10 March 2013
{ People seemed to enjoy the prologue I uploaded a few days ago, so here's the first chapter, if anyone's interested?! }
New York was beautiful, in a technicolour, never-sleeping sort of way. I imagined, looking out across the view from my apartment, that somewhere somebody was doing exactly the same as me: just watching.
My phone rang in my pocket and I pulled it out without looking, my gaze following the path of a yellow cab twisting in and out of the sluggish traffic.
"Hello?" I forgot to look at the caller ID, a regular mistake on my part.
"Is', darling! Are you moved in?" My mother called unnecessarily loudly down the line. She hadn't yet grasped the idea of talking normally. It was as if she thought that in order from me to hear her, states over, she needed to yell.
I tried to not sigh down the phone, turning away from the effervescent city below. "Yeah, Mom, I'm all sorted. Thanks for getting me here; it already feels like the right thing to do." I gazed across my spacious apartment. It wasn't cosy, it wasn't comfortable. It was sleek, modern, fancy - everything home wasn't.
Mom simpered down the phone, sounding smug. She liked knowing she was right. In the background, I heard Dad asking her to leave me be. I smiled fondly; Dad understood that I wanted space. I needed to adjust, and having Mom call me every five seconds was one of the best ways not to let me do that.
Two minutes later, Dad managed to distract Mom - I didn't want to know how - and it was peaceful in my apartment once more. I turned towards the bedroom. It was only eight thirty, but I was bone weary. I knew, even with the sleep I managed on the train and the early night I would get now, that tomorrow I'd have suitcases under my eyes.
○ ○ ○
I was running through the less-busy side of town, dodging through people, trying to find a clear pathway to run through. Apparently, there wasn't a less-busy side of New York. Flustered people and beeping cars filled every available street - it was claustrophobic and squeezing the air from my lungs. I knew that if I didn't find a relatively quiet place to run in, that I would have to stick to my apartment complex's gym. Which I really, really didn't want to do. I was a road-runner to bone.
A ducked into a doorway just inside of the people traffic on the pavement and wiped a thin line of sweat from my brow. My dark hair swung from a pony tail at the back of my head, and I stuck a hand on my hip, trying to get my breath back. I panned my gaze across the streets: busy. Every single one of them: busy.
"God's sake," I muttered. I searched for an opening; surely there must be a public garden or something around here. I just needed some space, I needed to run. Running helped me get away from reality; even when Jason was alive, I would run and forget - it was better than any medicine that could be prescribed.
A soft breeze tousled my hair and I stretched slightly. Instead of attempting to run, and just having my feet trodden on some more, I left the doorstep at a leisurely walk. I kept in time to the crowd, almost dance-like, moving fast when they did and slowing down simultaneously, too.
I ended up on a quieter avenue. I had no idea where I was, and at that point, in the midday heat of summery New York, I didn't much care. I started to run again, feeling I had enough space to actually make some progress. I ran a mile or so, then stopped and walked a minute. I repeated this four times.
I bent over after my fifth mile, panting. I wished I'd taken the initiative to bring a bottle. Or, for that matter, some money - I had no way of knowing what part of town I was in, and I was dying of dehydration. Brilliant, Isabella, first full day of New York and you're lost and thirsty. Way to show your strength and independence... not.
I moved to the left, into a small botanical garden. The bushes were shaped like animals: a hare, a fox, a tiger, an eagle. I passed them with admiration, wishing I could do something so cool - unfortunately, I had the artistic skill of a lame baboon... probably, worse, if I was completely honest.
"Excuse me?" A stern voice and a tap on the shoulder had me turning, alarmed. A frowning middle-aged man stood before me, dressed in orange overalls and wielding a pair of gardening sheers. I smiled; this was clearly the artist of the plant-work. At my smile, he seemed even more agitated. My smile, consequently, faded. "Excuse me, but these are private gardens."
I raised a hand to my mouth. "Oh God, I am so sorry! I had no idea... I'll just... I'll go." I felt flustered, embarrassed even. Just before I exited the small garden for good, I turned to the man, who was still regarding me sternly. "By the way, they're beautiful... these plants, they're beautiful."
Before I left him, I thought I saw a soft smile flare on his tan skin and smooth his weathered brow. I left with a smile of my own.
○ ○ ○
The rest of that first week, and the weekend following it, raced by. In no time, I was slipping on a suit skirt, a crisp white shirt and a pair of latent heeled pumps. It felt strange, dressing in work clothes, after so long without working.
When Jason and I had lived together, I'd worked for the local newspaper's magazine every weekday. It took a lot of the loneliness out of him being away all of the time. After he passed away though, I'd stopped working - work understood, and even paid me the full month's wages, despite me leaving them high and dry half way through. Everybody loved Jason like that.
This newspaper house was on a different level. In fact, it was several hundred levels up. Without my mother and her incredible meddling ways, I knew for a fact that I would never have even got the chance to interview for a job at The New York Times Magazine. Although my mom was mostly and frequently a pain in my ass, sometimes the woman was a God-send.
I left my apartment at seven thirty sharp, triple-checking I'd locked it; paranoia was a must-have in a huge city like this - especially when I came from a less-popular suburb of Mexico City. I was a not-so-small-town girl, moving to the city. With serious heart-ache, and a job I didn't even score myself. I sounded like a sit-com, and one that I would maybe even indulge in watching.
New York, busy as ever, hummed around me. Unlike when I was running, I was now a part of the mass of en-route workers, although I didn't have a cell phone attached to my ear as most of the people around me did. I knew the way to the offices, because I'd scoped them out earlier that week, cleverly. It was a fifteen minute trip, nice in the early morning air, but I knew come home-time it would be scorching and uncomfortable.
I arrived at the The Times, looking up at the towering building in front of me. Clasping my ID badge in front of me, I felt a sense of bravery overcome me as I stepped off the average pavement and into the above-average glass cage of a foyer. I was stopped only once on my way towards the elevator, by a burly security guard. He asked for my ID, and when I showed him it, he flashed his pearly whites at me and said "Miss Garcia, enjoy your day."
The elevator was cramped. Was there not one place - besides that wonderful, private botanical garden - in New York that wasn't inundated with bodies? I squeezed into the furthest corner, wedged between a fat, sweating man with an unattractive goatee and a thin woman with red nails clicking at a sleek phone. The ride only got worse: by the third floor, four more people had joined the carriage, and I was beginning to fear for my own safety. Wasn't there a limit to how many could be in an elevator at one point? I shrunk further against the wall in my corner, praying it would be over soon.
At the eleventh floor, the place suddenly emptied. The doors pinged shut and my eyes fluttered closed with a sigh of relief. Then, they snapped open. I checked the number panel. Shit. I had missed my elevator stop, and now I was ascending to the top floor. Apparently, as I jabbed every possible button on the panel in a wave of panic, there was nothing stopping the elevator's conquest. I slapped a hand to my forehead. Nothing will ever go smoothly for me, will it?
The top floor was silent when the elevator doors smoothly slid open. I waited in the car for a long second, but apparently it wasn't going anywhere. As soon as I left it, however, the doors snapped shut and it plummeted back down to the first floor. I felt like crying - tears even sprung to my mind, until I cursed at myself silently. I hadn't cried in a year, and was not about to break that streak because of some stupid elevator malfunction.
I looked around, as calmly as I could, smoothing my sweaty palms across my fitted grey skirt. I was in a brief corridor, which turned abruptly only a few feet from where I stood. There was no other elevator, and it didn't look like the one I was in front of was coming back any time soon - it was crawling its way up the ones and twos once more. But that was okay - I was calm... well, not really, but perhaps if I told myself that over and over and over again, it would come true. Wishful thinking at its best.
I walked cautiously, kind of timidly, towards the turn off. When I reached it, I felt like I was starting a race - that's how nervy I was. I tiptoed round the corner, hoping not to be seen - I shouldn't have bothered. An open reception made it so that there was no way I couldn't not be seen... a willowy red-headed receptionist gaped at me and I shuffled awkwardly. Dear Lord, it was so awkward I almost considered running back to Mexico City to my mama and begging her to let me sponge off of her for the rest of my life. Almost.
"Do you have an appointment with Mr Sanchez?" The woman asked, fixing her fashion-statement glasses on her nose and furrowing her brow. She looked utterly confused, as if having someone on this floor was an anomaly. For all I knew, it was.
I stuttered. Looked at the floor. Glanced longingly to my l
It Takes Two To Tango: Chapter One. • Opuss № I