![]() ![]() Those around her must believe that she is yogic in her calm, but I can see exactly where her jaw is clenched. ![]() Everyone mutely adjusts their bags and hair and elbows to accommodate us. She wedges herself between an obese, snoring man and a little girl who is dribbling apple juice on herself. The car is packed tight, but Susan expertly threads her way between the sweaty tourists and locals to an open seat. We dash past dawdling children and dodge a guy playing a full steel drum, because the train is there and the doors are closing, but Susan lunges forward in her flip-flops and jams an elbow in between the closing panels, which protest and then thunk open again as we each squeak in just as the doors slam angrily shut and the whole thing begins to move. My own card is bent slightly along the magnetic strip and it must be swiped again, and swiped again, and as I frantically try to de-crease it, Susan tugs her navy-blue skirt down where it has ridden up and shouts that she can hear the train coming, and as the people behind me surge to my left and to my right, I swipe one more time and I pray to the MTA gods to please make it work, and then, miraculously - I am permitted through. In one practiced motion, Susan tucks her book under her left arm, removes the MetroCard that marked her place on page 338, and swipes cleanly through. We hustle through a half-lit corridor and come to the turnstiles. ![]() Saturday morning and we are racing down the steps to the 50th Street C/E train. ![]()
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