The Neallys

Kerry: Meeting Suzanne

Kerry: Meeting SuzanneI noticed her at orientation and now I was sitting across from her having a burger and fries at a coffee shop on Amsterdam Avenue, a few blocks north of the law school, itself a relatively modern building at Amsterdam and 116th, to the eastern edge of the Columbia campus. She had a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake, which was strange because she looked like she never ate anything but salad. It would be a while before I confessed to her that I sat where I did in class to be near her; there was something about her that caused me to want to be near her.

Over lunch, I gave her my mini-bio. Grew up in Tuckahoe, just north of the City—at this she interrupted and said her Aunt lives just north of the City and we discovered that her Aunt lived a couple of miles from me—and still live in the house with my Mom. My Dad died when I was sixteen, and my Mom never remarried. I am an only child but have plenty of cousins in the area. I went to Fordham in the Bronx, and I did well enough to get into Columbia Law. No boyfriend since I broke up with Steven when I was a senior at Fordham; he was a junior who returned to a high-school friend over the Christmas break. And not many boyfriends before that. I said I planned to take the train in every morning since it took less than an hour and I could stay with my Mom and save a ton of money.

Much as I felt comfortable with her that first day, I was not comfortable enough, or brave enough, to fill in many of the details. Those details, which she’d come to learn over time, were as follows. My parents met in Brooklyn before it was “Brooklyn” and moved to the suburbs when they married. Both were alcoholics. Booze killed my Dad in 2010. I was a junior in high school. He simply wasted away and then was gone. My Mom never recovered. She was still young and very pretty but I don’t think she once went out for dinner with another man nor did she develop relationships with other women, never even going out shopping or to dinner. Instead, she devoted herself to me, her only child, to keeping off the booze, and to her job at a small bank in White Plains, the business center about 30 miles north of midtown. Her last drink was a gin-and-tonic she nursed in the hours after everyone but I had gone on the day of her husband’s funeral. She just stopped.

My Dad, Michael, worked for an insurance company in the City. My parents did well enough that we had a four-bedroom colonial on a hill just above the train station. I walked to my Catholic grammar school in my uniform and took the train each day to my Catholic high school in the Bronx, also in my uniform. I was one of the top three or four students in high school, working on the Yearbook and in the drama club and participated in the outreach programs the school sponsored for low-income kids in the neighborhood.

I was named for the County in southwest Ireland where my parents spent part of their honeymoon and, as I said, I am an only child.

Exploring my college options, I did not want to be too far from my Mom and I did not want to be in a large university. I enrolled at Fordham University. It’s a Jesuit college in the Bronx, and I took the train to the Fordham stop each morning. I was a Political Science major, not sure of what I planned on doing after graduation so like a lot of people I decided to go to law school.

Socially, not a lot was going on. It did not help that I commuted and I only had a few friends with whom I’d eat, especially in the nearby Italian neighborhood, and study and go to parties. Over time I sort of drifted away from my high school friends.

On the romance front, not much to report either. In college, I went out with a few guys and I met my first steady boyfriend early in senior year. Steven was one year behind me in school. He lived on campus and we started hanging out together in early October. He was from Chicago, and I liked him quite a bit and so did my Mom after I brought him to my uncle’s house for Thanksgiving.

I was so very happy with him and I lost my virginity in his dorm room on the Friday before Christmas break. He was more experienced than I was—who wouldn’t be?—and he was gentle and kind and I was in love.

Now I had had plenty of hot-and-heavy sessions with other boys before Steven, always “Steven,” in high school and college, but never felt the desire to do anything more than kiss and fondle any of them. I very much desired to do more with Steven who, as I say, was a kind and gentle lover. And, as I say, I was in love.

He, though, apparently was not. On a Friday night in early February, I had planned on staying with him. He got up to go to the bathroom after we’d made love. His phone vibrated and I saw it was “Erica.” It was after 11. When he came back I said, “you just got a call from Erica.” He stopped. “Why the f**k were you looking at my phone?” I’d never heard him curse before and I felt like I’d been slapped. “It’s after 11. Your phone vibrated and I saw who was calling. I just wanted to tell you in case it’s important” “Sorry,” he said, which led me to ask, “Who is Erica, calling after 11?” I mean I wouldn’t have asked except for the way he reacted.

Steven sat next to me, wearing only a towel and me naked below the sheet. “Okay. Erica was…is a friend from high school. I saw her last Summer and we got to know one another a bit, before I met you”—now I was staring at him and reaching for my bra and panties—”and I ran into her in town during the break when I was hanging with my friends and we kind of got together after Christmas.” He took a breath. “And I went out with her for New Year’s and we were both a little drunk and I slept with her. And then I slept with her again when we were both sober.” Silence as I waited, putting on my bra.

“She goes to Penn and I told her that I’d take the train down to see her. I assume that’s what she’s calling about. I never mentioned you.” He got up and tightened the towel and I put my panties on under the sheet. At least he had the decency to turn when I put on my shirt and jeans and shoes.

Smart and clever and hurt as I was, all I could say as I headed to the door after grabbing my bag from the floor was, “I always knew I wasn’t your first and now I know I won’t be your last” and then I was gone, catching the final train of the day—now early Saturday morning—home and promptly waking my Mom, us sharing a hot chocolate as I cried. She let me cry, said she was there for me, and tucked me into bed. She never pushed me about Steven and if he was mentioned again, it was only in passing.

Steven was puppy-eyed for a while when I saw him on campus but after a few weeks, I had pretty much erased him as anyone but just another student and spent more time with my other friends for my final semester. And, as I say, my Mom did not dwell on it. Plus, I was moving on more generally. I had done well on the LSATs and my college grades were good. Although I did not get into Harvard or Yale, Columbia was a yes, which was perfect. Great school and I could commute in under an hour. I could stay with my Mom.

So August 31 was the third day in which I took the 8:13 to the Harlem station and the bus to Amsterdam and 120th and the first day in which I was sitting in a coffee shop on Amsterdam having lunch with Suzanne Nelson. I immediately called her Suze. She seemed to like that; no one else called her that.