1
LUCY
My sweet baby girl Matilda is not impressed by the New York subway.
The press of bodies is like slow dancing with a hundred sweaty strangers, except nobody is having a good time.
It reminds me of my first middle school dance. Too many people. Too much angst. Everybody felt like they had to be there but would have preferred sitting on the sofa, binge-watching Netflix.
And yet, here we are, swaying to the music of the screech of metal.
I look down at Matilda. Her steely blue eyes meet mine. “We’re not in Colorado anymore,” I tell her.
The lights flicker as we approach a station, like the car is about to blink into the Twilight Zone. When the doors open, I push against the tide of exiting passengers and snag a seat, pulling Matilda with me.
The open space in front of us is a temporary relief. A squeal in the machinery below startles Matilda, and she backs even closer against me.
As the subway car fills up again, we both shrink away from the crush of strangers. We’re weary of the unnatural smell of engine oil and too many people.
It’s the total opposite of our yurt in the mountains.
“You’re okay,” I tell her, shifting my knees so she can move closer to the bench.
She’s my best girl.
My everything.
I’m so glad I moved heaven and earth to keep her with me on this journey.
But then, a shopping bag smacks into her precious little face.
She turns her longfuzzynose to me and lets out a plaintive meh-eh-eh-eh.
Oh, right. I should have said that up front.
I’m traveling through New York City with a two-year-old, snow-white Nigerian dwarf goat.
And she needs to be milked.
I try to move Matilda out of range of a man in a black suit with an open collar, tightly fitted pants, and baby-smoothmanklesshowing over shiny shoes. How can he walk in those? I wear socks with myBirkenstocks, and they’re already comfortable and worn. Those must be killing him.
He hasn’t noticed how his Gucci bag keeps knocking into Matilda. The corner pokes her forehead.
She lets out another unhappy bleat. Several people look our way. I give them a big everything-is-just-fine, nothing-to-see-here smile.
I tuck her tightly between my knees. “Shhh, Matilda.”
Thishas been thehardestpart of the journey. We boarded at a subway station in Queens, fresh off the feed truck I’d hitchhiked on. I didn’t have a lot of options, coming from Colorado with a goat.
But there was no way I would leave my baby behind. Besides, my two best friends had already deserted me. I didn’t have a goat-sitter.
It’s just me and Matilda with them gone. I’ve even lost my friendly yoga students afterI had to quitteaching class due to the strain on my belly. The doctor made me put a pause on exercise.
Yoga and goat milk are the basis of my entire income, keeping me in herbal tea andtofu,and Matilda in fresh feed and the occasional carrot.But with yoga out for the foreseeable future, I’m stuck. Goat cheese doesn’t pay the bills.
And thus, I’ve come to Manhattan with a knapsack stuffed with feed and forty dollars to my name. I’ve gotten by so far on luck and kindness, but there seems to bea lotless of it now that I’m in the city.
The subway car screeches to a stop, forcing me to clutch Matilda to avoid tilting into our neighbors. Nobody else seems to notice the shift in movement. They’reprobably used to traveling like cattle.