“There are no quiet places in New York, dollface,” I say. “You know that. But I write funny poems, and most humor starts from irritation. There’s plenty of that here.”
“They say oysters need grit to make pearls,” says Peter. “Take this detritus, these obstacles, and make of them art.”
“Better that than just a peevish oyster,” I say.
Peter reaches for a mazapan, and I notice a tattoo—a tiny black anchor—on his inner right forearm.
“Nice design,” I say, pointing. “Very nautical. Very classic.”
“Thanks,” he says. “My dad worked on the docks when I was growing up in Baltimore. Loved—still loves—the sea. He won’t talk to me anymore. I never go back there, but I miss it. This was one of the ways I let myself say good-bye. But you don’t want to hear about all that sad crap. It’s New Year’s Eve!”
“See, Peter? This is why Lillian is so great,” says Wendy.
“Why? Because most geriatric types don’t care for tattoos?”
“Kind of,” says Wendy. “I notice the way you notice things.”
“Peter, maybe Wendy has told you,” I say, “but I spent a large part of my life writing advertising for R.H. Macy’s. There’s a surprising bit of trivia about their company logo that I think you’d enjoy knowing.”
“The big red star?” says Peter, leaning in like a conspirator. “Do tell us, Lillian. Don’t hold back.”
I play along, looking theatrically from side to side as if in search of enemy agents, but the gesture feels wrong: false, or forced, as if I’m humoring children who are humoring me. I feel my mood swing, helped along by the pink punch, which I seem to have drained my cup of.
Peter and Wendy are kind, but I don’t belong here. If I’m still present at midnight for the countdown and the kissing, then they’ll want me to feel included, and that simply won’t work. If I could feel fairly certain of being ignored—just a weird old lady people watching in the corner—then that might be fine. But Peter and Wendy will be so concerned that I have a good time that I am certain I will only be a disappointment to them.
“That star,” I say, “comes from a tattoo that Mr. R. H. Macy himself got at the age of fifteen. Back when he was a sailor. He worked on a whaling ship out of Nantucket, the Emily Morgan.”
This fact now sits invisibly between us, satisfied with itself. Daring us to take it up, to make use of it. It’s impossible. Why did I tell them? What could Wendy and Peter possibly do with this information? With the news that an iconic red star recognized by every eye in the city—one that hung like a beacon over the best years of my life—was inked on the skin of a teenaged Quaker the same year that Queen Victoria took the throne? I’ve known it for more than a half a century, and I’m still not sure what to do with it myself.
“No shit,” says Peter. “I had no idea that that’s where they got the logo.”
We sit in companionable silence, contemplating distances and durations, the beginnings and the endings of things. That’s what I’m contemplating, at any rate.
“Can you please,” says Peter, “please, please tell me the star was on his ass?”
“Love to,” I say, “but can’t. It was on his hand.”
“Dammit,” Peter says. “Well. Still a good story, Lillian.”
And that, I figure, is as good a curtain line as we’re likely to find. “On that note,” I say, standing up, “I think I’d better be going.”
“What?” says Wendy. “You just got here! Come on, stay.”
“It’s less than a half hour to midnight,” says Peter. “At least ring in 1985 with us.”
I hesitate, not because I’m reconsidering, but because I can’t find my balance. The floor under my feet and the table under my hands both seem to be swaying—like the deck of a whaling ship, I think, or maybe a prosperous dry-goods store, afloat somehow on the high seas—and adrift in opposite directions. For a moment I’m terrified that I’ll fall, a wet bag of splintered bone flung in the midst of everyone’s New Year. I must be having a stroke, or suffering some other profound bodily betrayal: the final catastrophe that I’ve been waiting for. Then I remember that it simply has been decades since I consumed this much liquor in an eight-hour stretch.
I regain my poise. I conceal my distress.
“Well, that’s just the thing,” I say. “It is nearly midnight. And I am notoriously terrible at ringing out the old and in the new. Always have been. Now, don’t misunderstand: You’re both just wonderful. And this is a great party. Now that I know where you live, and how close it is to my place—not even two miles—I’ll come visit again, if you’ll have me. But I have a long tradition of ending years in my bathrobe to uphold, and I’m cutting it awfully close.”
“All right, Lillian,” says Peter. “I’m sure you know best. But we’ll miss you.”
“You’ll let us get you a cab,” says Wendy, “won’t you?”