Marooned

Audrey stands stationery on the school lawn while toddlers shout and swarm around her, playing a game that resembles tag. Her right hand absently scratches a knee through her threadbare black joggers and her left hand scrolls Instagram. She nudges her sunglasses up onto the bridge of her nose as her eyes rest on a photo of her college friends smiling around a dinner table. Their faces glow behind tastefully placed tea candles. ‘About last night,’ the caption reads. Audrey recognizes the tagged location’s name: a classic New York City steakhouse known for its filthy martinis and tableside Caesar salads. Her eyes narrow and she stares at the photo for a beat too long before she clicks the heart icon and swipes the app closed.

She opens her mail app and refreshes her inbox. Nothing yet from NYU. On a whim, she had applied for a director’s position at their art museum. It was a long shot, and she and her husband Ethan had abandoned New York for the Midwest a year ago, but the salary line was outrageous and the position held prestige and respect. Also, she didn't have a steady job, nor had she found her people, in her current place of residence. The job application was both a reach and a prayer.

She feels the sensation of cool metal against her Achilles tendon. She turns around to see another kindergarten mom – was it Lindsay? Leslie? Linda? – behind the frame of a hulking Uppababy stroller.

Audrey felt a flush of shame about her inability to remember names, but it was a challenge in the Midwest, where everyone seemed to have the same face and outfits and accents. The Uppababy mom pushes her oversized sunglasses onto her head and exclaims, “Hi Audrey!! Sorry about that. How are ya?!”

Audrey smiles politely and feels a sense of gratitude, as the voice leads her to recall that this particular mom’s name is Lynette (she wasn’t even close) and that her son Noah is in Audrey’s daughter’s kindergarten class. “Lynette, hi,” Audrey responds warmly. “Doing well, yourself?”

Just then, a wail emerges from the Uppababy. Lynette leans over and adjusts the stroller cover to examine the creature lurking beneath the canopy. “I’m doing great, let me tell ya. But this little lady isn’t the happiest, is she?” she coos. Audrey glimpses inside the stroller to see a chubby infant, probably about 6 months old, her face red and scrunched, a little sun-dried tomato with a set of lungs. Her forehead and eyes are completely obscured by an oversized pink bow, and a milk bottle lies drained in the corner of the bassinet.

Audrey smirks. “Yeah, maybe because that headband you have on her is obstructing her vision.” As if in agreement, the baby shrieks louder, and Lynette clicks the baby out of the stroller and into her arms.

Lynette hoists the baby onto her hip and adjusts the headband. “But isn’t it sooo cuuute?” she insists with a scrunched expression mimicking her daughter’s. Lynette seems so unbothered by Audrey’s snark, Audrey wonders whether she heard it at all, or maybe Lynette is one of those unicorn moms who's completely oblivious to criticism. “What are y’all up to this weekend? It is Friday, after all!”

Audrey imagines what all of her friends in New York have planned for this particularly warm September weekend. Perhaps art gallery openings, or apartment parties with a deliciously pretentious literary crowd, or daylong movie marathons at the Angelika. She compares this to her own weekend: a grocery run, a kid’s birthday party at the trampoline park that always smells like dirty socks, Indian takeout.

“Oh, you know, kid stuff,” Audrey offers. “I’m also waiting to hear back about a job interview at a museum in New York, so I’ve been obsessively checking my email. What about you?”

Lynette jiggles the baby on her hip. Audrey silently gives her credit for daring to handle a recently fed infant in this manner while wearing an expensive-looking bright white athleisure tracksuit. “Well, you know, tomorrow’s Saturday, so it’s game day! We’ll be watching the game over at Ashley’s house. She’s having a big party. Other than that, you know, Noah’s got swim lessons, and baseball practice. But New York?! That city is disgusting! Why New York?!”

Maybe because it’s my lifeblood, lady, Audrey thinks to herself. She imagines Ashley’s house filled with young couples and their kids, the collective effervescence of a college football game permeating the living room. Even though Audrey doesn’t love football, she feels a pinprick of loneliness when she considers her own nonexistent invitation.

The school bell rings, and Audrey knows she has about 8 seconds before a tidal wave of children surges from the double doors and floods the lawn. “Well, I’d better go find Haley,” she says with a smile. “Have a great weekend!” She waves and takes two steps towards the school, but not before noticing that the baby bow has once again flopped completely over the kid’s face. Both Lynette and the baby seem unfazed, though, enthralled in a separate conversation with another mom wearing the same athleisure tracksuit, but in bone white, not bright white.

Haley was usually one of the first kids out of the school, and sure enough, Audrey spots her girl, with her long dirty blond curls bouncing and her teal backpack straps tucked neatly on her shoulders. She feels a gentle breeze of giddiness waft through her. During school hours, Audrey keeps busy tidying the house, or grocery shopping, or trying to write, but without regular work, or a kid to care for throughout the day, or real friends, she usually feels adrift and exhausted, like she’s alone on a janky raft in the middle of the ocean, the sun beating down on her weathered face, her throat screaming for water.

“Mommy!” Haley yells, running towards Audrey. She encircles Audrey’s legs with her skinny arms and Audrey bends over to return the embrace, wrapping herself around her daughter.

“Hey, sweetie,” Audrey says into Haley’s mess of hair. “How was school?”

Haley pulls back and looks up at Audrey’s face. “It was so good! We had library and I got a new book. Oh, and we had outdoor recess and we played on the tire swing.”

Audrey takes Haley’s hand and they start walking to the car. The lawn, now covered with moms and kids and dogs on leashes, requires nudging and ‘excuse me’s’ and gentle elbowing to pass through. Once their feet hit the quiet sidewalk, Audrey exhales the tiniest breath.

They head home and Audrey sets Haley up with a pouch of yogurt and a handful of tortilla chips. She lets Haley watch TV in the living room while she checks her email. When she started scrolling the job boards a couple weeks ago, just looking, just out of curiosity, she noticed the NYU job and felt compelled to apply. Sure, Ethan has his cushy job at the bank, and his parents live nearby, so that’s nice. But Audrey has recently started to fully grasp that she had left everything back in New York: her friends, her job at the art gallery, her sense of self. And while they certainly had had their reasons for moving to the Midwest – more space, more money, less traffic – she had been wondering these days if it had all been worth it.

Her breath catches when she sees an NYU address in her inbox. She opens the email and the key words ring out in a jovial melody: ‘delighted’ and ‘impressive’ and ‘interview opportunity.’ She laughs to herself and immediately clicks ‘reply,' not bothering to consult with Ethan. She knows that if she gets an offer, he would entertain it, and that if she doesn’t, at least she gets a trip to the city.

Haley turns around from Daniel Tiger and glares at Audrey. “Mommy, what’s so funny?”

Audrey smiles to herself and types out her response. “Nothing, baby. Watch your show. We have to leave for gymnastics soon.”

Later that night, Audrey and Ethan are cleaning up dinner when she mentions the email. “So, I got a job interview,” she offers, scooping buttered fusilli into a Tupperware container.

Ethan’s loading the dishwasher. He’s wearing the yellow rubber gloves they keep at the sink, and Audrey finds it oddly sexy. “Oh, that’s great!” he says. “At the local art museum? Or one of the galleries downtown?”

Audrey snaps the lid onto the container and places the pasta into the refrigerator. “No, the NYU art museum,” she says coyly. “What do you think? Would you be opposed to moving back?”

Ethan looks up at her then, his expression a blend of confusion and amusement. He slides a dinner plate between the narrow rows on the bottom rack. “Already? We just got here,” he chuckles. “I mean, I guess if it’s a great opportunity, we would have to think about it.”

Audrey nods, drying her hands with a dish towel. “Yeah, it’s just that my freelance work has dried up recently, and I feel like with each month we live here and not there, I’m fading out of the picture just a little bit more.” She leans against the counter and places the dish towel next to her. “One day I’m just going to disappear completely. I mean, I know we’re not strapped for cash. But there’s really nothing out here for an art history major, and I can’t just write critiques of the same pieces over and over. This town isn’t really known for its fine arts scene.”

Ethan crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the sink. “Yeah, I get it,” he agrees. “Well, I’m fine if you want to go for the interview. I’ll have my mom step in for a few days and help with Haley. Enjoy it.” He gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and tears off the rubber gloves. “I’m going to hit the gym for a bit.” He heads down to the basement before Audrey can respond.

Audrey twists her lips. That’s one thing they’ll never have in New York: a fully furnished home gym.

The flight only takes one hour, but the cab ride from JFK to downtown Manhattan takes two. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway is at a standstill, and the cab reeks of a combination of musty old car and cigarette smoke. Audrey opens the window to both combat her carsickness and air out the stench. She considers how in the Midwest, it only takes her 10 lovely minutes to get from the airport to her lovely 3000-square-foot home in her lovely suburb. But she looks across the East River at the Manhattan skyline, standing with muscle and grit against a cloudless blue sky, and knows that she belongs there, over there. To her, the city is a full-bodied rosy-cheeked fairmaiden, skin milky white and unblemished, while the Midwest is a thin-lipped, haggard spinster, a face steadily eroding with each tick of the clock.

She finally reaches her hotel room and checks in. That night, she’s having dinner and drinks with Romy, her college roommate. The following day is jam-packed with interviews, tours, and coffee meetings with various personnel from the museum. She hangs all the fancy clothing she’s packed, careful to press out the mild wrinkling. She feels like she's airing out a time capsule: all the fancy tops and drape-y wide-legged pants and sharply cut blazers simply hang in her closet in her house, relics from the past, on display as if to honor a foregone era. For dinner, she puts on a black crop top, high-waisted wide-legged black pants, and a black blazer. She creates a smoky eye and curls her hair. She takes a selfie in the hotel room mirror to commemorate how good she looks.

For Audrey, walking in the city again is like slipping into her favorite pair of jeans, the ones that hug her butt perfectly not due to craftsmanship, but due to the sheer amount of time spent in them. As she walks from the hotel to the restaurant, she feels alive for the first time in months. The city around her pulsates and heaves, contracting and expanding like a beating heart. Even the scales of gray around her – the concrete of the sidewalk, the slate of the buildings, the chrome of the hubcaps – shimmer like asphalt on a hot summer day. Navigating the lights and crosswalks and people comes back in muscle memory, and Audrey feels like she’s home. I'm getting this job, she thinks to herself.

Romy is already seated at a table when Audrey enters the restaurant. She jumps up and delivers a long, tender hug. Audrey notices that Romy smells clean but expensive, like the soap at her hotel: an amalgamation of unidentifiable herbs and florals that somehow communicate anonymous luxury. They sit on opposite sides of the table and simply stare at each other for a moment, then both sigh simultaneously, then laugh simultaneously. Audrey recognizes the sparkly gold hoop earrings Romy’s wearing from the Instagram photo she saw that day at the school, when all of her friends hung out without her for what felt like the millionth time that year.

“How are you?” Romy starts, leaning forward and tapping Audrey’s hand. “What’s new? How’s Midwest living?”

Audrey sits back in her chair and tilts her head. “I hate it there,” she declares. “I don’t know what else to say. I want to live here.”

Romy pouts. “I do not like to hear that.” She shakes her head. “No, no, no. There have to be some benefits to living there. This city is a hellhole.”

Audrey thinks for a moment. “Well, we live very easily. We rarely drive more than 20 minutes at a time, and Haley’s happy. She likes school, and has a lot of friends.”

Romy smiles and nods. “That’s great!” she beams. “But what about you? And Ethan? What do you guys like about it? Besides the driving thing.”

Audrey takes a sip of water. “Um…” She wracks her brain for something positive. “We have a nice house? I don’t know. I miss the city, I miss my friends, I miss the culture here. So let’s be here in the now. Let’s not revisit the situation there.”

They gossip about work and friends and books and art and film. Afterwards, Audrey levitates back to the hotel. Around her, the skyscrapers glitter and seamlessly blend with the starlit sky. She peers into the windows of her old haunts and sees herself sitting at the bar amongst the other patrons, talking and drinking and laughing.

The interview day is a whirlwind. Audrey gets up before dawn, works out at the hotel gym, and takes her time getting ready. She perfectly curates her entire look: a black blazer, a cream silk button-down blouse, and tailored black wool pants. Romy had lent her the sparkly gold hoop earrings after Audrey swore to promptly mail them back, and Audrey slips them on. Throughout the day, she meets more than 2 dozen people, has about 27 cups of coffee, and can barely feel her feet in her heels from all the walking. When she finally emerges from the museum, it’s magic hour. The sky is ablaze with the setting sun below a gentle brushstroke of lavender, that washes into a deeper periwinkle blue. A sliver of a crescent moon hangs in the sky, a tiny star just to its northeast. Audrey impulsively takes out her phone and snaps a photo, a smile naturally lingering on her face after hours of forced beaming. Later that night, wrapped in the plush hotel robe, she scrolls Zillow for the latest apartment listings, then studies the photo like a sacred text.

Her life in the Midwest resumes: school drop off, school pick up, errands and tasks in between. Audrey starts to lose sense of the household needs, and dishes go unwashed, laundry piles up. She halfheartedly writes an art review, submits it to a national magazine anyway, and feels nothing when it gets rejected. Haley gets invited to so many playdates and birthday parties that she needs a separate calendar on Audrey’s phone, and Ethan trims down in the right areas, and bulks up in even better ones. He tells Audrey he’s already getting a promotion at the bank, some VP position. Audrey barely hears him when he breaks the news. She musters up some enthusiasm for him, and they celebrate by sharing a sleeve of Oreos.

She’s working on her laptop at the kitchen table on a rain-soaked Monday when the NYU email address reappears in her inbox. Her heart begins to pound and her breath becomes shaky as she hovers the mouse over the message. She screws up just enough courage and double-clicks. The key words poke at her like tiny needles: ‘extreme competition’ and ‘careful consideration’ and ‘regret to inform you.’ She folds her arms across the table and lowers her head onto them. She takes a few deep breaths. “Something will come up,” she mutters to herself. “It has to.” When she composes herself, she closes all the open windows on her laptop. She takes a moment to admire her laptop’s wallpaper: the photo she took the day of the interview, magic hour in New York City. The crescent moon resembles a freshly sharpened scythe and seems to glimmer and wink on the screen. She considers changing the photo, maybe to Haley’s first school picture, but decides to leave it for now. A girl should be allowed to dream, after all.