Subway Love

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  Painting that mailbox had been Philip’s idea. Philip was Laura’s mother’s first boyfriend after the divorce. In hindsight, which is of course twenty-twenty, Laura wished she had liked Philip more. She didn’t dislike him, but the whole thing was so weird, and it seemed to have happened so quickly. One year her mom was sitting, her hair curlers covered with a plastic dryer cap attached by a hose to a roaring box of hot air, watching Jack LaLanne on television, and the next she was outside in overalls and a tank top, painting yin/yang symbols on their new mailbox while her blond long-haired boyfriend rubbed her shoulders.

  For the newcomers flocking to Woodstock in 1969, it may have been another Summer of Love, but for the teachers, the parents of the other third-graders, the principal, the mailman, the town librarian, and all the other grown-ups that Laura came in contact with, it was business as usual. It was “America, Love It or Leave It.” This hippie movement was an unwelcome, un-American annoyance, and if not downright dangerous, then certainly unhygienic. The town may have been invaded by musicians and longhairs, but the school was having none of it. Once you entered the doors of Woodstock Elementary School, you’d never know there was a zealous revolution going on outside. Laura never could have explained this to her mother.

  The disparity began a game of survival.

  Laura picked out Jamie Stein immediately at the Woodstock Sunday picnic, the final town picnic before school began. Her black hair was flying wild. She wore work boots, untied, no socks, and a long patchwork dress. Jamie looked like a miniature version of all the grown-ups hanging around on their Indian-print bedspreads, passing joints, except that she was running. Laura followed Jamie into the woods, along the worn paths that bordered the town green.

  “Wanna go on the swings?” Jamie called out. This wild girl seemed to embody what being a hippie could or should truly be: free, loving, and willing to befriend anyone. It was just what Laura needed, moving into a new house, a new town, and a new school; she needed a guide, someone on the inside and the outside, someone who seemed to straddle both worlds.

  Laura didn’t really have to answer, just keep up. She could barely see the green lawn through the trees as the path wound farther away. Her experience up until now had been laid out in squares, concrete squares — Warren Street, Clinton Ave., Remsen Street. Three sides of the square got her to P.S. 8. Across one street and two more straight lines took her to her friend Denise’s brownstone and so on. Anything farther than that had to be negotiated by an adult and usually required getting on a city bus or heading down into the subway and emerging somewhere totally different.

  Now the ground below her sneakers was dirt, but Jamie seemed perfectly comfortable among the low bushes and high branches with sunlight filtering down from the sky, surrounding her.

  This is the daughter my mother wants, Laura knew. She is the flower child, free and happy. Nothing like me. Maybe Laura could be more agreeable, less trouble, less square. Less Jan Brady and more Laurie Partridge. Maybe, with a friend like Jamie.

  “Wait a minute.” Jamie stopped suddenly.

  Laura was quiet. The sounds of the town picnic were far away. If she had to, she could probably find her way back. Jamie moved off the path, a few steps into the bushes, and hiked up her skirt.

  It wasn’t as if Laura hadn’t peed in semipublic before — once, at Jones Beach when the line to the girls’ bathroom was so long. But her mother had been there, holding up a towel and shielding her. And as far as Laura could tell now, Jamie wasn’t just peeing.

  “I bet you’ll be in my class this year,” Jamie chatted away. “I hope we don’t get Mrs. Crutcher. She’s the meanest sixth-grade teacher.”

  Jamie reached out and tore some leaves from whatever vegetation was growing beside her low crouch. “I heard that from my brother. You have an older brother, don’t you?”

  Laura nodded.

  “I saw your brother,” Jamie went on. “He’s cute.” She stood up, but Jamie never pulled up her underpants. Laura realized she hadn’t had any on to pull down in the first place. Jamie leaped back out onto the path and started off.

  “C’mon. The playground’s right over here. Hopefully no one will be on the swing.”

  As luck would have it, a week later Laura was assigned to Mrs. Crutcher’s sixth-grade classroom. Her mother left her school records with the main office, handed Laura her lunch box, and ruffled her hair.

  “Be groovy” was her mother’s advice. Nobody really used that word, did they?

  “We have a new student this year.” Mrs. Crutcher had her hands on Laura’s shoulders, and it didn’t feel pleasant. She would let go when she wanted Laura to sit down, when she decided where she wanted Laura to sit, and not a minute before. “Her name is Laura Duncan. Can everyone say hello to Laura?”

  Except for the fact that everyone was white in Woodstock Elementary School, the class looked fairly familiar. Boys and girls sitting at desks; cubbies and a metal sink at the back of the room; a blackboard and erasers; and the teacher’s desk at the front. Mrs. Crutcher wore a plain cotton dress and nylon socks, the kind that came to about calf height and then squeezed the fat around her leg.

  Laura looked at the faces looking at her. The boys had crew cuts. The girls wore dresses and kneesocks. They probably all had mothers who sat under hair dryers at night, and fathers who went to work in the mornings. Except for Jamie Stein.

  Jamie had a leather headband tied around her forehead, which she would be, later in the day, requested to remove. She was smiling widely and waving her hands.

  “Well, then, Laura, I see you have a friend already.” Mrs. Crutcher released her grip. “You can take the desk behind Miss Stein.” Laura wasn’t sure that was the best idea after all, but she sat down and smiled.

  And Bruce was the boarder. He rented one of the rooms in the huge house that Jamie’s mother owned. He stood in the doorway to his room the first time Laura went to visit. Laura didn’t look at him very closely. She was taking in the overwhelming smell of incense, the strings of beads hanging in the doorway, the abundance of pillows, the wooden bowl filled with marijuana (Mary Jane, as Jamie identified it) that sat on a stand in the center of the living room. But she would always remember his presence, dark and quiet, and in her mind, Laura would torture herself with the knowledge that it was her friendship with Jamie that had brought her mother to this house, that had made it possible for her mother to meet Bruce, then promptly dump the blond-haired Philip. Adding to the irony, Jamie’s mother sold their house a few months later and left Woodstock. They moved to New York City to open a head shop down in the village.

  Bruce, with nowhere else to go, moved in with Laura and Mitchell and their mom.

  Laura had brought this upon herself; if she ever did tell her father, it would all come back to that. It was her fault. And it was her destiny.

  OF course he couldn’t be in love. With a fantasy? A face? The most fleeting of images from across a subway track? It was pretty stupid. It was beyond stupid.

  It was like there were two sides to his brain, two voices in his head, two realities existing at the very same time. One created elaborate dreams and romantic stories about this girl whose name he didn’t know but who had nice hair and skin, and the other shot it all down.

  Jonas was scrambling eggs, three eggs in a bowl. His toast had already popped up and was getting cold. He pushed the toaster button down again. He could never seem to get the timing right when he made breakfast or lunch. It was nearly one on Sunday — afternoon already. He had his dog-walking job to get to. He was late already, but the dogs never told on him. Today he had only one, a Labradoodle right down the hall.

  Jonas’s mind wandered to her face. He had seen it for only a few moments, but he could recall every detail. The girl was sitting there on the bench. She had a retro look, not a phony-retro look but a real one. She had a hat on, a knitted cap, and she played with a strand of her hair that hung loose around her shoulder. She twisted it between her thumb and ring finger, which for s
ome reason Jonas had noticed.

  Oh, my God. Even more stupid. How could he possibly have seen that far? It was impossible. And for Christ’s sake, who cares? The butter in the frying pan was smoking.

  “Oh, shit,” Jonas said out loud.

  Love sucks anyway. Look at his own parents.

  Jonas swirled the pan around and dumped in the eggs. They sizzled and began to cook immediately. Love sucks, but Jonas hadn’t “bumped” into the girl again in weeks, so none of this mattered. His toast popped up, charcoal black.

  JONAS had seen the e-mail on his father’s computer, and so he had read it. It wasn’t like his dad was a technological idiot or anything. If he left it open, even with the underwater blowfish wallpaper scrolling and bubbling across the screen, he must have known someone could read it. Never mind Jesus, what would Freud say?

  There are no accidents, that’s what he would say.

  “Hard Love” was the subject heading, and it was addressed to SongCatcher@gmail.com. The e-mail opened with My dearest heart. Jonas knew immediately it wasn’t for his mother. Besides, his mother’s e-mail was Mom32, the address she made up when AOL was still pretty new, at least to her, and she didn’t realize it would become her “name.” She never bothered to change it. Certainly not to Mom46.

  Jonas read the e-mail as if he were reading a book, a novel, someone else’s words, a fictional life that told of yearning and loss. It didn’t sound anything like his dad, unless his dad was actually a poet and not an investment banker at HSBC. As a young man, Jonas’s dad had wanted to be an actor, but his father, Jonas’s grandfather, had made him give up summer stock to get a real job just as he was getting some attention, or so went the story. Maybe this was his father’s way of feeling alive, getting back at his father.

  My one and only love. My body comes alive when it is with your body. My heart beats only in rhythm with yours. My eyes see only the world in which you exist. There is no world for me without you. I promise, we will someday be together forever. It was meant to be, and with our strength we will make it happen. Last night —

  Jonas stopped reading. His hand reflexively covered his mouth and he ran for the bathroom. The nausea lessened as he leaned his hands on the sink and tried to breathe. Everything here was normal: a pimple of white toothpaste stuck on the faucet; the brushes that didn’t quite fit in the toothbrush holder but leaned precariously to the left and right; his mother’s hair in the drain; the smell of his father’s aftershave; his sister’s plastic Elmo baby cup she refused to give up.

  He peered up into the mirror. Jonas looked like his dad. Everyone said that so often, he figured it to be true. Even as a baby he’d had his father’s features; whereas most babies have little pug noses, Jonas had a long, thin nose. And he had his father’s eyes, heavy on the upper lid, round, light brown. Lily looked like their mother. They paired off that way, father/son, mother/daughter.

  Who was his father writing to? Who was My dearest heart? My one and only love? What the fuck was this? What did this say about all of them — about his mother, about their family? What did this say about everything that had come before?

  The feeling that he was going to throw up came springing back. His mouth filled with saliva in preparation; his stomach muscles tightened. Jonas lowered himself to his knees and lifted the toilet seat.

  At least, he assumed it was a woman. Last year, in ninth grade, the father of one of the kids in his class turned out to be gay. Married twenty-three years, three kids, and now he lived in an apartment in the East Village with Pierre.

  So, see? Things could be worse. Jonas let the scrambled eggs slide onto his plate, buttered his toast, and poured a second cup of coffee. Right now, it was a relatively peaceful Love-Sucks Sunday afternoon.

  WHEN he had almost completely stopped thinking about that girl, Jonas saw her again. He had just gotten on the 6 train, and this time she was sitting inside the subway car, all the way at the other end, leaning her head against the wall, reading a book. He was sure it was her. It had been nearly two months. Jonas’s first instinct was to pull out his phone and text Nick.

  No bars.

  But it was definitely her.

  The subway car was half full. Two people, an older woman and a younger man, were arguing loudly in the center of the train, but while most of the riders had glanced up to make sure there was no immediate threat to their own well-being, engrossed in her book, the girl kept her eyes down. She was even prettier than Jonas remembered. Her hair was down and tucked behind her ears — shiny, curly, like a wave that is stilled in time. She was wearing jeans with a fabric patch on one knee. It looked genuinely homemade. Jonas was a sucker for a girl in jeans.

  Two more people got on and sat down. It was a warm December, but it still seemed odd that nobody was wearing winter clothing. But then the subway car was warm, with air blowing in from the vents above. Jonas took off his gloves and sat down. It was one of those old cars that should have been taken out of service long ago, its seats dirty and scribbled on and cracked. Jonas’s father was always complaining about the MTA, higher fares and fewer trains. The people in their seats rocked slightly as the train jerked into motion, but Jonas kept his eyes on the girl, waiting for the moment when she might look up from her book.

  When the subway stopped and she did not get off, Jonas moved to the next metal pole. As the train sped into motion again, Jonas moved closer and sat down in the last open seat nearest the end of the car. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone again. It gave him something to fiddle with, an excuse for occasionally looking up reflectively, as if he were working on something. What he really wanted was to take out his camera, but he’d already decided that would look too creepy. Instead, Jonas scrolled through his address book, actually concentrating on the numbers he no longer needed or wanted.

  Carmenfromdeli

  DeborahB

  Frank

  Jonas looked up. She was still reading, playing with her hair, just like he remembered. So far she hadn’t noticed him. Jonas returned to his address book.

  Pizzaon3rd

  Robert

  KevinFixler

  Now, there was a name he could get rid of. What an asshole he turned out to be. He and Jonas had been pretty tight until ninth grade, when Kevin went to their English teacher and asked to be regraded on a joint-writing project they had done. Kevin felt his half of the work deserved better than a B+.

  Screw him.

  Delete.

  The girl closed her book, a hardcover. Jonas could read the title: The Bell Jar. He thought he had heard of that. She looked up. He was certain she looked right at him.

  Do something, or you’ll never see her again.

  Do something.

  The subway was slowing down. It got louder when it was near stopping, hissing and screeching, metal on metal. People were standing and jockeying for position toward the doors. They were eager for air, to get where they were going, or to run away from where they had been.

  She looked like she was going to stand up.

  Do something. Say something.

  “Hi,” Jonas said. He said it out loud, but did he say it loudly enough? Loudly enough to be heard over his pounding heart? He could hardly hear himself. Or just loudly enough that the old man with the grocery bags next to him would answer instead?

  “Hi,” she said back. “I’ve seen you before, right?”

  “I think so,” Jonas answered. The train jolted to a stop, the doors flew open, and the energy of a whoosh of people emptied from the train. It was Fifty-ninth Street. Lexington Ave.

  “I get off here,” the girl said.

  “I’m Jonas.” But he didn’t move. He watched her body step off the train. She wore a white blouse with tiny embroidery around the neck, around her neck. Why couldn’t he move?

  “Jonas Goldman on Facebook.” Finally he stood up. Finally he was able to move, but only slowly.

  “What?”

  “Are you on Facebook?”

  “Fac
e book?”

  “Yeah.” Why didn’t she seem to be able to hear him?

  “OK, Jonas Goldman. Well, maybe I’ll see you again,” she said, but she was already outside; he was still inside.

  “When?”

  “I come back in two weeks.”

  And the doors between them slid shut.

  NICK had only one question: “Why didn’t you just get off at her stop?”

  “I don’t know,” Jonas said. “I just didn’t think. I wasn’t expecting to ever see her again. My brain just froze, I guess.”

  “God, you’re an idiot.” Nick gripped his controller and leaned his whole body to the right as if he could affect the animation on the screen, or as if it were affecting him somatically, which was more likely. “Throw your grenade.”

  “I know. You don’t have to tell me. Oh, shit, I got sniped.” There was a part of Jonas that really hated to play Call of Duty. It was violent and competitive, and everyone else who played was practically a professional assassin. He was always getting killed.

  “I hate this map,” Nick said. They both kept dying.

  Jonas shut off the Xbox and switched back to TV.

  “So, what do you think she means, ‘I come back in two weeks’?” Nick asked.

  “No idea.”

  SportsCenter was on its third rerun of the afternoon.

  “Back in the city, maybe?” Jonas said. “Maybe she doesn’t live here. She just visits.”

  “Or commutes.” Nick flipped through the channels. “You have Roku? Netflix? I forget.”

  “Neither,” Jonas told him. “And don’t order another pay-per-view. My mother will kill me. What do you mean ‘commutes’? She’s a kid. I mean, she’s like us. She doesn’t work.”

  “She could work. Maybe she’s a model.” Nick put his feet up on the coffee table. “Yeah, maybe she’s a fashion model. What’s on your DVR? You know, Jonas, you’re the only friend I have that doesn’t have a TV in their own room.”

  Jonas bent down to pick his coat up off the floor. “I’m going out,” he said.