Bulls Island (13 page)

“Don’t worry. I’ll bring my laundry home every weekend.”

“Well, I can’t wait for that!”

The next morning Adrian and I went to Bloomingdale’s and spent a sentimental hour or so browsing the home-furnishings department, gathering together what seemed appropriate for a college freshman without resembling a layout from
Architectural Digest
that would put his sexual orientation into question.

“You know, Mom, if I show up with everything all brand new, my
roommates are gonna think I’ve been away somewhere, like a really expensive mental ward.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Well, I have to have a comforter or something for a single bed because mine at home is like
huge
and the beds in Carman Hall take extra-long sheets, so we have to buy those.”

“I get it. So, maybe what we should do is give you old towels to take to school and I’ll buy new ones for the house?”

“Perfect. I just don’t want to show up looking like Richie Rich.”

“Gotcha. No monograms? Actually that’s pretty smart. Who knows? Your roommates might be from some horrible third-world country, on a full scholarship. There’s zero gain in rubbing our filthy capitalism in anyone’s face.”

“Exactly. I can always upgrade. I mean, it’s bad enough that my laptop costs like a billion…”

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to keep your room locked or carry it around with you until you figure out how secure the dorm is, I guess.”

“Actually, I register the serial number with the IT department, and well…you’re right. Big deal. They could sell it on the street in about ten seconds.”

“My point precisely. Hey? Do you want one of those little refrigerators?”

“Nah. I’ll rent one and split it with my roommate. Who needs the hassle of moving it at the end of the year.”

“Good plan. God, you are so smart!”

“Thanks, but I’ve read the admissions materials like over and over. Let’s get this stuff and I’ll make a pile of old stuff at home later. Can we go eat?”

I often wondered if my son had contracted some twenty-first-century mutation of a tapeworm that forced boys to consume their full body weight approximately once a week.

“Of course! You think I want you to starve?”

“Can we go to Nicola’s?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Sweet.”

I knew there wouldn’t be many more days like this one, shopping together, going out for lunch. We dropped our shopping bags off with our doorman and walked over to Madison Avenue. Throughout lunch I was impressed by how magnificently Adrian had matured. While he babbled on about different professors he had been checking out on the Internet—apparently there was a website for rating professors—I quietly reminisced. He had seemed so young just a few short months ago, when he took his SATs and went to his prom. How I worried! I couldn’t envision him grown so soon, looking like a man, mature enough to handle bank accounts, time management, and getting out of bed without someone giving him five more minutes. But here we were on the edge of a milestone and my boy couldn’t wait to leap from the tiny bosom of Horace Mann School into the abyss of serious living. Where had the years gone? I felt a tightening in my chest. How would it be to live without him around? How cavernous would our apartment feel? I had been so busy worrying about getting him into college that I had never thought about how it would feel to have him gone.

“And there’s this history guy from London, Simon Sch—You okay, Mom?”

“Yeah, baby. I’m just sitting here thinking that I’m gonna miss you, that’s all.”

“Mom? I can be home for dinner in fifteen minutes if I hop on the subway.”

“I know.”

We had a moment of recognition then and I felt my heart creak a little more. I didn’t want my hesitation to dilute Adrian’s happiness and anticipation, and I didn’t want to shake his confidence. Let’s be real here; I was entitled to an episode of hard-earned despair, but I
knew it would be healthier for everyone for me to mourn privately.

“I’ll be okay, Mom, and if living on campus is totally gross, I’ll come home and take the train to classes.”

“Adrian? I wouldn’t let you do that. It’s time for you to be out there. You’re ready. But let your mother just give you one piece of valuable advice.”

“What?”

“Get yourself a really obnoxious alarm clock.”

“Good point.”

After lunch, Adrian went off to meet up with some friends and I watched him disappear into the hundreds of people rushing up and down Madison Avenue. Everyone walked with such purpose in their stride, as though they were fully in charge of their lives and had to be somewhere five minutes ago.
Were
they so in charge of their lives? Was Adrian?

It never ceased to amaze me that with all the millions of people in Manhattan, everyone seemed to have their place of belonging. Unfortunately, for some it was a cardboard box in front of a church or on a side street. But everyone else sort of magically found their way through the maze of organized chaos back to their beds at night.

The bed I had not expected to find myself in was Vinny’s. Before you get all judgmental, let me tell you how it happened.

I was to meet him downtown at Da Silvano’s for dinner. It was right around eight-thirty when my cab pulled up, and looking inside I could see the dining room was mobbed with fashionistas, paparazzi, suits, and Robert De Niro having a quiet dinner at a table outside on the sidewalk with a friend. But no Vinny. There was an Italian car show outside against the curb. Ferraris galore. All around me, handsome, smiling Italian waiters dressed in black moved through the crowd with bottles of Pellegrino and wine and platters of gorgeous food. It was some scene.

Maybe, I thought, Vinny was in the Cantinetta next door, and sure enough, when I stuck my head in the door, I spotted him at the bar.

“’Ey! There’s my girl! Betts, come say hello to my buddy Gino.”

The resemblance between them was so strong, Gino could have been Vinny’s brother. Maybe he was.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m Betts McGee.”

“Look at you! How’d a bum like Vinny get such a gorgeous girl to have dinner with him?”

“Shaddup, Gino. Betts is crazy about me, ain’t cha baby?”

“Crazy? Maybe. About you? We’ll see…”

I mean, you had to laugh. Like a serious laugh the whole way from your toenails to the split ends on your hair. These two made me feel like I had stepped onto the set of
The Godfather
and we were poised to launch into a discussion on waste management and cement booties. Here I was in one of Manhattan’s chicest watering holes with the Corleone boys. How about, it made me question my judgment? But somehow, Vinny had locked my imagination in overdrive and I couldn’t get him out of my mind.

Vinny put a glass of vodka on the rocks with a twist in my hands, which was odd since I had never drunk vodka in front of him or recalled mentioning that I drank it, and I turned to Gino.

“So what do you do, Gino?”

“I’m the chief of heart-lung surgery at Columbia Presbyterian.”

“Oh? I thought Dr. Oz was.”

“Yeah, well, technically he is. But he’s on
Oprah
all the time and traveling for his books, so I’m the guy watching the store.”

“Gino here saved my old man’s life,” Vinny said. “Did a heart-lung transplant and now my dad’s playing eighteen holes four times a week and he’s seventy.”

Still suspicious that Vinny may have procured and delivered the donor’s organs, I had to admit that I had caught myself being an ass
once again. Never judge the proverbial book by its Italian provenance, if you will. I soon learned that Gino was staying for dinner at Vinny’s insistence, which was fine with me. They talked. I drank. Not a good plan if one wants to stay above water.

One vodka followed another and finally we were shown to our table. Vinny ordered for everyone. Grilled shrimp with a bottle of Pinot Grigio, penne all’arrabiata with more Pinot Grigio, osso bucco with a Barbaresco, and pretty soon I was stuffed and barely holding steady in the sobriety department. Thank God I wasn’t driving. But Vinny was. Somehow he paid the check without my noticing and the next thing I knew we were in his big SUV heading for his loft in Tribeca. I objected, but it didn’t register with him. Even in my cloudy state I recognized that Vinny was probably used to getting what he wanted. So rather than argue with him after a perfectly wonderful dinner and some of the most interesting conversation about health care I’d had in years, courtesy of Gino, I agreed to go look at the view from Vinny’s terrace. It wasn’t clear whether Gino was coming along, but it soon became obvious when he said good night, adding that he had enjoyed meeting me and calling Vinny a lucky devil. I smiled at that because had I met Gino first, things might have been different.

But I was draped on the arm of Vinny, and for the remainder of the evening that’s where I would hang.

Vinny owned the penthouse of a loft building that overlooked the Hudson. The view was the single feature to recommend it. He opened the front door, flipped one single switch, and all the lights came on low and Tony Bennett started to croon from hidden speakers. The living room was enormous, with sliding glass doors everywhere. The sofas and chairs were white leather with chrome trim and the tables were glass with chrome trim. There wasn’t a book or a photograph in sight. It could have been a rental.

“Here. Come see.”

Beaming with pride, Vinny pressed a button on an electronic keypad that moved all the white billows of fabric back to reveal a wraparound view of the Statue of Liberty in the harbor and the Gold Coast of New Jersey. New Jersey was alive with the lights of so many lives and there stood Our Lady of the Harbor, the symbol of much of what we hold precious. It was magnificent.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.

“Absolutely,” I said.

He grabbed a bottle of some kind of cognac and two snifters. Well, I had already swallowed enough alcohol to fill my quota for a month, but I knew I wasn’t going to say no to this either.

We stepped out onto the terrace and sighed as we took it all in. It was one of those kinds of nights that New Yorkers live for. Perfect temperature. Light breeze. And a dazzling view of every building.

He put the bottle down on the dining table—chrome, glass, with white pleatherette chairs—and poured out a moderate measure for each of us. We touched the edges of our glasses.

I said, “What or whom are we toasting?”

“I don’t know, Betts McGee. Why don’t we drink to us?”

Wanting to be the good sport, I said, “Why not? Here’s to us and the magic of the moment.”

Well, I guess he took that to be an invitation to initiate a mating ritual and he began making the requisite moves. What can I tell you? Blame it on the wine, Tony Bennett, and the Statue of Liberty. Blame it on New Jersey and the fact that he had a round bed and a mirrored ceiling. (Yes, he actually had a round bed, and all I could wonder was where he bought his sheets.) Something triggered my abandon, and for a while there I thought I had met the love of my life. Around three in the morning, when he was snoring lightly, and when I panicked to realize where I was, I slipped out of his apartment, caught a cab, and went home. I was a scandal and a disgrace and I could not have cared less what my late-shift doorman thought.

The next afternoon five dozen lilac and purple roses were delivered to my door—no small feat for a Sunday in Manhattan. Adrian took possession of the huge bouquet, opened the card, and read it aloud just as I was coming toward the door to answer it myself.

“‘I can’t stop thinking about you. Vinny.’ Who’s Vinny, Mom?”

“Give me those, you bad boy. Vinny is this very nice crazy man I had dinner with last night and drinks one other time. He’s just a friend.”

“Yeah, right.” Adrian laughed. “All your
friends
send you five dozen roses!”

“Why don’t you go concentrate on your dormitory piles and I’ll put these in water.”

I dumped all the flowers in the sink, covered the bottom of their stems with water, and went searching for some containers under the cabinets, pulling out glass vases from old floral deliveries. Five dozen roses
was
excessive. As I clipped and stuffed them in between the greens, I thought, Isn’t there some significance to lilac and purple roses? Vinny may have been the Dean Martin of our day, but he was anything but cavalier. I decided to Google the significances of the colors of roses, and sure enough, there it was. Lilac and purple stood for love at first sight, longing, all things mysterious, magical, and more symbolism than I was ready for on a Sunday afternoon when I was gearing up for work on Monday. Great.

I knew I should have called him immediately to thank him, but the profusion of flowers was overbearing and, frankly, a little creepy. Hadn’t he ever heard of playing hard to get? A one-night stand? Did he think we had some meaningful relationship going now? Somehow, I was just going to have to tell him that there was a probable expiration date on this quasi love affair. In the first place, he was very inappropriate in every way. Not that it mattered. My career was reasonably secure and truly I could align myself with anyone I chose. Heaven knows, half my business associates, serial spouses
almost to the last one, were married to bimbos. Vinny was inappropriate because I already knew his personality would wear thin and that he was one of those men who, although there was zero invitation on your part to be possessed, thought they owned you anyway. The roses were an omen of a proprietary claim. In their heady fragrance lurked his fantasy of a leash. Sorry, Vinny.