CHAPTER FIVE
I kill most of the charge in my phone calling Stella incessantly (and—let’s be real—Facebooking my ordeal). I call Dan but when it goes to voicemail, I don’t want to leave a message.
I’m a big girl. I should be able to figure this out. So I find a hotel with a price-auction app.
It takes me ten tries to hail a taxi but some guy finally takes pity on me and takes me and all of my junk across Manhattan to a sketchy-looking place with stained awnings just north of Hell’s Kitchen.
I get my key from the hotel clerk after five minutes of back-and-forth over whether I can go to my room right now since it’s not check-in time yet. But I’ve got to. I think I might die if I spend one more minute in these clothes while hauling this suitcase around a city that smells like urine and hot garbage.
Currently, I do not heart NY.
My negotiating skills prevail and I squeeze into a claustrophobia-inducing elevator that I’m sure was last serviced before I was born. I find my way to a room that just chewed through another significant slice of my savings.
I will not think about the stains on the carpet.
Or the stains on the bedspread.
I will not. I will not.
I plug in my phone, take a lukewarm shower while wearing flip-flops, and change into a new pair of clothes. Finally, I perch on a rusty folding chair and call my mother.
“Beryl?” Strain and sleeplessness cloud her voice.
“Hi, Mom. I made it to New York.”
“I saw your flight landed safely. Was it OK?”
Of course she’s thinking of the perils of air travel on a big flying bus, not the real perils I’m facing with flagrant health code violations right here in my hotel room. But I don’t want to freak her out.
“Yeah, Mom, the flight was fine. Not even bumpy. And I’m here in my room. I’m fine.”
I don’t want to tell her yet that “my room” does not equal Stella’s place. That would generate an “I told you so” so loud I’d hear it all the way from Oregon.
She sighs. “I’m glad you’re safe. So what do you think of New York?”
Right now, my primary impression is that it is scary and dirty and every-man-for-himself, but I want to put her at ease. Instead, I tell her about the one awesome thing that’s happened to me so far.
“When I was walking here, you’ll never guess what happened. Some guy with a headset came up to me and said—” I hear a sharp intake of breath, but I plow on. “He said, ‘Can you please move to the other side of the street? We’re filming a movie here.’”
I hear her exhale with relief. She probably thought I’d already been mugged.
The first human who spoke to me in New York was actually polite. And when I walked past him, I saw a huge camera boom, studio trucks and dozens of people milling around. I tell my mom I saw a guy in tight black pants and a weird vinyl bird mask, and with a little snooping on Twitter I found out that Edward Norton and Bruce Willis are starring in Birdman, the movie.
“I’ve heard that film crews are all over the place in New York,” I tell her. “Next time, I’ll take a picture of the action and send it to you.”
“Have you seen Dan yet?”
“I’m supposed to show up at his office tomorrow for work. I think he’s out of town this weekend,” I say.
My mom is quiet.
“I’d better go unpack and get settled, and figure out lunch and stuff,” I say.
“Be safe, Beryl.”
“But have an adventure. Right, Mom?” I ask, recalling the inscription in the book my dad gave me, Beryl Markham’s memoir West With the Night.
“Right,” but her tone is unconvincing. “I love you bunches.”
“Ditto.”
I leave my stuff at the hotel, pray it won’t be stolen while I’m gone, and go in search of real New York pizza. I can’t be bothered to look up wherever the so-called “best” pizza is, so I just follow my nose for a few blocks and find a tiny restaurant with three tables.
My slice is greasy and bigger than the paper plate it’s served on. At first I pick at it, but then the owner admonishes me. I’m not eating it right.
“You’ve got to fold it!” he cries, gesturing that I should put a crease down its middle to fit it into my mouth. I like his curly, dark hair shot with gray and his waxed mustache. I obey.
As I imagine the pizza transferring itself directly from my stomach to my hips, I’m wondering what I should do next. I grab a copy of The Indie Voice, Stella’s free, alternative newspaper, and page through it, searching for her byline.
I don’t see it. The only thing that jumps out at me is an ad for plastic mattress cases to deal with bedbugs.
Sick. I’m not sure I’ll sleep tonight. The photos of itchy red bedbug bites are enough to make me wish I lived in a bubble.
I spend the afternoon wandering, feeling reasonably safe with so many people out on the street. I try not to look too much like a tourist but I can’t help staring—the buildings are enormous.
Outside Rockefeller Center I see huge monoliths, stacked rocks that look like a Stonehenge version of people. I gaze up at them in wonder, feeling even smaller next to a “person” five times my size.
I walk toward a more residential area and see a sign on the gate to a playground: No adults allowed unless accompanied by a child. It makes me smile.
Finally, I head to my room, thoroughly exhausted. I check my phone for the hundredth time and while I have plenty of Facebook messages from sympathetic friends in Oregon, I still don’t have a single message from Stella.
Tomorrow I’m going to hunt her down and kill her, but tonight I just don’t have the energy.
It’s early, but the time change and the red-eye drag down my eyelids, begging me to sleep. I switch off my phone’s ringer, discard the sketchy bedspread and pray that the sheets are clean enough. Within minutes, I’m out.