City People: A Novel by Elizabeth Topp

Author:Elizabeth Topp [Topp, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little A
Published: 2023-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

NINE

BHAVNA

Bhavna wandered the Union Square Greenmarket like an apparition, drifting with the flow of chic urbanites amid unmanicured produce: cabbage heads bigger than basketballs, garlic with the stalks still on, fava beans in their oversize shells. Who were these people, with time to trim and wash and shuck in the evenings and shop during a weekday afternoon in the middle of a transit strike? She was here to get away from her work situation.

And, come to think of it, her home situation, from which she had finally escaped after nine long days. While it had seemed tremendously unnecessary for Bhavna to spend the hundreds of dollars and several hours’ time commuting each day, she had not come close to achieving the successful alchemy of working from the same apartment where her two small children and spouse also resided. The interruptions! The noise! The nightmarish melting of every relentless moment into the next.

The transit strike stranded Bhavna on Roosevelt Island and kept all their childcare stuck across the water. This setup had not helped with the Kent interview, which she and Dev had conducted while their children watched cartoons in the living room and, they prayed, did not find a way to suffocate or electrocute themselves. Bhavna did everything she could to make it successful, firing up the ring light and styling Dev’s hair. But when they clicked the link for their exactly twenty minutes, they did not find the Buddha-like face of one of New York’s most famed backroom private school power brokers, but some junior-level admissions administrator. This itself was a bad sign. Bhavna had gleaned that the most favored applicants would be interviewed by none other than the famed Libby Langsford, head of admissions for the entire Kent School. From what Bhavna understood, that was practically a sure sign of acceptance. The woman who “interviewed” them appeared to be just out of college—not the kingmaker by a long shot. And doing the whole thing virtually—with the inevitable connectivity lags and fear of her children somehow escaping their pillowy television prison in the other room—did not help.

It was even worse at work. From the beginning, the CMO begrudged her staying home, frowning and grumbling over every disruption. She moved all of her and Dev’s clothes onto racks in the hallway, put up a folding table, and was relieved to just barely have enough space to shut the closet door behind herself. From there, she tried to regain the momentum from her presentation, but she could sense her new boss withdrawing from her, almost literally receding with each meeting further and further into the background of his Zoom square.

Maddeningly, Marie returned to the office almost immediately after the strike started, despite their face-to-face conversation about doing the opposite. Between that and the sheet Marie had found on the printer, Bhavna was not surprised when the CMO announced James would also present his Go Global campaign. She quickly made plans to commute via car, although she had to pay a premium for service on Roosevelt Island.

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