I've always been a curious cat. And I like watching people. Discreetly of course, hahaha! I'm not that psycho. In the years that I have observed people, I think I have become pretty good at profiling. I should probably work as a consultant for the intelligence community because I can pretty much scope out a person's life just by looking at them, more often than not.
Let's put it this way, I always get around the city using the subway, because I'm too cheap to spring for cab fare. I'd rather walk than ride a cab. If the weather was nice, I'd rather walk than take the subway. Makes for good exercise too! Anyway, I digress. In my subway rides, I've noticed that commuters make a concerted effort not to look at other people, other than their traveling companion. They would read the paper or a book, stare into space, read the ads overhead, plug on their earphones or close their eyes and pretend to sleep. But not me. I look at other people, they won't look back at me anyway. Am I scaring you now?
I can pick out the tourists from the locals, the Upper East Side types vs. the downtown crowd, those out to party vs. those going straight home from work, kids with their nannies vs. kids with their moms. And I especially know where the bums like to sit, so I always try to stay in the middle, never mind if I have to stand. Although I prefer train surfing, so that I don't have to touch the poles or the hand rails.
Now on to my story. There's a young family that I often run into on my subway rides, and we always end up boarding the same train car. They always travel together, even on weekday work hours so I've always wondered how they could do that. Shouldn't the dad be at work at least? Because they definitely do not look like tourists. No, not at all. They live in the city, I could tell. The dad however didn't look like a Wall Street suit, but he didn't look like a scruffy musician who played with his band at night either. If he was a Hollywood actor spending downtime in NYC, I would have recognized him. Maybe he was a Jewish businessman? And the mom though young and a bit harassed while pushing the baby's stroller to and fro, was always dressed in jeans, a nice navy blazer and wore an expensive watch, so they definitely were upwardly mobile types if not born into money. She had style and was effortless about it. Very intriguing. I often wondered what this trio was up to. I couldn't profile them exactly.
As I scanned through the May issue of Vogue, I saw the answer laid right before my eyes:
Case closed.
