A New York Story

Brought to you by Amtrak

It was the evening before my friend’s wedding in Cape Cod, and I was sitting on the Amtrak train to Boston. I’d just spent three nights in Manhattan, crashing my husband’s business trip, spending my days writing in a coffee shop on the corner of 50th and 2nd. The hours I spent itinerary-free, wandering in J.Crew boxers, an atom suspended in the city’s mythic “energy,” he spent suited up at the Intercontinental, reading name badges on lanyards and shaking hands in air-conditioned rooms. I was ready to leave, as I always am after the novelty fades. For the first time, I might be ready to admit that I don’t like New York.

The train departed on time by American standards- only five minutes late. It wasn’t yet 6 p.m., but I settled in with a salad topped with beets, olives, red onion, and kidney beans. I chewed my jewel-toned medley with diligence and satisfaction. Mo ate a buffalo chicken wrap beside me.

A half hour later, the train stopped at New Rochelle Station, twenty miles away. In a thick Northeast accent, the conductor announced that wires were down on the tracks, and we’d be stalled for “an extended period of time.” It could be thirty minutes, it could be hours, he said- his tone exasperated to the point of comedy.

“It’s, uh, hah, it’s GAHna be a while. SAHry, folks.”

For twenty minutes, passengers stayed put, clinging to the possibility that he would hop back on the mic to say, “FAHLse aLAHRm! Our guys got those wires up quick and we’ll be on our way soon, okay?” But that message never came. Instead: another update, confirming we were going nowhere, and that anyone wishing to exit the train would need to walk all the way to the front.

The train groaned. Mo and I looked at each other, appalled. We were Californians by breed and by choice. We cosplay public transit users, but we’re never prepared for error. Forty minutes in, passengers began streaming past us with luggage in tow and a look of determination. They had already calculated alternative routes, already texted friends with cars. Mo and I slumped in our seats.

Sixty minutes in, us remainders began self-sorting by destination.

“Providence? Anyone going to Providence?”

“We are!”

“Boston? Anyone for Boston?”

Mo was, at first, Team Wait It Out, but as the optimistic window closed, he joined me- and a growing number of others- on Team Move It. I suggested we rent a car, but every nearby agency was sold out, and taking a cab to the nearest airport to rent one there wasn’t a sure bet either. It was the tri-state area, and the eve before the first weekend in June.

The young man sitting across the aisle turned to me.

“If you guys are getting an Uber, I’ll join you.”

Kevin was two years out of MIT and now worked as a quantitative researcher at Two Sigma in SoHo. He was on his way to visit his girlfriend, who was pursuing a PhD at Boston University. He’d done this route many times before, he said, with no problems.

I had noticed Kevin earlier. He, too, had been eating a salad, and the way his knees wobbled as he dug in with a compostable spork reminded me of my thirteen-year-old cousin, who looks more and more like a K-pop star each time I see him, aside from the deep tan he’s acquired from playing water polo year-round in Southern California. Kevin had the same boyish demeanor. But more than that, he seemed curious and unbothered by the situation, like someone working through a tedious math equation, confident that if he stayed focused, he’d solve it. I told Kevin he was in.

Another girl approached us to join our growing bandwagon. Annie lived in Brooklyn but was headed to Boston to visit her mom. She wore glasses and had a round face and short brown hair that gave her the look of someone who over-highlights book pages.

Mo called an UberXL. Outside the station, a swarm of travelers searched for taxis and car services. We picked up one last straggler: a woman in her fifties dressed in business casual, holding a roller bag. I didn’t catch her name, but she said she worked in international tax.

“This feels like… you know Squid Game and everyone has to find a group?” Kevin said.

I laughed. “Yeah, it does feel like that.”

Our driver, Rafi, confirmed the ride, and as his car icon inched closer on the app, I felt like one of the lucky ones. He and Mo had been messaging to negotiate the terms. The trip to Boston Logan Airport would take almost four hours. After that, Mo and I would pick up a rental car and continue another ninety minutes to Cape Cod. Mo told him we’d pay in cash.

“Does that work?” he wrote.

“Let me arrive,” Rafi replied.

Rafi was a tall, broad Dominican man. He stepped out of the car, perhaps to make himself visible to other stranded passengers. Most likely, he wanted to stretch his legs. He looked willing, but wary.

“How much Uber charging you?” he wanted to know.

“Four hundred. We’ll give you five in cash,” Mo said.

“The problem is… I gotta get back,” Rafi explained. “Six hundred.”

“Five-fifty.”

“Man, I was gonna say seven! Six.”

“Yep! Sounds good!” I chimed before Mo could sour the deal. We packed our bags in and took our seats: Kevin and the tax consultant in the cramped third row, Mo and I in the captain’s chairs we felt entitled to as co-founders of this expedition, and Annie up front with Rafi.

“What should we do? Sing songs?” the tax consultant joked.

Instead, a blanket of silence descended over the car. Each of us, complete strangers, sat in relief as Rafi drove us out of state, listening to his GPS in Spanish. Annie watched TikToks and Love Island with the contentment of a toddler at the dinner table. I appreciated her tolerance for brain rot and wondered if all people her age, Gen Z, could stay glued to a screen for two or three hours at a time.

Mo tends to read his Kindle during public downtime, but this time he stared out the window, “raw-dogging” it, as the kids say, which is more my move than his. As the sun set, I observed drab highway, Northeastern woodland, and the large houses of commuting hedge fund managers and their families. The radio was just loud enough for me to make out nostalgic ballads and the nationally syndicated voice of Delilah Rene.

“Hi, Randy. What can I do to make your night a little more special?” she asked.

Randy, a newlywed, shouted out his wife. “She’s a woman that I love very much.”

“Well, you’re grinning from ear to ear, aren’t you?” Delilah said.

“I am.”

“And are you going to remember all of her wonderful qualities when times get tough?”

“Of course. Gotta take the good with the bad.”

As Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler gave way to Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden, I began to question whether I was in a time machine disguised as an Uber, and if Rafi was the mad scientist behind it all.

I was disappointed by the lack of energy in the car. No one had shared a personal story or even flinched at our misfortune. Back home, I wince when an Uber is more than ten minutes away. Here, the only one talking was Rafi, on the phone with God knows who, as he declined seven consecutive calls from Emmanuel with a single heart next to his name. Who was Emmanuel? A son? A lover? Either way, he wasn’t getting through- nor was Rachell, with two l’s and three hearts. Daughter? Friend? Another lover? Whoever Rafi was talking to outranked them. That person must’ve had at least five hearts next to their name.

Somewhere in Rhode Island, we stopped for gas. By the time we crawled through a congested Sumner Tunnel, connecting downtown Boston to the airport, Annie was either on her third season of Love Island or nearing the end of TikTok’s daily algorithm. I offered a Cool Ranch Dorito to the back seats, who were discussing Kraków, pierogis, and the Poles’ excellent English. They both declined. I wrote them off as the kind of people who don’t allow themselves to indulge.

Our total drive time was pushing five hours, and at any moment, I would’ve understood if Rafi had thrown his hands up and declared that, actually, this was a horrible mistake and we all needed to get out right now. But he didn’t. From the seat behind him, I scanned for signs of fatigue and found none, which eased the guilt I felt for pulling him away from his state- from Emmanuel with one heart, and Rachell with three. By the time he got back to the Bronx, it would be 3 a.m.

Mo and I kept it together, but the truth is, both of us are bothered people and by then, we were bothered. Stereotypes dictate it’s the other way around- that the Californians would have sat reclined, carefree, while the high-strung city dwellers complained to their assistants that they’re going to be late, that they can’t fucking believe their fucking luck, that they have better things to do- but no one did. Kevin, Annie, and tax consultant gritted their teeth, formed alliances, and moved on. That’s what New Yorkers do, I imagine because they have to.

At Boston Logan airport, we paid Rafi $120 each.

“Are you going back tonight?” we asked.

“Yeah, I have to,” he shrugged.

“Damn. Get home safe,” we murmured.

Then six strangers parted ways, five of us grateful to wake up the next morning not in New York.