A dazzling, remarkably original dark comedy about a young New Yorker's failed attempts to isolate himself in a city that won't take solitude for an answer For years it's been Andy Green's job to stump students nationwide by coming up with the wrong answers for their multiple-choice tests. Recently, however, his own life has become overwhelmed by wrong choices. When a love affair is mysteriously ended by a Post-it note and followed up by a random street assault, Andy locks himself in his Hell's Kitchen apartment. In solitude, he thinks, he might be able to get a grip on his life. But when he is forced to reemerge six months after the attacks of September 11, the city awaiting him is more bewildering than ever and all the people in his world seem to be part of a vast conspiracy. Equal parts noir, French farce, and homage to New York, Suspension is a surprisingly heartfelt novel about learning to live in a world where nearly everything is decided behind our backs. A dazzling, remarkably original dark comedy about a young New Yorker's failed attempts to isolate himself in a city that won't take solitude for an answer For years it's been Andy Green's job to stump students nationwide by coming up with the wrong answers for their multiple-choice tests. Recently, however, his own life has become overwhelmed by wrong choices. When a love affair is mysteriously ended by a Post-it note and followed up by a random street assault, Andy locks himself in his Hell's Kitchen apartment. In solitude, he thinks, he might be able to get a grip on his life. But when he is forced to reemerge six months after the attacks of September 11, the city awaiting him is more bewildering than ever and all the people in his world seem to be part of a vast conspiracy. Equal parts noir, French farce, and homage to New York, Suspension is a surprisingly heartfelt novel about learning to live in a world where nearly everything is decided behind our backs. Robert Westfield received his degree in theater and English from Columbia University. As a playwright, he was the writer-in-residence for the Working Group. He lives in New York. Suspension A Novel By Robert Westfield HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2006 Robert Westfield All right reserved. ISBN: 0060741376 Chapter One November 2001 Just until the swelling goes down. That was how long I intended to stay home. Until I could see out of my left eye, until my lower lip closed up. Until all the cuts scabbed over and faded into pale scars. Until I could bend the joints in the two small fingers of my left hand without feeling pain shoot up to my neck. Once the physical injuries healed, though, I still had the anxiety, the guilt, the shame, and then the creeping realization that not leaving my apartment was easier than I expected. It was on a Saturday morning in August, with my palms scraped raw, my two fingers in a splint, and my knees taped in bloody bandages, that I slowly pulled myself up the two steep flights to my small one-bedroom in Hell's Kitchen, closed the door behind me, and quietly turned the locks—click, clack, click&8212and it wasn't until November that anyone mentioned my absence. That person was Sonia Obolensky, my friend and tormentor. I should point out that I used to be thrilled by Sonia's blazing tirades. I listened to her rants and watched her shake her fists as if I were sitting in the front row at the opening of the Moscow Art Theater's American tour. Whenever she ripped her blondish hair loose in an explosive moment of ferocity, her tiny teeth gnashing the air, her blue eyes swelling out of their sockets, I wanted to stand up and cheer, invoke endless curtain calls, and throw long-stemmed roses at her petite feet. By that November, however, I suspected that I'd endured the full repertoire and wondered when she would take her show to Chicago and free up the theater for something new. I still did my best as a friend. When she was fired from her coat-check job at Orso and came to me in tears of rage, I told her I was glad she lost the job. I was honestly relieved that rainy days could now pass by without gleeful squeals of "Umbrellas, umbrellas!" That Sonia would find such euphoria from a few extra wrinkled dollars pressed into her hand while she stood for hours in a box stuffed with dripping trench coats and the suffocating smell of wet wool made me uneasy. As one of the first Americans Sonia met, I felt responsible for all of her setbacks, so it was with increasing frustration that I watched her bounce through a never-ending series of very odd jobs. At times I used humor to help her climb back up on her troika, but making a joke about Sonia's life was a game of Russian roulette. Sonia had been fired from her eighty-sixth job in the city and was trying her hands at massage; the thought occurred to me, as I lay naked, smeared in oil, and wrapped in a sheet on her folding table, that she was now literally inches away from turning tricks.