Love Her Madly (19 page)

Once we married, our relationship with his parents improved, though it remained strained. As time trudged onward and Raj failed to tire of me, I could see them making efforts not to be outwardly judgmental, and by the time they visited our current apartment in Queens, they were able to disguise their chagrin with relative success. Our place isn't a palace, but it's a real find for the price, with a dedicated office for Raj and a view of the Triborough Bridge. His father had walked through the space, grimacing with each step, as if he were, at that moment, macerating glass. His mother opened a closet, expecting to find another bedroom, and an errant broom handle tipped out and hit her in the eye. But they didn't actually criticize the place, or Raj's life choices. That was really an improvement, especially because they had just taken the train in from Long Island, where Raj's older brother had recently purchased a vacation house, flush with money after being named “North Carolina's Best Dermatologist,” two years running, by
Southern Health
magazine.

As we shivered through that first achingly cold winter in Brooklyn, we were acting on faith, hoping that by drastically changing our location, we might be able to put Costa Rica and all that it symbolized behind us. We naively thought that the world would accommodate our plan for a fresh start, but in New York, my phone never stopped ringing. Every television network had a talking head afflicted with the insatiable desire to rehash the minutiae of our disaster. There was even discussion of a TV movie. The idea of speaking publicly about Cyn made me sick, but the money the networks offered was nigh irresistible. I admit, I would have done it. We were totally broke. Problem
was, the networks always wanted both of us: me and Raj together. Raj flatly refused, standing firm even as we stared down the barrel of two sets of tuition bills and astonishingly high rent for that decrepit studio in Bed-Stuy.

I cried all the time those first few months. I cried when rats left droppings across our pillows. I cried when the only job I could find was a minimum-wage retail gig at a children's clothing store called Rag Tag! I cried, secretly, when Raj was accepted into the Actors Studio, thinking that he would soon be leaving my sorry ass behind for some glamorous, bubbly actress. I was a mess. My depression, so impenetrable that it made my Big U episode look like a mild case of the blues, made me miserable to be around. But Raj, my closest, dearest person, somehow caught the brunt of all my agita, and like an enchanted circus juggler, picked it up, tossed it into the air, and handed something wonderful back to me each and every day. I never realized he had such an optimistic streak, but he kept promising me things would get better, and eventually they did.

The darkness faded, replaced by intense moments of discovery and new delights. We watched the sunrise, drinking forties on rooftops with new friends. We strolled hand in hand for hours, strafing the streets of Manhattan, filling our eyes, ears, and noses with a kaleidoscope of stimuli that would later color our dreams. We frequented cheap taquerias, became slaves to Chinatown's dumpling alleys, and haunted the grimiest happy hour bars on the Lower East Side, lavishing our laundry quarters on the jukebox. Hardly anyone knew our story or suspected that we were ever temporarily famous. I grew grateful that Raj had the foresight to turn down the TV money. I liked just being Glo and Raj, without the inglorious past.

As Raj began his conservatory program, I decided it was time to get my own act together. I figured out the minimum credits I needed to complete my BA and signed up for night school. I was
done with being a perpetual undergrad, and classwork gave me something to focus on while Raj was away nights, rehearsing. Raj pulled in some cash doing administrative work at his school, and inveterate student that he was, audited directing courses on the side. We didn't buy anything, ever, other than food, booze, and my textbooks, but we were happy. My night school classes were cake compared to Tiny U, and my graduating GPA was sky-high. I didn't take a break to celebrate, though. My sights were fixed on law school. With my wacky transcript, I knew I'd need to ace the LSAT to get accepted anywhere.

Raj took one look at my encyclopedic LSAT study manual and paled. “Honey, you don't have to do this,” he'd whispered, as if I'd volunteered to have my arm removed and replaced with a shovel. But I did want to do it. I knew I wasn't the most analytic person by nature, but I was methodical and could process a lot of information. I thought it might even be a way for me to do some good in the world.

“Is this because of her?” he'd asked one night as I struggled, near tears, with the logic games in the practice drills. Before Costa Rica, I'd never mentioned the possibility of a law career, so I understood why Raj might think that it was a reaction to my being, for a short time, a suspected criminal. But my true reasons were less romantic and more practical. Raj's income showed no promise of ever being steady, and our debt was massive and growing. Something my dad said after receiving my lawyer Nocomment's first invoice had also stuck in my head: “
This asshole charges like his goddamn minutes are gilded in platinum.
” I'd seen firsthand what Nocomment could do. I was smarter. I was sure as hell better with people. I could swing this lawyer thing, no problem. I could be the one to save us and make it up to Raj for the many times he'd saved me.

But I didn't become a big-money corporate lawyer. I became a justice-seeking lawyer, prosecuting shifty business owners
for the State of New York. It wasn't sexy, nor was it what I'd planned, but for getting a late start on a career, I thought I was doing pretty well. Certainly, I had days that left me questioning whether there were any honest people left in the world, or if my work was making any difference, but even those days were okay, because I'd get to go home to Raj. Those, of course, were the days when I still saw him in the evenings. Now most nights, I struggled to stay awake late enough to spend an hour with him when he returned. I usually didn't make it.

I emerged from the subway near my office and headed toward the deli. As I took a place in line, I told myself that I was there just for coffee but knew full well that I would be walking out with a fresh pack of cigarettes. They helped soothe my cramps, and as it appeared that breeding would not be in the cards for the coming month, I saw nothing wrong with indulging myself. Raj disapproved of my casual habit; vocally, and at length. It had begun in law school for the simple, stupid reason that the smokers in my class seemed to be the cool kids. And it reminded me of Cyn. I missed her, and in a way, I still wanted to be where she'd want to be, going so far as to view potential new friends through the lens of her imagined approval.

Raj wouldn't be home when I returned. Like a bloodhound, he could always sniff out the days I'd had a cigarette or four, and then the sanctimonious lecture would commence. I could shower after the gym post-work, and he'd be none the wiser. I knew that sneaking smokes was a particularly pathetic form of passive aggression, but no one ever gets everything they want in this world, so why should Raj? A few cigarettes was no big deal, and if he wanted me to quit completely, well, he knew what would motivate me.

I ordered my coffee and my smokes. As I opened my purse, I felt a strange tickle at the back of my neck and turned my head to look out the store's front window. There was nothing
immediately remarkable. A bus was making a tremendous racket as it rose up on its hydraulics, doors closing as it pulled away from the curb. My eye dragged along its windows, idly, until my attention snagged taut like a fishing line, caught by the uncanny familiarity of one passenger, her profile distinct among the throng.

Nope
, I thought, because this happened regularly. Thinking of smokes had made me think of Cyn, so now my subconscious sought to “find” her for me. Any blonde, any female for that matter, could be pegged, scanned, analyzed, and dismissed in this pathological game that my mind so adored. It always ended the same. Not Cyn.

But the woman in profile, she rattled me. The set of her jaw as she looked down, studying something in her lap, the light-colored hair tucked behind a distinctive swirl of ear. The lips, pursed in serious thought. I
knew
that face.

I leaned over the counter, suddenly desperate to catch another glimpse of the now-vanished woman seated at the bus window. The clerk looked at me strangely and repeated the price of my order. A man behind me coughed impatiently.

Mechanically, I grabbed a bill from my wallet and thrust it forward. The clerk repeated the total, and I realized I was offering only a fiver. Not enough. Flush with a sudden sweat, I seized a twenty and slapped it on the counter. The clerk took an eternity to make change, which I shoved in a disordered handful into my purse before rushing out onto the windy street.

The bus was stopped at a light, two blocks away. If I ran, I could catch it, and possibly, probably, confirm to myself that I was again imagining things. I hesitated.
It wasn't her
, I told myself. How could it be?

The light turned green, and the bus progressed slowly down the street, tantalizingly close.

Go see
, an inner voice urged.

I stared after the bus, reminding myself that I had been looking through two layers of grimy glass, that I hadn't slept very well the night before, that I was probably overdue a new prescription for my contacts. These were all adequate reasons not to chase the bus, but they did nothing to silence the counterargument, a blaring klaxon of alarm exploding inside my head, making my heart pound like a marathoner's.

I stood motionless in the stream of commuters, hesitating. The bus stopped again, now three blocks away.

I began to run, the searing-hot coffee sloshing out through the loose lid, burning the back of my hand and making my cut finger sting furiously. I dashed through a flashing Don't Walk signal and half leapt over a dachshund that appeared out of nowhere.

Someone shouted, “Watch it, lady!” but I didn't even pause. At each step along the sidewalk, I darted past coat-sheathed bodies shuffling slowly like emperor penguins, newspaper boxes, rickety tables piled high with hats and scarves, coffee carts with lines four-deep. Everything was an obstacle, and the bus kept creeping away, so close, but just out of reach.

Stop this madness
, I told myself. I knew I looked crazy. I tossed my coffee into a trash can; I had already spilled most of it down my leg when dodging the dog. A traffic light changed, and I was forced to wait. I craned my neck to see past a garbage truck that was blocking my sight lines to the bus. As each second dragged on, I felt my chances slipping away. The intersection quickly clogged with cars, and I squeezed between a pair of taxis to the next block.

The sidewalk opened up, and I increased my pace to a full sprint, heedless of the poor traction of my wobbly kitten heels. As people and store windows blurred past, I had the sensation of being in a horror movie. I was chasing something that I sensed I didn't want to see. I was the girl venturing down into the dark
basement of my past on a stormy night to check the faulty circuit breaker. It could only lead to one thing.

The bus was only a block away. I would make it. I took a step into the street, past a halal cart setting up by the curb, too focused on the bus to realize the light was green for oncoming traffic. A horn blared, and I turned my head to see a cab flying toward me. I saw its front left tire lift into the air as it hit a pothole, meters away. I didn't have time to cross, and my forward momentum was uncontrollable. I was going to get hit by a fucking taxi.

I watched it come at me, holding my breath, waiting for impact like some dumb, cloven creature.

I felt something squeeze my forearm like a vise, and I spun backward toward the curb, pirouetting down to my knees on the gritty asphalt. I felt the whoosh of air and heard the still-blaring horn change in pitch as the taxi shot past where I had been standing one second before. I looked up to see the halal cart owner staring down at me with a mixture of disgust and concern. He hadn't removed his hands from my arm and, breathing heavily, helped me to my feet. The people waiting at the corner stared at me as I blinked back a few startled tears.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You need to be careful. You could have been killed,” he scolded, his accented cadence hitting my ears like a beautiful melody after the harshness of the taxi horn. I nodded, and we both looked down at my badly skinned knees. The light changed, and I averted my face as the gawking commuters surged past. I would be the story told at the water cooler that morning; the stupid lady saved from death by the kebab dealer.

“Wait,” he said to me, and I obeyed. I was too stunned to move anyway. My mouth was dry, and my head felt sickeningly light. I leaned an arm against the cart and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Blearily I turned my head toward where the bus had been. It was long gone.

The halal cart man returned with napkins, which he offered to me for my knees. I thanked him again, and he waved me off, a very irritated hero.

I hobbled toward my office, where I spent the rest of the day in a haze, trying to dismiss what my mind insisted I had seen. I could focus on work for short spurts, but a sickening anxiety would shoot through me every time my knees brushed my desk, the sore flesh kindling very raw thoughts. I prided myself on being a rational person, and now I was running after buses like a maniac.

I thought I had let her go. It had been years since I'd chased a woman down the street, driven by the compulsion to
just see
, to make absolutely certain that it wasn't Cyn pushing a stroller freighted with groceries or browsing in a liquor store window. I thought I was better, but perhaps I was wrong.

I slowly crossed my legs, deeply conscious of the fiery burn as flesh grazed flesh. The sharp bite of pain was enough to bring tears to my eyes, and enough to remind me that I was still alive, and she was not. I was not surprised when an instant later, I heard her voice.