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“One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.”
- Frank O’Hara “Meditations in an Emergency”
Matt lets out a sigh and begins loosening his tie as he hears their last client leave. The fan on his desk does little to alleviate the oppressive heat wave that had fallen over the city (and, according to various meteorologists, wasn’t due to let up anytime soon). Between the pervasive heat, the various body odors their clients tracked in, and the general ick factor of New York summers, he’d never been more ready for the weekend than during the past, excruciating hour.
He hears Foggy stand up from his desk, crack his back, and walk toward Karen. “I know I say this every Friday, but thank God it’s Friday. I can’t wait to go home and cover myself in ice cubes.”
Karen’s laugh reverberates above the ancient A/C unit. “I thought you had a hot date tonight?”
“One, that’s a terrible pun and I’m ashamed I didn’t make it first. Two, date’s tomorrow. Tonight is for me, myself, and catching up on Better Call Saul.”
Matt gets up and leans against the doorway to his office. “You really want to watch a show about lawyers on your day off from being a lawyer?”
Foggy lets out a groan and picks up his bag. “How many times to I have to say that it’s not about the legal plots, it’s about the writing and- you know what?” He pauses as Matt and Karen laugh. “This is a hostile work environment. I’m filing a complaint with HR.”
“I am HR,” Karen says, “and I couldn’t care less.”
“No respect, even in my own firm. I’ll see you both on Monday, when we’re hopefully no longer living on the surface of the sun.”
The door shuts behind Foggy. “What are you up to tonight?” Karen calls out from her desk as she starts gathering her things.
Matt thinks of the suit folded in his trunk before remembering that the temperature isn’t expected to dip below 80 until well after 10 PM. There’s a lot of physical pain he can endure, but the prospect of heat stroke isn’t exactly tempting.
“Not much. You?”
He hears her shrug. “Anything but going home. My A/C is busted and my apartment is like a sweatlodge right now.”
The salty tang in the air tells him that she’s sweating, though he can’t tell if she’s lying. “I’d offer to go to Josie’s with you, but I’m guessing we won’t be the only sticky regulars with the same idea on a Friday night.”
She laughs and he feels his own heartbeat pick up slightly. She stands to gather her things and he can practically feel the cotton skirt she’s wearing slide against her bare thighs. Her perfume (amber and vanilla) mixed with her sweat is wonderfully overwhelming. He must look like an idiot, he thinks; standing in the doorway, blushing and trying his best to pretend like his sensory experience of the world isn’t being entirely superseded by her.
Karen’s sharp inhale snaps him out of his thoughts. “Matt, I just had the best idea. Hurry up and grab your stuff.”
He raises an eyebrow but starts packing up anyway. “Do I get to find out where we’re going?”
“Nope!” Her tongue pops on the “p,” and some days she’s so adorable it feels like a gut punch.
“Leading the blind man to an undisclosed location, huh? Planning to fleece me for all the money I’m not worth?”
“Oh please, I do the books. If I wanted to fleece you both I’d have been out of here ages ago and you’d never have known. Now hurry up - we’re wasting daylight.”
He grabs the essentials: phone, cane, wallet, keys. The briefcase can wait, he thinks. Karen locks up and leads them outside, into the chaos of a sweltering Manhattan at the end of a workweek. She turns them left, heading north along 11th Avenue.
“In all seriousness, what are we doing?”
“Well, first we’re going to the bodega on 53rd for supplies.”
“And then?”
Her hair brushes his shoulder as she turns to look at him, and he doesn’t need sight to know that she’s grinning. “Then we get the fuck out of the city. For a while, at least.”
She ignores his question and keeps a running commentary of their surroundings as they walk. Foggy describes the things Matt can’t reach out and sense, like architecture or street signs, but Karen points out the things that he wouldn’t have bothered to notice in the first place. Today it’s the various ways people have adapted to the heat (“The man straight ahead has one of those freezer packs strapped to his belt”), though her observations are wide-ranging and spare nothing: missing bricks, new graffiti, newer faces. Her eye for detail has saved more of their cases than Matt cares to count.
They slow their pace and enter the bodega. He waits up front while Karen decisively grabs a carton of blueberries (picked one week ago in Maine), a bag of chips (corn; baked industrially somewhere near a lake), hummus (astoundingly fresh for a 24/7 corner store), and a six pack of beer (he’s not positive, but he guesses cheap lager). Within minutes their loot is bagged and they’re headed north again.
“A picnic in Central Park, Miss Page?”
She doesn’t quite laugh but he can hear it in her voice. “I said we’re getting out of the city, Matt. Central Park is decidedly more crowded than where we’re going.”
They’ve gone several blocks north and then east again. He reaches into the bag and pops a blueberry in his mouth. “How about you give me a hint, or I eat all of these myself?”
“The only hint I’m giving you is that we’re nearly at the Columbus Circle station, and you’d better get your hand out of that bag before we both get trampled in the rush hour.”
Matt avoids the subway when he can, which isn’t hard in Hell’s Kitchen, though he’s had the system map memorized since high school. His grip on Karen’s arm tightens as she leads them down various sets of stairs and he does his best to block out the urine vomit grease sweat shit cigarettes rats grime odors that permeate the station. According to PA system, they’re waiting for a Brooklyn-bound D train. He doesn’t say anything until they’re on the train, pushed chest-to-chest by the throngs of commuters heading home for the weekend. Karen is extraordinarily warm against him. Her heart is beating a fast tempo and she’s fidgeting with her hair. He leans forward and whispers, “Coney Island was your big plan?”
A shudder works its way through her body and he, for his own sanity, refuses to acknowledge it. She leans into him and hums noncommittally, her breath tickling his ear.
“Well, neither of us can exactly afford the Hamptons.”
They’re crowded against the door to the next car, whispering and laughing. The train surfaces as they cross the East River, and Karen begins narrating their view of the Lower Manhattan skyline.
“The sun’s behind most of the buildings now, and there are lots of boats on the river. Booze cruises, no doubt. I can just barely make out New Jersey through the smog. The Brooklyn Bridge is packed with cars, and FDR Drive is a blur of red and white lights. It looks like every movie I’ve ever seen about New York. Like in all of those buildings down there, hundreds of thousands of stories are happening all the time, within the same few square miles. We live right next to, what, almost two million people now? Yet for most of our lives we’ll never know them. We could bump into them every single day on our way to work and still be strangers. Oh, we’re going back underground.”
The sound in the car changes as it descends and his hand brushes hers as they’re jostled by the train’s movement. She doesn’t move it away.
“At the same time,” she continues quietly, “it’s kind of nice knowing that all those people are each living their own lives. They’re hooking up and divorcing and dying and celebrating and most of us don’t bat an eye. I could be having the worst day of my life, and I would bet you that someone else within five blocks of me is having an even worse one. It helps keep things in perspective, you know?”
Matt nods, not sure what there is to be said, and they lapse into thoughtful silence for the rest of the journey. The car slowly empties as they push further into Brooklyn, though they don’t break apart until they’re a few stops from the end of the line. Karen mutters something about seats finally opening up, though neither of them believes it. She grabs the bag of snacks and he takes her arm as they disembark, making their way toward the boardwalk.
“So remind me why we came here again?”
Karen gently elbows his ribs. “Because it’s on the water, the sunset is supposed to be spectacular, and we can sneak beers on the beach.”
“I didn’t realize I was signing up for a public intoxication misdemeanor when I agreed to this.”
“I doubt it. Worst-case scenario is an open container violation. We’d probably get off with just a warning, if you work some of your courtroom charm.”
Matt laughs and inhales the salty air. Karen’s right - it’s still warm but the proximity to the ocean keeps things cool, and the early evening air is surprisingly pleasant. Seagulls squawk and fly overhead looking for stray french fries. It’s everything he imagined the beach to be.
“You know I’ve never been here before?”
Karen stops walking so suddenly that Matt nearly trips.
“What? You’ve never been to Coney Island? Ever? Even as a kid? Are you sure you’re from New York?”
“I mean, not that I can remember. The closest I’ve been to a beach before this is Battery Park. Maybe Pier 49?”
“Well we’re here, and I promise you this is much better than Battery Park.”
Matt steps off the boardwalk and sinks a little into the sand. He finds the sensation oddly satisfying. Karen slips her shoes off and her steps become much heavier, almost exaggerated, to make up for the shifting sand beneath their feet.
“You’ll tell me if I’m about to step on a used needle, right?”
A giggle escapes Karen’s throat as they walk further down the shoreline, edging closer to the tide. “I’ll do my best, but the coast looks clear.”
The wind beats against them both and Matt’s mental picture of Karen comes into focus. Every minor directional shift in the wind makes a slight sound against her body, and his image of her sharpens - becomes more like a photograph than a sketch. She’s relaxed, with an even heartbeat and loosened shoulders. The wind whips her hair across her face, though she doesn’t seem to mind. He’d forgotten that they’re nearly the same height.
They stop after a ten minute walk and Karen’s assurance that the lifeguard on duty is more preoccupied with a group of teenagers than a pair of professionals in their thirties. Matt opens their beers as Karen flattens the bag and uses it as a placemat. There’s a part of Matt that wonders if this is a date and another part that wouldn’t mind if it were.
She pops a hummus covered chip into her mouth and swallows before speaking. “When was the last time you left the city?”
“Last Christmas. Foggy’s parents moved to Queens after we graduated law school, and they usually take me in for the day.”
“Oh man, what’s a Nelson family Christmas like?”
He smiles. “Busy and loud. It’s perfect.”
Her grin speaks for itself. “The last time I left the city was for those death certificates in Weehawken. Though I have to say this is way more fun than an archive in New Jersey.”
They lapse into companionable silence. He takes a long sip from his beer and listens. The lifeguard is reprimanding the teenagers for playing chicken. Further down the beach, a couple throws a ball for their dog. Across the water, a buoy clangs with the rolling surf. Karen usually takes a large breath before she wants to say something, and her ribs creak against the air intake.
“Feel like getting wet today?” She’s already standing up and bunching her skirt around her waist.
He shakes his head, perfectly content to sprawl out in the sand and enjoy the last few hours of the day.
“Your loss,” she says, and wades into the surf. Judging by the way her legs go stiff on contact, the water isn’t exactly welcoming. She wades in until her knees are covered, apparently unconcerned that the hem of her skirt is soaked.
Karen stands in the water, her back to him. She seems to have forgotten that he’s even there. She’s gazing toward what he assumes is the sun retreating behind the horizon. He hasn’t seen a sunset in decades, but he remembers them well.
Oh, what the hell.
He toes off his shoes and rolls up the legs of his slacks, sets his folded cane next to their picnic, and makes his way out to join her in the water. He gets about three steps in when her hand reaches for his. For both their sakes, he ignores the smells of the various chemicals in the ocean and concentrates on the warm hand in his.
“How was the sunset?”
She takes a rattling breath, like someone who just woke up, and there isn’t a lot he wouldn’t give right now to see the expression on her face.
“I’ve always loved the few minutes after a sunset when all the colors look… richer. There are pinks and blues and the blues get deeper and deeper as the night goes on. It was a very good sunset tonight.” Her breathing hesitates, then she quickly squeezes his hand. “I’m glad you came.”
He returns the gesture and ignores the hammering of both their hearts. At some point they’ll head back into the city and their respective apartments, but that can wait. For now, he’s content to stand next to her, knee-deep in the ocean and holding her hand like they’re the only two people in New York.