Dave muffled a dry hack of a cough in the crook of his arm when
he and I met up with my sister, Rita, and her friend, Susie, at the Hilton
Garden Hotel. I doubt the girls noticed
that he turned his face away as he gave them each a hug and, as for his pallor,
well; he always looks gray in the winter.
Plus, Rita’s wound was far more dramatic than a cough.
Since we were kids, Rita’s been prone to accidents, and more
importantly, famous for her bravery in their wake. When she was two, she cut her little
finger. Sadly, I have to admit it was
largely my fault. Well, maybe all my fault. We’d been making a pyramid out of empty Coke
bottles on the kitchen floor, and she’d inched her finger into the neck of one
of the green glass bottles where it stuck.
“Break it,” I suggested. At age three and a half, this made sense.
She whacked the bottle on the floor, freed her finger, but
bloodily, and spent the next few hours with Dr. Lamp. Mom returned with tales of Rita’s courage, and
how she peacefully hummed a tune while the doctor stitched her up.
That summer in Cape Cod, Rita and I joined a gang of kids in
clambering up the remnants of an old wooden jetty and racing to its end to jump
into the sand. Somehow, my sister slipped, and thirty-two splinters lodged in the
bottoms of her feet. A
Coppertone-scented crowd gathered to watch as the lifeguard performed the
extractions, announcing each, like a countdown, as Rita hummed a song.
On another occasion, we were watching television. Rita was in my way, so I gave her a push. Just a little one. But enough to send her tumbling into the TV,
splitting her lip, and requiring another trip to the infamous Dr. Lamp. Again, Mom came home, agog at my sister’s
courage.
Two weeks ago, although weather forecasters cautioned us
about black ice, my sister ran errands. As she stopped at a friend’s house to
pick up a donation for the local hospital, she slipped on an ice patch…and
broke her elbow. I swear I had nothing
to do with it. I was in Connecticut,
nowhere nearby. She had surgery the next
day, and had she not been under anesthesia, no doubt, she would have
hummed.
By the time Dave and I saw her in New York, only a thin
sheath of fabric covered and protected her scar, so of course – we are sisters
after all - we played show and tell, and eww: 30 staples, a metal track of
cruel teeth, zipped the bruised and swollen skin together. I witnessed no wincing, nor heard a single
complaint; she was cheerful and jolly, excited to watch her boy play
basketball.
For, on that Friday night, my nephew, Jared, was playing for the
University of Rochester against NYU.
Jared is blond, handsome, athletic, and 6’7”, and despite dependable
losses for his team whenever Dave and I attend his games, we were there to cheer
him on. Given our record – and our
effect on his - he might not have
been so excited about that.
The NYU gym was steamy, steamy enough to warrant a full peel
of coats, gloves, scarves, and turtlenecks; I was down to jeans and the
University of Rochester tee shirt Jared gave me for Christmas. I wished I’d worn some snappy boots like every
other woman in that gym, but no, in my aversion to cold, I’d chosen sensible
footwear: my cozy, but ugly – one might say butt-ugly
- brown hiking boots. Plus, I noticed I
was the only woman in that gym, except perhaps for a few aged grandmothers, who
had not tucked her pants fashionably into knee-high boots. Sigh.
I rarely feel envious of youth. In a college setting, however, the contrast
between the parade of sprightly hair-tossers with flawless skin and this wan 61–year old was brutally apparent. There
was so much energetic bouncing going on!
Balls on the court, and boobs under tight shirts as cheerleaders leapt
to the top of a pyramid of friends, and pert young ones bounded lightly up the
bleachers. With my creaky knees and
clunky shoes, every descent from my seat was an awkward, halting affair.
The game was terrifyingly close. Rochester established a ten-point lead, but
fell behind after half-time. Our throats
grew hoarse as we cheered for our boy and roared at the refs, who were intent
on calling fouls on Jared while ignoring hideous abuses by NYU, or so it seemed
to my nephew’s fan club. Two points
ahead, two behind. Up again – Yay! Down
again, groan! Jockeying, sprinting, all
kinds of great passing, but why don’t they try for the basket more? Argh!
And finally, whoo-HOO! Rochester
won! 62-60, with eight points by Jared. Briefly, we met him in the field house foyer,
and gave him triumphant hugs before he headed out to the bus with his teammates.
The next morning, after a hasty good-bye to Rita and Susie
and a fitful night with a hacking cough, Dave was sick, his cold in full attack. As he lay in bed, his face pale and sagging,
his body heavy and limp, my mind flashed images of two empty seats at that night’s performance of “Jersey Boys” and the daunting prospect of our move –
within hours – to a different hotel.
Yes, this was a weekend of plentiful entertainments, or that
had been the plan. Last spring at a
silent auction, we won tickets to Jersey Boys and a night at the Hotel Lucerne;
for months, this date had been marked with capital letters and stars on my
calendar. I am a capable person, but of
the Lea-and-Dave team, Dave is the navigator when we hit tricky waters, and New
York City, even at its best, represents white water rapids to me. As I listened to Dave’s snorflings and barks,
I wondered, as I am wont to do in times of challenge, “What would a grown-up
do?”
Obviously, the man needed medicine, and he said he might be
able to nibble an orange and a plain bagel as well. “Don’t worry, honey!” I said gamely, as I
shrugged on my heavy coat, scarf, ear-warmers, and gloves, giving every
appearance of a person comfortable with the idea of venturing out, alone, into
the streets of the city. “I’ll be back shortly!” I said as I blew him a kiss and closed the
door of our room behind me.
Okay. Here I go.
Out on my own in New York.
I took the elevator down to the lobby and the bright-eyed
receptionist at the front desk. We
exchanged good-mornings, and I told her of Dave’s cold and asked if there was a
CVS nearby.
“Let me check,” she said, tapping on her keyboard. “Yes.
One mile away. Will you walk or
take the subway?”
The subway! As if.
“I’ll walk,” I said.
“It’s frigid outside,” the girl said kindly. “What do you need? If it’s over-the-counter, there’s a pharmacy
on the next block.” And she told me about
a convenient good bagel place too. Easy! What a revelation. Ask for help…and people will help.
I can do this!
Buoyed by kindness happily given and the proximity of
answers to Dave’s discomfort, I breezed through the automatic doors into
…sunshine! And brisk, fresh, air! Into bustle, and life, and a sense of purpose!
I turned to my right and spotted the huge green pharmacy sign, just as the
receptionist had described. Heart
uplifted, I marched, humming - almost as brave as my little sister - toward
that beacon.
* * *
To reach the pharmacy, I had to cross a small park ringed
with wrought iron railings and snow-dusted evergreen shrubs. Oddly, some New Yorkers had thought this the
ideal spot to dump their garbage, leaving a prominent pile of stuffed black
plastic bags smack in the midst of a circle of benches.
Just as I was forming nasty judgments, I realized the bags
were bronze. This was not garbage, but
sculpture! An intriguing contestant in
the “What is art?” debate.
My friend Carey tells of attending an avant-garde art show,
and her bemused wanderings from installation to installation, marveling at
the…hm... shall we say obscure nature
of some of the presentations. Was she
too shallow, she wondered, to properly appreciate the masterpiece that was a string
stretched from floor to wall, affixed with a thumbtack? Were others similarly dumbfounded or was it
her failing alone? Finally, a piece
caught her eye. Ah. Perhaps in this – slatted metal emitting a
rush of air – she could understand the message.
Intake and out-take. Coming and
going. The very breath of life! She was close to turning to another visitor
to expound on her interpretation when she realized the piece was not art, but a
heating vent. A standard issue heating
vent. Not "an Installation," but installed, yes, to keep the building warm.
I grinned in recalling Carey’s story, and as I neared the
bronze, realized the piece before me was not what I’d thought either. Often art is an unfolding tale, imparting
different meanings to different people.
In this, I imagine, I’d reacted as the artist had intended, my
perception shifting from garbage, to judgment, to sculpture, to… the
unexpected. I laughed aloud, for the “bags”
were mounded, tied, and welded to form a giant teddy bear. While the word “whimsical” annoys me, this
bear was just that, in the best of ways.
And I beamed, for yet again, New York had surprised me, forcing that
shift in perception, from daunting and distasteful to friendly and
delightful.
Susie, Lea, Jared, and Rita at NYU
