The afternoon I flew into Chicago for Mother’s Day weekend, I found Mom hunched over her table, her face spackled with rouge. Before her, piles of junk mail climbed toward the ceiling. Her apartment in the Landmark, an independent living facility, had a view of Lake Michigan from twenty stories up. “I have wonderful news,” she said, setting a teacup in front of me and flopping into an armchair, knees wide apart like a broken doll. “I’m going to win the jackpot.” She gave the cushion a satisfied pat. “It’s a big prize–$167,000. All I had to do was send in a check for $200 for the processing fee.”
“Oh, Mom.” I had just arrived, and I was already tired. “Why do you play these phony lotteries?”
“It’s not phony. Read this.” She handed me a computer-generated letter with the salutation Dear Florence Millwood, added in blue ink.
“Look, Mom. This letter was mass-produced. Everyone in your building probably got one. You can’t all be the winner.”
“But it says I’ve been pre-selected.” Huge square glasses magnified her oyster-color eyes.
“How about if I go through and throw out some of this trash for you?” I asked, indicating the junk mail.
“No, Julie. I want to keep some of these things. You could stay through Monday and help me go through them.” Her face softened. “I’ve organized a dinner for my closest friends, and I’m writing a new poem for the occasion.”
I felt the collar of my shirt tighten around my neck and ran a hand against my throat to loosen it. “I need to get back to Boston,” I said. “I’ve got a big grant proposal due on Tuesday.” On her better days, Mom understood that, as the director of a historic preservation organization, I had a lot on my plate. I didn’t mention that I looked forward to chatting with Pearson, a good-looking guy I’d recently hired to head our architectural consulting department. Whenever I walked to the water cooler, he came out of his lab to chat with me. I planned to sit with him at a luncheon on Monday and hoped it might lead to a date.
Mom’s face fell. Her unspoken reprimand touched a nerve in me that only she knew how to find. I felt my collar pull tighter. I undid a button at the back and put an arm around her. “Be sure to send me the poem,” I added.
She poured me another cup of tea. “Hey, I heard a joke at breakfast this morning,” she said. “The President of the United States comes to the Landmark and says to a man in the lobby, ‘Do you know who I am?’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘but if you ask at the front desk, they can tell you.’”
Mom complained that she couldn’t remember names. Her memory came and went, sometimes when it was convenient. At 89, she was more competent than most people in her building. Last year, she wrote a play for the residents to perform, a parody of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. “It doesn’t bother me that they forget their lines,” she told me after the rehearsal, “but it bothers me that they can’t remember they’re in a play.”
On her bookcase I noticed a photograph of my father I hadn’t seen there before, grinning in his World War II army uniform. He’d died fifteen years ago. “Your father was so handsome,” Mom sighed. “The only man I ever loved.”
Had she forgotten that she’d had to turn over a brokerage account to Dad’s longtime girlfriend whom he’d secretly designated as the beneficiary? I’d idolized my good-looking dad when I was young.
“At least these lotteries provide a little excitement.” Mom tossed a hand in the air with an abandon that surprised me.
Her yellow sectional sofa and the Italian floor lamp with cantilevered arms gave a mid-century feel to the room. The windowsill was lined with dusty figurines she’d bought as a girl from street vendors in Egypt and Mexico, which she believed were genuine antiquities. From the window, I watched the procession of sailboats passing in and out of the harbor below, leaving opal wakes in the green water.
I’d spent a large part of my adult life trying not to be like her. I didn’t believe the pyramids were built by extraterrestrial astronauts. I didn’t try to return jars of mayonnaise that had gone bad in my own refrigerator. I’d said no to a marriage that wasn’t working after many miserable years. I didn’t want to end up old and alone like Mom.
The summer before third grade, when my family was vacationing at the beach near Chicago, Mom woke me up late one night and said, “Come outside. I want you to see something you may never see again.” She held my hand and led me over the sand, still warm from the day’s sun. She pointed to the sky over Lake Michigan, where red and green lights folded and unfolded like curtains. “That’s the Aurora Borealis.” She told me about the earth’s magnetic field and solar storms. I huddled close, and she seemed wise and magical to me. But as I grew up, her fights with my dad got worse. They stopped travelling together, and she joined the Society of Ancient Astronauts, visiting archeological sites all over the world in search of UFOs.
“Julie,” Mom said as she was making dinner, “could you look over my bank statements? They’re too confusing for me.” I found them neatly filed in a desk drawer in her study. Except for her rent and her cholesterol medication, she spent so little money it made me ashamed. Just a long list of five- dollar checks for the lotteries she entered. One charge stood out for three hundred dollars to Saks Fifth Avenue, dated last December. I remembered it was for a silk scarf I’d admired when we went window shopping together, and she’d insisted on buying it for me. I’d never even worn it.
“Tommy’s coming over a little later,” Mom said as we were eating. “He sleeps here now and then.” My brother Tom lived nearby and visited her every week. “I like having him around. He said he’d be here at six, but who knows when he’ll show up.”
“I’m stuck in traffic,” Tom said when he called. at seven thirty. “Be there in twenty minutes.”
“See what I mean?” Mom said. Tom had never finished college, never had a real job. He’d tried his hand at commodities trading, real estate, helping start-ups find investors. An hour later he knocked softly at the door Mom had left ajar for him.
Putting his head in, he called, “Anyone home?” His hair, gelled up in spikes, sat on his head like a toilet brush. Mom, who was five-foot one, stood up to hug her hulking son. He believed people feared him because of his size, but with his drooping shoulders and a tire of fat around his middle, he looked more like Santa Claus than a bouncer. “Happy Mothers’ Day,” he said, handing Mom a grocery bag.
Mom removed the wrinkled tissue paper from the bag and pulled out a leopard-print cowboy hat. “Oh, Tommy dear, you knew just what I wanted.”
“Well, you said you liked it when we saw it at the store.” He gave his goofy laugh.
“How thoughtful of you.” She got him into a stranglehold and kissed his cheek. Earlier I’d given her a nineteenth century brooch I’d bought at an antique shop near where I worked. “It’s lovely,” she said, “but you keep it, dear. I don’t have anywhere to wear it.”
Once Tom and I were settled in the living room, Mom drew up a chair and sat down sideways in it. “Did you hear any more from that telemarketer you told me about last week?” Tom asked.
Which one?” she asked.
“The one who told you to send a cashier’s check for $4,000 to the Cayman Islands.” Tom said, popping a handful of almonds into his mouth.
“I never did any such thing,” she said, flipping her new cowboy hat onto her head and patting the top.
“Yes, you did. You made me drive you to the bank to buy the check.”
Tom and I exchanged glances.
“Look kids,” Mom said, an edge to her voice, “so what if I lose $4,000? I’m entitled to some fun.” She turned to me as if she didn’t trust me. She raised her voice and her face went pale. “Who are you to criticize me? You’d probably spend that much on a new dress. You just want the money for yourselves. But it isn’t yours. Not yet.”
◆
The farewell luncheon for two of our interns was held on Monday in the meeting room at our headquarters, a historic building that overlooked Boston Common. I took a seat next to Pearson, our new employee.
“How’s your mom doing?” I asked. Once when I’d run into Pearson at the water cooler in the hall, he told me his mother was in an assisted-living facility in Minneapolis. The water cooler had gurgled in encouragement.
“I have to find a new facility for her,” he said. “An 87- year-old man who lives down the hall wandered into her room by mistake one night, and she attacked him with a kitchen knife. The police came. The management wants her out.”
“That’s terrible. You should look into my mom’s place in Chicago,” I said. “At least they have locks on the doors. And art studios and exercise classes. Unfortunately, my mom’s favorite activity is playing phony lotteries.”
“If they can cheat her out of a few dollars, they can clean out her life savings. I hear a lot about these cases. Do you have power of attorney?”
I nodded.
“Take over her checkbook and pay her bills for her,” he said. “One phone call to the bank, and it’s done.” His broad shoulders gave me a sense of reassurance.
I edged a little closer. “How’s your work here going?”
“Couldn’t ask for better. I’m consulting at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House in Chicago, advising on renovation of the heating system.” He tented his fingers. “You should visit me there sometime when you’re in town.” I tried not to stare at his eyes, the blue of the Chinese vases on the shelf in my office. I was sixty. He was fourteen years younger.
“I’d like that,” I said. I felt something inside me stirring to life, stretching like a cat.
When the caterer came to clear away the serving platters, I realized our chairs were so close together our arms were almost touching. We were the only ones left. His eyes held mine a beat too long. Overhead the fluorescent light pulsed, and low volts zinged through my nervous system. Our silence seemed to imply some sort of understanding.
The clock began to tick loudly as if scolding me to get back to work. My face burning, I stood up and said something about getting together again. “Always a pleasure,” he said, patting my hand.
That afternoon I asked my administrative assistant to check the consulting calendar. I felt a pang of disappointment when she said that Pearson would be back in Chicago at the Robie House for the next two weeks. “What’s the deal with him. Is he married?” I asked.
“I heard he was married once, but his wife died. Doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Why, you interested?”
“Oh, no. He’s too young for me, don’t you think?”
“Nonsense. Those are old values.”
“Is there a girlfriend?”
“Don’t know. Never heard him mention one.”
I lived alone in my Boston apartment with my cat, Harley Davidson—a name chosen by my ex. Terrence, my husband for ten years, had remarried four years ago, which I didn’t hold against him. He didn’t care about anything but his motorcycle and was always shutting me up at parties.
◆
After Pearson submitted his report to the Robie House, I called the director at the site, who raved about Pearson’s work. When I stopped at his lab to tell him about it, he asked, “Any chance we could get together for dinner tonight?”
I pulled my glasses down my nose and looked into his blue eyes. “I’m game,” I said, as gamely as I could, trying to keep my smile from taking over my face. “Name the place, and I’ll meet you there at 7:00.”
He seemed to know I had a soft spot for him—and I did. He was always coming to my office to borrow books or professional journals.
Getting ready to meet Pearson, I put on my grandmother’s pearls, decided they looked too grandmotherly, and took them off again. Before leaving home, I stretched fresh, starchy sheets on the bed and folded the corners like a gift-wrapped package. The last person I’d slept with, the guy from the plant watering service, wrote bad checks and overwatered my ficus tree. That was three years ago.
Pearson suggested a new Thai restaurant on Beacon Hill. It was on a side street, half a story underground, a cozy room with low lights. Behind the bar, liquor bottles were lined up under a fluorescent light, like altars. “When I’m on the road, I eat all my meals at hospital cafeterias,” he said, his dark curls tumbling over his glasses. “Fast and cheap. An old habit from my Park Service Ranger days. I’m glad to be in a field where I can live in one place for a while.”
“If you want to advance in the field, you should give a paper at next year’s preservation technology conference. Networking—that’s what the consulting business is all about,” I said.
“I’d like to write a paper. Any suggestions for a topic?”
“How about the Robie House heating system? It’s perfect.” The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. “We could author a paper together, if you want. Might make it easier to get accepted the first time around.”
“Name a day, and let’s get started.” As we were leaving, he said, “Walk you home?” I nodded, happy to be with someone large and confident. A wave of warmth ran through me. I was beginning to like the person I was in his company. Walking through the Public Garden, I thought about how nice it would be to have a traveling companion, someone who’d look after me. Someone I belonged to.
The wind lifted old leaves off the pavement and swirled them around our heads. He patted my arm in a gesture of camaraderie. I could feel his shadow looming up and overtaking me each time we passed a lamp post. Out of the semi-darkness, I was aware of a woman approaching. Blond, wearing a skirt and blazer, she appeared to be in her late twenties. But as she got closer, I could see she was closer to forty, her clothes ill-fitting and tattered. “My wallet was stolen,” she said. “I need forty dollars to take the train home.”
I heard a bus exhale as it groaned past on Charles Street. “Where do you live?” I asked. She replied she lived in Springfield. I was thinking the fare sounded high. “Wait a minute,” I said. “There isn’t a train from Boston to Springfield.”
Pearson reached into his pocket and handed her a couple of bills. “You can get a free meal at that soup kitchen off Tremont Street, you know,” he said. The woman snapped up the cash and disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.
“Friend of yours?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
“No. I’ve seen her here before. I told her to stay off the street. Guess she didn’t want to hear it.” He scratched his hair. “When I did my stint for the Park Service on the Capitol Mall, I got pretty good at recognizing who was living in public bathrooms.”
His eyes held my gaze as if we were meeting for the first time. The combination of modesty and pride with which he said this made my heart race. He was kind and confident. If I was ever going to take the lead to start something romantic with him, tonight was the night. The chance might not come again. And just like that, I was someone else, someone bolder and fifteen years younger. As we approached my building, I wondered how I would make my move. If things went wrong, it would be awkward for both of us.
“Want to come in for a drink?” I asked as we approached the door of my brownstone.
He looked surprised, as if he had to remind himself that he knew me. “I’d better not. I’m flying to Chicago tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, just for a moment,” I said, my voice more self-assured than I felt. He followed me in as I fumbled for my keys. “The elevator’s old,” I observed of the iron cage rattling to the third floor, as if that wasn’t obvious. The lift knocked against the shaft, and he stepped closer to catch me if needed. In a rush of excitement, I had to press my palms against the metal bars to stop the world from spinning. “This way,” I said, as the iron door clattered shut behind us.
The living room was draped with shadows. I flung my jacket onto the couch. In the mirror on the wall, other versions of ourselves mimicked our motions. Wordlessly, I led him to the bedroom. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
He couldn’t know how unsure I was. “I think we’d be good together,” I said. Hadn’t I heard that line in some cheesy film? But it was true. We could have a good life, collaborating on writing books, travelling around the world, consulting. Venice, Kyoto, Marrakesh. They all needed our help.
“I may not be what you want.” He glanced around the room, at the fireplace, at my poster of Falling Water.
“I’m willing to find out,” I said in a low, suggestive voice. What can you be thinking of, girl? said a voice in my head.
He squeezed my hand, and I melted. Without his shirt, he was deep-chested and muscular. I rubbed the smooth skin of his sternum as if to summon a genie from a bottle. He reached for me and pulled me to him.
“Just this once,” he murmured, his voice caressing. All the authority I had over him vanished, as if a switch had flicked off. Right then, my connection with Pearson was the only thing in the world that seemed to matter. Finally, this was happening, this gift I had waited so long for and might never come again.
As we were extricating ourselves from each other, I asked if he would stay the night.
“Thanks,” he said, tying his shoes, “but I still need to pack. My plane leaves at six.”
Over so soon. He’d done what I’d wanted. I couldn’t complain.
He buckled his belt, glanced at his watch, and before I could throw on my slip, I heard the door bang shut. He was gone. I froze in disbelief. He hadn’t even said goodbye. The cat jumped on my pillow, and I buried my face in his plushy, gray coat, thankful for the warmth. I would end up like Mom, talking to con men on the phone and writing doggerel verses.
◆
The next day, I kept waiting for Pearson to call me. The silence in my office was full of his absence. The day after that, I still had hope of hearing from him. I wanted his words of comfort, inept though they might be. By the end of the week, I despaired of hearing from him. When someone walks out your door and doesn’t call, eventually you get it. I wondered how I would face him when he returned to headquarters the following week.
That weekend, Mom turned ninety. I returned to Chicago for her birthday. Tom had organized a party despite her protests.
“Turning ninety is a big deal,” I said, as she struggled to pull on her socks the morning of the event. “No wonder so many people are coming.”
At the mention of the party, her face fell. “Let’s just call it off.” She wiped at her nose. “Who are these people? How am I supposed to remember them?”
“You’ve known these people for years,” I said. “You don’t need to be afraid.” Tom had invited our cousins who lived in the area, her companions from the building, and former work colleagues from her thirty-five years as a therapist at a community agency on the North Shore.
“I won’t remember their names. I won’t have anything to say.” She squeezed my hand. “I’ll feel humiliated.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. I’d seen the RSVP list Tom had left on the kitchen counter. “After lunch, I’ll go over everyone’s names with you and remind you who they are.”
“Maybe I can find someplace to hide.”
Mom was napping after lunch, when Pearson called. He’d been consulting at the Robie House for the past week and had been scheduled to wrap up on Friday. “There’s a business matter I need to discuss with you,” he said.
“You could have called me sooner, you know. What can be so urgent now?”
“Not over the phone. I need to talk to you in person.”
“I’m at my mom’s place in Chicago this weekend. It’ll have to wait till I get back to Boston.”
“It can’t wait. I’m still in Chicago. I’ll be there in a couple of hours,” he said.
I gave him the address and wondered how I could have slept with someone I was obligated to work with.
While Mom was asleep, I packed up her junk mail in plastic sacks and dragged them out like corpses. Tom arrived, balancing a white cardboard cake box on two hands. After setting it down like a sleeping infant, he leaned against the refrigerator and opened a jar of pistachios. “How’s Mom doing?” I asked.
“I’m worried.” He looked up at me. “She has these coughing fits. Her friend Bernice told me she gets them at dinner and can’t stop.”
“Can you get her to go to a doctor?
“I’ve tried, but she refuses. She always says she doesn’t want any heroics. She can be pretty stubborn.”
I resisted saying that I knew that.
“Did you see her new sign?” He pointed to a hand scribbled message in yellow magic marker, taped to the cabinet over the sink. I could just make out the words: “In case of a life-threatening medical emergency, I don’t want any intervention.” Why was she doing this? She wasn’t alone like I was. She was surrounded by people who knew her and looked out for her. At the thought that she might be ready to let go, a terror of being old and alone seized my heart.
My cousin Alan was the first of the guests to arrive. He gave Mom a hug. “My favorite aunt,” he said, which seemed to lift her spirits. He was lanky and angular, his chin baggy like a pelican’s pouch, his voice an octave lower than I remembered. My other cousins, who also arrived early, told me they couldn’t stay long. Their stances said they were busy people with other places to go. But they all said flattering things to Mom.
“No one would believe you’re ninety.”
“I’m wearing that necklace you made me.”
“I’m jealous of your lake view.”
Mom’s living room was alive with the sounds of clinking glasses, loud chatter, and occasional guffaws. She’d put on her cowboy hat. She liked showing off. She handed around a photo of herself and two friends dressed up for the Landmark’s Halloween party as the witches in Macbeth.
The Chinese carry-out Tom had ordered filled the air with the smell of barbequed ribs. People were sitting on the floor eating from paper plates when I heard a knock at the door. I opened it, and Pearson walked into the entry hall.
“Still in Chicago?” I asked, aware that whatever there had been between us had come undone.
“Looks like I’ll be seeing a lot of Chicago.”
“What are you telling me?”
“I’m not going back to Boston. I’ve had a job offer managing the new museum of the Chicago Architectural Society. Listen, we’ll have to change the logistics for writing our paper, since we’re going to be in different cities.” He blushed with what appeared to be embarrassment. “I wanted to thank you in person for trusting me with the job in Boston, But this is an opportunity I can’t turn down.”
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“The director of the Robie House is on the Board of the Architectural Society. He asked me to apply a few weeks ago. They made me an offer yesterday and want me to start next week.”
My voice took on a serrated edge. “You mean you’re leaving your job at the Preservation Society with no notice?” I asked, the air between us dense with what was unsaid.
“Come on, Julie. I still want to write that paper with you,” he said with a conciliating wave of his hand. “At my interview I mentioned that you’d taught me about the importance of networking. That’s what won over the search committee. I’ll be in a position to send a lot of consulting clients your way.”
Had he completely forgotten that he’d made love to me less than a week ago? Was I that forgettable? I felt stupid. And oh, those blue eyes.
“Now that I’m settling in Chicago,” Pearson said, scratching his ear, “I’m thinking of moving my mom to the Landmark. Mind if I look around?” He took a step toward the living room.
“Just leave, will you!” I said.
At that moment, Mom came strutting over as if she’d just won a beauty pageant. “Who are you talking to, Julie?” she asked.
“This is Pearson. I used to work with him, once upon a time.”
Surveying the situation, she dangled the fingers of one hand. “Hello there, young man,” she said.
“I hear you’re ninety today. No one would ever guess it.”
“I am in pretty good shape for my age, though my brain isn’t such great shakes,” she said.
“Better than my mom’s, I can tell you. And she’s only seventy-five.”
Mom laughed. “So, you’re Julie’s young man? You’d better treat her right.”
“Oh, Mom, enough!” I was embarrassed, but I was secretly pleased to hear her standing up for me.
Mom threw back her shoulders. “At amateur night in our building last week I sang La Vie en Rose. My voice wasn’t bad, but the men only wanted to look at my legs.”
“Why don’t you sing it now? It’s your party,” he said, slipping a hand under her elbow to steady her.
“Hey, Mom, it’s time for the cake,” I said, pulling her by the other arm. Pearson glanced around the apartment. His eyes swept over the people eating on the floor, located the air ducts, and gazed out the windows to the green point of land sticking out into the lake like a mitten. “I want you out of here,” I said.
“I have to leave now,” he announced, as if it were his own idea.
“Delighted to meet you, Preston.” Mom gave a jaunty wave. As the door swung shut, she said, “I just love your new boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said.
“Well, he’s nice enough to look at.”
I was afraid I might burst into tears. My thoughts sped ahead to the years when I’d be old and alone.
“What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Mom, you were great.” I put an arm around her, and together we wobbled back into the living room, where Tom had been serving the cake.
With a smear of frosting across his cheek, my brother caught my eye. “Hey, who was that guy you were talking to,” he asked. “Your latest one-and-only?”
“Just someone I used to work with.”
“You were always falling for the wrong ones. That guy’s no good for you.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Hey, I’m the one with the gift for reading vibes.” He wriggled his fingers like a magician.
I was about to say, and where has that gotten you, but I couldn’t. Poor Tom. What would he do when Mom was gone?
Cousin Alan stood up and said, “I’d like to propose a toast to Florence.”
Recognizing her moment, Mom stood up and said, “I’m ninety years old today, and I can put my leg behind my head.” She plopped down on the yellow sofa, took hold of one ankle, and hefted her leg in back of her neck, a move she must have learned in her yoga class.
Everyone screamed, “Go, Florence,” and, “Here’s to ninety more.” As the cake was served, the wife of one of my cousins kept asking her to do the leg thing again.
The younger people started to leave early. “Your mom’s a great lady,” cousin Alan said, edging toward the door. “I hope I’m doing as well when I’m ninety.”
It grew late. No one was left but Mom’s translucent older friends from the building, their white hair gone to dandelion fluff. Lying about on the sofa and the armchairs, they watched TV, as they did every night at the Landmark. They talked about how long they’d had to wait for the elevator after lunch, about someone who might have died on the twelfth floor. My stomach sank. Pearson was out of my life, and this was what I had to look forward to.
Late that night I woke up in the pullout bed in Mom’s study. Through the window, the city skyline smoldered in night-time red. An irritating buzz interrupted the quiet. Was it coming from Mom’s room? A secret fear tightened its grip on me. I got up and followed the sound down the hall. It was coming from her room. I tapped on the door. No answer. As I opened it, the roar of static intensified. A blizzard of dots rioted on the unwatched TV screen.
Mom lay there twisted on top of her bedspread, as if the strings that had held her up all day had been snipped. Her beige nylon nightgown hung as limp as the crumpled flesh that sagged from her arms. Her head had tumbled to one side. Her mouth gaped open. I drew close to see if she was breathing. The thought that she might be dead made me afraid to touch her. At last, I heard a light breath leaking out from her lungs, and my pulse calmed. I hoped I’d never have to see her with her mouth hanging open like that again. Turning off the TV that squatted at the foot of her bed like a large toad, I covered her with an Afghan, patted her hand, and turned out the light.
◆
In the morning, I was eager to get home to Boston. When it was time to leave, Mom said she wanted to hang onto me a little longer. She told me her children had been the most satisfying thing in her life, that I had always been a joy to her, even as a baby.
“You’ve always been the best mom,” I said.
“I don’t want an elaborate funeral. I’ve made plans to be cremated.” She handed me a folded piece of paper. “Here’s the receipt from the outfit. All paid for. Make sure the building manager sends me to the right address. And try to stay in touch with your brother.”
“But, Mom.” I was stunned that she had already planned her finale, that she’d chosen such an unceremonious one. Wondering if I would see her again, or if this might be the last time, my throat felt lumpy. “I’ll call you. I’ll come back for the Fourth of July.” My voice cracked. It was hard to leave her. I was sorry for all the times I hadn’t been there for her. Mom would be gone soon. I would do whatever I could not to be like her after I retired. I would travel, speak, write books. But sooner or later I’d end up in an elderly housing facility, having to ask at the front desk where my room was.
“You’d better go over to Sheridan Road to catch a cab,” she said. “Cabs won’t come to the Landmark. They know the old people don’t tip.”
As I walked along through the residential neighborhood, the wind whipped my thoughts around. The sandstone facades of the townhouses were meticulously maintained, their neat little gardens filled with red and yellow tulips. The streets were humming with fast moving traffic. Sheridan Road was overrun with taxis, but none of them were stopping for me.