Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life by Valerie Bertinelli Page B

recommended by the hotel’s concierge.
    “Take the smile off your face,” I said.
    “I’m just saying,” he muttered, turning away so I couldn’t see him.
    Following a brief examination, the doctor pronounced me sick. I raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say, “Oh really?” He said I had a chest infection and wrote me a prescription for antibiotics and cough medicine, which a nearby twenty-four hour pharmacy delivered to the hotel.
    True confession: I happened to take too much cough medicine that night and in the morning, and codeine and I don’t mix. Later that morning, I had to do a book signing and I arrived a little dizzy. By the next day, though, I was at a Costco in New Jersey, doing another book signing, and I felt much better. I think it was the comfort of being surrounded by two of my passions, literature and food.
    We ended up staying through the weekend, and by Sunday morning I felt back to myself. As always after recovering from a bout of something, I was incredibly grateful to have my health back. Tom and I went out for breakfast and took a walk afterward. It was a gorgeous day. The air was crisp and fresh, and that and the energy of the city itself brought me fully back to life.
    It was the kind of day when I really love New York. The streets were coming alive. The sidewalks were filled with the delicious smells of food carts, including sizzling sausages and chicken ka-bobs on the grill. I saw a guy chomp down on a hot dog teeming with sauerkraut even though it was not yet noon. I envied him living on the edge like that—ha!
    Tom and I walked past storefronts and down streets until we had gotten lost—lost in the way that the activity itself overtook us and we forgot our original destination, if we even had had one. But to paraphrase the writer Douglas Adams: you may set out for one place but you end up where you need to be. And so it was with us.
    Tom needed a restroom. We walked a couple of blocks until we found a friendly store, Saks Fifth Avenue.
    “Let’s go inside,” I said. “I’ll go to the makeup counter and have some fun.”
    I did exactly that and was paying for some YSL cosmetics when Tom found me again. I gave him a look that said, “Don’t worry. I’m done. You aren’t going to have to wait around while I shop. We can leave.”
    We went outside and debated which way to turn. We thought we might stroll through Central Park, a change of pace from the brisk walks we usually take through the lovely acreage whenever we visit. We headed north but only got about a half block before stopping in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We stared up at theneo-gothic towers, its nearly 160-year-old spires rising the length of a football field. I put my arm through Tom’s and said, “It’s freaking gorgeous, isn’t it?”
    In all the times I had been to New York over the years, I had walked past the church a thousand times and never paused to admire its beauty. Tom suggested we go inside.
    “I think it’s closed,” I said.
    “But look, people are going in and out,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”
    We walked up the stairs and went inside. I was wrong; it wasn’t closed. In fact, it was very much open for business. We were only a few steps in when we heard someone whisper that Mass was starting in five minutes. We looked at each other and decided to stay. We walked down the side aisle and took a seat near the front. We didn’t have a view of the priest or anything else going on in front, but that was all right with me. I was there for the ambiance—or so I said.
    As I told Tom, I hadn’t been in a Catholic church for Mass since I’d taken part in my first Holy Communion in Delaware when I was seven years old. My mother sewed a beautiful dress for me that looked like a little white wedding gown. After putting it on, I felt so pretty that I wanted to wear it all the time.
    Unlike me, Tom had grown up going to church every Sunday, and he continued through most of his adulthood.