Shrimp (27 page)

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We couldn't talk longer--the game was starting back up and the guys were whistling and teasing Luis to tear himself away from the fence. After Luis and I said our goodbyes, I headed across the street to the street corner subway stop where I saw Danny waiting for me at the spot where he'd told me to find him after he left Crate & Barrel.

"I did not just see you and a guy who looked disturbingly like Luis programming each other's numbers into your cell phones, did I?" Danny said.

"You need glasses, old man," I told him as we bopped down the stairs into the skanky-smelly-glorious subway station.

When we got downstairs to the subway platform, as if on autopilot I walked right over to the platform edge to peek into the subway tunnel to see if I could see the distant train lights on the rails indicating a train approaching the station, as Luis had taught me to do last summer. "Check out the New Yorker girl!" Danny said. A train barreled into the station and Danny yanked me back from the edge by the collar on my leather jacket. "But not enough to know not to stand on the platform edge when the train is coming in, idiot!" he shouted over the thundering sound.

We rode the train a few stops to Chelsea, where we walked toward the culinary institution where Danny was going to find out about a potential teaching opportunity. While we were walking down the street I asked Danny, "What is it about the randomness of running into people in Manhattan? I hardly know anybody in the world at all, and yet both the short times I've been in Manhattan, I've run into people I knew."

Danny said, 'Aaron and I used to call it OINY--Only in

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New York. I have no idea why that happens, but this city is full of those stories. I just ran into a girl I went to college with while I was at Crate & Barrel--she was choosing her wedding registry. Have you ever watched a TV show that takes place in Manhattan and noticed how people are always running into one another, in this city of millions? That's because it happens all the time here. Don't ask me why. New York, man.- the world's biggest small town."

We took the elevator up into the culinary institute building in Chelsea, and walked down a long hallway past a series of classrooms with glass windows. In the first window I saw a chocolate-sculpting class putting the final touches on an all-chocolate, lifelike display of white chocolate roses in a dark chocolate vase. Another classroom had a roomful of students wearing chef's whites, standing over a steaming wok, stirring veggies and meats. The last room we passed must have been the Italian cooking class, because the garlicky smell of fresh tomato sauce and the dreamy looks of a dozen middle-aged students hinted that they, like Nancy, may have read
Under the Tuscan Sun
one too many times.

We stopped at an empty kitchen, where Danny led us inside. The haze he'd been in since reentering his ghost town apartment appeared to retreat, and I could see his face coming alive again as he admired the immaculate kitchen full of state-of-the-art industrial equipment. "Why don't you open another café?" I asked him.

"So much work; so much money." He lingered over the huge KitchenAid mixer on the floor, touching his hand along the rim of the bowl so big you could almost jump into it and take a bath. "I don't have it in me right now. I just

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want an easy teaching job, a regular paycheck without worrying if the balance sheets are in the red or black this month. I can also pick up some cash making some cakes for a friend's bakery. I'll probably have to get a roommate to make my rent if I'm just working part-time, but that's fine. Owning and operating a café is so much work, CC--and I can't go it alone, without an Aaron."

A lady wearing chef's whites and a most excellent white chef hat came into the room and grabbed Danny in a hug. "Looks who's home, finally, back where he belongs! So glad you could make it over during the break in my class!" she said to him.

Danny introduced me to her, saying, "This is my little sister, Cyd. Yeah, I know, 'little* indeed. I brought her along so she can check out the place. She's thinking of enrolling in some courses here."

"No I'm not...," I started to say, surprised, but Danny hustled me from the room because his friend had only a short break to tell him about the job opportunity.

I went outside the empty kitchen and sat on a bench while I waited for my "big," sneaky brother. Along with the many delightful smells coming from the kitchens, I also smelled a plot brewing to distract me from Shrimp.

I whipped out my cell phone and placed a call to Shrimp at Some Guy's house in Berkeley, praying Shrimp and not Some Guy or Some Other Guy at the group house would pickup the phone. I scored. "Hey, beautiful," Shrimp said when he heard my voice. I slid to the other end of the bench, away from the chocolate class, not wanting the heat from the high degree of melt in my heart at hearing Shrimp's gravel voice to affect the class's brilliant chocolate

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sculptures. "You're not falling in love with New York and forgetting about our plans?" he asked, teasing.

"No way," I answered. Though I acknowledge that the threads the chefs wear, all white and crisp and geometric, are indeed most excellent and accessorizeable and tempting.

"Good. Cuz I'm working on a special piece for you this weekend, to introduce you to a new idea I have about what we should do next year. I'll tell you about it when I pick you up at the airport tomorrow night."

"Tell me now!" Knowing that Shrimp was also thinking about variations on our plans to be East Bay people, I didn't feel so bad about my momentary lapse of considering a pitch for New York.

"Nope. You gotta wait. No words shall be spoken until the art is complete. Gotta run. Some guy here needs the phone." I would so buy Shrimp a cell phone if I didn't know he'd just toss it into the trash, or break it apart and use the parts for an art piece, like he did with the phone Wallace gave him that Shrimp turned into
Cell Phone Interruptus--
smashed cell phone parts glued onto a crucifix with green-sprinkle acid rain falling from the top of the canvas.

Hearing Shrimp's mood brightened my spirits, so I decided not to be mad at Danny's potential manipulation, trying to weasel me to NYC so he could make me fall in love with this amazing city and this place in Chelsea that my eyes and fingers and taste buds were itching to experience.

"So great place, huh?" Danny said when he came out of the kitchen.

"Eh, whatever," I said.

What was not a great place was the "club" where

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Aaron's band was playing that night. The "club" was really a narrow pub with a tiny stage at the back, where no one in the place cared about the no-smoking rule and I couldn't imagine them caring about a band playing, either, cuz most of the patrons had their eyes fixed on the Knicks game on the television.

Aaron was sitting at the bar nursing a Guinness when we arrived that night. His long strawberry blond hair was thinning at the top of his head and cut short to just below his ears, falling around his face just enough to partly obstruct a new double chin. When he stood to greet us, I noticed there was a lot more pudge creeping out over his belt buckle than last summer, like he'd been on a diet of beer and complacency since Danny was no longer dragging him out of bed in the mornings to go running in Battery Park. Aaron hugged me but avoided eye contact, then he and Danny had an awkward moment where one tried to kiss the other on the cheek while the other went for a hug, then vice versa, ending with a weak handshake and a pat on each other's arms. They both looked like they knew this first meeting since the breakup, after almost a decade together, was something they had to get through, but they'd both be relieved when it was over.

Aaron's band, My Dead Gay Son, which used to be a motley group of guys he and Danny knew from college who got together to jam at The Village Idiots, with no favored music style, just a melting pot of covers--punk to soul to rock to show tunes--was now a nameless one in search of identity. Aaron said they were thinking of changing their name to Recession Apathy or Hamlet Syndrome, because a majority of the guys had lost their jobs or their wives or

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lovers in the last year, and none of them knew what they wanted to do with their lives, except play in a band. The band wasn't bad, focused primarily on alt-country type tunes, but rock stars these guys were not.

The last time I'd seen My Dead Gay Son play had been at The Village Idiots last summer, when the jammin' band sounded relaxed and fun. Listening to the dudes play now, tighter from more rehearsal time and with a focused repertoire of songs, was much less fun: They looked and sounded like a sad sack of nice fellows. The experience reminded me of Frank Sinatra Day back in December, when I'd worked the counter at Java the Hut after many months away. I wanted to experience Danny and Aaron as the great couple again, hanging with them at The Village Idiots while My Dead Gay Son warbled through covers just for fun, but everything was different. The past was over,
done, finito.

There was nothing to do now but look ahead, because you can't force good times to come back, I suppose. Things change. People change. True love maybe can just fade away.

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*** Chapter 36

Easter brunch with
Frank and lisBETH demanded no less than a shocking fashion statement from me. I went for the short skirt, sure, but the Goth getup and combat boots would not be adequate for this occasion. I wanted the full "bad girl" look to meet Frank's and lisBETH's impression of me as the wild love child. And what could be more shocking than a "bad girl" wearing a horrendously tasteful, pale pink Chanel suit swiped from her mother's closet, with the couture shoes to go along with, and sheer ivory stockings to complete the look? I'd blown out my hair to WASP straightness, added a headband, and placed a pendant around my neck--the heart-shaped Tiffany necklace Frank had sent me at Christmas, salvaged from the donations pile for the occasion. For makeup, I applied some baby powder to my cheeks to get that society-lady anorexic death glow, and I glossed my lips with a beige matte lipstick. Admiring myself in Danny's full-length bathroom mirror, I considered hanging on to this outfit for Halloween on Castro Street, where I could stroll through the parade introducing myself as Mrs. VonHuffingUptight and hand out museum docent guides to the crowds.

"We're late!" Danny shouted to me from the living room. "C'mon already, CC! I've never known you to be one of those girls who takes an hour to get dressed--what's the problem already?" My look complete, I went to the living

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room. Danny's face was cross until he caught a glimpse of me in front of him. Then he laughed so hard tears ran down his face and he fell off the sofa. He was still laughing when we got into the cab to take us to Frank's on the East Side.

We asked the driver to let us out a few blocks from Frank's building, because even though we were late we were both dreading this brunch, and also we wanted a little walk so we could admire all the church ladies strolling the avenue in their Easter dresses and fine hats. A guy we passed on the street tried to hand me a sticker. People are always trying to hand you something in Manhattan--advertisements for psychics, band gig flyers, Jesus-freak paraphernalia--so you get used to not reaching out when they try to push paper into your hand. The sticker this guy was trying to hand us said mean people suck , and I sidestepped him to turn it away, but Danny, who was getting tenser as we neared Frank's building, knocked the guy's hand away when the guy tried to shove the sticker in Danny's face. The sticker guy yelled after Danny, "You need this!" Mrs. VonHuffingUptight turned back around and told him, "No, you do, asshole." Mean People Suck sticker-givers are my new most-hated people, after the ubiquitous counter clerks anywhere you go now who have good karma ! tip jars at their cash registers. Perhaps I am a sucky mean person destined to walk through life without Good Karma! Oh, well. I accept my fate. Could you all go away now, please?

"Well done, Lady Cyd Charisse of New York City," Danny said.

Frank lived in an upscale high-rise condominium building where everything looked and smelled new and fresh. A lot of apartment buildings in New York are old,

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dank on the inside, and sooty on the outside, but Frank's was a relatively new building, flashy, with a lobby that had a chandelier, big floral displays, and gilded mirrors. The doorman knew Danny but did not remember me, perhaps because of my disguise, and he sent us up without buzzing Frank's apartment.

I was hella nervous as we rode the elevator up into the sky and then walked down the hallway to Frank's apartment. My visit last summer had ended up fine, in this epically disappointing kind of way. We all sort of got along by the end, but I also wouldn't say there was any grand love connection, except between me and Danny. It was like, Well, I met you all and I am glad I did and you are all sort of pains in the asses and you probably think I am too, but I think we can all agree we had some good moments together, and let's just leave it at that. Family, for better or for worse--though I'll take my real San Francisco family over you in a heartbeat. No need to send letters or cards or make regular phone calls or visits, just be well and I'll see you when I see you. Now here we would be, seeing one another again. I can rip on Frank and lisBETH plenty, but the fact of actual face time with them makes it harder for them to be caricatures in my head instead of live and in-the-flesh blood relations.

Frank opened the door. Geesh, he's tall and good-looking in that scary aging movie star way. Sometimes last summer I would sneak long looks at him when he wasn't paying attention, so I could etch his face into my memory. His face looked as I recalled--like mine--but I'd forgotten the sheer physicality of him: his height, his shiny black hair that should have the dignity to be graying or thinning at his advanced age (I bet he dyes it), his orange-tan skin (salon,