Road Remedies

JEWEL OF JERSEY'S MEADOWLANDS
SECAUCUS, New Jersey – Crossing the Atlantic, I arrive midday and spend hours dragging to the purposely bland hotel. The operator – accent like a wad of Hubba Bubba – urges me to take a $100+ cab ride. I am not that godmother flush, however.

"What about public transport?"' Revolutionary, I know. Not like this info should be on the website or anything....

"We don't have any. Take a taxi," she orders. WTF? Ya got stock?

"Ma'am, I have time, not money. I need to work out another way," I snivel. Then, finally – after hanging up in sheer frustration, then calling back, desperate – I ask the right question: "how do you get to work?"

"Oh, well, I take the subway, then the train to Secaucus and the free hotel shuttle..."

Limping into the singular worst Crowne Plaza ever, I shower and slip into bed. Exhausted, I break protocol and watch TV.

The door handle rattles. Right in the middle of that Seinfeld episode where Elaine's boyfriend ... oh, never mind...

My honey sweeps in.

Yes, yes, the very honey I refused to tell y'all about, after my year of romantic misadventures. But he's too much of a fixture now, see? We've rendezvoused in a sleazy Crowne Plaza outside New York. The four-month relationship's, like, OFFICIAL.

The Merman's ginormous media-thug corporation sent him east this week. I've snuck into his generico hotel room for three nights, while meeting with my agent, doing a book reading and arsing about with friends in NYC.

***

He yanks the drapes before dawn's rosy fingers even flex. Merman's on a "prime-time" news shift: all coffee and cheer. I'm a freerange night ghoul – and jetlagged: this is not good.

"What's out there?" he chirps.

"Jersey. Fuc&," I moan. "Dead bodies in concrete. Sopranoland. Make it all go away. Now. Per favore."