“Uh-huh,” I say, but I’m barely paying attention. Honestly, I really couldn’t care. I don’t even like Kanye West. Or Drake.
I’m not exactly sure what our conversation is even about after that point. It’s mostly just Tyler commenting on something pointless and me agreeing. Like the amount of traffic there is, and the fact that the weather is great, and that soon we’ll be leaving New Jersey and entering New York. That gets me a little stoked. Finally.
The car spirals around some sort of helix until we approach a line of tollbooths. Tyler merges into a cash-only lane and edges toward the barrier. “You know what I think is weird about the Lincoln Tunnel?” he muses as he pulls out his wallet.
“What?”
“You can head to New Jersey for free, but you gotta pay to head eastbound to New York.” He shakes his head, cash in his hand, and then pulls up to the booth. “Kinda makes sense. No one really wants to go to New Jersey.” I laugh as he rolls down his window, and the car is so low to the ground that he has to almost stretch out of the window just to reach up to the booth.
The guy manning it takes the money, murmurs, “Nice car,” and then lifts the barrier for us, which Tyler promptly shoots through. And not without revving the engine, as though in reply to the guy’s comment.
I fold my arms and angle my body to face him. “Some things never change,” I remark playfully.
Tyler smirks, but it’s a little sheepish. “Force of habit,” he says with a small shrug.
Only a matter of seconds later, the sunlight that’s been beating down on us disappears as we enter one of the three tunnels, leaving us in a warm orange glow. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness. Once they do, I peer out the window despite there being not much to look at besides concrete walls. I lean forward and glance up at the roof of the tunnel.
“What are we under?”
“The Hudson River,” Tyler tells me.
“That’s so cool.” I gnaw on my lip and settle back against the seat, suddenly reminded of the fact that I am actually in New York for six weeks. Over the past half-hour I seem to have forgotten where we’ve been heading, but the mere mention of the famous Hudson is enough to bring me back to reality.
“Now welcome to New York,” Tyler says after a minute. He lifts his hand to point out the windshield, and I follow the direction of his outstretched fingers as he points to the wall of the tunnel.
There’s a vertical line running down the wall. On one side of the line, it says “New Jersey.” On the other, “New York.” We’re passing the state line, which means we’re in New York, finally.
“We’ll be in Manhattan in a couple minutes,” Tyler adds. I think he can sense my excitement, because despite the fact that I’m too overwhelmed to say anything, he still smiles at me as he drives. “And I was thinking that if you aren’t too exhausted, we could head to Times Square later. You know, since it’s your first night in the city and all. You gotta spend your first week getting the tourist must-dos outta the way.”
“Times Square sounds good,” I say. I’m trying to act collected, like I’m not about to squeal any second. I’ve never left the West Coast until now, and not only am I over here in the East, I’m over here in New York City, of all places. Quite possibly, other than Los Angeles, the greatest city in the country. At least that’s what people say.
Soon, I’ll find out if they’re right.
3
The light slowly begins to filter into the Lincoln Tunnel as we reach the end of it, and once we’re back outside in the daylight, the sunlight almost blinds us. I squint through it, nonetheless, because I don’t want to miss a second of the city. I want to see everything.
And at first, everything feels almost familiar.
The excessive amount of traffic on the roads. The constant flow of people making their way down sidewalks, running across streets. The height of the buildings, which for a moment almost makes me feel slightly claustrophobic. Santa Monica feels like a field in the middle of Arkansas in comparison. Everything feels so packed in, so tall. The buildings do, however, offer shade from the sun. There also seems to be this complete and utter sense of . . . busyness. Nothing seems calm, or relaxed, or slow. Everything just looks fast-paced, like everyone and everything is rushing to do something, and I think that’s why it feels familiar. It’s exactly what I expected, only without the steam emitting from the manholes. The movies must exaggerate that.
“Woah.”
“I said the exact same thing,” Tyler says with a laugh, but he’s watching me from the corner of his eye as I take everything in, and at the same time he manages to slowly maneuver his way around pedestrians and cabs, heading along Forty-second Street. “Feels kind of crazy, right?”
“I mean, it’s New York,” I say. “New York freakin’ City.”