Bono

He introduced himself as Patrick. After he found out what I did for a living, he assured me he knew every great writer who’d ever lived in New York. Arthur Miller was a moody sod, but Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela’s Ashes, was his best friend. But Frank was dead now, of course. Every great writer seemed to be underground clutching his Remington typewriter.

Patrick asked if I had cockroaches. I said I hadn’t seen any so far. He wanted to know how much a month I was paying. I told him I couldn’t remember, which was true. Whatever it was it was bound to be too much, he said.

“And tell me, what is it you’ve written about?” he asked, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and fixing me with a frog-like gaze.

“Um, a cat,” I replied, humbled by the pedigree of his literary friends.

He sucked his cheeks in what I thought was an attempt to disguise disappointment.

“I see now. Would that be a children’s book?”

When I explained it wasn’t, and that the cat was a metaphor in some ways, he said he wouldn’t mind reading it. I told him I’d drop a copy by sometime.

“Good,” he said, lighting the cigarette and inhaling as if his life depended on it. “So, you’ll be coming down for a cup of tea then.”

Confused and vaguely annoyed, I toiled up the final flight of stairs clasping my new old-women’s clothes. I made a point of slamming the door. Still, it was reassuring to know somebody in New York drank tea.

Chapter Twenty-three

BECOMING LOCAL

A cat likes to belong, yet retain her outsider status.

Instead of having breakfast alone at home, I now ate at the deli across Second Avenue. The ambience of ordinary people getting ready for their working day was companionable. I liked scraping oatmeal into a paper cup and topping it with walnuts, berries, and an occasional blob of cream. The cappuccino wasn’t bad, either.

When a cop in a UN uniform ordered his omelets in fluent Spanish, I suffered a pang of language envy. The chef cracked three eggs in a pan with expert ease and turned to me.

“You want turs?” he asked.

“Turs?” I asked, a prickle of discomfort crawling down my neck.

The cop looked down at me, amusement in his eye.

“Si,” the chef said, leaning into my face and shouting. “Do you want turs or no!?”

I’d never heard of turs. Maybe it was some kind of taco.

“Toast,” the cop said, breaking into a smile. “He’s saying toast.”

Blushing, I glanced down at the weapon tucked into the cop’s belt. Though he seemed friendly I’ll never get used to policemen with guns. Still, I couldn’t help appreciating the solid lines of his shoulders as he ran a hand through his glossy dark hair.

“Thanks for helping me out,” I said, as the chef passed him the omelet.

“My pleasure, ma’am. You’re not from these parts?”

“No, but I’m having a wonderful time in your city,” I said to avoid risking arrest more than anything else.

“New York!” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m sick of this city.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s boring.”

I could imagine being wrung out from living in New York, or perhaps in his line of work, even battle worn. But to be bored of New York is surely to be bored with life.

“Where else do you want to live?” I asked.

“I can’t wait to move to a log cabin.”

I’d met people who lived in cabins, admittedly made of asbestos rather than log, and they were desperate to move out.

“Where would you find one of those?” I asked.

His eyes clouded with a dreamy look.

“In the mountains somewhere.”

I didn’t say anything to disillusion him, but he obviously hadn’t tried living in a log cabin lately.

Though I was a foreigner, I no longer felt like a tourist. Like the people trotting behind their dogs along the sidewalks, I’d become a thread in the fabric of the city, an honorary citizen with an animal to go home to.

Locals like me had a different air. We didn’t clutch maps and guidebooks or shuffle about missing everything worth seeing because we were fixated on the map inside our phone. Though we were watchful, we didn’t clutch our handbags as if we were expecting to be mugged any minute.

We reserved the right to complain about the weather, and to exchange glances when a drunk sang loudly off-key in the subway. The tourists were largely invisible to us because they swam around inside their own fish tank, “doing” Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty.

I hardly warranted the keys to the city, but my status was assured the day a middle-aged woman wearing the trademark backpack and walking shoes approached.

“Excuse me,” she asked. “Can you tell me if this is the way to Grand Central?”

I could hardly contain my euphoria. Something about me screamed that I was at home in this great city. She’d mistaken me for a local. Her accent sounded Canadian.

“I certainly can,” I said in the tones of a New Yorker being politely helpful to a less fortunate human. “Just keep going straight on down the hill and turn left. You won’t miss it.”