That first August was unbearably hot. I arrived with one suitcase and a round-trip airline ticket, convinced it was nothing but a graduation trip. I did pack a few resumes in my carry-on, though, just in case. On the first evening of my visit, looking across the Hudson from New Jersey to Manhattan, I was struck with a sudden conviction that the metropolis that lay before me was to be my new home and, at the same moment, besieged by an intense revulsion at the very thought. I pictured hoardes of type-A workers in miniature, scurrying around shadowy, litter-strewn sidewalks and streets and up and down subway stairs, like rodents. For several nights afterward, I lay awake in bed at my friend Laura's apartment in Hoboken as summer thunderstorms beat outside the window, listening to Norah Jones on my iPod to distract myself from the nervousness that constricted my midsection like a corset, convinced it could not all work out, and not sure I wanted it to. I prayed desperately for aid and wisdom, though exactly what I wanted them for was a bit unclear.
When my friend Dodge called a few days into my visit to say that the girl who had been subletting his Upper East Side apartment had bailed, and did I want to stay there until he found someone else, Laura and I took a bus into the city to see the place. From the street we pushed through a pair of ugly brown doors and went directly to the stairs, alongside of which sat a collection of large plastic trash bins. It was a long climb to the fourth floor. Once we were actually inside the apartment, having gained access using a set of malfitted keys I had picked up from a friend of the friend who was "officially" renting the place, it was only slightly less discouraging. The high ceilings, marble fireplace, and large bedroom were less noticeable than the layers of grime covering the walls and window frames and the dust floating in the dim afternoon sunlight. The closets were full of Dodge's old stuff, which I would later ship to him via Media Mail in a dozen large boxes, and the toilet wouldn't flush without repairs. When I sank onto the mustard leather Mission-style armchair in the corner--a street find, I later learned--it exhaled with a distinct scent of age and rot that I can still smell when I picture it. Laura, who had been in the city for a year before marrying and relocating to Hoboken, asked me how much the rent would be.
"$1,050," I answered, the number sounding impossibly large.
"Take it," Laura said emphatically.
I cancelled my return flight. Later that same week, an internship fell into place when I, the newly-minted Humanities graduate, mentioned to an acquaintance that I was looking to go into public relations, not knowing he worked for a corporate PR firm. My acquaintance proved to be a scoundrel and a liar, who blamed me for his many mistakes and took credit for my few successes, but the internship paid almost enough to cover the rent, and kept me in the city long enough to decide that I could make a life for myself here.
Those first six months were like standing in front of a screaming jet engine, trying to resist being sucked in. I would wake at six a.m. and put on one of my two new suits, purchased with credit card debt, or one of the couple of dresses I had packed in my suitcase and that had, until then, been worn only for church and wedding receptions. Outside, invigorated by the cool morning air and youthful ambition, I walked with a purposeful stride toward the subway. A block or two from the 77th Street Station, what had been a few straggling pedestrians grew into a teeming mass of similarly attired professionals, until at last we descended the stairs in a crush, passing through turnstiles and onto the six train, pressing ever closer until we formed a single, sweaty block that swayed together with the motion of the train. A long day's work, then home again the way I had come. By the time I walked in the door at eight p.m. I was so tired that I would collapse onto the couch and fall asleep, often waking the following morning still in my clothes. And then I would do it all over again. At the end of the month I would put my meager earnings with some of the money my parents were loaning me on a monthly basis into an unmarked envelope and walk to an old barber shop a few blocks away, where I would say I had something for Tony. I would hold out the envelope and someone would slide it under the cash register. I never asked questions. Neither did they.
Every Tuesday after work I would buy a whole rotisserie chicken at Dallas BBQ, a box of oats, and a head of lettuce at Citarella, from which I would glean a week's worth of breakfasts and dinners. Lunch was pizza-by-the-slice, unless by some good fortune there had been a meeting with clients at work, which meant catering leftovers. I also met a few kind men who were happy to provide a young intern with a decent meal out in exchange for conversation and a moderately pretty face to look at across the table. Without them I may have starved. Saturdays I would go to the Metropolitan Museum to sketch or walk down Madison Avenue looking in shop windows, and in the evenings, if I didn't have a date, I would work on the apartment, eking what little cleanliness and order I could out of the outrageously neglected space. I would listen to old BBC comedies on the little television that had come with the apartment and, standing on an old metal filing cabinet, wash walls or paint trim until it looked halfway decent. It did occur to me occasionally to wonder, if I were to fall and fatally injure myself, how long it would be before someone noticed I was missing. Weeks, I reckoned.
In early October my parents came to visit, bringing the remainder of my useful belongings and hoping to reassure themselves of my well-being. We drove upstate to visit my grandparents, who were temporarily serving as missionaries there. It was a welcome escape, if only for a weekend. We walked through woods of intense green and breathed clean air, and I felt bathed in the warmth of familial affection. When my parents had to return me to the city, my father stood at my apartment door for a long time with a hand resting on the knob, looking extremely reluctant to leave. My mother later confessed that she had cried for days afterward. My own feelings of loneliness and confusion about why I was staying were palpable. Nightly prayers were fervent and accompanied by tears.
The difficulties began to ease. I found a roommate to cover half the rent and began to make friends, including the one I would eventually marry. A more established female colleague took me under her wing and taught me how to properly hail a cab and gave me useful encouragement when the jerk who had gotten me the internship began to undermine my efforts to turn it into a real job. I found five hundred dollars on my first solo cab ride and the driver insisted that I keep it, as cash could not be turned in to the lost and found. Steve and I moved from friendship to dating. And by the time I went home for Christmas, there were still plenty of questions--would our relationship succeed, what would I do next, now that my internship had finished and I was no longer interested in PR--but whether or not I would stay in New York was not one of them. I had found my place in the world.
