Damn. Stuck in traffic again. Celia hated the traffic in Mexico City. She sat stopped dead on the Periférico, which had been built as a high-rise freeway connecting the north and south of the city along its west side, but had been a glorified parking lot for years.
She tried to just breathe, inhale and exhale, and wait. But there was a special claustrophobia to traffic jams. Would she be stuck for hours between exits? It happened to her a few times a year. Just a couple of months earlier she left Carlos’s office at McKinsey in Las Lomas, just a few hundred meters from the Periférico entrance, at 3; and was stuck between exits on the Periférico for almost four hours. Celia believed in the soft voice of Gil Fronsdale from the Zencast podcasts, the calm, just breathing, peace. But damn! Not when stuck in traffic. Not with the fear of sitting there. And would she have to pee? Could she hold it? Try meditating that, she told herself.
She also told herself she should have just stayed in her apartment and dealt with Maura’s puzzling message. Why risk the traffic? She liked her office better than home mostly for bandwidth, and her main computer, plus the camaraderie. She worked better there than in the cramped apartment down in Santa Teresa. But damn.
She did have decent cellphone bars, at least. She rechecked Maura’s message in Whatsapp:
“We need to Skype. The deal is in trouble.”
She did call in Skype, immediately, but Maura didn’t answer. She guessed (correctly) that she was taking her kid to school. She knew she was a single mom. So she decided to take off for the office in the meantime. Damn. Bad guess. Bad traffic.
Mexico City. Her home. Her birthplace. Where her mom, her sisters, and their kids lived. She loved them, loved the memories, but hated the city now. Maybe the world’s largest city, but who could count. The largest is either this one, Shanghai, or San Paulo. She’d been to San Paulo once, found it like Mexico, sprawling, ugly, smoggy, livable only for people like her mom and sisters, rooted there. Shanghai looked pretty in pictures – mainly at night, with all the lights. She’d seen scary pictures of Shanghai’s smog during the day.
Traffic remained still. Parking lot. You could literally get pizza delivered while stuck in traffic. They used motorcycles. She remembered the TV skit, people selling their car stuck in traffic to buy one that was stuck closer to their destination. Being caught again put a lump in her throat. Worry about Maura’s crisis. She couldn’t lose Maura, it was the best job she’d had in years, and they connected so well. And there was hope of getting back to the U.S. if Syphon took off.
What could Maura be worried about? She’d seemed very optimistic, almost euphoric,
She flashed back, often, to that time in the plane, just a year earlier, sitting with Carlos of course, both of them recently graduated from Stanford, her with the CS degree and Carlos the MBA. They were both from Mexico City, but they’d met at Stanford. They were married, basking in family, back home over the previous summer. But they’d lived on campus at Stanford. Which was paradise compared to Mexico City.
That memory wouldn’t clear. As the plane took off from San Francisco, they held hands.
“Oh no,” Celia said, softly. “Are we really going back?” She felt mostly dread. She wanted Carlos to cheer her up, remind her, his job was great, they’d be rich, they’d live close to the office, in Las Lomas, tree lined, nice apartment, close to work, immune by being walking distance from all the commuting. But Celia couldn’t help it. After four years at Stanford, it was like going from a bright well-lit place, sunshine on the mostly brown hills, bicycles on wide campus paths, to a dark dystopia, smog and traffic.
She’d forced herself to go along with it. For Carlos. For more than a year, since they became a couple, they’d dreamed together about his MBA recruiting season. It was the ultimate happiness, like Samuel Johnson had said, which was the anticipation of happiness. Profs and counselors reinforced the dream. Recruiters confirmed it. They were going to be rich. When that turned out to be McKinsey Management Consulting in Mexico City, Carlos was so proud. He’d landed a prime job, a status job, better than all but a handful of his MBA classmates. McKinsey was the best. It meant salary, company car, even school tuition when kids came. And mobility. Carlos talked of levering the Mexico City Celia loved Carlos so much it hurt and she wasn’t going to
Carlos smiled ruefully, squeezed her hand, loved her soft touch and brilliant eyes. Loved her also when she was quiet, pensive, like she was right then.
Sprippets 