Essay by Jenine Holmes
I can still see her
the tall,
pale girl
huddled
at the bitter edge of the subway platform.
Shoulders hunched,
arms bracing a wail
that wanted out.
A human stop sign
for those with vision for such trouble.
Twin glints of light streak her cheeks,
trump the atmosphere
of Manhattan’s subterranean depths,
an air bathed in
the odor of stale pizza,
pricy perfume, and aged mildew.
I lean in and ask,
Are you okay?
I’m okay,
with her hand’s heel she swipes the silvery streaks
using such a force—
—I fear she’ll snag her silvery nose ring.
Well, you don’t look okay.
I’m okay, really,
hoping the repetition
will convince
us
both.
//Buddhists believe when another is suffering we can take on the pain. I could see that her snowy t-shirt and indigo jeans strained under the weight of her woes. I could see, among the thousands,
the tall, pale girl balanced at the platform’s edge
and perhaps sanity//
//How could I see all this?
Because I could see my younger self in her.
We are different, one black
the other white, but both the same at our core, at our wounds.
Twice I’d found myself balanced at the thin edge of reason, leaning into the abyss.
The first
when the ultrasound revealed that my baby (just like my boyfriend of three years) had upped and left, too. The second
when a new love pledged to create a family with me through adoption revealed he now abandoned that goal//
//Did my Italian American man lose faith in love? In making a new life with an African American woman? Twin riddles rode my brain standing on Madison Avenue, struggling to hold on to my cellphone, my sanity, my dignity, holding down a wail that wanted out.
The wail won//
//I determined it would not win again. If I ever witnessed another human breaking open publicly, I pledged I’d find the cause. Now, time, space, and fidelity bind me to my oath//
Tell, me what’s the matter?
I slid closer and touch her forearm. Her flesh feels
volcanic.
It’s complicated.
So, tell me. I have time.
I’m crying because I fell in love.
She sucked in a breath and snot.
But it’s not what you think.
I’m engaged to a man,
but we decided to invite
a woman into our relationship.
Whose idea was that? His or yours?
Mine.
But we both wanted it.
And…?
I braced for the answer.
She blinked back tears.
Now I’ve fallen for her. I fell in love.
I called off the wedding.
Now it was my turn to blink.
//Of course, polygamous relationships are as old as the earth. I’d listened
to the complex love stories of my Gen X and Z friends
carried on a current of fluidity and openness
that we Millennials and Boomers didn’t share, least of all in
Grand Central Station.
We holders of mortgages,
attenders of PTA meetings and payers of college tuition
weren’t so open about open relationships.
But here I stood
before this Joan of Arc of love,
bearing witness to her fortitude, courage,
acts I hadn’t committed for love in more than in a decade//
Look, you need to be certain about this woman.
Make sure she doesn’t want you to leave your life, your fiancé,
only to find that she doesn’t want to be in a relationship.
Make sure it isn’t curiosity.
Make sure it’s love.
//I could witness her truth but remained a realist. I could refrain from
sharing stories of friends who used love as a measure of their attractiveness
to men,
to women
or both, at times, simultaneously,
indulging their curiosity,
their sexuality, their egos.
After their wanderlust wandered on
wrecked hearts bleed in their wake//
Is she someone who would be there for you? There for the everyday,
boring parts of life? Is she someone who’ll remember
to pick up the milk on the way home?
Her face it up,
super nova bright.
She’s great, and all her friends are great, too.
//I wanted to believe in their love. But love is never
simple. Nor easy. Love cracks you open in good and bad ways. Still,
maybe this new love was the love for them? Perhaps together
they’d created a powerful enough rupture that the seed of real love had
made its way to real earth and taken root. Perhaps, its pale green shoot
now shot up through the grey urban pavement. Maybe
these two women had come together and created magic, the kind the world
is busy swiping, tapping and praying to cellphone screens to find//
// Still, translating the Morse Code of the heart can be tricky. This twenty-something-wafer-thin girl had calculated the costs, and believed she could weather those waves, even if the currents change course.
I have no time to squander on “possible.”
At fifty, I became stingy with my hope. And by my calculation this modern fairy tale of girl loves girl, loves guy could end with at least one heart wrecked on the rocky coast//
//The light she carried signaled her connection to the woman she loves, and in a sense, once I witnessed it, the glow illuminated our connection too. We stood in the eye of the storm of the rush hour commute, 750,000 thousand people strong,
and only saw one another.
Although I had unanswered text messages, emails, or phone calls to a host of friends and family, in that moment, the tall pale girl was the center of in my world. Everything else fell away
as external, unnecessary.
We were unified, unafraid. Together. I’d read every moment of life could be a spiritual experience. Now I found myself knee deep in the waters//
Take the time you need to make up your mind. It’s yours. Use it.
Thanks for talking to me.
Just wanted to help.
//She looped her arms about me, and hugged me tight. She smelled of
Dove Lavender Body wash
and torment.
We stood, anchored together. She held such softness inside
her brokenness,
like shards of glass wrapped in silk brocade//
//I slipped my hand into hers, our slender fingers
shaping a lattice of brown and pink. Two women so close, so publicly, in that moment, perhaps,
we appeared to be in love//
I’m on my way to my therapist,
but I feel like I already had a session.
//She smashed fresh tears back into their ducts. She was 5’10” to my 5’7”but she looked small and brittle//
Please take care of yourself.
I will.
I will.
// She flashed a crooked grin, then pivoted and slipped
into the chaos of commuters.
I watched her grow small in the weak light until she stopped, turned and found me.
Over the dark bobbing bodies, she raised
her pale hand over the dark sea, shaping a stop sign.
We shared one last salute. I sent up prayers for her successful
traversing of the tight-rope of love.
New York City is the epicenter of dreams.
Holding a dream for someone else is a powerful act//
//I made my way to the escalator and exited at Third Avenue. The pavement was swarming with souls. The eastern rays flushed my face. The light,
the light was all around me. I don’t recall the elevator ride up to my ad agency, or the act of preparing a cup of Italian roast. But the moment my body plopped down
into my office chair is clear and present, more than a year later.
Real connection is real work.//
//I stared out at the midtown skyscrapers, at the geometry of squares and rectangles that shaped ambitions of the past. We live with the lens of their architectural hopes. Throughout the day, I thought of very little besides the tall pale, girl, and the Solomon choice before her and her life//
//Autumn arrived. The subway air cooled. I search for the tall pale girl often. I hoped she solved her conundrum of the heart. Hope she used love as a shield and a bridge, that she shared a life with the right partner who remembers to pick up the whole, 2%, 1%, skim, grass-fed, lactose-free or almond milk.
I hoped to tell the tall pale girl how our encounter built a resolve to help me excavate my belief in love,
to resurrect it from the Manhattan sidewalk where I’d abandoned it. That I too
could
again,
believe in a great love story; a story I, ultimately, must be the conduit//
//Winter hit.
Covid hit harder.
The virus snatched up all the space in our minds, in our connections, shaped an ocean of separation that 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy never did. New Yorkers survived those tragedies by coming together. Now our survival hinged on staying apart //
//At night, in bed, the feathery cover tucked up tight around my shoulders, I imagine my body walking the streets of Florence, the penultimate place of my happiness. I am weaving in out of the medieval streets, through the flow of linga Italia, the seasons to which I long to return, but my travels always lead me back to Grand Central Station, to the tall, pale girl.
I spot her face, now tearless and flush with contentment.
She is heading towards me, through the air soaked in fresh brewed coffee, perspiration and new found ambition. She’s bursting with news,
news of the love that sustained and fed her through Covid; through this brutal season of history. And I have news to share, too//
//More than a year later, I still long to see
the tall,
pale girl//
Photo credit: Kyle Miller.
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