The Harlem River Bridge was open and stuck. The Metro-North train I was taking to Grand Central for the shuttle to JFK and my flight back to Portugal was, according to announcements, delayed “indefinitely” while waiting for “the Army Corps of Engineers to figure out how to close it.” Minutes ticked by. The hour of cushion I had given myself dissolved.
We weren’t parked completely between stops. The last car sat beside the Fordham station platform. One by one, and then in droves, people left in search of options.
While discussing my own choices with a conductor – a taxi, but taxis rarely stop there; Uber, but my Portugal phone had already refused to call Uber; the subway with a stop two blocks west, but I’m unfamiliar with the Bronx, had luggage, hours and hours of travel ahead, and rarely took the subway even when I lived in New York — I said, “I won’t be doing subways.” A nearby woman pounced, eyes flashing, her voice a bark: “We’re not stupid!” she told me. “It’s two blocks.”
Perhaps I’d once been accosted in a subway, or had been trapped, or fallen asleep to find myself in Brooklyn instead of Broadway and Lafayette. Perhaps a medical condition precluded my walking any blocks or descending and ascending stairs with two carry-ons. I travel lightly, but not empty-handed.
But no. No thought to any other possibility other than, “We’re not stupid!” implying that while she wasn’t, I was.
I left the train to take a look at the street – a stray taxi perhaps? A flash of inspiration? – hoping it didn’t leave without me before I’d figured something out.
Three women stood just outside the station door, one twenty-something, one thirty-something, one eighty-something. I overheard the thirty-something say “Grand Central.”
“Grand Central?” I said. “You’re headed to Grand Central?”
“Yes. Uber. Want to join us?”
“Yes!”
So, the four of us, capable and competent and resourceful, climbed into an Uber car so small there weren’t enough seat belts to head into Manhattan. The older woman was joining friends for a play. The two younger ones had meetings with clients. And I, of course, was travelling,
Not one of us stupid.
Perhaps the woman on the train believes she’s empowered, and that it’s her job to empower me and any woman she encounters who isn’t exhibiting her, ah, strength. Perhaps she thinks she represents a proper sort of feminism.
Whatever her reasoning, I reject it. And happily embrace women who join forces.
