a hint of romance between them. He had met a new girl that week, at the deli near his office where he’d had lunch. She was Irish Catholic, but he said he didn’t care, as long as his mother didn’t find out. Coco told him about several guys she’d spotted at work, whom she hadn’t met yet but looked promising. Sam always said that he was closer to Coco than to his own sisters, and he could tell her anything, as she could with him. There were no secrets between them.
They had lain in the sun all weekend and relaxed. Sam had borrowed his father’s car for the weekend, since his father didn’t drive on Friday night or Saturdays anyway. He turned the radio on, on the drive home. The news was on, and Coco was about to hunt for a music station they both liked, when a bulletin came on, announcing a major terrorist attack in France, on the Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes. She looked at Sam with fear in her eyes.
“Don’t be crazy, Coco. Don’t jump to conclusions,” he told her calmly. He knew how her mind worked, and that she would panic at what they’d just heard, thinking of her parents. “They were probably at their hotel.” It was late evening in France, and Coco knew they were most likely at dinner somewhere, at one of their favorite restaurants, but she worried anyway. She took out her cellphone and called both of them. Each call went directly to voicemail. She was silent for most of the ride home after that, flipping through the stations for further news. What they’d heard so far was that several bombs had been detonated. The terrorists had been shot and killed. Several hundred people had been injured and well over a hundred were dead, after an initial count. It was one of the worst attacks so far. When they got to her building on Fifth Avenue, Sam parked on the street and went upstairs with her to watch the news on TV. It was heartbreaking to see; people carrying dead children, and other children screaming in fear and running after the blast, looking for their parents, husbands kneeling over their wives, parents over children, lovers dying in each other’s arms, riot police everywhere.
She watched the scene intently in terrified silence, holding Sam’s hand, but there was no sign of her parents in the carnage they saw on TV. Her face was tense and Sam didn’t speak as Coco continued to call their cellphones, with no answer. When she called the hotel, they said that the Martins were out and not in their rooms. When she checked with the hotel restaurant, they had not dined at the hotel that night.
“Shit, Sam, where are they?” she said nervously.
“They’re probably walking around somewhere,” he said, but he could see the terror in her eyes, and didn’t know how to reassure her.
Sam and Coco spent the night on the couch in front of the TV, watching the same footage again and again. He called his parents and said he was staying at a friend’s.
The call finally came at six A.M., which was noon in France. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before she answered, praying it was them. But an unfamiliar male voice with a French accent asked for her by name. He pronounced it like a French name. “Nicole Martin.” Her name was on her parents’ documents and travel papers as next of kin, so if something happened to them, she would be called.
“Yes, this is she,” she said, holding her breath as Sam stared at her, willing it to be good news. It had to be. They couldn’t have been victims of a terrorist attack in France. It just wasn’t possible and didn’t make sense.
The man identified himself as a captain of the gendarmerie in Cannes. He explained that there had been a terrorist attack.
“Yes, I know,” she said, wanting to scream. “Are my parents all right?” It suddenly occurred to her that they could be injured and in a hospital there. All night she had been terrified that they were dead. There was a brief pause before he responded, sounding grave.
“I regret very much to inform you, madame, they were among the victims of last night’s attack. They were on the Croisette when the first bomb detonated.”
“Are they injured? How bad is it?” she asked in a whisper, as Sam squeezed her hand and she closed