Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen

people, including a mixed doubles foursome from the East Side, and I didn’t see Irving for more than a week except on television. Which seems to be a pattern in my life. Days go by and I don’t see or hear from Irving. And then there he is at the door, pulling at his mustache, pulling off his tie.
    “I don’t get it,” Meghan once said while we were running together on a Saturday morning.
    “I don’t think you want me to go into detail about this.”
    “Jesus, please don’t.”
    “And aside from that, he loves me. He really loves me.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake, Bridge, everyone loves you. You’re the last lovable person on earth.”
    “Well, thanks. And yet somehow you make that sound like a bad thing. Besides, Irving’s honest.”
    “Irving’s crude. There’s a crucial distinction between the two.”
    What Meghan doesn’t understand is how much Irving and I have in common. Much of our work life consists of seeing, hearing, and resolving the kinds of situations that most people would turn away from in disgust. Neither of us is a stranger to the body bag or the room spattered with blood. Irving lives in the same New York that I do, the New York that Meghan and her friends will never know. They walk through the elegant foyers of their apartment buildings, through the limestone surrounds, into the car with its paper and skim latte waiting, then out and into other gleaming lobbies and up into their offices. This makes it possible for them to think that New York is a wonderful place and the mayor is doing a wonderful job.
    There are three kinds of people who live in New York City. There are the ones who will leave as soon as they can, and the ones who will never leave. There are two groups of that second kind: the ones who are trapped by circumstances, and those who are trapped by love. I am of the second variety. So is Irving.
    A disproportionate number of us live in Manhattan. Like a thief with his fist behind his back, the other four boroughs are clenched around a core of gold, and the gold is the island. Irving has an aunt in a nursing home in Elizabeth, a city whose name is a lot nicer than its reality, and when we drive back from visiting her, there is one steep curve on the highway that leads to a sharp rise, and when you are atop that rise, Manhattan suddenly spreads itself out. And I always think to myself: There it is. Irving shares the feeling, with more reason: He was born in Queens, lives in Brooklyn, spends most of his time on West Sixty-ninth Street. But like a convert, I am more overwhelmed and outspoken about my faith. I, too, think that New York is a wonderful place, but the mayor is an incompetent who cares only about the zip codes of Manhattan in which there are Prada boutiques and big-ticket donors to the Republican party.
    “Meghan Fitzmaurice is one of the most illustrious residents of this great city,” the mayor said that evening on the local news. “I’m confident she’ll do the right thing.”
    “What the hell does that mean?” I asked, holding a pillow to my chest.
    “It means nothing. He always gives saying nothing his best shot. He only gets in trouble when he says something that means something. Nothing works for him long term.”
    “He hates her. She says he hates her.”
             
    The next morning we both rolled over in bed when the alarm went off, and Irving clicked on the TV. Tom McGregor was wearing a tie with a small pattern that flickered on the screen like a disco ball. “Good morning,” he said. “Meghan Fitzmaurice is off today.”
    “That is it!” I shrieked. “I need to talk to her now! And when I do, I am going to rip her limb from limb! How can she do this to me?”
    “Calm down,” Irving said, sliding out of bed. “I’m a cop. I’ll find her. Let me make some calls.”
    But I’d underestimated the investigator I’d already assigned to the case. Tequila was on the phone when I got into the office. “Yeah, honey,” she was braying,