Cuties on the Subway
Unsolicited remarks late one night on the R train sends a wife reeling into a smackdown with reality.
We went into the city last night to celebrate a friend’s 90th birthday. The invitation was for 7 p.m. at a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. If all went well on the subway—no breakdowns, sick passengers, or police action—it would only take an hour and involve one transfer to arrive from our home in Brooklyn. This was fine because we would get a lot of reading done.
The subway is the world’s greatest communal reading room. There we all are, 4.5 million riders each day, with little to do except hope we get to our destination on time and in one piece. So much time to fill offers so many possibilities. Reading is one of the best.
There are drawbacks, though. Books add considerable weight to everything else you have to carry. They are even more of a burden when you don’t snag a seat and have to balance the load at eye-level while swaying and being bumped about. All the years of doing this may have contributed to my now ravished shoulders, wrists, and elbows. Eventually, we smartly hit on the obvious solution of switching from books to magazines.
Before we left home for the dinner party, we burrowed through the piles of magazines sliding haphazardly across and under tables. There are several different monthly titles but the majority are weekly The New Yorker and the semi-monthly The New York Review of Books. The current pile consists of 18 issues of The New Yorker that were published between March 3, 2025 and January 7, 2026. Underneath them were 24 issues of The Review from February 26, 2025 to February 12, 2026. You may be wondering why we continue to subscribe to these magazines when we are obviously unable, or even desire, to keep up with their schedules. We wonder this, too. Every time a renewal notice arrives, we debate canceling them but return to the fact that we always find something really interesting to read, even if the articles are a year old.
You may also ask why don’t we find something on our phones or tablets? We sometimes do. But there is nothing like the sense of accomplishment you get in turning a physical page. And it cannot be denied that half the pleasure of magazines is in their illustrations, especially cartoons.
For the birthday trip, my husband chose a long article about Trump’s Venezuela adventure from the Review’s February 12 issue. I was intrigued by a profile of Ruth Stout that appeared in the New Yorker’s March 24, 2025 edition. I hadn’t heard of her or her gardening philosophy, which forswears digging, weeding, even watering your plants. How can any lazy gardener pass up learning about her? In the hour it took the subway to reach our stop near the restaurant, we were well along in our articles and looking forward to finishing them on the way home.
The party was a warm gathering of our friend’s family and a few friends. The food was exceptional and abundant. During dessert, there were toasts and fond reminiscence from his children and grandchildren. By 9:22 my battery was running low, at which point I whispered to my husband that it was time to take our leave. He agreed but wanted to devour another slice of cheesecake and a cookie. It was close to 10 by the time we made our way around the table to hug our friend and then walk the eight blocks back to the subway. The train soon pulled in with all its cars solidly packed. With our magazines folded in half to fit the tight space around us, we happily read until we reached the station where we would transfer to a different line that would take us the rest of the way home.
The new train was just as crowded when it arrived. A man offered us his seat. We thanked him profusely, then took out our magazines and picked up reading where we had left off. The car was surprisingly quiet—no pleas for assistance; no mariachi bands; no boisterous exchanges; no kids releasing pent-up energy. Then again, it was late on a Thursday night. Everyone looked as tired as we were. Except for the young women seated across from us who were taking turns playing a video game on their phones, the passengers seemed folded in upon themselves. At one point, I laid my head on my husband’s shoulder and closed my eyes but quickly revived and straightened up to settle once more into my article.
We finally reached the station where we would again transfer for our final leg home. We passed before a very tall man just as we reached the door. He was perhaps in his mid-thirties and, by the look of his green striped wool cap with a jaunty little green pompon on the top, he appeared to have a sense of humor.
He bent over us to say, “you two are so cute.”
My husband laughed. I was confused: these were not words often uttered to strangers on the New York City subway unless there was a baby present or someone was clumsily flirting.
“You are!” he said and laughed with my husband, even waving a little as we stepped off the train.
“What the hell?” I said to my husband who was not paying any attention to me.
The two women who had been playing video games across from us on the train were standing before us on the platform.
One of them exclaimed, “we were going to say the same thing to you!”
“You’re really so cute together,” the other whooped.
Very slowly, enunciating each word, I replied, “I. HATE. HIM,” astonishing the gleeful women. I added, “I’m divorcing him right after we get home.”
This delighted the shocked women even more. My husband found everything about the encounters amusing but experience had taught him not to cajole his wife late at night. He hooked my arm and walked us toward a bench far down the platform.
“We’re NOT cute,” I grumbled as my husband opened his Review.
And then it came to me. At some point, we have morphed into two endearing old people, worthy of giving up your seat for on a crowded train, and delightfully archaic as the world whirls around us.
“Read,” my husband said as he settled into his article.
Before you go, my weekly request….
Please press the little heart below (and at the top) to let Substack know you value Stories!
And, as always, one share will help Stories grow! So how about it?
loved this. you two ARE cute!
I think you're cute too, but only because you're also very interesting and one can tell by looking. That's why you got so much attention!