Focused on the full length of the avenue in front of me, I scoured each lane and every intersection as far as I could see for a familiar flash of a yellow cab light, but things were hopelessly desolate. I had decided to try to peer down the next block when I almost tripped over a pair of bare feet peeking out from beneath a threadbare throw and a layer of newspaper. Bare feet? In this weather? Curled in a ball on a subway steam grate was an older woman with a dirt-streaked face and rags for clothes. In spite of the clouds of hot, chemical-scented air emitting from the underground subway tunnels that she used to keep warm, she was trembling on the frost-covered sidewalk.
“Oh! So sorry, ’scuse me,” I said, managing to step over her just in time. The woman barely acknowledged the stir.
I glanced back over my shoulder at her and then up to the street, trying to figure out my next move. And finally, like a shiny beacon of hope, I spotted a taxi with its light on turning the corner in my direction. I jumped out into the street, waving my arms frantically. The car pulled over as the driver lowered his window.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Upper East Side?”
“No, sorry, hon. West Side stops only.”
I grabbed the door handle. “Okay, that’s fine. If you can drop me off as high on the West Side as you can, I’ll figure out how to get crosstown.”
The driver eyed me up and down suspiciously, his gaze lingering on my empty hands and disheveled appearance. “Lady, you got any money?”
Shit. “Well, not on me exactly, but I can get you however much you need once I get home. Plus a very generous tip, I promise. Orrr wait, Apple Pay? Or you can give me your Venmo or Zelle.” I reached into my pocket, grabbing for my phone to access a payment app, when my stomach plummeted like a broken elevator falling through an empty shaft.
I fumbled around in every pocket only to turn up a butterscotch candy I was sure had been rolling around in my coat since last Christmas. I didn’t have my phone. The agents had confiscated it as evidence. Dammit.
I sweetened my voice and purred, “C’mon, sir, where’s your holiday spirit? Whatever happened to helpin’ out a fellow man in need? A bit of charity and goodwill for Christmas?”
Between noticing the look of panic on my face at turning up no phone and the unappealing offer of my old, crusty butterscotch, the cabbie peeled away quicker than you could say “Bah humbug!” leaving me coughing in a cloud of the taxi’s exhaust fumes.
“Well, Merry freakin’ Christmas to you too, pal!” I shouted into the rapidly approaching darkness of the December night.
I stepped back onto the sidewalk and could see the homeless woman was now sitting upright, her whole body shaking from the cold. She reached into a tattered paper bag and pulled out a dirty sheet, doing her best to wrap herself in it for warmth.
I decided I should head back in the direction of the prison, hoping to seek some assistance there, but I was frozen in my spot—this time more figuratively than literally, even though I was still freezing my ever-lovin’ ass off. I couldn’t seem to put one foot in front of the other, the reality of my hypocrisy ringing loud and clear if I were to walk away and leave this woman out here to possibly die of exposure.
An overwhelming sense of compassion radiated through me, and though, to quote my favorite children’s book, today had been a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day,” looking at this woman now shifted everything into crystal-clear perspective. Without another thought, I slipped my wool coat from my arms.
I knelt down beside her and extended the coat in her direction. “Here, it isn’t much, but it’s truly all I have on me. Please take this.”
Her eyes lit up in astonishment, and she gratefully took the jacket from my hands. “God bless you” was all she could manage through her tears.
“And you. Merry Christmas,” I said, pulling the hood of Adam’s Princeton sweatshirt up onto my head to cover my numb ears. I stood back up to search the street again for a subway entrance nearby. Coming up empty, I quickly made a U-turn and strode back in the direction of the jail.
Shivering myself now, the hoodie doing very little to shield me from the falling temperatures as the sun lowered between the skyscrapers of the city, I hurried back to the gate to see an older woman reading the newspaper inside the security booth. As I lifted my hand to knock on the window, she flipped to another page and muttered, “Boy oh boy, what has this world come to? So much for honoring Christmas in your heart.” With brittle fingers balled into a fist, I rapped on the glass, clearly interrupting her thought. She lifted her eyebrows in my direction, put down the paper, and shook her head.
“So sorry to bother you, but I was just released from here a few minutes ago, and my lawyer said she arranged a ride for me, but it doesn’t seem to be here, and I can’t manage to hail a cab. Even if I could, I don’t have money on me to pay for it. Would you be able to call one for me and explain the situation? I can get them the money as soon as I get home, I promise.” I wrapped my arms around myself as the wind picked up, the bitter cold cutting straight through me like an ice pick.
The woman’s expression remained as blank and cold as the gray expanse of the horizon, the thin line of her mouth tight as if she heard this same request a hundred times a day. “No, sorry, hon. Against the rules.”
“Against the rules? Against the rules?! Lady, do you know what kind of roller coaster I’ve been riding for the past twenty-four hours?”
She shrugged like she couldn’t care less, but I continued anyway. “Just yesterday, Sutton-freakin’-Foster proposed to me, well, she didn’t propose, she sang a song while my fiancé proposed, but still, she was there, the Sutton Foster. And there were confetti cannons and jazz hands, and my whole damn life right . . . right in front of me.” My voice constricted as I fought hard against the tears threatening in the base of my throat, knowing now it could all be one big lie.
Rightfully assuming this would not be a short rant, the guard abandoned her newspaper and feigned interest by absentmindedly nodding along with my story.
“Then, smack in the middle of Rockefeller Center in front of tourists and commuters and I don’t know . . . God himself . . . herself? Whatever, Adam got down on one knee and pulled out the big, iconic blue Tiffany box. You know the one, right?” I asked.
At the mention of “the box,” her eyes grew wide, and now fully invested in my story, she enthusiastically nodded as an invitation for me to go on.
“Exactly.” I continued, “And I’m sure you can guess what happened next?”
“He asked you to marry him?” she said, leaning closer in anticipation of my answer.
I echoed her words, only louder and with exuberant hand-waving, “He asked me to marry him as a full-scale Broadway chorus sang ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You.’”
“Damn, that’s beautiful,” the guard gushed, her fist rigid in front of her mouth like she was holding back a little whimper.
“Right? And I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, that is, until the FBI and Homeland Security practically kicked my door down this morning with an arrest warrant for an Adam McDaniels, which was pretty surprising considering the man I’ve been living with this whole time has been going by the name Adam Daulton!”