Under My Skin

A siren from the street below drifts up, a distant and ghostly wail. This sound, so frequent in the cacophony of city noise, always makes me think of Jack. About an hour after he left that morning, emergency vehicles howled up the avenue beneath our window. There should have been some premonition, some dark dawning, but there wasn’t.

A lingering head cold had kept me in bed instead of going with him as I normally would have.

You could have died that morning, too, Layla says when we go over and over it.

Or maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. Maybe we would have run in a different direction. Or maybe we could have fought off the attacker together.

Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe—on and on. Infinite possibilities, myriad ways Jack might still be with me. He overslept; a light caused him to cross another street; I was there and twisted my ankle, causing us to return home. I turn to those scenarios in blank moments, in dreams, when I should be paying attention in meetings. So many other paths he could have taken and didn’t.

“I’m not imagining him.” It seems to come out of nowhere.

Dr. Nash cocks her head at me. “I didn’t say you were.”

I bend down and grab my bag, come to standing as she does.

“And lock your doors. Be mindful,” she adds.

“You sound like my mother.”

She chuckles. “We can talk about that next session.”

“Very funny.”

* * *

I walk toward the subway, needing to get back downtown for a two o’clock meeting. I’m probably going to be late—again. The city is such a mess, a constant crush of traffic and delayed trains. I think about a cab or an Uber, but sometimes that’s even worse, snaking through jammed streets, trapped in a box, trying to decide if it would be faster to just get out and walk. The whole city seems to conspire against promptness.

I text my assistant, Ben. Running late, I tap in quickly and descend beneath the street. It’s Monday midday, so it’s not as crowded as it could be. Though the day is mild, the platform is hot as an oven and smells like piss. My stress level starts to tick up.

Jack wanted us to leave Manhattan; he’d grown to hate it. Everything that was cool about it is gone. It’s just an island for the rich. He dreamed of a historic property upstate, something with a lot of land, trees, trails to wander. Something we could renovate and make ours. He longed to disconnect from the rush of wanting, grasping, striving, at least on the weekends. He wanted time back behind the camera. He didn’t get any of those things.

We were packing when he died, boxing up the one-bedroom Upper West Side apartment we’d shared for five years. But instead of moving out of the city, we were moving to The Tate, a luxury high-rise in Chelsea—a gleaming tower of apartments with floor-to-ceiling windows, offering stunning vistas, high ceilings, wood floors, chic open-plan kitchens, pool and gym, a 24/7 building staff. It was me. I was the one who wanted it; he acquiesced.

He loved our dark, cozy place on Ninety-Seventh—with views of the other building across the street, with radiators that clanked, and mice in our ridiculously dated kitchen, and the old doorman Richie, who’d worked there forever and was sometimes asleep when we walked in. He loved our crazy, colorful cast of neighbors—Merlinda, the psychic who read clients in her apartment; Chuck—or Chica—accountant by day, drag queen by night, who had the most beautiful singing voice I’d ever heard; Bruce, Linda and Chloe, public school teachers and their adorable, gifted daughter, our next-door neighbors who never failed to invite us for Sunday dinner.

Now I live in a starkly beautiful space that looks out onto lower Manhattan—alone. I don’t even know who lives in the apartment next to me. The hallways are gray tunnels, lined with doors that seem to rarely open. In my apartment, the furniture is placed appropriately—bed in the bedroom, couch in the living area—but most of the boxes are still unpacked. To say I miss my husband, our wacky neighbors, that dark old apartment, our life—well, why? There are no words to adequately describe that slick-walled gully of despair. Suffice it to say that I can’t seem to fully move into my new life without Jack.

I’m sorry, I tell him. I wish I had listened to you.

Dr. Nash says it’s okay to talk to him, if I understand he’s not talking back.

Time drags and I’m ever more fidgety, annoyed. More people file down the stairs. The platform grows dense with bodies, the air thickening with impatience. Still the train doesn’t come. I lean over the edge of the platform to see if I can spot the glow of an oncoming headlamp. No.

I glance at the clock. There is officially no way to be on time now. A bead of perspiration trails down my spine. A glance at my phone reveals that there’s no signal.

When the train finally screeches into the station, it’s already packed. I wait by the door, letting the flow of people exit. There’s no guarantee that the next train will be any less crowded, and that waiting meeting looms. I shoulder myself on, shimmying toward the door that connects one car to the other; find a space with a little breathing room. The cars fill.

Stand clear of the closing doors.

The doors close, open again, then finally shut for good. The train lurches forward, stops, jostling everyone, then onward again. I close my eyes, try to breathe. The crowded space is closing in already. I am not great in tight spaces, which is an uncomfortable condition for a city dweller. It’s worse since Jack died; the fingers of panic tugging at me more than they used to. I lean my head against the scratched, foggy glass. Breathe. Just breathe. Imagine you’re on a trail in the woods, plenty of space, the tall green trees giving oxygen and shade. There’s a bird singing, the sound of the wind in the leaves. It’s the meditation Dr. Nash gave me for dealing with anxiety in crowds or anywhere. Occasionally, it works.

But when I open my eyes again, he’s there. That hooded man, pressed in among the crowd in the other car, a statue amidst the clutter of shuffling, jostling passengers. His eyes are hidden by the shadow of the hood, but I can feel them. Is it the same man? My heart stutters, a suck of fear at the base of my throat.

Reality cracks, a fissure splits in my awareness. For a moment, quick and sharp, I’m back in my own bedroom. The space beside me on the king mattress is cold when it should be warm. The covers are tossed. Jack left for his run without me, letting me sleep.

“Jack?”

Then I’m back, the train still rattling, rumbling. I’m stunned, a little breathless; what was that? A kind of vivid remembering, a daydream? Okay. It’s not the first time it has happened; but it is the most vivid. The woman next to me gives me a sideways glance, shifts away.

Pull it together, Poppy. The stranger—he’s still there. Is he watching me?

Or is he just another blank commuter, lost in thought about home or work or whatever it is we ponder when we’re zoning out, traveling between the places in our lives. Maybe he’s not seeing me at all. For a moment, I just stare.

Then, unthinking, I push through the doors, stepping out onto the shaking metal platforms between the cars. This is a major subway no-no, I think as I balance and grope my way through the squeal of metal racing past concrete, metal on metal singing, sparking, then through the other door into the relative quiet of the next car.

He moves away, shoving his way through the throng. I follow.

“What the fuck?”

“Watch it.”

“Come on.”

Annoyed passengers shoot dirty looks, shift reluctantly out of my way as I push after him, the black of his hood cutting like a fin through the sea of others.

As we pull into the next station, he disappears through the door at the far end of the car. Trying to follow him, I find myself caught in the flow of people exiting, and get pushed out of the train onto the platform. I finally break free from the crowd, jog up the platform searching for the hooded figure among tall and short, young and old, backpacks, briefcases, suits, light jackets, baseball caps. Where is he?

I want to see his face, need to see it, even though I can’t say why. Distantly, I’m aware that this is not wise behavior. Not street-smart.

Don’t chase trouble, my mother always says. It will find you soon enough.

Then the doors close and I’m too late to get back on. Shit. My phone chimes, finding a rare spot of service underground.

A text from Ben: ETA? They’re going to wait a bit, then reschedule. Assume you’re stuck on the train.

It isn’t until the train pulls away that I see the stranger again, on board, standing in the door window. He’s still watching, or so it seems, his face obscured in the darkness of the hood. I walk, keeping pace with the slow-moving train for a minute, lift my phone and quickly take a couple of pictures. I can almost see his face. Then he’s gone.

2 (#u45bdf40c-25ae-5944-ab4b-583b931df908)

I arrive at the office frazzled, sweaty, full of nerves, late for the meeting. In the bathroom, running my wrists under cold water, pulling shaking fingers through my dark hair, I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

Pull. Yourself. Together.

My face is sickly gray under the ugly fluorescents, as I dab some makeup on the eternal dark circles under my eyes, refresh lipstick and blush. A little better, but the girl in the mirror is still a tired, wrung-out version of the person she used to be.

Rustling through my bag, I find the bottle of pills Layla gave me. It’s blank, the little amber vial, no label. For nerves, she said. I hesitate only a second before popping one in my mouth and swallowing it with water from the faucet, then try to take some centering breaths. Dr. Nash is not aware of my unauthorized pill-taking, one of multiple things I keep from her. I know. What’s the point of keeping things from the person who is supposed to be helping you?

As I walk past Ben’s desk, he rises and hands me a stack of messages.