What Happens in Suburbia... Read online

  No, but I wonder if I really want to be a junior copywriter at Blaire Barnett Advertising in Manhattan, either.

  Maybe I want…

  Maybe I don’t know what I want.

  Other than to get the hell out of this building before Crosby Courts reappears and summons me back to her lair.

  I stick my iPod earbuds into my ears and turn it on. Some good, loud music will be an appropriate way to kick off the weekend, right?

  Right—except the charge is depleted.

  And let me tell you, there is nothing worse than riding the subway without an iPod. It’s the only way to tune out the chaos of the city.

  I’m contemplating taking the stairs when at last a down elevator arrives. Naturally, it’s already filled to overflowing with office workers impatient to launch their own overdue weekends.

  I wedge myself in and ignore the grumbles from behind me as the doors slide shut two inches from the tip of my nose. Something—it had damn well better be someone’s umbrella—is poking into my butt.

  Outside, Lexington Avenue is still engulfed in an icy March downpour. Getting a cab would be akin to landing that Lavish Locks print ad: It ain’t gonna happen.

  Blaire Barnett offers a car service to employees who work past ten. Do I dare go back upstairs to wait it out?

  I check my watch. It would be about twenty minutes…

  But no, I do not dare. On any night at 10:00 p.m., there’s a car-service backup. Friday nights are worse. Plus, it’s raining. That’s at least another hour delay.

  Anyway, Crosby is still up there. If she sees me, she’ll need me to tweak a line on the copy I just rewrote for the hundredth time, and twenty minutes will turn into tomorrow morning.

  So off I splash to the number six subway a few blocks away. I duck under scaffolding and awnings at every opportunity, but there’s no way around it: I’m drenched.

  As I hover in the doorway of a bank on the corner waiting for the light to change, I call Jack from my cell.

  “Hey, where are you?” he asks, and has the nerve to sound boozy and jovial.

  “I was headed for the subway, but now I’m thinking I might just go home. By the time I get down there—”

  “No, don’t go home. I miss you. It’s Friday night.”

  Aw…he’s so sweet. He misses me.

  And it is Friday night…

  “Come on, Tracey!” I hear a voice saying in the background. “We’re having fun! Get your keister down here.”

  Oh, yeah. I momentarily forgot about Mitch, aka pain in said keister.

  “I don’t know,” I tell Jack, “I’m really wiped out, and it’s pouring, and I’d have to take the subway—”

  “It’ll take ten minutes, Trace.”

  So will going home.

  But it’s Friday night and I miss my husband. I sigh and tell Jack I’ll be there.

  As I head toward the subway entrance, I reach into my pocket for my Metrocard.

  It’s gone. Seriously. I pull out the linings of both pockets to make sure it isn’t crumpled in with a dry used tissue or something. Nope.

  I must have dropped it. Or maybe someone pickpocketed me in the elevator.

  It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened—although never in my office building. A few months ago, when I was caught up in a herd of commuters at Grand Central Station, some kid stole a twenty I had tucked into my pocket. I felt myself being jostled, realized what was happening, and shouted, “Thief! Thief!” as the kid took off.

  A National Guardsman was right nearby—post 9-11, they patrol all the major transportation hubs wearing camouflage, which always strikes me as slightly ridiculous. The camouflage, I mean. Are they trying to blend into the background? They’d be better off wearing cashmere overcoats with plaid Burberry scarves and polished wingtips.

  The National Guard did not come to my rescue when I was robbed. Apparently, Homeland Security is only interested in apprehending potential terrorists, not pickpockets. Understandable, I guess.

  I haven’t run into any yet—terrorists, I mean—but that doesn’t mean I’m not always on the lookout. Don’t think the prospect of suicide bombers doesn’t cross my mind every single time I walk down the steps into the subway.

  Like right now.

  As always, I warily scan the crowd to make sure no one appears to be packing an explosive vest. You can never be sure.

  If you see something, say something—that’s my motto.

  Well, not just my motto. It’s actually the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s motto, but I’m down with it.

  I spot a couple of candidates who look as if they might be up to something, but they’re probably just your garden-variety street thugs. There’s a woman who’s acting furtive and seems to have something strapped across her front, but then she turns around and I see that it’s a baby. Close call.

  At the automated ticket machine, I feed a couple of soggy dollar bills into a slot that keeps spitting them back out again. After many frustrating tries, I wind up waiting on a seemingly endless line at the booth.

  Finally, new Metrocard in hand, I’m through the turnstile, where I almost head to the uptown stairs out of habit. Home is a mere forty-three blocks and five stops up the line, I think wistfully. Jack is about the same distance in the opposite direction.

  Should I just forget about meeting him? I so wish Mitch weren’t there. I so wish Mitch weren’t everywhere. Lately, he’s camped out on our new (custom-upholstered, a Christmas present to each other) couch night after night, watching sports with Jack.

  Hey, if I go home now, I’ll have the couch—and remote—all to myself. I have to admit, E! True Hollywood Story sounds better than anything else right now.

  But Jack is counting on me. And who knows? Maybe Mitch will take a hint and leave when I get there.

  No, he won’t. He loves us. Even me. Jack is always telling me that. “He loves you, Tracey. He thinks you’re great.”

  I’m so great and he loves me so much that a few months ago, Mitch decided to move into a studio apartment right around the corner from us. Thank God there were no openings in our building. He checked.

  Don’t get me wrong—he’s a terrific guy. He and Jack have been friends since college and he was best man at our wedding. It’s just that my weekdays (and nights) have become so challenging that when I’m not at work, I want my husband—and our apartment, and our couch, and our remote—to myself.

  I guess I should probably stop being so nice to Mitch whenever he’s over, so he won’t want to hang around. Or I should get Jack to tell him we need more time to ourselves. Or I should tell him myself.

  Yeah. Or we could just move far, far away.

  I trudge down the stairs leading to the southbound number six track, where I sense something is amiss.

  My first clue: the platform is a squirming sea of humanity wearing a collective pissed-off expression, and the loudspeaker is squawking. The announcement is unintelligible, but it’s not as if they can possibly be saying, “Attention, subway riders, everything is running like clockwork tonight and we’ll have you where you’re going in no time. Have a great weekend!”

  Hopefully it’s just a temporary delay.

  I wearily force my way into the crowd, steering clear of the edge of the platform because really, the last thing I need right now is to fall onto the tracks and get hit by a train. Although, I wouldn’t really be surprised. If I lived to be surprised.

  “Excuse me, what’s going on?” I ask the nearest bystander, who, if she were any nearer, would be huddled inside my coat with me.

  She explains the situation, either in a language I don’t understand—meaning, something other than English or Italian—or with a major speech impediment, poor thing.

  I smile and nod, pretending to get it.

  Meanwhile, I eavesdrop on the guy whose elbow is pressed into my rib cage mere inches from my right breast. He’s saying something into his cell phone about a derailment down near Fourteenth Street.

 
Derailment?

  Forget it. There’s no way in hell—which is pretty much where I am right now—that I’ll ever make it down to the Village.

  I have no other choice but to squirm my way back to the stairs as—wouldn’t you know it—an uptown train comes and goes without me on the opposite track.

  When at last I make it up the stairs and am heading toward the other side, I hear another train roaring into the northbound track below. Already? They usually don’t come this close together.

  I break into a run, shouting, “Someone hold the doors!”

  Nobody does, dammit.

  I reach the platform just as they’re dinging closed, and this guy standing on the other side of the glass—some lame guy in a wet trench coat who could have held the doors, because I can tell by his expression that he heard me—offers a helpless shrug.

  I dare to glare, hoping belatedly that he doesn’t have a gun, and watch the train trundle off toward my distant neighborhood without me.

  Oh, well. Another one will be along in a few minutes, right?

  Wrong. So, so wrong.

  Twenty minutes later, this platform is nearly as crowded as the other side, and someone near me has terrible gas. I keep trying to move away, but the stink keeps moving, too. By process of elimination I’ve isolated it to three possible people: a guy with a goatee and backpack, an old lady, or an attractive businesswoman who’s about my age and may be trying too hard to appear nonchalant.

  I’ve also just been treated to an a cappella rendition of Billy Squiers’s “Stroke Me,” sung by some dirty old man whose fly is down—making it less serenade than suggestion. When I refuse to throw some change into the hat he passes, he tells me to %@#$ Off, with an accompanying hand gesture.

  By the time the next train comes hurtling into the station—so packed that the only way to get on is to literally shove past people crammed by the doors, who shove right back—I am wondering, once again, why I live in New York City.

  I mean, seriously…what am I doing here?

  Yes, my husband is here. And my job. And my friends. And all my stuff.

  But…why?

  These days, unless one is supremely wealthy—and we’re not—the quality of life in the city seems pretty dismal. Traffic, poverty, crowds, the smell…I can’t imagine it’s that much worse in Calcutta.

  Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. They have monsoon season in Calcutta, right? And a lot of curry. I’m not crazy about curry.

  But there’s a lot of curry in New York, too. And this might not be a monsoon, but as I splash back out into the deluge, I decide it’s worse. Whatever’s falling out of the sky has now frozen into sleet, or hail, and it’s pelting my face and head.

  Remembering that there’s probably nothing to eat at home, I detour two blocks to the deli. I pick up a loaf of whole-grain bread, a half pound of turkey breast, lettuce, an apple, a diet raspberry Snapple and a couple of rolls of toilet paper because we’re almost out.

  “Twenty-seven fifty-eight,” says the clerk.

  I blink, look down at the counter and shove aside a big fruit basket that’s sitting there in shrink-wrap. “Oh, this isn’t mine,” I tell her.

  “I know.”

  Then why did you add it to my bill? And would it kill you to crack a smile?

  Wait a minute. The fruit basket alone would have to be at least fifty bucks.

  “How much was it?” I ask again, gesturing at my stuff, because I thought she said—

  “Twenty-seven fifty-eight.”

  Jeez. Can this measly little pile of groceries possibly cost that much?

  Yes, it can, and Unsmiling Cashier is waiting for her money.

  I open my wallet again, wondering why I’m surprised. I mean, after all these years of living in Manhattan, I know things are superexpensive. Yet every so often, I still find myself caught off guard at cash registers.

  All that’s left in my wallet are two ones and a wad of receipts.

  With a sigh, I pull out my American Express card. As Unsmiling Cashier runs it through the machine, a quick mental calculation tells me that in my hometown, this would run me ten bucks, maybe twelve. Tops.

  Back out in the monsoon, I make my way to the doorman building that seemed like such a luxury when I first moved here from my dumpy little studio in the East Village.

  As luck would have it, Jimmy, my favorite doorman—who actually flew up to Brookside for our wedding a few years ago—isn’t on duty tonight. He always cheers me up.

  Unlike Gecko. He’s on duty tonight and always has the opposite effect. He’s the ultimate pessimist. I swear, you could win the lottery and he’d immediately list every past lottery winner who ever went on to get divorced, go bankrupt or commit suicide. He’s just that kind of guy.

  “What a crappy night, huh?” he comments as he opens the door and I blow in on a gust of frozen precipitation.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I mean literally.”

  Uh-oh.

  I know what he means by that.

  “The M.C. has struck again,” Gecko informs me.

  “Where?” I hold my breath.

  “Third floor.”

  I sign in relief. That’s six floors away from ours.

  The Mad Crapper has been terrorizing our building for over a month now. He never strikes in the same place at the same time, so he’s been impossible to catch. Some tenants want to band together and organize a twenty-four-hour surveillance team with mandatory participation.

  I really hope it doesn’t come to that. Because really, the last thing I want to do after a long, exhausting day at work is lurk in a shadowy corridor waiting for some stealthy figure to come along, squat and deposit a steaming pile of fresh crap before my very eyes.

  Anyway, who’s to say the Mad Crapper isn’t living right here among us?

  Sharing much T.M.I. about the latest strike, Gecko follows me to the mailroom, where I retrieve a stack of bills and catalogs from our box, along with an envelope addressed to Resident.

  Uh-oh. Is this from the Citizens Vigilante Group?

  No, thank God.

  Even better.

  “Building’s being fumigated again on Monday,” Gecko informs me as I open the envelope and skim the super’s note telling me just that.

  “Again? Why?”

  “Roaches,” says the perennial bearer of bad news. “Seventh floor’s infested.”

  Infested. Now there’s a word that can’t possibly have a positive connotation under any circumstances.

  “Uh-oh,” I say, making a face.

  “Uh-oh is right. They’re probably crawling around in your place, too. Keep an eye out when you turn on the light.”

  “Believe me, I will.”

  It’s not like I’ve never seen a roach. Just about every apartment in New York has them at some point or another. But I freak out every time one scuttles past.

  Going back to the Crapper’s latest M.O.—the culprit apparently signed his most recent offering with a fecal flourish—Gecko follows me toward the elevator.

  “Have a good night,” he calls after me as I step in.

  “You, too.”

  “I doubt that,” he replies dourly as the doors slide closed.

  For once, I’m right there with him.

  On our floor, I make my way to apartment 9K, the tiny Ikea-furnished one-bedroom where we’ve been living for—is it almost five years now?

  Five years. No wonder.

  After unlocking three dead bolts, I step inside and promptly crash into a chair.

  Not because somebody left it practically in front of the door, but because that’s where it belongs. There’s just no other place to put it.

  I drop my barbell—I mean, bag—on it.

  Ah, relief.

  Rubbing my aching shoulder with one hand I turn on a lamp with the other, and check to see if roaches are scurrying into the corners.

  No. But they’re probably there, tucked away into the cracks, watching me.

  Just
to be sure none has invaded our space, I give the apartment a good once-over. That takes all of four or five seconds, because there’s not much to it. Two boxy rooms—living room and bedroom—plus a galley kitchenette and bathroom.

  Maybe the place would seem more spacious if we got rid of some of this clutter, I think, trying to be optimistic.

  Like what, though? Our toothbrushes? The television set?

  A booming sound overhead makes me jump, until I remember that a family of circus freaks moved in upstairs last month.

  Seeing them in the elevator, you’d think they were a perfectly respectable Upper East Side family of four: Dad in suit with briefcase, Mom in yoga pants pushing designer stroller, one older kid who’s invariably plugged into something handheld with earphones, one younger kid placidly rolling along in said designer stroller.

  The second they get home sweet home, though? Sideshow, full swing. Our ceiling shakes so violently you’d swear there are elephants, giants and fat ladies stomping around up there. Jo-Jo-the-dog-faced-boy scampers to and fro in an endless game of fetch, and there must be at least a couple of klutzy Wallendas who regularly fall off their trapeze onto the uncarpeted floor.

  I’m betting a full-time live-in decorator is there as well, because furniture is rearranged as regularly as most of us pee. And I think there’s a resident carpenter, too—that, or a serial killer, because I hear what sounds like a hammer and a buzz saw at all hours. (Jack claims it’s just high heels and a blow-dryer, but he has a high noise tolerance. I could be standing right over him, talking to him, and he doesn’t hear me. I swear, it happens all the time.)

  Oh, and I don’t know what happens to Older Kids’ ubiquitous earphones when he crosses the threshold of his bedroom—which has to be right above ours—but he’s not using them there. Our room vibrates day and night with the audio from his television and iPod speakers and arcadelike video-game system.

  Valentine’s Day was a nightmare. To celebrate the third anniversary of Jack’s popping the question—yes, I’m big on commemorating relationship milestones—I staged this whole cozy scene for when he got home from work. There I was, waiting in our bed with lingerie, candles, champagne, chocolate fondue and Norah Jones (her new CD, I mean, not Norah herself—we’re not into threesomes).