And my friend Marilyn. She arrived ten minutes later, speed walking from her apartment in Chelsea.
Marilyn hadn’t had her coffee or a shower and like me, she was dressed in sweats. Our faces unwashed, our teeth unbrushed, and our hair uncombed, we looked at each other.
What now?
The dog died from an aneurism. That’s what the vet thought, although she couldn’t say for sure unless they sent the dog away for an autopsy. Did I want that? No, I didn’t my friend Marilyn said.
My husband had always hated the dog. I wondered if the death of Tucco was a sign.
It was. I didn’t know it then, but my relationship was like an aneurism—a death waiting to happen.
* * *
Three months later, in November, my husband asked for a sectionorce. He did it the day after one of those huge freak snowstorms. We were at my little house in Connecticut and there was no water or power. I couldn’t imagine going back to the city with him, so I stayed in the country, scooping up snow and melting it over a fire to keep the toilet going.
The sectionorce wrangling began. It had the usual shockingly ugly moments but compared to other people’s sectionorces, it was a relative breeze.
Except for one wrinkle.
The mortgage on the apartment. The old one had to be canceled and a new one drawn up in just my name.
I couldn’t imagine it would be a problem, and neither could my banker. Especially since I had enough in the bank to pay for the mortgage anyway.
My banker kept reassuring me that it was going to be okay. Right up until the appointed day finally came three months later, when I walked into the bank and sat down.
I had a bad feeling. “Well?” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s the algorithm.”
“I’m not going to get the mortgage, am I?”
“No,” he whispered. And suddenly, I understood. I no longer checked off any of the right boxes.
I was (a) a woman, (b) single, (c) self-employed, and (d) over fifty.
And because I had no applicable boxes, I was no longer a demographic. Which meant, in the world of algorithms, I didn’t exist.
I stood outside the bank in shock.
All the familiar landmarks were there—the glass-plate windows of the Knickerbocker through which one could see the old men in sweaters nursing their drinks at the bar. The deli where I went every morning next to the liquor store with the wound-up guy who talked nonstop about baseball. Like me, he’d been in the city for over thirty years.
I crossed the street and stared up at my building. I remembered how many times I’d passed this building when I first came to New York. I was going to NYU and Studio 54. I was nineteen years old and I’d already been published by a few of the underground newspapers that were flourishing in the city at that time.
I was so broke. But it didn’t matter because everything was happening and it was all new and exciting. I’d pass the building with the white-gloved doormen in their gray uniforms and stop to admire the garden—an actual garden with flowers and tall grasses—and I’d think, Someday, if I make it, I’m going to live here!
Now I did live there. In a corner apartment on the top floor in the same building where, coincidentally, the actor who played Mr. Big also lived. The apartment had been featured on the cover of Elle Decor, and of all my accomplishments, it was the one my mother, a skilled decorator, had loved most of all.
And now I felt like the system had defeated me. Not only could I lose my home, but I was also about to become one more of the millions of middle-aged women who would get sectionorced that year. Who would have to get back out there, to once again look for a man who doesn’t exist. And, like me, would likely have to find a new place to live.
I started to cry a little. But then I stopped because I realized I was too tired to cry.
I called Marilyn instead.
“Sweetie,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“I just wanted to let you know. I’m done.”