By Hugh Shin

It was a long day at work. I hastily stuffed my papers in my bag and made my way towards the door. Homework, for an adult, what a genius idea that was. What an honest to god joke really, spend over 2 decades doing homework just to get paid to do it afterwards. My boss blocks the elevator with an unwelcoming pile of paper. I opt to take the stairs, all 23 levels of them. I make a small prayer that my coworker isn’t waiting for me in the lobby. It’d be the hundredth rain check I give him, that number is irrelevant. It always rains. It’s just been a lot, like a hundred lot. The buildings of New York CIty may seem beautiful outside, but they’re bland and boring on the inside. Almost tasting like… a hospital? You get what I mean, it’s sky blue and calming and it’s chipping, old wallpaper. Oh, and stairs, lots and lots of stairs. I finally manage to escape the building and take a deep breath. Ah, shit. A play on the phrase there if you couldn’t tell. “Ah, shit. I’m late for a meeting with a special someone”, and “Ah, shit, it smells like shit”. Either way, I step outside and realize that the buildings aren’t actually as beautiful as I previously mentioned. Gray, greasy, hard. Whatever New York City the magazines talk about, must be another one. I thrust my hands into my pockets, look down and walk towards my destination because god forbid I make eye contact with another person. I’m a New Yorker, what do you expect? I walk what seems like a circle of the same buildings for a good 10 minutes before I began to see the clearing. Green, spacious, and most importantly, not shit. I hated the city but there were two good things I could gather. Money, and a hell of a lot of it to make, and these rare pockets of parks speckled in between these crusting buildings.

Oh, and I wasn’t really meeting anyone. It’s like a self-date you could say. Every so often I visit the park and read the news, eat a snack, or simply lay around and enjoy the atmosphere. Feng shui was it? Probably. I make my way to Central Park and find an empty bench to sit on. No bird shit, great. Opening the newspaper, I check the date. November 22nd, 1950. The weather is certainly getting colder and the park is certainly no longer green. The trees are reduced to their skeletons and the ground has been balding lately, yet the park continues to retain a beauty that seems so intimate yet so public. Like finding a public stall at a restaurant that won’t give you 4 different types of STDs. I let my bag of paperwork drop from my shoulder and slouch on the bench. I didn’t really bring any food to eat and the loose change in my pockets jingled in despair. I stretch back again and let out an unsightly yawn when I notice that there’s a lady sitting next to me. How long was she even next to me? I check my watch and realize I had dozed off for half an hour. Talk about how time flies. I straighten my back and make myself look proper, might as well.

“Um, hello.” I half mumbled it but if she didn’t hear it, that would’ve been better. She looks curiously into my eyes. Light chocolate eyes, pale skin, middle-aged, she seemed like a kind woman, or a smart woman. Or… a woman in general, I’m not good at this kind of thing. A kind woman who wouldn’t respond to my hello. Shit. I became increasingly uncomfortable and my involuntary shifting is starting to chafe my butt.

“Look I’m sorry if I bothered you. I normally get lost in the newspaper you see but I guess I doze off. It’s pretty cold, should probably be on my way”.

“No need to apologize, what’s your name?” She asks? Her voice is surprisingly deep-toned, like dark chocolate. I tell her it’s Vincent, and we exchange some small talk. The small talk that doesn’t make you want to peel your skin off. It’s nice. She’s apparently an editor at House & Garden magazine. I tell her how awesome that is and how much I admire her work, despite having never heard of it. Courtesy they call this, or as I say, bullshit to avoid the single life. Take it as you will.

“Love is quick, don’t waste your time rushing it. I married quite young you know. I was quite the looker but I fell in love with the first man I saw. That’s what young love does to you, it makes you see something and convinces you it’s the best thing.” She seems to have caught onto my interest in her. Fair enough, although love was never a big complex for me. I had spent so much time building my career that there was no time to… really get to know anyone. It was unfortunate but that’s the life that many people lived in New York.

I keep the questions going, probing her life only because she seemed to welcome the questions. Dear god I was running out of questions. She was apparently on her second marriage which kind of disappoints me. Oh, and most importantly? Her name is Brooke Marshall. The same Marshall as the boss standing at the elevator trying to dump more homework on me, the big dog Charles Marshall, successful businessman but dirt cheap. You know what they say, the bigger the dog, the bigger shit they… never mind. That’s an ugly image to paint. Takes me a second to realize she’s actually the wife of a really rich man. I couldn’t feel my fingers because it was cold, too cold to think straight. If not I definitely would have freaked out, or at the least ask for some money. Because you know, I like love but money can come a close second to the heart. She also turned out to not be that much older. I was convinced that I was merely aging very well, that must be it. Spends a lot of her time writing and has a great interest in philanthropy. Used to live in China, Haiti, she’s been all over. She’s lead a pretty fun life…

“You don’t look so good, something bothering you?” She asked knowing there was an answer. I told her about my life and how unfulfilling it was. Life in New York City as extravagant as it painted itself, was not worth the job, the time, the life it demanded. Let me put it this way, you could paint the most beautiful painting in shit, but in the end, it’ll still smell like, you know. You know what else, these analogies aren’t really working. But the fact of the matter was, I hated my life and I was complaining to a woman I had just met.

“Just like this city. Beautiful lights but no one mentions the nasty stench from down below!” She interrupts just before I could regret telling her the things I did.

“Yeah, really bad stench while coming here from Park Avenue”. She also lives in Park Avenue as well, More idle “grown up” chatter. The weather was still pretty cold. But damn did it feel good talking to someone for once.

I continued to talk about the hardships for the working man and how New York City wasn’t what it was advertised to be and all of the nitty gritty issues of my life that honestly, a stranger met on a bench at Central Park did not really need to know. But hey, I’m lonely.

“Sometimes things can seem bad, but they end up being good. And some good things can actually be bad when you look closer. Yeah your job may not be enticing, but at least you’re working and making a living. You’ve got your life ahead of you, so no need to already determine what’s bad and good. Things aren’t always black and white like that…”, she trailed off as her eyes landed on the newspaper roll I had been clutching but didn’t read yet. I asked her if she wanted to read the news but she shook her head no. Told me it was boring and to not read it either.

We talked even more after that. Popular artists in the city, new restaurants that opened up, laughed at some fat squirrels struggling to climb up trees, it was actually really fun for me. She particularly seemed to love the city; the people, the buildings, the trains, she loved all of it. And the passionate pickings of her words to describe the city was contagious. Made New York City sound like the ones in the magazines. I no longer noticed the numbness of my fingers or the sharp sting under my nose. The conversation I was having was warm, and it made me how long it had been since my last sincere conversation with, well, anyone. It made me want to immediately go home and write a letter to my mother. It had been years since I had talked to her. And besides the occasional envelopes of money I sent her, there was never a letter attached to the money as well. I began to realize how much I had missed these interactions with people.

She had to leave after that. It had only been a couple of hours but the city sky was becoming a messy mosaic of melting paints of purple and blue. Damn that was poetic, got to write that down. She walked away and I watched her leave till her silhouette dissolved into the distance. Missed her already, Brooke Marshall. She left with a simple “good day Mr. Astor” and it left a good feeling. I reluctantly picked up my bag again and decided to head home. On the path out, I greeted a man passing by, hoping for a similar conversation. His eyes fell down upon my newspaper and grimaced;

“Some messed up shit man. Technology ain’t caught up yet, it’s dangerous and people are dying because of it”. I was confused at first but after reading the newspaper, I learned about the Kew Gardens train crash. 78 dead. Shit that’s pretty bad. But not as bad as how casual I was in my meeting with Brooke Marshall. THE Brooke Marshall. The lady I used to think was the definition of elegance, was actually a complete rebel. Married as a teen, joining alcoholic parties at Princeton, who would have guessed? Not my cup of tea but the conversation I had today was good. It was genuine. It was shit that was good man, and not talking about drugs. Her love for this city was endearing, it made the parks seem greener to me, the walls less gray. Dear god I’m into this girl and she’s married. Crap.