“So we’re going there, I take it?”
Lisa Leann nearly burst apart she was so excited. “Yes!” Her arm squeezed mine.
“Are any of those actors going to be there? Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing Jane Seymour. I’ve always liked her.”
“Well, no … but I’ll give you a hint as to what we’re going to see. It’s the longest running musical in history—”
“
The Sound of Music
!”
I felt Lisa Leann sigh deeply. “No … not
The Sound of Music
.”
“I love that movie.”
“Guess again.”
We rounded a corner about that time, and I came to an abrupt stop. “Good heavens, where are we?”
“This, dear Evie, is Times Square, and all these signs are called JumboTrons. We’ve been near it off and on all day, and believe me, it was a real effort not to drag you here earlier.”
I allowed myself a moment to catch my breath. I’d seen it on television, of course. I’d even managed to stay up a time or two for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, but I’d never experienced a sight such as this in person. Not since … well, since earlier that morning atop the Empire State Building. “Oh, Lisa Leann. Have you ever seen so many lights? And in so many colors? Even with it being just dusk, it’s amazing.”
“Wait till you see it tonight when it’s completely pitch black dark.”
“Is this where you’re taking me?”
Lisa Leann pulled me forward. “No, but it’s close. We’re going to 44th Street. Come on. We’re going to see
Les Misérables
.”
Well. Even
I
had heard of
that
. Dear me, wouldn’t Lizzie be jealous when I told her where Lisa Leann had taken me?
Sunday morning came too soon. After our adventure at the Broadhurst Theatre, Lisa Leann and I moseyed on back to Times Square, where I treated her to dinner at a restaurant called Cosi, where we feasted on the most delicious Moroccan lentil soup I’ve ever tasted. Actually, the only Moroccan lentil soup I’ve ever tasted. New York was filled with cultural experiences, including Cosi’s famous flatbread. I’d never had any of that, either.
When it came time to return to SoHo, I told my traveling companion, “I’m not taking the subway this late at night. Let’s grab a cab.”
What I thought would be easy enough turned out to be nearly a nightmare. Cabs zipped up and down Times Square as though on a mission. Finally, after long minutes of no luck, some nice policeman said, “Head up to 9th Avenue. They’re easier to catch there.”
Well, maybe it was easier for him, but let me tell you this: no cab on 9th Avenue wanted to take two middle-aged women to SoHo. Why, I couldn’t imagine until Lisa Leann said, “I think the fare won’t be good for them. It’s such a long way down there and then chances are they won’t have a fare back.”
“Then look pitiful and beg,” I said. “There are homeless people starting to bunk down for the night around here, and I’m getting a little scared. What if someone tries to attack us?”
Lisa Leann patted me on the arm. “Don’t be scared, Evie. I’m here. I won’t let anyone hurt us.”
I frowned down at her petite stature. “And what will you do, pray tell? Kick them in the knee?”
“Of course not. But I’ll tell you what we both can do. We can do what I did this morning on the subway when you took off without me.”
“I did not—”
“Never mind. Let’s pray.”
And so we did. We prayed right there in the middle of a sidewalk on 9th Avenue in New York City. And, minutes later, we were zooming toward SoHo in the backseat of a black Lincoln Town Car.
“God sure answered us in style,” I told Lisa Leann later after we’d nicely tipped the cab driver.
“God’s got class, I always say.”
We hurried up to our room and repeated our performance from the night before. While Lisa Leann showered, I called Vernon. While I showered, Lisa Leann called Henry. At least I assume she did. I hope she did.
Sunday morning we woke a little later than usual, and still it felt too early. My feet ached from all the walking of the day before. “We’re not spring chickens anymore, Lisa Leann,” I said to her as we locked our hotel room door and slipped down the narrow hallway and toward the stairs leading to the first floor.
“I’m feeling you, sister.”
“Feeling me? I beg your pardon.”
“It’s what all the kids are saying these days. To ‘feel’ someone is to understand where they’re coming from.”
“Oh.”
“Lizzie taught me that.”
We stepped into the lobby about that time, drawn into its antiquity by the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. Several of the hotel guests were standing before the table, where it was being self-served, all of them in their pajamas. I was both curious and appalled.
In silence, Lisa Leann and I prepared a cup to go and then skipped down the stairs and out the glass doors and onto the sidewalk, where we turned left. “I read about a little café just down the street,” Lisa Leann said. “It was in some of that hotel literature in our room.”
I nodded in answer.
Peripherally I saw Lisa Leann turn her head toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“Lisa Leann, since when do decent people wear their pajamas into a hotel lobby?”
Lisa Leann waved her hand at me, then took a sip of her coffee before saying, “Oh, I know. It’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s like all of a sudden pajamas are a fashion statement.”
“Well, I think it’s just awful.”
Lisa Leann giggled but said nothing more about it.
After a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, and toast and after I begged God not to let my arteries harden on the spot, we walked through Little Italy, toward Chinatown. Little by little the landscape changed. Signs printed in bold reds and bright yellows surrounded us as street vendors hawked their goods. The population grew thick until we were shoulder to shoulder with other pedestrians. I felt like the old sardine in the can cliché.
“I’ve never seen so many people,” I said. “And on a Sunday morning when they all ought to be in church. Like us.”
“But we’re not in church,” Lisa Leann said with a wink. She then slipped her arm into mine in the manner she seemed to have favored of late and said, “Did you know there are somewhere between 70 and 150,000 residents in Chinatown?”
“Lisa Leann, what did you do before we left Summit View? Read everything you could get your hands on about New York City? It’s like you’re a walking encyclopedia since we got here.”
Lisa Leann pinked. “Well, it kept my mind occupied and away from the home situation.”
This time I squeezed her arm. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “About you and Henry.”
We rounded a corner—Canal Street. Lisa Leann slipped her arm out of mine and, due to the immense crowd, stepped in front of me. I placed my hands on her shoulders so we wouldn’t get separated, and for a few moments, we waddled instead of walked. From my vantage point the walking population of Chinatown, at this moment, looked more like penguins heading for water than shoppers heading for the next cheap purchase. As we chugged along, Lisa Leann slipped to my right. This time it was I who slipped my arm into the loop of hers.
We continued west on Canal Street, each step making me more and more aware of the whereabouts of my shoulder strap purse. I clutched it in front of me as though holding onto a life preserver in the middle of the Hudson. Lisa Leann stopped along the way, halting me with her. She purchased a knockoff Rolex watch for Henry, a knockoff Louis Vuitton for Nelson. I couldn’t help but notice Nelson’s watch cost twice what Henry’s cost.
We both purchased silk wraps, one for each of us and then one for each of the girls, including Mandy, Lisa Leann’s daughter. We giggled as we chose the appropriate color and style for each of them. Lizzie, I knew, would be impressed with the “Burberry” I’d selected for her.
We continued on. I spotted a short Chinese woman standing on the corner of some cross street and Canal. As we neared her, she spoke to Lisa Leann, who immediately slipped her arm out of mine. The lady—extending her palm and a small piece of paper within her palm—nodded at Lisa Leann, spoke again (though I couldn’t hear a word of it over the sound of the city), and then turned and walked north.
Lisa Leann followed behind her. I stood without moving. What in the world was that little redhead up to now?
Lisa Leann turned toward me. “Come on!” she called with a wave of her hand.
By now the Chinese woman was a good half block ahead of Lisa Leann and Lisa Leann was a quarter block from me. Dutifully, I followed, never once reaching Lisa Leann, who kept a fairly good pace behind the Chinese lady.
“Where are we going?” I called, but Lisa Leann didn’t hear. Either that or she just wasn’t responding.
“Hello?” I called again. I caught sight of a small-framed Chinese man leaning against a building. He wore khaki pants that seemed a half size too big and a black leather belt squeezed around his waist. His shirt was cotton plaid. One sandaled foot was perched against the wall behind him, and a cigarette dangled from the fingertips of his right hand.
“Lady, be quiet,” he said. “No yelling. No yelling.”
What? In the din of this city’s streets,
I
am not supposed to yell?
I gave him my best “who do you think you are” look, to which he replied, “Shhh. Be quiet.”
I turned my face from him and toward the back of Lisa Leann’s head just in time to see the Asian lady opening a glass door near the corner of the next cross street. Next to the door was another Chinese man, dressed much like my adversary now a few yards away, who nodded at her and her at him. He held the door open as she disappeared into the recesses of the building, and Lisa Leann followed behind her.
Lisa Leann, I might add, who never once looked back to make sure I was all right.
When I reached the man next to the door, I mumbled, “I’m with the redhead.”
He opened the door as though I’d not said a word to him, and I stepped over its threshold. I was now in a semi-dark, long and narrow hallway. Lisa Leann was at the end of it, turned toward the light from the street. She was grinning like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. “Lisa Leann, what are we doing here?”
“Shhh,” she said.
“Why does everyone keep shushing me?”
“Shhh,” she said again, then stepped through a doorway to the right.
I shut up and followed, finding myself in another hallway, this one shorter but just as dark. Several steps and to the left and we were in a small room with a narrow door. This room was brightly lit, and empty other than Lisa Leann and the Asian woman who apparently had decided to wait for us. “In here,” she said, pointing to another door.
I felt like a mouse in search of cheese strategically hidden at the end of a maze.
We stepped through the door and into an L-shaped room, its walls covered in purses, the air permeating with the odor of new leather. There were three Chinese people sitting on chairs on the short side of the room. Two of them—women—were ripping plastic from purses. Between them was a large box filled with plasticcovered merchandise. The third—a man—sat with a calculator and a money bag in his lap. He sat closest to the door.
Lisa Leann had slipped over to the long side of the room. Her neck was craned and her eyes danced like a kid’s at Christmas. I grabbed her arm and yanked. “Lisa Leann,” I hissed. “Where are we?”
“Bootleg,” she whispered back.
The lady we’d followed stepped over to us. “Coach, Burberry, Kate Spade, Prada, Coco Chanel …” she recited as she pointed. “Good stuff. Good stuff.” Then she stepped over to the man with the calculator, who smiled at her and began speaking to her in their native language.
“Is this legal?” I whispered to Lisa Leann just as another group of women entered the “shop.”
“Not for them,” she said.
“And for us?”
“Well, it’s not
illegal
.”
Ah, another fine line. “So then why are we here?”
Lisa Leann turned and placed her hands on her hips. “Because, Evangeline. This is part of the New York City experience. And … look around you. Is this not fun? Think of it as research and development for our time on the show.”
I sighed. “Yes, Lisa Leann. As much fun as a prison sentence to Sing Sing.” Being a loyal viewer of
Law and Order
was finally coming in handy.
Lisa Leann waved a hand at me. “Oh, posh. Now, come on. Let’s shop to our little hearts’ content!” She pointed to an oversized red leather bag. “I wonder how much that is? Excuse me,” she said to our “leader in crime,” “how much is this adorable bag?”
“Seventy-five but, for you, sixty.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Sixty dollars plus five to ten with New York’s finest,” I mumbled behind her ear.
“Lighten up, Evie,” she hissed back.
Heaven help me. A half hour later I was one of them. One of the Canal Street Savvy. I now own a Prada purse, a Prada wallet, and some “smokin’ ” (at least according to Lisa Leann) oversized Coco Chanel sunglasses.
I had a laundry list of things that needed to be accomplished before I could even think about leaving Summit View, the least of which was to pack. I’d spent the better part of the weekend food shopping and then cooking and freezing dinners like chicken potpie for Samuel. “Enough to hold you over a few days,” I said. “Or until our daughters or our daughters-in-law ask you over.”
“Or I arrive in New York myself.”
I rolled my eyes. “
If
we survive long enough on the show. Don’t start thinking in terms of what you’ll pack. I really don’t think this is going very far.”
I took time to go by Summit Center, where my mother is now residing under full-time care. A few months ago her Alzheimer’s became such that my brother and I were forced to make better arrangements for her. Until then, she’d spent several months living at the Good Shepherd Assisted Living facility. When Mom fell, broke an arm, and cracked two ribs, it became alarmingly evident she could no longer take care of herself. I was relieved of a good deal of stress knowing someone was caring for her 24/7, but I still managed to go by to see her at least three times a week.
Not once had she recognized me as her daughter. A few times she’d called me Karen, a name I could not place to anyone in her lifetime. My brother stated he’d never heard the name either. At least, not spoken by Mom.