should be like a good meal, going from soup to... nuts, and we consummated the relationship when I recovered. Leaving the apartment, a chorus of “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” ringing in our ears, we danced our way toward the East River, not caring that the sky was gloomy and certainly not noticing the piles of steaming dog shit before we stepped in it. (Pooper-scooper laws were not yet in effect, but I later learned the traditional theatrical superstition that stepping in dog doo on the way to a performance will bring luck.) Eventually I asked John to help me find a small apartment of my own and moved into a studio in the East Sixties, with a sleeping loft and a pullman kitchen that cost $500 a month (my day rate was up to $60). I indulged my innate disordered slobbiness, with nothing in the refrigerator but unrecognizable leftovers. (Could it be that the green fuzz ball was once a piece of cheese?)
I’d never even heard of brownstones, the nineteenth-century town houses built from the stones of river quarries up the Hudson, until I saw where John lived on the Upper East Side. When he led me up the spiral staircase for the grand tour, I gasped at a room with grand gilded mirrors, plush curved couches, and Victorian bibelots. “That’s where my mother lives,” he explained. “I’m upstairs.”
He lives with his mother ...? I was reassured when I saw his own bachelor quarters, complete with bearskin rugs and leopard upholstery, even as a cover for the bathtub. And John’s mother turned out to be one of his best assets. Frances Bruno was a good head shorter than I and shaped like a Sumo wrestler--she looked as if she could roll right over anyone who got in her way. She had a big nose, short brown hair, and the gravelly voice of an ex-smoker, with an earthy, unedited laugh. She was involved in almost every aspect of the restaurant business, and no task was too insignificant: she had even reupholstered the chairs in the powder room herself. She suffered from bad arthritis and sometimes joined me in the basement swimming pool at the Barbizon, even after I was no longer living there, wearing a thick white rubber cap (although she didn’t put her face in the water) and a bathing suit with a “modesty panel.” Her street wear was more fashionable. Years before, she’d been the head fitter at Saks Fifth Avenue and took me to see how, in the days before computerized everything, the salespeople would send a customer’s money up to the cashier through a system of polished brash pneumatic tubes. She loved to shop, sometimes handing me a suede jacket or a pearl necklace with an apology: “Forgive me, I just had to buy this for you.”
Everything Frances did seemed sophisticated too, not just going to the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center but eating afterward. (Dinner was at six o’clock when I was growing up.) She ordered steak tartare and so did I. I didn’t know from tartare; I figured it was steak, and how wrong could you go? When the plate of ground raw meat arrived at the table, I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea what I’d ordered. I took a bite, managed to swallow, and asked, “Isn’t this too rare for you?” Frances always poured water into her wine, saying, “... or else I’ll be tipsy.” And she was so easily, physically demonstrative. I felt that her hugs were untainted by any envy or reservation. That time had passed with my own parents, who conveyed a subtle discomfort about physical affection. Puberty and lies had distanced us.
Christmas 1968 should have been a triumphant homecoming for me. When the Commercial Appeal was delivered to our house, I was on the cover of the magazine supplement. After dinner, my father and I took one of our traditional walks around the neighborh, where a suburban building boom had created lots of new construction. We hadn’t gotten out of our yard before he said, “Your mother doesn’t turn me on anymore.”
Long pause. My first thought
I’d never even heard of brownstones, the nineteenth-century town houses built from the stones of river quarries up the Hudson, until I saw where John lived on the Upper East Side. When he led me up the spiral staircase for the grand tour, I gasped at a room with grand gilded mirrors, plush curved couches, and Victorian bibelots. “That’s where my mother lives,” he explained. “I’m upstairs.”
He lives with his mother ...? I was reassured when I saw his own bachelor quarters, complete with bearskin rugs and leopard upholstery, even as a cover for the bathtub. And John’s mother turned out to be one of his best assets. Frances Bruno was a good head shorter than I and shaped like a Sumo wrestler--she looked as if she could roll right over anyone who got in her way. She had a big nose, short brown hair, and the gravelly voice of an ex-smoker, with an earthy, unedited laugh. She was involved in almost every aspect of the restaurant business, and no task was too insignificant: she had even reupholstered the chairs in the powder room herself. She suffered from bad arthritis and sometimes joined me in the basement swimming pool at the Barbizon, even after I was no longer living there, wearing a thick white rubber cap (although she didn’t put her face in the water) and a bathing suit with a “modesty panel.” Her street wear was more fashionable. Years before, she’d been the head fitter at Saks Fifth Avenue and took me to see how, in the days before computerized everything, the salespeople would send a customer’s money up to the cashier through a system of polished brash pneumatic tubes. She loved to shop, sometimes handing me a suede jacket or a pearl necklace with an apology: “Forgive me, I just had to buy this for you.”
Everything Frances did seemed sophisticated too, not just going to the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center but eating afterward. (Dinner was at six o’clock when I was growing up.) She ordered steak tartare and so did I. I didn’t know from tartare; I figured it was steak, and how wrong could you go? When the plate of ground raw meat arrived at the table, I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea what I’d ordered. I took a bite, managed to swallow, and asked, “Isn’t this too rare for you?” Frances always poured water into her wine, saying, “... or else I’ll be tipsy.” And she was so easily, physically demonstrative. I felt that her hugs were untainted by any envy or reservation. That time had passed with my own parents, who conveyed a subtle discomfort about physical affection. Puberty and lies had distanced us.
Christmas 1968 should have been a triumphant homecoming for me. When the Commercial Appeal was delivered to our house, I was on the cover of the magazine supplement. After dinner, my father and I took one of our traditional walks around the neighborh, where a suburban building boom had created lots of new construction. We hadn’t gotten out of our yard before he said, “Your mother doesn’t turn me on anymore.”
Long pause. My first thought
Similar Books
