long at its principal range—that took form as New York’s so-called first suburb after the establishment of a steam ferry between Manhattan and Brooklyn in 1814.
It all seemed so long ago now. So much had since gone wrong. So much had changed. Baskin-Robbins had turned into a florist. Jamie and Karyn had left what had been her neighborhood together and Jamie had come back to it, alone.
He walked along Montague, picked up a Times from the newsstand and settled in at a Greek restaurant where they had occasionally eaten. Jamie set the paper on the table and scanned the front page. The lead story on the mid-term elections headlined: Clinton Strategists See Gloom for Next Two Years. The middle of the page featured an investigative look into security advancements that had apparently been proposed at the World Trade Center following the car bombing of an underground garage in February 1993.
Jamie had played a small role in the Trib’s reporting of that story, manning the phones and recording information from reporters in the field. He was grateful for the mention he received in the box identifying the many who had contributed to the coverage.
Below the fold, near the page index, was a small headline over a single tease paragraph: Shutdown at Trib, Metro, Page 3. He pulled the Metro section from inside, folded over the front. He found himself staring at a familiar sight—burning stacks of Tribs alongside the hobbled delivery truck.
The strike news seemed dated because, after all, this was a story he was living. By the time Jamie’s dinner of lamb and potatoes arrived, he had downed his Coke and wasn’t much hungry. He picked at the meat and called for the check. He resumed his wandering of the streets and strolled onto the Promenade. There he could stare at the twilight majesty of downtown Manhattan. He could watch the boats drift by, framed against the backdrop of office buildings, dwarfed by the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
Jamie loved the view though he always seemed to be admiring it in passing or when jogging or braving the potholes on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Darkness came. The bulb on a nearby lamppost flickered. A tugboat foghorn bellowed, momentarily drowning out the rumbling of the highway traffic below. Jamie felt no urgency to go home. He was content to stretch out his legs and to dwell on his predicament without having to do anything about it. An hour passed, then another. He closed his eyes, napped intermittently until distracted by high school boys in droopy sweats woofing on each other, bouncing basketballs that echoed in the evening chill.
Jamie glanced at his watch: ten after eight.
He trudged wearily up the exit ramp, past a young couple embracing against the fence of the toddler playground. Jamie swung around to Hicks Street, where he had taken refuge after his divorce from Karyn in a red brick, four-story building. All he could afford was a three-hundred-fifty square-foot studio, sublet to him by an unemployed attorney relocated to Philadelphia to live with a girlfriend. The rent was marked up from a subsidized $199 a month to $300, still a bargain and less than the cost per night at most Manhattan hotels unfrequented by cockroaches and crack heads.
Jamie posed as the attorney’s cousin and endured the three-floor walkup and occasional act of sabotage on the part of the Israeli landlord. Once a month on cold winter nights, the jerk would sneak into the basement and cut the heat in an attempt to chase out the tenants. Then he could renovate the apartments and sell them as marked-up co-ops. Considering the portion of his earnings that were owed to his ex-wife and son in Westchester, Jamie invested in a space heater.
He bounded up the stairs, two at a time, pushed his way into the cramped room and saw that there were two messages on his answering machine.
Molly: “We’re having dinner tomorrow night. Your father wants you to come.”
Sure he does. Jamie fast-forwarded to the next call.
Karyn: “Call me,” she said. “Want to know what’s going on.”
He dialed Karyn.
“It’s me,” he said when she picked up.
“Well,” she said, “what’s the latest?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how long before this strike is over?”
“It just started.”
“Do you at least have a choice of whether you work?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Not with anyone’s blessing in the union—and definitely not my father’s.”
“I heard on the news they’re saying they’ll start replacing anyone who doesn’t report to work.”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“What if they do?”
“I don’t know, I really can’t say.”
“Well, I actually have something to say…”
“OK…”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this,” Karyn said. “And now with this strike, I may as well let you know I have a job offer.”
“Great, congratulations,” Jamie said. He thought, Well, at least that’s good news.
“It’s in publishing. Well, not exactly publishing. You remember the guy I knew from my two years at Princeton? Jeffrey? We ran into him one night in the city, coming out of the movie theater on Twenty-Third Street?”
“The guy who dated your roommate, but you thought might have been more interested in you?”
“Not the point,” Karyn said. “He’s got this business idea, and he remembered from our conversation that night that I was working with Harper. He called there looking for me, and they gave him my number up here. He’s got an idea for a startup company, selling books.”
“Wasn’t he a Wall Street guy?” Jamie said.
“Wall Street guys make money and invest it in other things,” Karyn said. “He’s apparently done pretty well and wants to go into the book-selling business, except he wants to sell them electronically.”
“How do you do that?”
“On this internet thing everyone in the business world is so excited about. They’re saying that a huge segment of goods and services are going to become available through the computer.”
Jamie stifled a chuckle and rolled his eyes, but decided if he knew what was good for him he had better be positive.
“So, that’s good,” he said. “Will it pay more than the real bookstore in Chappaqua?”
“Yes, it will. Plus benefits. Plus…moving costs.”
“Moving? To where?”
“Seattle.”
“You’re kidding,”
“No, actually I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
Silence convinced Jamie she wasn’t.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Just wait. Are you saying that you’re going to pick up Aaron and move him all the way across the country without talking to me about it?”
“I am talking to you about it.”
“Yes, I hear. I’m on strike from my job for one day and already you’re telling me you’re moving three thousand miles. And if this—pardon me—bookstore is supposed to be in a computer, why would you have to move to Seattle to work for it?”
“Look, I told you. This guy…Jeffrey…we had lunch and he said he is launching the company out there and that there would be a good position for me if I was willing to make the move, take a chance. He called the next day and offered me the job. I told him I needed some time to think about it, given the circumstances.”
“I don’t get it,” Jamie said. “Why would you even do the interview?”