Life After Yes (5 page)

And we met in the middle.

“Well, did you tell your darling mother that you found The One?” I said.

He smiled and pulled something from his pocket, slipped it in my hand. Then he cupped my chin, and studied my face. Looked me in the eyes. Kissed my lips gently and then pulled away.

“Maybe I did,” he said, optimism plain in simple words. “All you need is one.”

And as I traveled down that dim hallway, walking away but going nowhere, I opened my hand. And there it was.

A lone Tootsie Pop.

E
very morning, I let the terrorists win. Secret Service–cushioned Bush tells me to be defiant, to be a strong American. I know what I
should
do. I
should
skip defiantly down cracking concrete steps and take the subway. But I never do this. In my veins, paranoia runs deep.

Truth is, I have visions of an odd-shaped navy backpack on the evening news, smoke billowing from caves below city streets, charred morning newspapers and coffee cups strewn about, left behind. Something's going to happen down there one day and I'm not going to be there to live it.

A therapist would have a field day with me given the chance.

Most people can't afford that attitude
, Sage says. And of course, he's right.

Well
, we
can
, knowing just how awful I must sound. But we can.

Sage still takes the subway. He says it doesn't make him
nervous. Statistically, he argues, it's far safer than putting oneself at the mercy of some sleep-deprived crazy behind the wheel of a taxi. Plus, it's faster and important to stay grounded, to mingle with the masses. Even, especially, in the wake of disaster. And on top of all that, it's far cheaper.

So, my man doesn't let the terrorists win. Sometimes, I'm confident this has more to do with not letting
me
win than saving cash or safeguarding American freedom.

This morning's no different. I hail a taxi.

The cheery yellow is only on the outside. Today, my taxi smells like body odor and some kind of souvlaki. A dirty plastic dog bone dangles from the rearview mirror and swings violently as the driver—unsurprisingly named Mohammed—somehow jerks in and out of lanes of unmoving cars. He seems very young, twenty at most. A long, skinny neck props up his bizarrely shaped head that shouldn't be bald. He has a small, unidentifiable tattoo that might be a birthmark. His eyes are small and dark like raisins.

Never talk to strangers
, Dad said to me before I took my first solo ride on the public bus. He and Mom were big fans of public transportation. I'm convinced this was an attempt to distract Michael and me from the fact that we were wealthy, to keep us innocent and unspoiled, a tough, if not impossible, feat in the world of Manhattan. The universal parental lecture was no doubt meant to keep me safe and sound. It was really that simple. Armed with this rudimentary wisdom and a mere decade of life, I was sent into a world full of strangers of different shapes and sizes, most of whom had no interest in talking to little me.

What Dad never told me is that we're always at the mercy of strangers—the strangers who make up our government's
administration, the strangers who interview us for jobs, the strangers who fly our planes and drive our taxis, those who make our coffee.

And those who terrorize our days.

“I'm getting married,” I say aloud, presumably to the perfect stranger in the front seat.

And Mohammed turns and looks at me like I am crazy. “Good luck, woman,” he says.

For the remainder of the ride, I sit in the backseat, wrestling with my BlackBerry, fighting nausea, e-mailing my best friend, Kayla. I write: Engaged this wknd
and hit send before I lose my breakfast. Never did I imagine sharing such monumental life news from a taxicab with a sentence fragment and an emoticon.

Mohammed is a polite man, but a vicious driver. Perfect combination. He doesn't smile in his license picture or in the front seat. But he gets me there. As we pull up in front of my office building, I scan the cracked leather seat, running my fingertips over the broken surface, curiously warm in spots. I trace the wrinkled stickiness of masking tape, making sure I have everything. I reach around my boots to find my bag, feel the remnants of yesterday's snow, and slice the palm of my hand on a broken and rusting umbrella. I wish Mom were here with her foolproof maternal memory to assure me I am up-to-date on tetanus shots. But she isn't here and there's no way I'm up-to-date. I find a royal blue condom wrapper and a business card for a man named Ralph who specializes in speedy patio renovation.

I slam the taxi door and push through the revolving glass doors into the lobby. My office building is on Park Avenue. It's one of those sleek and towering, marble and mahogany
beasts that impresses camcorder-toting tourists on a daily basis and tingles the pride of parents who drop by for outrageously priced chopped salads with yuppie children.

Once upon a time, poking out above the Manhattan skyline was a good thing.

This year's tree is
still
up, blanketed in tiny white lights and blinding ornaments. Someone wants to stretch the Christmas cheer that never quite materialized this year. Each November, those of us lucky enough to escape for Thanksgiving return to the grand tree. Each year's tree surpasses its predecessor in girth and greenness.

At first, I wondered where the poor tree lived before being yanked to remind us of holiday cheer. Certainly, it was far too big to be one of the lush Douglas firs peddled by ruggedly attractive Canadian men who populate the city's pee-soaked pavement beginning each November. Eye candy for disgruntled wives and overwrought supermommies, these men slide into town in the darkness of night, take turns sleeping in blue vans with tinted windows, and gouge New Yorkers with prices we recognize as exorbitant, but prices we are simply too exhausted to bargain down.

“Where do you think they got this one?” I asked Kayla, in my moment of naïveté.

“On the Internet,” she said. “It's fake, Quinn. Like everything else here.”

“Well, at least there's a charitable aspect,” I said. Donated toys—Barbie dolls, LEGO sets, Rescue Heroes—gathered in symmetrical heaps at its base.

“All part of the act,” she said, pointing out a shiny red bicycle with the name of a senior partner emblazoned on the side. “It's all about competition.”

“And the music?” I asked, hopeful there was some good
old innocent explanation for the string quartet that played in the lobby each afternoon.

“To remind us there's more to life than mergers and acquisitions,” she said, giggling. What she meant: There's more to life than sex and money.

 

Just a couple months later, I see things clearly. The display reeks. Not of pine, but of pretense. Falsity. Irony. Ostensibly it is the embodiment of human goodness and Christmas cheer, but I have a hunch that even this year many of the men and women holed up in the offices above do not spend much time focused on the less fortunate, on the kids without a Santa Claus. I have a hunch because I'm one of them. No, we conjure Christmas lists of our own: summer houses in the Hamptons, the latest line of Louis Vuitton luggage, private school admissions for privileged tykes. For us, Santa no longer wears red and white, boiled wool and snow white fur, but pinstripes and cuff links. And his gifts are not slithered down a chimney, but directly deposited. Yes, I'm among the souls who salivate for the beloved Christmas bonus, that not-so-little “extra” that's scattered each year at a time when families gather without us and doubts set in.

 

10:01
A.M
. I'm later than usual. I speed through the lobby, my heels clicking away on smooth white marble. My bag slips off my shoulder and dangles on one arm, digging deep into my flesh. I fumble my BlackBerry open in the other, shuffling my feet in fits and starts, slowing down as I check the messages that arrive in clusters of two and three. The blood on my palm has dripped down and around my wrist, making me look either suicidal or like a Kabbalah convert. I can't decide which would be worse.

Big-shouldered Javier waits at the turnstile, arms crossed in front of his broad chest, and smiles at me. He's my favorite of the countless guards garbed in maroon polyester who patrol the vast lobby space; security is understandably a lot tighter these days.

“Hey,” I say, managing a discombobulated wave. Did he notice the ring? When I started here, Javier told me I looked far too young to be an attorney. What about a wife? Am I too young for that?

I swipe my law firm ID card and wait for the elevator.

The elevator arrives, and waiting bodies with fisted Starbucks scramble to pile in. It's too early for eye contact, so we shuffle in, looking down at the medley of sneakers and high heels, the dangling gym bags and just-in-case umbrellas. I press my button and stare at the small TV screen above the buttons. It tells me the alert level du jour, sports scores about which I don't care, and how the weather will continue to be shitty through the week. The elevator doors are inches from closing when five thin fingers with the palest pink polish reach through the gap.

Kayla.

“Hey, bitch!” she says, breaking the morning code of silence, pushing up against me. Born a redhead, she now has blond hair. In her khaki trench and South Seas pearls, she's mastered the art of corporate casual. “So,” she says, staring at her BlackBerry, “
someone
had a good weekend, huh?”

Kayla is a Greenwich girl. She has the pedigree of a champ: All-American swimmer at Hotchkiss, Harvard for college, Harvard for law school. She'd be easy to hate.

“Decent weekend,” I whisper, and smile. “In Paris.”

Kayla grabs my left wrist, jerking my hand up toward her face. “Yeah, I'd say you had a good weekend. And all I get
is a butchered BlackBerry message? A ring that size and you guys couldn't splurge on the international call?”

I pull my hand away and return it to my side, but she grabs it again.

“Oh, Q, marriage isn't going to be
that
bad. No need for such extreme measures.” She points to the traces of dried blood on my wrist.

“Umbrella accident,” I say, as if this makes sense.

Two women eye my ring—or wrist—and whisper. A third follows their glances and smiles at me. I think she's the one who slept with a bankruptcy partner after a summer associate caviar party.

“Congratulations. I must say I'm not too thrilled about the abandonment, though.”

Kayla follows me off the elevator and to my office.

“I can't believe you are going wife on me, leaving your poor ringless slut of a friend behind.”

The use of profanity is the hallmark of insecurity and low self-esteem
, Mom once said.
Fuck insecurity. Fuck self-esteem
, I said. We both laughed.

“K, I'm twenty-seven. This is what people
do.
They get married. They have kids.”

“Guess I'm way behind the curve, then. Thank God. The thought of one man, just one, gives me the shivers,” Kayla says.

“Better than herpes.”

Kayla laughs. “So what now? We surf for dresses that make you look like Cinderella?”

“K, I love you, but not now. I'm screwed—Fisher's on me for this research.”
Screwed. On me.

Maybe it is all about sex.

“So calm down and bill a few hours,” she says.

And money.

I boot up my computer. My desk is a disaster. The faux-cedar surface is blanketed in papers, errant paper clips, parched yellow highlighters. Ten almost-finished bottles of Poland Spring stand in a line, transparent soldiers standing guard along the honey-colored corkboard where my desk meets the wall.

“Look at you. What an environmentalist—here with your water conservation efforts,” Kayla says, fiddling with one of the bottles. “When did you get so neat anyway? Practicing to be wifey, huh?”

Kayla helps me in my quest for order, stacking documents, ditching random plastic spoons and empty packets of artificial sweetener. I chuck the Poland Springs into the garbage can under my desk, knowing I should recycle. I feel a violent surge of déjà vu. The dream. I was
here
in my dream. At this desk, working late. It was all too real.

“You're on another planet. Is this the little-known effect of diamonds? I must know,” Kayla says, shoving binders into an overhead shelf.

“I'm just exhausted. This is all a little surreal.”

“Whatever you say, but if you ask me, you don't seem happy.”

Silence.

“His mother helped him pick the ring.”

“Hmm.”

“Am I paranoid to think she has taken the very first opportunity to insert herself into our marriage? I look at this ring and I think of her.”

“Lovely,” she says. “Well, if you're right, she could ruin everything.”

“Huh?”

“He's a mama's boy, Q. You've said it yourself. This isn't an instance of fierce competition. This is an instance of no competition. She'll win every time.”

“Cheers,” I say, tossing an empty water bottle at her.

Kayla shrugs. “Remind me: How many times has he brought you home?”

“Never,” I say. “But he hardly goes home. Just for holidays and his brother's birthdays.”

“All excuses, Quinn.” she says. “He's been trying to keep you two on opposite ends of the ring, but that might not be possible anymore. You know what that little bauble on your finger means?”