why?

I came closer.  With trembling hands I touched the concrete wall in front of me.  I shivered.  Over three thousand people.  Gone.  And they didn't know.  But I did.  The most helpless feeling enveloped me.  I knew what was going to happen- I knew something that could save three thousand plus people.  And there was nothing I could do.  Who would believe some drifter, no-name girl with a crazy story about an airplane hijacking and these indestructible behemoths going down like Jenga blocks in twenty-four years? 

"Eve?" Freddie's voice cautiously penetrated my mind.

I turned toward him and tried unsuccessfully to swallow the tightness.  Freddie's arm slipped around my shoulder.  The limo still sat stuck in the sea of cars; he'd jumped out right after me.  Freddie squinted up the side of the Tower, as I had done a moment ago, then looked at me quizzically. 

In a careful, quiet voice, he murmured, "Eve, what do you see?"

His absolute lack of doubt, of disbelief, as he asked me this, struck me.  Could I tell him?  Would he believe me?  What on Earth would make him believe me?  I looked into his eyes to see that same open, gentle look.  He wanted to know.  He wanted to share the pain.  Did I dare give him that chance?

I see dead people, I thought to myself.  But it was the second part of this thought that killed me, and made it clear I still wasn't strong enough:

And you're one of them.

I had been fairly good at choking back tears around Freddie, as I didn't know how he'd handle me.  I feared he would be impatient, perhaps unsympathetic.  Besides, my face became so unpleasant when I cried; my nose reddened, my eyes puffed, my whole person just turned into a sniveling, splotchy mess, and that was the last thing I wanted Freddie to have to look at.  But this was the straw that broke my camel's back.  I began to weep. 

He acted quickly.  Freddie wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest.  I held him close and buried my face into his shoulder, my tears making water spots on his shirt. 

I shuddered and said in a tight, emotional voice, "I'm- I'm sorry, I'm making them wait-"

"Shh," he whispered.  "Let them.  We're not moving from this spot until you've let it all out."

"But-"

"Cry, my angel.  Just cry."  He pressed his lips against the top of my head.

He was so sweet in this moment I couldn't stand it.  I fauceted.  Tears of exhaustion, tears of pain, tears of anger, tears of helplessness.  All the fragile moments of the past week- I poured them out while he held me. I was so powerless, so weak; only eight (or was it nine?  I had yet to figure out the adjustments for time zone change) days ago I had believed myself such a strong-willed wizard of the mind.  Freddie showed me otherwise. 

I'm not sure how long we stood there, but it was a short enough time to bring the limo close enough to us so that when Freddie was convinced I had sufficiently purged myself, all we had to do was walk a few feet and get back in.

When the fellows saw me in all my flushed, tear-streaked glory, an awkward silence settled over them.  Every playful scold about us making them wait yet again died in their throats.  I sat quietly on Freddie's knee, hands folded.  No one said a word for quite a long time.

"Sorry about that, guys," I finally broke the silence. 

Elton half-smiled.  "Have you finished jumping out of cars for a while?"

I nodded.  "We're on the highway, so yes."

Someone chuckled, but did it too softly for me to tell who.  Again, the silence fell.  The Russian drove on, and we twiddled our thumbs, hardly in a Las Vegas state of mind, least of all me.

And then, without warning, Freddie started singing.

"Hey, Jude," he began, his a cappella voice clear and soft, "Don't make it bad... Take a sad song/ and make it better..."

I felt a smile start.  His hand round my waist began keeping time as he continued, "Remember to let her into your heart/ Then you can sta-art/ To make it Better."

Before I could stop myself I joined him on the second verse.  "Hey Jude, don't be afraid/ You were made to/ go out and get her."

Elton, having put his trademark glasses back on, smiled and began singing along.  Peter offered his own rendition of the harmonies, and Rudy, ever the beat keeper, was tapping his foot against the floorboards.  I felt myself calming down, our smiles and energy making welcome comebacks.  Paul sat there like a stump, forcing a lizard grin.  But nobody paid any attention.

"Remember, to let her under your skin/ then you'll begi-in/ to make it Better, better, better..." we sang at last, getting more and more obnoxious with each "better" until we were all screaming at the top of our lungs at the "YEAH!" which feeds into the "nah nah" part.  We kept those up at the same loud volume until we reached the airport.  It didn't bother our Russian friend one bit; he was just as loud as us.  And from then on, I had the feeling that Peter and Elton had accepted me. 

Even today, I still can't hear "Hey Jude" without remembering Peter's shrill impromptus or Elton's slightly nasal voice instead of Paul McCartney's.  And most of all, the sound of Freddie's clear tenor vibrating right next to my ear.  It remains one of my favorite life memories.

As we stepped out of the limousine, I kissed Freddie's cheek and whispered, "Don't you ever get tired of constantly saving the day?"

He didn't answer me.  With a little wink, Freddie grabbed my hand.  "Come along!"

What I didn't know is that now Freddie was watching me, even closer than before.  I'd let something show there in front of the Twin Towers, and now he was looking for it.  Only time would reveal just what I'd been so foolish to let him see.

The occasion will arise, I told myself was we headed for the Starship. And if in the next twenty-four hours it doesn't, I'll tell him anyway. He may hate me for it. But I must tell him. I must.