Fairytale In New York

From the moment we met on a subway platform, it seemed all my dreams would come true – all except for one…

- Julia Douglas

Christmas Eve, 2002

I’m standing on a platform of the New York subway, waiting for the A Train. I’ve just taken a bite of my breakfast when an accent straight out of a Broadway musical barks, “English?”

“Mmmph?” I say, startled, my mouth full of pork and crust. Across the top of my pie I see a chest as wide as Superman’s, pressed close to me in the morning crush. His raincoat is open to reveal a mid-blue double-breasted suit, pale blue shirt and colourful tie that is actually made up of images of Superman in flight. I follow the tie upwards to a jaw as square as the end of a brick, a wide grin of pearly white teeth, chiselled cheekbones, short fair hair flicked up at the front, and blue eyes twinkling like Christmas lights behind black-rimmed Clark Kent glasses.

He’s so comic-book handsome that I don’t think I’d have been able to speak even if my mouth hadn’t been jammed full of stodge.

“Pork pie!” He points at my food and raises his eyebrows in a meaningful way. “Don’t see many over here.”

Somehow, I force down half of my mouthful without chewing it and try not to spit out the rest as I splutter, “Yes – that’s right, I’m English.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you choke!” He chuckles as I wipe crumbs from my lips. “I went to university over there and came to love those things. Pork pies. Colman’s mustard. Wow! Simply heaven!”

There’s a roar in my ears as the train whooshes in beside us. There’s nowhere to sit so I stand near the doors. My new friend grips the rail and stands braced like the Man of Steel, enclosing me on two sides and protecting me from anyone who might stumble into me as the train rattles and shakes through the tunnel.