prelude part four « Letters from Grenada

prelude part four

Part IV

I was wary of working in Manhattan. I had witnessed what I called the yuppie rat race. I’d already fled from it once. Out of necessity, I determined to try once more.

It took me almost three weeks to perfect my resume and send it out. Less than a week later the phone calls started and did not stop. By the time another two weeks had passed, I had survived four interviews, scheduled another two, and received my first offer. Impatient, I accepted this first offer, a decision I came to regret early and often.

By February 2004, I was working and ready to vacate temporary quarters at my father’s house in the Bronx. The new boyfriend and I made hasty plans to move in together. We’d known each other for years, so it seemed safe enough. Such is the scourge of Manhattan couples, the housing market that forced us to consider cohabitation long before we would have otherwise. For a time we were quite happy.

Life went on. I went to work, had dinner with friends, went to birthday parties and happy hours and concerts and picnics in Central Park. I went to Lincoln Center, then walked south to Times Square. I shopped in Union Square and back home at the mall in West Nyack. I walked along the East River and learned to disappear in the subways. I went inside every bookstore I saw. I was no longer Birkenstocks and hooded sweatshirts and backpacks. I was Nine West, attired in sleek charcoal and black, carrying a hand-made leather handbag from a trendy boutique in L.A.

That summer Amanda married Zach. Their wedding was like a mini Cornell reunion. I was a bridesmaid, surrounded by my very best friends and (sorta) in love. For once, I was nostalgic without being sad.

My happiness was real but precarious, built on a foundation that was both unfinished and broken. Rabbit had vanished one day, the likely victim of a coyote. The boyfriend was boring, annoying, selfish and childish. Only much later would I realize that I’d been frightened to leave the security of him and his Upper East Side co-op. I didn’t care about the doorman or the fancy zip code; I just doubted my ability to survive on my own. I started lashing out at him. Words would tumble out of my mouth, cruel and defensive, harsh to my own ear, unrecognizable as my own. I drank red bull and chain-smoked and didn’t finish anything I started. That pissed him off, which pissed me off. I was a yeller. I had no patience. I clenched my teeth. I was bored. I ate too much and got fat. I drank too much and embarrassed myself. I started letting my boss know just what I thought of her. It was the beginning of the end and I knew it, but I froze, fearful and unable to act.

It didn’t help that Grandpa Gene was dying. Years of cigar smoking had threaded cancer through his vocal cords. His once booming voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper. This was a man who’d spent the war years tending bar at an army base, honing his voice and his words into trusty tools. He’d always had a big belly, but it vanished with the radiation. For the first time in my life he was skinny, tired and in no mood to talk.

Eventually he needed an oxygen mask to breathe. My long-suffering Aunt Cindy knew that it was only a matter of time. She knew she’d be the one to discover him. She knew that while she did love her father-in-law, she was profoundly unequipped to deal intimately with his death. And so Grandpa Gene was moved to a hospice. Uncle Gary from Atlanta and Uncle Steve from Hawaii came, and took turns spending every possible moment with him.

What happened next was the psychological equivalent of being kicked in the face by a horse.

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