Somewhere Along West 53rd

She was innocent like words in a Taylor Swift song, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. Tonight, however, as she was getting ready, she hummed Joni Mitchell with determination. She knew she couldn't uproot her heart, but she could let it blend in with the color of her coat, at least for the night. She bought it because the sales clerk on Park Avenue told her she looked stunning. While tonight's activities didn't exactly call for stunning, she couldn't resist the red.

They took in the museum piece by piece standing together at times, alone at others. She liked the way he paused to study certain paintings; Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie, for instance. He peered through the painting like a marauder as if the connecting squares of color were and underground map to someplace mysterious. Clasping both hands behind his back, he rocked slowly up onto his tip-toes, suggesting that two inches gave him a completely different perspective. She wished she had a photograph of that.

Post-museum meander, he navigated her through Grand Central like a pro and then bought her a hot dog from a street vendor. She asked a stranger to take their picture, the only tangible evidence of the evening. She didn't believe in hanging onto other things like ticket stubs or museum brochures. She was slightly superstitious that way. Although she knew the photograph would end up in the corner of the mirror above her dresser next to an all too common-place post-it reminding her to pick up the dry cleaning, she wanted to remember how they looked that night.

Closer, said the stranger as he peered through the viewfinder.

singing in the

There's something to be said for someone who will sing to you on the other end of the phone. (It's a bonus if they get you to sing back.)

a cautionary tale

She knew the saying, Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but he had been out of her life for so long she wasn't sure she believed it. In fact, she was pretty sure she had forgotten about him completely. Except when she stumbled across the New York City subway map shaped like a heart. The one with Queens in the right corner. She had tucked it away somewhere only to be found by accident, like at the back of a big, deep drawer. She'd pull it out even though it would undo her a little. Even though upon the sight of it she'd realize that like Queens, he still occupied a corner of her heart.

It was all right, she supposed, that he was there and she was here. It was just fine that they were separated by miles, thousands of them. But in those rare heart-shaped map moments, she missed the days when the only thing that separated them was what lies between the two seats of his car. The one they used to sing Jingle Bells in at the top of their lungs. The one the same color as a heart.

not so black and white

The painter had left hours earlier, so he wouldn't mind if I borrowed his brush. I chose a spot where sunlight still washed down the wall. I dipped the brush in the bucket once and scraped off each side on the edge of the can. I skipped the drop cloth altogether. Stepping onto the freshly refinished wood floors I reached up. With slow, even strokes I brushed on one coat, then two. It went on like butter. When it dried, it was the color of vanilla pudding, and not at all what I had imagined. I picked up the other can of paint.

* * *

Walking into the kitchen, that familiar smell hit my nose. Strange how you can be away from a place for so long only to return and feel right at home, like you never left. Light bathed the island. The marble sparkled like sunshine on water in the late afternoon. We'd both forgotten to remove our shoes at the door. I slipped my two red shoes under a bar stool as he walked towards the basket with the day-old paper. He spread it wide and began to study it like a map. I wandered over to the family recipe book which lay open on the counter. His mom had a grading system, a way to keep track of the real crowd-pleasers. "Great!" she wrote. "Good" for those that pleased all but a few, and "Fine" for the mediocre ones. Without looking up he asked what I wanted to make. I thumbed through all the main dish "Greats!" (surprised that meatloaf made the list), skipped the salads and side dishes, and went straight for desserts. Choosing one with only four ingredients, I took it over to the island and put it right on top of what he was reading. "Really?" he said. "But I thought you hated..." I pointed to his mom's writing. A few minutes later we sat at the island licking the spoons that had scraped our two bowls clean. His mom was right. For vanilla pudding, it was pretty great.

* * *

The red button on my phone flashed. It was nearly ten last night when they finally settled on a color. Parchment. Bone. Ski Slope. I had left post-its under each and locked the door on my way out. We like the third one. We'll go with it. Happy it wasn't the vanilla pudding color, I typed "Great!"

dashing through the snow

Last night we took a later than usual for the season jaunt along Christmas Street, strings of lights connecting house-to-house and reindeer prancing off the rooftops. Since you can't be in the Christmas Street neck of the woods and not hit up Bible Street, we headed there next. We took turns reading the signs that announce the arrival of the baby Jesus, skipping some pages completely covered in snow after yesterday's whiteout snowstorm. I'm not sure about my passenger (who may have been a wee bit ill from our supper and perhaps his breakfast and lunch, too) but Christmas isn't Christmas without these two favorite childhood spots. Last night was truly a holiday haut de jour*. After a little coaxing, I got the consent for one last trip: the Christmas window. The "Peas on Earth" display on Michigan probably wasn't the icing on the cake he was hoping for, but it sufficed to sum up the evening before we headed home with our seat heaters on high. I was happy to wake up to more snow this morning, for what is winter without white?

*Reading Eloise every so often isn't cutting it. My French grammar is abysmal. L'aidez-moi, s'il vous plait.