Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting

by Clare Pooley

There was a life lesson there, thought Iona. In her experience, most endings turned out to be beginnings in disguise.

Sanjay was struck completely dumb. The whole time he’d been seeing Piers on the train, flaunting his success and his white privilege, dressed up in his smart suits and status-symbol accessories, Piers had been fake commuting. Sanjay wound the tape back in his head, re-examining it from a different angle. Maybe Piers hadn’t actually been flaunting anything. Perhaps that was just what he’d wanted to see. Was he just as guilty of stereotyping as everyone else?

When the thing you’ve feared for so long actually happens, you have nothing left to be scared of anymore.

“The only way to be guaranteed of failure, dear boy, is not to try,” said Iona. “Love is the greatest risk of all, but a life without it is meaningless.” “That’s really poetic, Iona,” said Martha. “Who said that?” “I did, dear girl,” replied Iona. “Just now.”

was at the height of my powers, and yet I was viewed as a dinosaur. Out-of-date and irrelevant. It makes me furious that as men age, they gain gravitas. They become “silver foxes.” Women, however, become invisible. We cannot allow this to happen, my friends. We must all be more Iona. We all deserve, like Iona, to have a Triumphant Second Act.