He sighed and started the car. A jazz station, the same one my father listened to, came on the radio. The driver glanced at me in the rear-view mirror, then yanked his door closed. We started up University, stopping at the light at Union Square. People paused in front of a shoe store, walked in clumps, edged around a man in an electric wheelchair. The insides of my elbows wouldn’t stop sweating.
We paused at another traffic light; more people crossed. A man wheeling a hot-dog cart. A couple with their arms around each other’s shoulders. The guy looked like Steven. It was amazing, suddenly, that Steven and I hadn’t really spoken for years. After my grandmother’s funeral, he disappeared back to NYU, finishing school, applying for a graduate degree in California, then going. The times he flew home were perfunctory and businesslike: he cleaned out his bedroom, he helped Dad with tax returns. He had an excuse to stay away for both holidays that following year: a hiking expedition in Chile over Thanksgiving, a cabin with friends in Martha’s Vineyard from Christmas to New Year’s. Only, two days after Christmas, I had gone into the city to tour NYU’s library, already knowing I was going to attend there the following year. When turning onto Broadway from Waverly, there was Steven, standing in front of the Astor Place Barnes & Noble. We stared at each other two whole green lights.
‘You should be going to the beach,’ the cab driver interrupted my thoughts. I jumped.
‘Sorry?’
‘The beach. In this weather. One of the first real warm days, you know? Everyone should be going to the beach today.’
I ran my hands over my bare legs. ‘Yeah, well, not me.’
The cab driver glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. The whites of his eyes had a yellowish tint to them, or maybe they just looked that way because his skin was so dark. ‘Maybe you’re not a beach person, huh?’ He gripped the wheel tightly. ‘My wife’s not a beach person, either. Likes climbing mountains, camping. Me, I like the beach. You’d think I’d want something quiet, like my wife. Out in the middle of the woods. Especially after driving through this city. But I’d rather drown myself in noise and just…drift off, you know? Places that are too quiet make me nervous. I get to thinking; and when I get to thinking, it’s not always good.’
He chuckled. I tried to smile back but I could feel the outer edges of my eyes and the corners of my mouth doing strange things.
‘You gotta take a break once in a while, though,’ he went on. ‘I mean, you have to. I have a daughter, you know. She’s a little older than you. She had a baby that died. It’s tough, man. It’s tough. My wife’s having a hard time getting through it. We all are, I guess. But sometimes, I say, ‘You know what? Let’s just go to the beach.’ And they say, ‘Carl, are you nuts?’ But we go. We go to Long Beach.’ He met my eyes again. ‘You know Long Beach?’
I could barely move.
‘It’s nice enough,’ he said, putting on his blinker to switch lanes. ‘Better during the week, when you don’t get the crowds. But sometimes, you know. You just have to do it.’ He shook his head, turning onto Broadway. ‘Sorry I got into all that. You probably want a peaceful trip up, and look what you get. Well, that’s what happens when you get in when I’m not on duty.’
I swallowed. ‘How did it die? The baby?’
An air-freshener Jesus spun from his rear-view mirror. ‘She drowned. In a neighbor’s plastic swimming pool. It was a Memorial Day party last year. Beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Anyway. It just happened so fast…the pool wasn’t even deep.’
‘That’s terrible,’ I whispered.
‘Well, it happened, you know? And there’s nothing we can do about it now. You can blame and blame yourself, thinking of the things you might’ve done differently, or ask if maybe it was her time, and ask if this has something to do with God, maybe, but sometimes, I think things just happen. There’s nothing you can do about it-you just gotta deal with it. Sometimes life really sucks. You know? Sometimes it just sucks.’
He cleared his throat. ‘But then, there’s the beach. Right? There’s the beach.’ He eyed me. ‘Or maybe, for you, there’s something else.’
We passed the flower district, the garment district, the glittering lights of Forty-second Street and its surrounding craziness. A group of tourists-one of them staring perplexedly at a New York City guidebook-stood in front of an enormous electronics store, holding giant Barnes & Noble shopping bags. That day I saw Steven outside the Barnes & Noble downtown, I finally crossed the street to meet him. He had a Barnes & Noble plastic bag in one hand and an Other Music bag in another.
‘I thought you were at Martha’s Vineyard,’ I said to him.
‘Plans fell through.’ Steven zipped up his jacket.
‘So why aren’t you staying at home?’
‘My friend’s away for the holiday. He’s got a place on Ninth and First.’