Somebody Will Marry You
 
Peppa Ryan swiveled around for the third time looking for something, anything, familiar. She’d stood at this exact intersection just two weeks before, but now it seemed a bewildering mishmash of commercial real estate, bus exhaust, and people. To her left, a couple of geezers side-stepped an overflowing garbage can in front of a packed Off-Track Betting parlor. To her right a Chinese laundry gave off a feint odor of Perc and next to it, a deli specializing in everything bagels added a strong layer of yeast. The Family Dollar store, already open, and a Chase Bank, still closed, stood directly across the street. But Peppa remembered none of this. To make matters worse, she was sleep deprived and anxious and this combination always produced an uncomfortable sensation of a need for food and her ongoing resolve to avoid it.
                     
She looked across the street and spied a Queens-bound bus approaching. Now it occurred to her that she really could ditch all of this, an idea she’d been toying with throughout a fitful night of sleep and then the pre-dawn bus ride to Brooklyn.  She could race across the street, catch the return bus, and go back home. Become an official no-show. Anyway, what could they do to her? But then she smelled falafels and suddenly remembered the halal cart that had been parked near the building she was currently looking for. She followed her nose and rounded a corner. There was the food cart with an impressive cluster of customers already lined up despite the early morning hour. And just across the street she saw the circles stacked horizontally across the façade of the Flatbush Avenue subway, including the red one with the number three in white. Peppa decided this was a good omen.
               
She slid her new monthly MetroCard through the turnstile and skittered down multiple stairways toward the train that would eventually deposit her in the Wall Street area of Manhattan. Just as she hit the platform the number three slowed into the station. With dozens  ahead of her, Peppa decided to go for it and shouldered her way through while garnering more than a few daggered looks. “Sure, honey. Whatever you need,” one disgruntled man muttered, his arm sweeping a grand gesture toward the train door. Peppa skulked ahead of him and stepped into the car. She’d already endured the almost hour-long bus ride from Sandy Point, so the timing of the subway was something of a miracle. Yes, part of that omen. And really, if she was actually going to go through with this job thing, arriving late was not an option.

As the train gained speed, she made a motion to switch standing places with the sarcastic man. Her idea was to give them both more room, but he didn’t seem to appreciate, or even understand, her intention.

“Sure, sweety. Take allll the space you need.”

Once they swapped, she grabbed hold of an overhead pole and scanned the packed train. Some sipped coffee while reading the paper. A few nodded off. One woman wept quietly. But the majority stared into space, looking anywhere but directly into another’s face. Peppa thought about this—all these people squished within an inch of one another yet behaving as if they were completely alone. It struck her as a peculiar example of mass delusion.

Actually, kind of a joke and she couldn’t help but chuckle out loud which prompted the man to look up from the New York Post he’d buried his nose in.

“You think this is funny?”

She shrugged and pursed her lips, determined not to respond. But when Peppa considered the approaching day and all that it portended, the guy had a point. Nothing at all was funny. In fact, this day, of all days, felt as treacherous as walking down a heavy wooden plank suspended off the tip of a flimsy canoe in the middle of a faraway ocean. Peppa was about to plunge into day number one of her very first job. 

You will, in all likelihood, do well.

Oh, thank goodness, Peppa thought. The voice was always with her, piping up with encouragement at moments when she was fearful or nudging when she doubted herself. She imagined a middle-aged woman with long hair fashioned into a bun at the nape of her neck. A thin nose and slightly sad eyes. Very kind, yet at times quite insistent. Just like a good and true best friend would be. And Peppa wanted to believe that, yes, it was possible she’d do well.