Chapter 1 #2
“Uh, thank you!” I respond, my excitement rising at meeting another Sri Lankan. “Most people just call me Siri.” Ammi said that in America I had to make it easier for people to pronounce my name. Easier to blend in was more like it.
“Hi, Amaya. How can I help you?” a robotic voice sounds out of seemingly nowhere.
“Oh, shut up, Siri…Not you, Siriwathi…it’s just my stupid phone…” Amaya mumbles as she clicks her phone off.
“It happens all the time,” I respond. “Don’t worry about it.” I’ve finally trained myself to not respond to my own name in my own car.
“You should go by your full name, it’s incredible. And you wouldn’t have Apple products harassing you either…”
I rarely hear anyone outside my family call me by my full name. In America, I’ve always been Siri.
“That’s a good idea, maybe I will.” I haven’t even seen Amaya’s face. But, somehow, I just know I’d like her.
“Have you managed to have any good Sri Lankan food in the city?” Amaya asks.
“Uh…there are a couple of places in Staten Island that are great,” I say. While the city is full of excellent Indian restaurants, there is only one Sri Lankan restaurant in all of Manhattan.
“There’s a new place that just opened in Manhattan! You seen it?”
“Really? I haven’t heard of it!” I respond with genuine excitement.
“Yep, Fifteenth and Irving. I’m planning to get a big group together to go. Least I can do is try to support Brown-owned businesses. To support people like us.”
People like us. I smile thinking of a big group of friends at a Sri Lankan restaurant, clinking glasses over chicken curry that tastes like my ammi’s.
I try to remember the last time I went anywhere with a big group of friends.
I just hang with Alex, my best and only friend.
I used to have more, but friendships fade if you’re not constantly tending to them.
And I’m either driving my taxi all the time or, as of late, moping around as my friends move forward with their lives.
I see my old group of friends that I’ve lost touch with on social media.
At one point in my life, it seemed as if we went everywhere together.
Now, one is getting married, another just received her PhD, and a third is moving abroad.
Everyone is doing incredible things, and I still feel stuck.
I heart the photos but feel too far removed from those friendships to even comment on them.
These used to be my people—the four of us would make microwave nachos while we binged Law & Order: SVU, drank wine out of a bag, and marveled at life’s biggest question at the time: Will our crushes text us back and when?
Now, we’ve all gone our separate ways—friendships that weren’t meant for the ages.
I’m left with Alex, whom I adore more than anything, but who also still burps the alphabet and gawks at me awkwardly when I cry about a hard day at work or a recent breakup.
I wish I could have found friends at work, but driving a New York City taxi is a boys’ club.
One driver asked me who was feeding my husband and taking care of my kids while I worked.
Thankfully, most of the cabdrivers mean no ill will and just ignore me.
They have their own friends. Their own routines.
Not to mention, most of the cabdrivers at the stand are decades older and literal grandpas.
“A big group dinner at a Sri Lankan restaurant sounds incredible, wow.” I pause, thinking of what to say next, desperately wanting to keep the conversation going.
It’s in this moment I realize how lonely I truly am.
“Your parents must be so proud,” I blurt out awkwardly, wishing I could say the same for myself.
My parents are not happy I’ve chosen this life.
It’s a constant barrage of them telling me it’s too dangerous, too hard, and that I should be settling down.
Twenty-eight is apparently the start of almost certain spinsterhood.
“Most people consider my work crazy. I think my parents would have loved it if I had gotten one of those prestigious jobs working at some big law firm downtown instead. At this job, I barely get paid anything. It’s not glamorous. Frequently thankless. Somehow, I love it.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. The work you do…it’s…
important.” I struggle for the right words again.
I want to tell her she is special because she is one of only about ten thousand public defenders in the country out of 1.
3 million lawyers—I heard that on a podcast yesterday.
Apparently, I’m a repository for exceedingly useless information.
Finally I manage, “Everyone needs a lawyer. Everyone needs a voice in the system.”
“Thanks. People need advocates. This system can eat people up,” Amaya says.
I can’t help thinking about the one time I was stopped by police for no reason other than for being Brown.
It is the only reasonable explanation, since I did not run a red light or double-park or break any of the myriad of other traffic laws.
I’ve never been arrested, but I remember the sheer fear that coursed through my body every time an officer approached my car.
Would a sudden movement make the officer skittish and draw his weapon?
I try to force these unpleasant memories out of my head and focus on this conversation with Amaya, who is one of the people providing that “equal and exact justice to all (wo)men.”
“Everyone is doing important work,” she says. “You’re doing me a solid, driving me home tonight. It’s dark, cold, and I really didn’t wanna take the subway.”
I want to be Amaya’s friend, but she probably has her own large group of fabulous, interesting friends.
I think of Alex and me scarfing down the McDonald’s we ordered to his apartment, and sadly, I don’t think I’d be a value add to her successful group of friends.
I still can’t help but want a group of women to talk to about things that Alex can’t fully appreciate.
My cab stops at her apartment. I unlock the door for her, as my NYC taxicab automatically locks when I go above five miles per hour. Another unintended benefit is that people can’t run out before paying.
“Paying in cash, keep the change,” she says as she gets out.
I don’t really care if she shortchanges me.
I look out my passenger-side window and can finally see her clearly, illuminated perfectly by the streetlight.
She has dark wavy hair, dark brown eyes, and the expression of a reluctant smile as she walks toward an old, worn brick brownstone covered in ivy.
I wait for her to open the gate and her front door and enter safely inside.
I grab the cash and begin to count it. In between the bills is a business card.
Amaya Fernando
Legal Aid of Manhattan
Public Defender
Below these lines are her fax number, email address, and work cell number. On the back side is a note: If you ever wanna grab Sri Lankan food with my friends, we’d love to have you!
I smile widely and I can feel my heart beating out of my chest like someone has just handed me a steaming bowl of chicken curry. I take the card and place it in my pocket along with her generous tip.