Cleopatra and Frankenstein(116)

*

My father is being washed, so I take a break from reading to sit in the hallway. A white-haired woman shuffles past me, trundling her IV along beside her. She looks me up and down.

“I’m trying to pass gas,” she says. “Do you mind?”

*

Nobody’s in the hospital rec room, so I grab the remote from behind the TV and flick through channels. There’s a lot of life still happening out there, I see. A twenty-one-year-old got a million-dollar book advance and spent the money without writing the book. Health insurance rates have reached an all-time high. People’s Most Beautiful Person of the Year is a dog. A Hollywood couple’s divorce has turned ugly. There’s a new reason not to eat cheese.

*

I need to make money. I need to write today. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to eat something. I need to quit sugar. I need to cut my hair. I need to call Verizon. I need to savor the moment. I need to find the library card. I need to learn to meditate. I need to try harder. I need to get that stain out. I need to find better health insurance. I need to discover my signature scent. I need to strengthen and tone. I need to be present in the moment. I need to learn French. I need to be easier on myself. I need to buy organizational storage units. I need to call back. I need to develop a relationship with a God of my understanding. I need to buy eye cream. I need to live up to my potential. I need to lie back down.

*

“Right,” says my mother. “You’re going out.”

I’m dozing on one of the hospital hallway chairs, a pack of Fritos open on my chest. She gives my legs an indelicate kick.

“It’s not good for you, moping around in here all day and night,” she says.

“Ma, I’m not moping,” I say. “My father’s dying.”

“Yes, and he’ll still be dying tomorrow. Here—” She crunches a wad of cash into my palm. “Go into the city. Meet a friend. See a Broadway show. Just be anywhere but here, please.”

“But Ma—”

“Good night and good luck!”

My mother turns on her heel and walks away.

“I don’t even like Broadway shows!” I yell after her.

“Good! Night! And! Good! Luck!” she shouts over her shoulder.

*

I take the PATH train into the city. Somebody has thrown up at the far end of the carriage. Vomit on the train is an event usually confined to major holidays like Saint Patrick’s Day, or at least a long weekend. I already miss the clinical asepsis of the hospital, where all rebellions of the body are accounted for and hidden.

*

I get off the train at Sixth Avenue and stand on the corner. In the past year, the bookstore has closed down and the burger joint’s been turned into a juice bar. There’s a strung-out couple with a pit bull begging for change outside the health food store, but even they felt the need to specify that they’re vegan on their cardboard sign. I don’t mind. I have no nostalgia for old New York, with its hookers, heroin addicts, and constant threat of robbery or rape. I’m happy to sacrifice fast food and hardcover books for general personal safety, which I guess makes me about as uncool as they come.

*

I wander south toward the basketball courts near West Fourth. I have, I realize, nowhere to go and no one to see. I pass the underground karaoke bar on Cornelia I went to with a gang from the office a few months back. Myke revealed himself to have a beautiful baritone and performed a rendition of Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual” that made Jacky and I just kill ourselves laughing. I half expect to find them there when I step inside, but the bar is quiet. What the hell, I think, and book myself a private room.

*

Drinking a margarita out of what looks like a fishbowl and singing three Stevie Nicks songs in a row. Just try to tell me I don’t know how to have a good time.

*

Back outside, a woman bums a light off a man and looks him up and down.

“Your shirt is telling me you live in Brooklyn,” she says.

*

I’m trying to decide if it’s late enough to satisfy my mother or if I should kill another hour getting a foot massage at one of the places on Eighth Street. I enjoy any form of massage that doesn’t require nudity.

I’m looking up to check what street I’m on when a taxi passes. Inside it is Frank. He’s in profile, leaning forward to say something to the driver. It is just a flash. The taxi slides past the green light, and he is gone. It takes everything in me not to drop to all fours and chase the cab across town like a dog let loose.

*

I sit on the PATH train and try not to think about Frank. This is impossible. I try to focus, instead, on listing all the different types of cheese I know off the top of my head. Camembert. Gouda. Swiss. Cheddar. Manchego … Could he really be pining for me? But if he was, why wouldn’t he tell me that Cleo had moved? Maybe he thinks I don’t care? How could he think I don’t care? Provolone. Feta. Stilton. Mozzarella … I didn’t even say goodbye to him the day I left the agency. But he knew how to contact me … Brie. Pecorino. Ricotta. American. He doesn’t think of me, or he would have reached out. This whole thing is in my head. Pepper jack.

*

Not satisfied with my romp into the city, my mother insists I accompany her to her bonsai class. The teacher is dressed like an ancient boy scout, with his socks pulled tight over his knees and shorts cinched at his belly button. His only teaching aid is a piece of paper covered in sketches of variously shaped bonsai held shakily in front of him. He has the tendency to say “This is what we call …” about the most obvious things—This is what we call a leaf—but terms like ramifications and apical bud, apparently, need no additional explanation.