But in the end, she did neither. Instead, she turned out the light and headed for the elevator.
Chapter 3
Dot walked out of her office building onto Avenue of the Americas. She took a right toward Central Park and merged with the mob of commuters and tourists heading to workouts, dinners, first dates, or the theater.
While she waited at a light with several others, she fumbled in her backpack for her AirPods so she could listen to one of her favorite podcasts on her walk home. Next to her, a young woman was loudly making plans on her phone.
“I’ll meet you at Quality B on Fifty-Fourth.”
“Fifty-Fifth,” Dot said at the same time as the man just in front of her.
The young woman looked at them.
“Wait. These two people just said it’s on Fifty-Fifth—and they don’t look like tourists.”
Dot smiled at her and winked at the guy when he looked back and caught her eye. The lights changed and he gestured for her to go in front of him. Who said chivalry was dead?
They snaked through the taxis and limos in the crosswalk and went their separate ways.
“Have a great night,” he said.
“You too!” she responded, appreciating how she’d probably never see him again, but they’d had a Manhattan connection. It was moments like those that kept her love affair with the city going.
As she walked, she found theLeft, Right, and Centerpolitical podcast and pressed play. Dot grew up in Providence with politically active parents who both worked at Brown. When she and her sister, Anne, were little, they’d gone with their parents to New Hampshire to door-knock for President Obama’s re-election, and they’d cried when Hillary Clinton lost in 2016.
Politics was next door to PR, and she was really into the upcoming Democratic primaries. It was an election year, and she was following the horse race closely. There were more than twenty candidates planning to run. It was so exciting. On most days she found she was way more interested in politics than her day job. Podcasts kept her informed on the state of play.
The lights changed and she crossed into Central Park, kicking some of the early fall leaves on the path she took to get to her small apartment on the Upper West Side. She passed a co-ed softball game and heard the umpire tease the woman catcher who’d just botched a throw back to the mound.
“Next time just roll it,” he said, to which she laughed good-naturedly.
For the next play, the self-appointed coach screamed at the man on third base to tag and sprint home. She slowed to watch. Close call but the runner was safe, and Dot heard them cheering as she turned toward Central Park West.
Dot exited the park on Sixty-Seventh Street and could see her building, the Buckley, down the block. It was a well-maintained pre-war apartment block with big blond bricks and dark green trim on the windows. Her modest apartment, inherited from her grandmother, was on the third floor. She knew how fortunate she was to have it. And since her grandparents had paid off the mortgage long ago, she only had to cover the monthly fees—which were still ridiculously expensive, but at least she didn’t need a roommate to help pay the bills.
Albert Hawkins, her favorite doorman, was outside the entrance, helping an older woman into a taxi. Once she was securely in, he shut the car door, and rapped twice on the roof, signaling to the driver he was good to go.
Dot had known Albert ever since she could remember. As a young girl, she’d visited her grandmother often on weekends and holidays and he’d always been there. He was a tall, slender black man with bright eyes and a cheerful smile. He kept his graying hair cropped close to his head. He had excellent posture he’d developed in the Army as a young man. He wore his uniform every day—black pressed trousers and a matching blazer, white shirt, and a burgundy tie. The only cheat he allowed to his usual work attire was modern dress sneakers, since he was on his feet all day. His wife had died two years before, and he’d told Dot he preferred to keep working rather than sit home and mourn. So, at seventy-eight, he still showed up every day to the Buckley.
“Miss Dorothy, welcome home,” he said, opening the door with a flourish. He’d always called her by her full given name, as her grandmother had. “Will you be going back out tonight? Beautiful evening.”
Dot reached up to air kiss his cheek.
“No, not tonight. But Mary and Harper are coming over. We’re hopping on a call about the presidential election.”
“Another election already? Feels like the last one never ended.”
“I know. And I was just listening to an analyst who said this one’s going to be super close, and probably the most expensive in history, too.”
They walked into the foyer and Dot stopped to get her mail from the old-fashioned mailbox.
“Just a bunch of junk, as usual,” she said, leafing through it.
Albert reached out his hand. “Give that to me. I’ll put it in the bin.”
“Thank you,” she said, handing him the small stack and turning to head up the stairs. She stopped at the first one and turned back.
“So, let me ask. Do you think that the Democrats can win this time around?”