I DESCEND INTO THE SUBWAY and say a prayer to the subway gods (yes, multiple gods) that the train ride will be free of electrical issues and religiously challenged conductors.
What if I’m too late? What if she’s already gone? What if stopping to give a dollar to that violinist started a chain of events that causes me to miss her?
We pull into the station. Directly across the platform, the downtown train pulls in at the same time. Our doors close, but the train doesn’t move.
On the platform, a group of about twenty people in brightly colored skintight bodysuits materializes. They look like tropical birds against the dark gray of the subway. They line up and then freeze in place, waiting for something to set them off.
It’s a flash mob. The train across the platform doesn’t move either. One of the dancers, a guy in electric blue with an enormous package, presses play on a boom box.
At first it just seems like chaos, each person dancing to their own tune, but then I realize they’re just offset by a few seconds. It’s like singing in a round except they’re dancing. They start out with ballet and move on to disco, and then break-dancing, before the subway cops catch on. The dancers scatter and my fellow passengers applaud wildly.
We pull away, but now the atmosphere in the train is completely changed. People are smiling at each other and saying how cool that was. It’s at least thirty seconds before everyone puts back on his or her protective I’m-on-a-train-filled-with-strangers face. I wonder if that was the dancers’ intention—to get us all to connect just for a moment.
I’M SITTING WITH MY BACK to the platform, so I don’t really see how it starts. The only way I know something unusual is happening is that the entire train car seems to be looking at something behind me. I turn around and find that there’s a flash mob dancing on the platform. They’re all wearing very bright clothing and disco dancing.
Only in New York City, I think, and take out my phone to snap a few pictures. My fellow passengers cheer and clap. One guy even starts doing his own moves.
The dance doesn’t last long, because three subway cops break it up. A few boos go up before everyone resumes being impatient about the train not moving.
Normally I would’ve wondered what the point of those people was. Don’t they have jobs or something better to do? If Daniel were here, he’d say that maybe this is the thing they’re supposed to be doing. Maybe the whole point of the dancers is just to bring a little wonder into our lives. And isn’t that just as valid a purpose as any?
I DART OUT of the Fifty-Second Street subway and almost run into a couple making out like nobody’s business. Even without the blue hair, they’d be hard to miss because they’re basically fused together from head to toe. They need a room, and stat. Seriously. It’s like they’re having an emergency make-out session right here on the sidewalk. They’ve each got the other’s ass firmly in hand. Mutual ass grabbage.
A pinched-face man makes a disapproving clucking sound as he walks by. A little boy gawks at them with a wide-open mouth. His dad covers his eyes.
Watching them makes me unreasonably happy. I guess the cliché is true. People in love want everyone else to be in love. I hope their relationship lasts forever.
I MAKE THE RIGHT onto MLK Boulevard and walk toward Daniel’s store. At the shop next door to his, a girl is standing on a milk crate, playing violin. She’s white, with long black hair that hasn’t been washed in a long time. Her face is too thin—not fashionable thin, but hungry thin. She’s such a sad, strange sight that I have to stop.
The sign next to her tip hat reads PLEASE HELP. NEED $$$ TO BUY VIOLIN BACK FROM LOAN SHARK. A thick black arrow on the sign points to the pawnshop. I can’t imagine how life led her to this place, but I take out a dollar and throw it into her hat, bringing her total to two dollars.
The door to the pawnshop opens, and an enormous white guy in a white tracksuit comes out and over to us. He is all jowls and scowls.
“Time’s up,” he says, holding out his giant hand to her.
She stops playing immediately and hops down from the crate. She gathers the money from the hat and gives it to him. She even gives him the hat.
Tracksuit pockets the money and puts the hat on his head.
“How much is left?” she asks.
He takes a small notebook and pencil out of his pocket and writes something down. “One fifty-one and twenty-three cents.” He snaps his fingers at her for the violin.
She hugs the violin to her chest before relinquishing it.
“I’ll be back tomorrow. You promise not to sell it?” she asks.
He grunts an assent. “You show up, I don’t sell it,” he concedes.
“I promise to be here,” she says.
“Promises don’t mean shit,” he says, and walks away.
She looks at the storefront for a long time. I can’t tell from her face whether she agrees with him.
EVEN IF NATASHA WERE STILL here, I wouldn’t know where to go in the glass monstrosity of a building. I stare at the directory, trying to divine her location. I know she went to see a lawyer, but the directory is not very specific. For instance, it doesn’t say Attorney So-and-So, Immigration Lawyer to Seventeen-Year-Old Jamaican Girls Named Natasha. I ransack my mind and come up with nothing.
I take out my phone to check the time. Just over an hour until my Date with Destiny. It occurs to me that I should check the new address the receptionist gave me earlier. If it’s too far away, I’ll have the perfect excuse to ditch it.