before I realized she was telling me to remove my clothes from the dryer so someone else could use it.
I dropped my warm, dirty clothes on the floor of my room, decided to go to the Met, took the wrong train, ended up in Queens, walked past a group of black guys wearing Afro picks and addressing each other as “My nigga.”
“Hey baby, you dropped something,” one of them called to me. As I looked at the empty sidewalk around my feet, he said, “My heart at first sight of that fine body of yours.”
“Why you wearin’ all black, sweetie?” another boy called. “Someone die on you?”
I hadn’t encountered many black people growing up in western Mass. I didn’t know if the jeers were threatening or enjoyable, an innocuous thread from the land of human contact. I took the train back to the Lower East Side. It was pouring. I sprinted into the first café I passed, brightly lit and Polish and filled with tiny, empty square tables. I ordered borscht with rye bread. The waiter nodded and walked away. He met my eyes as he put down the steaming, maroon soup. “Okay?” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
I picked up the bowl with both hands and gulped the salty broth. Onion and mushroom dumplings were hidden at the bottom. I ate them lovingly. I spent the next two hours in the café, drinking cup after cup of Lipton tea and watching the world outside the rain-streaked glass. A gray-haired man in soaked mesh shorts jogged past, squinting and making fists. A drunk leaned against the storefront, smearing the glass with his oversize denim jacket. A well-dressed, overweight woman held an umbrella in one hand and a phone in the other, gripping each so tightly her knuckles were white. A group of teenage girls passed by in high, high heels, walking slowly, feeling themselves walk. A man with a cane and a fedora took the table next to mine. He sipped a beer and carefully sliced his kielbasa. A white woman and a black woman shared a plate of pierogies in the front of the café, laughing loudly and eating with their hands. I could just make out Luther Vandross’s voice from the rear of the restaurant, telling the cooks and dishwashers that he just didn’t want to stop loving them. I had changed my life.
The next day, I woke up depressed by the thought of returning to the Chinese laundry and afraid of my comfort in the café. What if being alone doing nothing was the only way I could feel okay? I’d grow old drinking bad tea, listening to ’80s R&B, and overtipping immigrant waiters.
—
I met Brian a few weeks later, when we were forced to share a table at a crowded coffee shop. He had large green eyes that stared into his mug when he spoke, wire-rim glasses, carefully considered facial hair. He’d gone to UCLA for college—undergrad, he called it—and we chatted about the standard differences between the coasts. As he put on his leather jacket to head back to work, he said, “So, what’s your romantic situation?”
Jared and I spoke on the phone every day, but he didn’t know where I was. “I don’t have a romantic situation,” I said. Brian smiled and typed my phone number into his device.
He took me to a movie the following weekend, and then we shared his umbrella on the walk back to his apartment. Brian said he liked how the heroine was beautiful but was never sexualized. The comment had its intended effect. I smiled at the glistening sidewalks; it was really going to mean something when this trustworthy man sexualized me.
I could not hide my shock at how nice Brian’s apartment was. The only other New York apartments I’d seen were those of my coworkers, who shared railroad three-bedrooms in Bushwick between four people. Brian had a duplex with hardwood floors and exposed brick walls that overlooked Prospect Park. I put my hand on the spiral staircase that connected the living room to the upper bedroom and let my jaw drop. “My dad owns the building,” Brian said, looking at the floor. “He’s in real
I dropped my warm, dirty clothes on the floor of my room, decided to go to the Met, took the wrong train, ended up in Queens, walked past a group of black guys wearing Afro picks and addressing each other as “My nigga.”
“Hey baby, you dropped something,” one of them called to me. As I looked at the empty sidewalk around my feet, he said, “My heart at first sight of that fine body of yours.”
“Why you wearin’ all black, sweetie?” another boy called. “Someone die on you?”
I hadn’t encountered many black people growing up in western Mass. I didn’t know if the jeers were threatening or enjoyable, an innocuous thread from the land of human contact. I took the train back to the Lower East Side. It was pouring. I sprinted into the first café I passed, brightly lit and Polish and filled with tiny, empty square tables. I ordered borscht with rye bread. The waiter nodded and walked away. He met my eyes as he put down the steaming, maroon soup. “Okay?” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
I picked up the bowl with both hands and gulped the salty broth. Onion and mushroom dumplings were hidden at the bottom. I ate them lovingly. I spent the next two hours in the café, drinking cup after cup of Lipton tea and watching the world outside the rain-streaked glass. A gray-haired man in soaked mesh shorts jogged past, squinting and making fists. A drunk leaned against the storefront, smearing the glass with his oversize denim jacket. A well-dressed, overweight woman held an umbrella in one hand and a phone in the other, gripping each so tightly her knuckles were white. A group of teenage girls passed by in high, high heels, walking slowly, feeling themselves walk. A man with a cane and a fedora took the table next to mine. He sipped a beer and carefully sliced his kielbasa. A white woman and a black woman shared a plate of pierogies in the front of the café, laughing loudly and eating with their hands. I could just make out Luther Vandross’s voice from the rear of the restaurant, telling the cooks and dishwashers that he just didn’t want to stop loving them. I had changed my life.
The next day, I woke up depressed by the thought of returning to the Chinese laundry and afraid of my comfort in the café. What if being alone doing nothing was the only way I could feel okay? I’d grow old drinking bad tea, listening to ’80s R&B, and overtipping immigrant waiters.
—
I met Brian a few weeks later, when we were forced to share a table at a crowded coffee shop. He had large green eyes that stared into his mug when he spoke, wire-rim glasses, carefully considered facial hair. He’d gone to UCLA for college—undergrad, he called it—and we chatted about the standard differences between the coasts. As he put on his leather jacket to head back to work, he said, “So, what’s your romantic situation?”
Jared and I spoke on the phone every day, but he didn’t know where I was. “I don’t have a romantic situation,” I said. Brian smiled and typed my phone number into his device.
He took me to a movie the following weekend, and then we shared his umbrella on the walk back to his apartment. Brian said he liked how the heroine was beautiful but was never sexualized. The comment had its intended effect. I smiled at the glistening sidewalks; it was really going to mean something when this trustworthy man sexualized me.
I could not hide my shock at how nice Brian’s apartment was. The only other New York apartments I’d seen were those of my coworkers, who shared railroad three-bedrooms in Bushwick between four people. Brian had a duplex with hardwood floors and exposed brick walls that overlooked Prospect Park. I put my hand on the spiral staircase that connected the living room to the upper bedroom and let my jaw drop. “My dad owns the building,” Brian said, looking at the floor. “He’s in real
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