Chapter 5
Itext Reid to meet me by The Garment Worker, a big, bronze statue of an older man in a yarmulke, bent in work over a hand-operated sewing machine, a loving tribute to the workers who made the textile industry in New York what it once was. It soothes me to wait by this particular piece of art, since in general Midtown has never been my speed—even when it’s blocks away Times Square is still a shouty, ocular migraine-inducing shadow, too many honking horns and flashing lights and tourists doing incomprehensible things like actually enjoying themselves in the madness. But even though this is still a pretty loud spot, especially on a Wednesday afternoon, I’m comforted by the quiet stillness of the sculpture. And since I’ve arrived a half hour early—as if I’m trying to out-anal-retentive my companion—I’ve had a lot of time to be comforted.
I’ve spent most of that time considering two things: one is the list of addresses I copied out, comparing it to the map on my phone and reviewing the path I’ve set out for our walk. If I’ve got it right—and this is questionable, since one never really knows whether a hand-painted sign will have faded into oblivion, or whether some new build has since blocked its visibility—Reid and I should be able to see at least a dozen signs today. Whether I like the neighborhood or not, the Garment District has a lot to offer in the way of signage, and there’s even a few—one from a 1960s dress shop in particular—that have drawings included. My list makes me feel productive, prepared. Ready to meet the challenge and to meet Reid on firmer ground, a shared goal between us.
The other consideration is the fact that, as a human woman, I would of course wake up with two new pimples on my forehead on the same day I have something important to do, and with someone I want to look presentable for. This latter consideration, obviously, is not a productive line of thinking, unless you consider my reaching up to touch them every forty-five seconds productive.
That’s what I am doing, in fact, when Reid arrives. Today he’s fallen way off the casual clothes wagon, as in he has set the wagon on fire and spit on the ashes, because he’s wearing a suit. Dark blue, almost black. Slim cut. White shirt, gray tie. A gray messenger bag crossing his chest.
Wall Street Reid.
It shouldn’t really be a surprise. Reid picked the day and time, coordinating with a meeting he mentioned having in the area, and it makes sense that the meeting would have to do with his fancy job. But somehow it still startles me to see him this way, and it’s almost as though he knows it, because for a few seconds after nodding a greeting he simply stands, looking up at the still, serious, sewing man.
I clutch my list so tightly it’s nearly folded in half in my hand. “Neat, right?” I finally say, moving to stand beside him. “Is this your first time seeing it?”
“No.” He looks over at me, then turns his head to stare across Seventh. “There’s a bridal shop over there I’ve been to.”
He hasn’t said it with any malice, but it’s possible we’ve released some kind of awkward nerve gas into the air. Everyone within a half-mile radius probably pauses where they stand and winces.
“Right,” I say, hoping my whole head hasn’t turned into the cringe emoji. “Lots of bridal shops and fabric shops around here.” The strangeness of our agreement, of our being together in any context at all, washes over me again, and part of me wants to bolt, to forget the whole thing.
I’m jolted by the shoulder of a passing pedestrian, part of a small group of tourists who are laughing and staring down at one of their phones, and when I bump into Reid’s side from the impact, he steadies me with a hand on my elbow and snaps, “Watch it, asshole,” at the pedestrian. I’m pretty sure the guy doesn’t hear him, but the line is enough of a surprise to shake me out of my inhibitions.
“Whoa,” I say, my eyes wide as I look up at Reid. “You called that guy an asshole!”
That flush I waited for the other night in the shop—it shows up now, faintly, right at the outer swoop of Reid’s cheekbones.
“I mean, I don’t imagine you saying a word likeasshole.” He furrows his brow, so I clarify. “I thought your insults would be—I don’t know. ‘Rogue.’ ‘Scoundrel.’”Old-timey.
“Why would they be like that?” His voice is still flat, but his eyes are interested, and his hand is definitely still on my elbow, which is a brand-new erogenous zone I’ve never known about.
I shrug, dislodging his hand. Probably I shouldn’t share theMasterpiece Theatrething. “You sounded like a New Yorker.”
The muscles in his jaw tick. “You mentioned there was a lot to see around here.”
“Yes, right!” Too cheerful, again. I try to less cheerfully pass him my list, and he looks down at it for a few seconds, his brows still lowered.
“We should switch the first three with the last two,” he says. “It’s more efficient.”
I peek over his shoulder at the list, then swipe my thumb across my phone, stare down at my map.Shoot. He is correct.
“That was rude,” he says suddenly, and I look up at him. He looks tired around his eyes, the bright, piercing blue somehow wearier. “To use that word.”
I smile. I know which word he means—I’d pictured it written out,verysans serif, as soon as it had come out of his mouth.Asshole. But I feign ignorance.
“Efficient?” I say, widening my eyes dramatically.
He seems to appreciate that, theswoonshback briefly, and it doesn’t quite break the tension between us, but it makes it more manageable. I have a flashback to every time a teacher made the class count off into partners: those initial minutes where you’re sitting next to someone whofeelsnew to you, no matter that they’ve only been sitting a few rows away for the whole school year.
It starts out well, it really does. The first three signs—efficient, indeed!—are still visible, and while the first one is a little bland, not much more than different sizes of the same basic block lettering, the second and third are winners, basically giant, hand-painted banners on the brick sides of buildings, multiple advertisements stacked on top of one another with lots of lettering styles. For both of those, we stop, tucking ourselves out of the way as best we can so I can take photos without getting in the way of people walking, and it becomes a sort of rhythm between us as we move through the next few on the list. A couple of times, Reid takes my phone from me and gets a better angle, his height and long arms a real advantage. Sometimes he crosses the street or straightens himself beside a parked car to get closer. When we talk, it feels safe, focused—he asks me what I call a certain type of lettering, or asks me to explain some term I use for a specific part of a letter. At one point, I tease him about watching some of the short tutorials I’ve done so he can practice the basics, handing him one of my own business cards and directing him to my website. For some reason, it makes my stomach flutter to see him holding it, to see him looking down at its careful design. It’s as though I’m peeking in on the same private moment I’d had when I’d held his card in the shop.
He carefully tucks it inside the inner pocket of his suit jacket, giving it a single, serious pat, as though he’s really planning to watch one of those videos, and I feel my face flush in pleasure.
But sometime around the sixth sign, things start to take a turn for the worse. Two in a row, we can’t find—either because I’ve got something wrong from my searching or because they’re covered up. The next is too faded to see. After that, my dressmaker sign, the one with so much potential—I don’t know if I’ve written the address wrong, but nothing from the image I saw online looks familiar around the address I’ve written down. I check the map again, zoom in on various satellite views; I ask Reid to try a different app while I’m looking. I feel pressured, embarrassed, and it’s Reid who has to suggest we move on.
And on top of that, the sidewalks seem to grow steadily more crowded. Our strategy of staying out of the way now seems more difficult to master. Reid’s already always-stiff demeanor stiffens; he looks tense and impatient—IhateNew York—and I’m flustered, too. I see signs that aren’t on my list, wonder if I should stop, then struggle to refocus. The sky has turned grayer than it was when I arrived, as gray as the buildings that seem to loom on all sides, and this seems to make the signs harder to discern.
Around Sixth and 36th, there’s a sign I caught sight of on a blog, but when we get close, my heart sinks—the parts I can see are faded, and there’s construction scaffolding everywhere, obscuring the view. The noise is unreal—grinding, metallic, miserable. Reid and I have to shout at each other to suggest angles at which we might see better; at one point, misunderstanding each other completely, we turn in the exact opposite direction from each other, and I have to reach out to tug on his sleeve so that he follows me under a scaffold sidewalk to get closer to the sign. Through the brief length of it, the noise from the construction seems even louder, inside-your-bones loud, and the space is warm with the body heat of everyone passing through it. I look up at Reid when we emerge, see his jaw work, as though he’d been clenching his teeth the whole way through.
