In a New York Minute(5)
I glanced back toward him, the man formerly known as Stranger on the Subway, as he bent to pick up a leather briefcase that he’d planted between his feet. It was smooth, polished brown leather but still looked vintage. Well loved, even. I’d never met anyone under the age of sixty who carried a freakin’ briefcase, but then again, I didn’t mix much with men who wore suits to work either.
When the train rolled to a stop and the doors opened, Hot Suit offered me a polite nod. “Well, good luck,” he said. “With everything.” I was so dazed by the whole experience that it took me a beat to realize he was getting off.
“Hey!” I shouted out the door as he stepped onto the platform. He angled his head back toward me, and our eyes met again. “Thank you! Seriously. I owe you one!” He shook his head and gave me a slight wave of his hand, a curt goodbye from a stranger who had just swooped in and saved me—my butt included—without even blinking an eye.
“I’m sorry about crying all over your shirt!” I yelled again, but he didn’t turn around. And then, Hot Suit was gone, swallowed by the crowd pushing off the train.
*
Back in the safety of my tiny apartment in Brooklyn, I dumped the box onto my sliver of kitchen counter and dropped my bags to the ground before shrugging Hot Suit’s jacket off my shoulders. I held it in front of me, examining it skeptically. I hadn’t found anything in the pockets besides my crumpled tissue (yes, I’d checked on my walk home), and it looked and felt either brand-new or impeccably cared for. My finger brushed against the edge of a tag stitched along the collar. Gucci. Wow. This was now officially the nicest piece of clothing I owned.
Hanging it on a hook inside my closet, I let my ruined dress slide off my body and then collapsed onto my bed in a heap. I was achingly exhausted. Having the worst day of my life, I texted my friends. pls send bagels.
Lola responded immediately. BRB meeting will text asap!!! I knew this meant I might not hear from her for hours. When your job is breaking celebrity news on the internet, reporting about the latest divorce or scandal usually comes before texting your friends back. But Lola was loyal; even if she couldn’t always respond right away, she never failed to show up when it counted.
A minute later, my phone rang. I hit the green button, and Cleo’s face popped up, slightly obscured by a giant coffee raised to her lips. “You okay?” she asked before taking a swig.
“You are never going to believe what happened to me this morning,” I said, skipping a greeting to get right to the point. “Spayce laid me off.”
“Oh shit, Fran. That’s terrible!” Her eyes widened behind her vintage tortoiseshell cat’s-eye glasses that I’d helped her pick out at Fabulous Fanny’s in the East Village just a few weeks ago.
“I thought you were about to get promoted.”
“Yeah, so did I. But, listen, that’s not the worst of it. On my way home, my dress ripped wide-open on the subway. Half of Manhattan saw my butt.”
“What?!” Cleo grimaced, nose wrinkled in horror. “Wait. Hold on—I’m almost in my office.” I watched the angles on my screen change as she balanced the phone on her coffee cup to shut the door behind her. “There,” she said, her face coming back into view. “Now everyone won’t hear about your butt.”
Cleo tucked a strand of her stick-straight black hair behind her ear, which only made her angled bob look more chic. She was a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society and also worked as an adjunct professor at Fordham. Lola and I liked to tease her that her students were obviously all infatuated with her, but she always brushed us off with a pointed glare. That didn’t stop Lola from serenading Cleo with “Hot for Teacher” at our last late-night karaoke session at Winnie’s a couple of months ago.
“Don’t kill me,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “But I have, like, five minutes before I need to get back to teaching this seminar. So give me the quick version, and I’ll be over as soon as I can.”
I raced through the tale of my train ride, the box of stupid work mementos, the pregnant lady with no seat, my sweaty armpits, and, of course, him.
“Wow,” said Cleo. “You know how I feel about the whole stupid idea of chivalry.”
I did indeed know how she felt about it.
“And I’m sure you would have been just fine without his help,” she continued.
I nodded in agreement.
“But,” she added, “something about this is very hot. I mean, who even looks up from their phone on the subway? Much less comes to someone’s rescue?”
“And get this,” I added. “It’s freakin’ Gucci.”
Cleo whistled through her teeth. “Good lord,” she said, drawing out the words for effect.
“I know. Maybe the jacket is a bad talisman and he’s using me to get rid of it,” I joked, dragging my comforter up and over my body.
“Well, whatever it is, you can sell it on Poshmark for a small fortune.”
“I’m going to have to when my severance runs out. I only got eight weeks.”
“We’ll figure out a plan.” I could hear Cleo’s brain working through the phone line. “And hey, Fran, maybe it’s for the best. I mean, you’ve been so sick of working there for a long time.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But what does it say about me that I got laid off? Maybe this whole time I’ve been terrible at my job and I had no idea.”