J esus is coming.”
And then: “Jesus is coming, folks, you should be ready.”
Isabel a looked down the subway platform to see if she could find the man who was trying to tel her about Jesus. She couldn’t see anyone, which made her nervous. His voice boomed around her: “Are you ready? Jesus wil know if you aren’t ready.” It was Friday night and Isabel a just wanted to get home. Lately, she’d had the feeling that someone was going to push her onto the track while she waited for the subway, and just because this man was talking about Jesus didn’t mean he wouldn’t be the one to do it.
“Wil you be ready when he comes? Wil you be ready?” the voice echoed down to her. Isabel a shivered and hoped that the train would come soon.
The whole week, things had been off for Isabel a. New York, it seemed, was out to get her. It started on Sunday, when a crazy bearded man spit at her on the street and cal ed her a cunt. Monday, while she was watching TV, a giant roach the size of a smal dog crawled out from behind the bookshelf and died in the middle of the room. It shook and gyrated and then final y stopped moving. Isabel a thought it might have had a seizure.
Tuesday, there was the situation with her underwear. Her laundry was delivered to her door that night. Usual y this made her feel wonderful y organized and put together—for only a dol ar a pound, she could drop off al of her dirty laundry and have it delivered clean and folded the same day
—but this time, as she unpacked the bag, she found a pair of underwear that didn’t belong to her. It was a large, flesh-colored, silky pair of underwear with a rose on the waistband. She held it between her thumb and pointer finger like it was dirty, although she realized it must have been cleaned and washed with her things. Her dog, Winston, sat and stared at the underwear, his head cocked to one side, trying to figure out why Isabel a was holding it in the air.
In the end, she threw it out. She thought of returning it but figured the cleaners wouldn’t know who the owner was anyway. It was such a smal thing, but it made Isabel a feel sick, like someone had broken in and touched al of her underwear. It didn’t make sense, she knew. After al , she paid these people to wash her underwear. She did it on purpose. But it stil left her uneasy, the thought that people’s personals could get mixed up so easily—that someone else’s underwear could find its way into her drawers.
On Wednesday, Isabel a found a whisker on her chin. She hadn’t noticed anything strange that morning, but when she touched her face that night, there it was: a coarse black whisker. When had it had time to grow? “This is not right,” Isabel a said to the mirror as she plucked the whisker out.
“This is not right!”
“What?” Harrison asked from the other side of the door.
“Nothing,” Isabel a said.
Thursday, Isabel a found out that Beth White was getting a divorce. She couldn’t believe it. It left her unsettled. Beth and Kyle had gotten married five years ago, in a perfectly bland New Jersey wedding where they’d had a DJ instead of a band and served chicken instead of steak. They weren’t the kind of couple you looked at and thought, “Now, that’s what love looks like” or “That’s what I want to have someday.” But they were a couple that was compatible in a very ordinary way, and Isabel a had always thought they were a good fit.
Isabel a had been one of Beth’s bridesmaids, and she remembered how Beth was so bloated the day of the wedding that her dress wouldn’t zip.
Isabel a had known Beth for twelve years, and for ten of those years, she’d been with Kyle.
“I’m moving into the city,” Beth said when she cal ed Isabel a.
“Oh,” Isabel a said. “Great. What about the house?”
“We’re sel ing it. Didn’t Lauren tel you? I asked her for some real estate advice and she recommended someone to us. I’m getting out of this godforsaken suburb. We can hang out al the time!”
“Great,” Isabel a said. “Great.”
Friday, Isabel a’s boss asked her to type up some notes. It was a job Isabel a used to do when she was Snowy’s assistant, but she’d been promoted to assistant editor over a year ago. So when Snowy walked by and dumped notes on Isabel a’s desk, she was thrown. Was she being demoted or had she imagined her promotion in the first place? Had time gone backward? She stared at the notes for a while, and then put them in a neat little pile in the corner of her desk.
“Did you know that Snowy asked me to type up her notes?” Isabel a asked Cate.
“She does the same thing to me,” Cate said.
“Doesn’t she know that she has two new assistants?” Isabel a asked, and Cate shrugged.
“Probably not,” she said. “The woman is bat-shit crazy. Plus,” she said lowering her voice, “I heard she’s worried about her job.”
“Isn’t everybody?” Isabel a asked.
Cave Publishing was in trouble. The CFO had been sending around e-mails that referenced the economy in vague terms. He used words like
“cutbacks” and “accommodations,” but no one knew what he was trying to say. Cate was convinced that they would al be fired soon.
“It’s just a matter of time,” she kept saying to Isabel a. “Make sure you have money saved. This shitbox of a company probably won’t even give us
decent severance.”
By the time Isabel a made it to the subway station on Friday, she felt defeated. It was so hot that she was sure she was going to melt. “Jesus is coming,” the voice said. Isabel a wiped the sweat off her forehead. She thought she might faint.
Isabel a went home, turned on the air conditioner, and lay down on the bed. Maybe, she thought, things just seemed worse because of the heat. It always made people agitated when it got this hot—the air seemed to stick in the middle of the buildings and that made it hard to breathe. There was no such thing as a breeze in New York, and the whole city started to smel like garbage. That’s al it was, she decided. The weather. She tried to stay completely stil . The air conditioner whirred in the window. Soon the sweat started to evaporate and she started to feel better. Harrison was away on a business trip for a few days. Isabel a decided that she would order Thai food for dinner and stay in. She might feel better for now, but it was safer to stay in the apartment. No sense in going out.
Isabel a’s left side hurt. It started in her shoulder, then moved up to her jaw and down to her leg. She complained for a month, until Harrison told her she had to go to the doctor. “I mean, it’s probably an advanced tumor,” she said to Harrison. “What can they do for that?”
“I promise, it’s not a tumor,” Harrison told her. She knew he had no authority to make such a promise.
“Fine,” she said. “I’l go to a chiropractor.”
“You have a mean case of TMJ,” the chiropractor told her. “You’re carrying a lot of stress on this side. Your alignment is al off.”
“So what can I do?” Isabel a asked.
“I’l show you some stretching exercises. And you should get a mouth guard to stop clenching your jaw at night. You can come back and see me.
But what you real y need to do is lower your stress level.”
“Oh,” Isabel a said. “That’s al ? Thanks.”
“You should take yoga,” Mary told her. “It wil relax you.”
Isabel a went to hot yoga, which turned out to be a horrible mistake. The room was a hundred degrees, and Isabel a could barely breathe. “You may feel nauseous or faint during class,” the instructor told everyone. “This is normal. This is a normal reaction. Just work through it.”