Feldon - Karma gone bad: how I learned to love mangos, Bollywood, and water buffalo

I just need another minute.

The cab driver grunted and spit out the window. I stood on Ninth Avenue in the pouring rain, huddled over the taxis trunk. Inside was a mountain of rainbow-colored fabric, designer dresses Id spent years coveting, collecting, and paying off on my MasterCard. Once, theyd hung proudly in the closet of our Upper West Side one bedroom. Now they were crushed in a sad, wrinkled heap next to an ancient bottle of window washer fluid, a case of Yoo-hoo, and half a dozen water-logged emergency flares. And they, like me, were about to be shipped off to the third world.

Double parked next to us, unfazed by the angry slur of horns whizzing by, was another cab. My husband Jay sat in the back, his foot propping the door open just enough to communicate but not enough to let the rain soak his Armani suit. He was on his way to work. I was on my way to brunch at Pastis. Wed met halfway so he could confiscate my entire dress collection, which Id planned to pack in my carry-on luggage.

Pick ONE, Jay said, gritting his teeth. One for the party. Thats it.

But

Itll be fine, Jen. I promise. Youll have them back in a couple of days. He picked up his BlackBerry and scrolled through his messages, the technological equivalent of an exasperated eye roll.

In forty-eight hours, we were moving to India.

India, the country.

Jay had decided, at half-past the eleventh hour, that we were bringing too much stuff on the airplane. By we, of course, he meant me. Our apartment was already packed into a shipping container the size of an eighteen-wheeler. The apartment looked desolate and empty now, inexplicably smaller without our four-year collection of belongings cluttering its hardwood floors.

The Moving Guide for Expatriates Jays company sent in the mail recommended taking our essentials as carry-on luggage to safeguard against accidental losses. He and I had different definitions for essentials. For Jay, that meant his laptop, his BlackBerry, and his red fleece sleeping hat. For me, that meant four pairs of designer shoes, two hundred manuscript pages of my novel-in-progress, the dogs teddy bear, and an assortment of cocktail dresses. Plus the dog himself, a small white Maltese named Tucker.

Preparing for Tuckers move had been even more complicated than preparing for ours. First, there was the stockpiling. Two years worth of training pads, dehydrated chicken breasts, and chew toys. A velvety blanket for inside his carrier so he wouldnt get cold or insecure on the plane. A travel-sized stuffed animal, because his favorite was too big to fit in my carry-on bag. His favorite stuffed animal was a brown Gund teddy bear named Bear. Id never seen Tucker look as sad as he did the day Bear got wrapped in plastic and tossed into a cardboard box, sentenced to a journey by sea. I took one last look at the dresses in my arms and understood exactly how hed felt.

I rescued a white strapless Diane von Furstenberg as Jay leapt from his cab and snatched the rest away.

See you tonight, Jay called as he dove back into his cab and slammed the door. The cab darted back into traffic. Through the rear window, I watched him brush off his lapels, the rest of his body swallowed by a mass of chiffon and lace-edged satin. The gold-embroidered hem of the Cynthia Steffe Id worn to our rehearsal dinner was trapped in the door jam, trailing in the muddy street. I shouted after him, but the rain was too loud and by the time I got the words out, he was already gone.

Come on, lady, my cab driver bellowed, his meters-running complacency abruptly disappearing into the mid-city fog. Get in or walk. Its like a monsoon out here. I cant wait all day.

We sloshed downtown. Traffic, as always, was oppressive. The day stretched before me, my swan song in the big city. First there were farewell burgers and mimosas at Pastis with my best friend Kate. Then a visit to the salon for blow-outs and manicures, and then the going-away party Kate and her husband were throwing for us tonight. Id wear the white strapless DVF with gold stiletto sandals and drink too much champagne. Laugh at our friends jokes about curry and call centers and holy cows. Make a speech about big dreams and big adventures, not making eye contact with anyone so the tears would stay put. Wear waterproof mascara, just in case.

Seventeen-twenty, lady, the cab driver barked. I handed him a twenty and climbed out into the rain, the yellow warmth behind Pastiss windows beckoning like a lighthouse. Before I could even close the door properly, he made a U-turn and screeched off, spraying my legs with gray water that lurched up from the overflowing gutter.

Was I going to miss this? The rude taxi drivers, the claustrophobic subways, the grit and the rush and the perpetual sneer of the Big Apple? More than I could say. From the minute I had moved to Manhattan from the Boston suburb where Id grown up, my soul felt at home in a way Id never known before. I loved the lights and the skyscrapers, the crowded streets. The exhilarating feeling of humanityfervent, focusedscrambling over each other with a single collective purpose: GO .

I loved Central Park and hot dog vendors, walks along the Hudson River, and the bodega on the corner of Seventy-Second and Broadway where I bought my coffee every morning. I loved the underground vibrations of the subway, the collective pulsing energy of 1.6 million people trying to make their dreams come true.

I thought wed live in New York forever. Id just finished my masters degree in creative writing; Jay worked in computer forensics at a Big Four accounting firm. First there would be my debut novel, then his partnership, then one day a red Bugaboo stroller parked in the lobby of the Upper West Side brownstone wed renta two-bedroom with a tiny sliver of park view. In the meantime, there would be art museums and yoga classes and dog parks and late-night drinks with friends. There would be vacations in the Hamptons or St. Barths.