The Girl in Times Square
Paullina Simons
For my sister, Elizabeth, as ever searching And for Melanie Cain, who has been to the crying room
In the Vatican after they have chosen a new pope, they lead him to a room off the Sistine Chapel where he is given the clothing of a pope. It is called the Crying Room. It is called that because it is there that the burdens and responsibilities of the papacy tend to come crashing down on the new pontiff. Many of them have wept.
The best have wept.
P
EGGY
N
OONAN
1 Appearing To Be One Thing When it is in Fact Another
8 The Disadvantages of Walking to Work
11 Spencer Patrick O’Malley and Lilianne Quinn
PART II THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
20 Just Another Saturday Night for Lily
21 Just Another Saturday Night for Spencer
40 Lily as an Ancient Egyptian
42 The Financial and Eating Woes of a Lottery Winner and a Cancer Survivor
43 A Little Thing about Spencer
49 Baseball as a Metaphor for Everything
51 At Internal Affairs Once More
56 Unraveling at Home and Overseas
57 An Encounter at Tompkins Square
63 A Terminal Degree in Cancer Treatment
71 The Cancer Chick and the Revolutionary
What happened to love? Lily whispered to herself. Has someone else taken all that was given out for the universe, or have I just not been trying hard enough? What happened to overwhelming, crushing love, the kind of love that moves earth and heaven, the kind of love my Grandma felt for her Tomas half a century ago in another world in another life, the kind of love my father says he felt for my mother when they first met swimming in that warm Caribbean Sea? Doesn’t anyone have that kind of love anymore? Isn’t anyone without armor, without walls, without pain? Isn’t anyone willing to die for love?
Obviously not tonight.
They called her Lil. Sometimes, when they loved her, they called her Liliput. She liked that. And sometimes when they didn’t love her they called her Lilianne. Tonight nobody called her nothin’. Lily, hungry and broke, stood silently with her back against the wall watching Joshua pack his things while she remained just a stoic stain on the wall, eyes the color of bark, hair like ash, dressed in black—somewhat appropriately, she thought, despite what he had said: “It’s only temporary, just to give us a short break. We need it.”
He was leaving, he was not coming back, and she was wearing black. Lily would have liked to clear her throat, say a few
things, maybe convince him not to go, but again, she felt that the time for that had passed. When, she didn’t know, but it had passed all the same, and now nothing was left for her to do but watch him leave, and maybe chew on some stale pretzels.
Joshua was skinny and red-haired. Turning his muddy eyes to her, he asked, running his hand through his hair—oh how he loved his hair!—if she had anything better to do than to stand there and watch him. Lily replied that she didn’t, not really, no. She went and chewed on some stale pretzels.
She wanted to ask him why he was leaving, but unspoken between them remained his reasons. Unspoken between them much remained. His leaving would have been inconceivable a year ago: how could she handle it, how could she handle
that
well?
She stepped away from the wall, moved toward him, opened her mouth and he waved her off, his eyes glued to the television set. “It’s the Stanley Cup final,” was all Joshua said, one hand on his CDs, the other on the remote control with which he turned up the sound on the set, turning down the sound on Lily.
And to think that last week for her final paper, her creative writing professor, as if the previous week’s obituary flagellation were not enough, gave them a topic of, “
What would you do today if you knew that today were the last day of your life?
”
Lily hated that class. She had taken it merely to satisfy an English requirement, but if she knew then what she knew now, she would have taken “Advanced Readings on John Donne” at eight in the morning on Mondays before creative writing on Wednesday at noon. Oh, the merciless parade of self-examination! First memory, first heartbreak, most memorable experience, favorite summer vacation, your own obituary (!), and now this.
All Lily fervently hoped at this moment was that today—breaking up with her college boyfriend—would not be the last day of her life.
Her apartment was too small for
Sturm und Drang.
The hallway served as the living room. In the kitchen the microwave was
on top of the only flat counter surface and the drainer was on top of the microwave, dripping the rinsed-out Coke cans into the sink, half of which also served as storage for moldy bread—they did not eat on regular plates; they barely ate at home. There were two bedrooms—hers and Amy’s. Tonight Lily went into Amy’s room and lay down on Amy’s bed, consciously trying not to roll up into a ball.
During the commercial, Joshua got up off the couch for a drink, glanced in on her and said, “You think you could sleep with Amy? I’m going to have to take my bed back. I’d leave it, but then I’ll have nowhere to sleep.”
Lily wanted to reply. She thought she might have something witty to say. But the wittiest thing she could think of was, “What, doesn’t Shona have a bed?”
“Don’t start that again.” He walked into the kitchen.
Lily rolled up into a ball.
Joshua paid a third of the rent. And still she was broke, her diet alternating between old pretzels and Oodles of Noodles. A bagel with cream cheese was a luxury she could afford only on Sundays. Some Sundays she had to decide, newspaper or bagel.
Lily used to read her news online, but now she couldn’t afford the twenty bucks for the Internet connection. So there was no Internet, no bagel, and soon no Joshua, who was leaving and taking his bed and a third of the rent with him.
If only she had had the grades to get into New York University downtown instead of City College up on 138
th
Street. Lily could walk to school like she walked to work and save herself four dollars a day. That was twenty dollars a week, $80 a month. $1040 a year!
How many bagels, how much newspaper, how much coffee that thousand bucks could buy.
Lily was paying nearly $500 a month for her share of the rent. Well, actually, Lily’s mother was sending her $500 for her share of the rent, railing at Lily every single month. And coming this May, on the day of her purported, supposed, alleged graduation,
Lily was going to get her last check from the bank of mom. Without Joshua, Lily’s share would rise to $750. How in the world was she going to come up with an extra $750 come June? She was already waitressing twenty-five hours a week to pay for her food, her books, her art supplies, her movies. She would have to ask for another shift, possibly two. Perhaps she could work doubles, get up early. She didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to be like Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow—in another book, some fifty years down the line.
The phone rang.
“Has he left, mama?” It was Rachel Ortiz—Amy’s other good friend, maybe even best friend, she of the
sudden
ironed
blonde
hair and the perpetual blunt manner. Someone needed to explain to Rachel that just because she was Amy’s friend, that did not automatically make her into Lily’s friend.
“No.” Lily wanted to add that watching the Stanley Cup was slowing Joshua down.
“That bastard,” Rachel said anyway.
“But soon,” said Lily. “Soon, Rach.”
“Is Amy there?”
“No.”
“Where is she? On one of her little outings?”
“Just working, I think.”
“Well, tomorrow night I don’t want you to stay in by yourself. We’re going out. My new boyfriend wants to take us to Brooklyn, to a nightclub in Coney Island.”
“To Coney Island—on
Monday
?” And then Lily said, “I’m not up to it. It’s a school night.”
“School, schmool. You’re not staying in by yourself. You’re going out with me and Tony.” Rachel lowered her voice to say
TOnee
, in a thick Italian accent. “Amy might come, too, and she’s got a friend for you from Bed-Stuy, who she says is a paTOOtie.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Lily lowered her voice to a whisper. “Joshua’s still
here.
”
“That bastard,” said Rachel and hung up.
“What, is Rachel trying to fix you up already?” Joshua said. “She hates me.”
Lily said nothing.
That night, after the Stanley Cup was over, up and down the five flights of stairs Joshua traipsed, taking his boxes, his crates, his bags to Avenue C and 4th Street, where he was now staying with their mutual friend Dennis, the hairstylist. (Amy had said to her, “Lil, did you ever ask yourself why Joshua would so hastily move in with Dennis? Did you ever think maybe he’s also gay?” and Lily replied, “Yes, well, don’t tell
me
, tell that to Shona, the naked girl from upstate New York he was calling on my phone bill.”)
Who was going to cut Lily’s hair now? Dennis had always cut it in the past. Why did Joshua get to inherit the haircutter? Well, maybe Paul, who was Amy’s other best friend, and a colorist, knew how to cut hair. She’d have to ask him.
Joshua had the decency not to ask her to help him, and Lily had the dignity not to offer.
Around 3:00 a.m., he, with his last box in hand, nodded to her, and then left, rushing past her
The Girl in Times Square
, her only ever oil on canvas that she had done when she was twenty and before she met Joshua.
“There are things about you I could never love,” Joshua had said to Lily two days ago when all this started to go down on the street.
“If I knew that today were the last day of my life, I’d want to be like the girl in the famous postcard, being thrown back in the middle of Times Square, kissed with passion by a stranger when the war was over.
Except—that isn’t me. That is somebody else’s fantasy of a girl in Times Square. Perhaps it’s Amy. But it’s a fraudulent Lily.
The real Lily would sleep late, until noon at least, with no classes and no work. And then, since the weather would be warm and sunny on her last day, she would go to the lake in
Central Park. She would buy a tuna sandwich and a Snapple iced tea, and a bag of potato chips, and bring a book she was re-reading at the moment—Sula by Toni Morrison—slowly because she had time, and her notebook and pencils. She would spend the afternoon sitting, eating her food, drawing the boats, and Sula’s Ajax—with whom she was perversely in love—reading, thinking about what to render next. She’d have a long sit-and-sketch on the rocks and on the way home at night she would go to Times Square pushing past all the people and stand against the wall, looking at the color billboards animating and the towers sparkling, red green traffic lights changing and blue white sirens flashing, the yellow cabs whizzing by. The naked cowboy standing in the street, playing his guitar in his hat and underwear, and the families, the children, the couples, the young and the old, lovers all, taking pictures, laughing, crossing against the lights.This girl in Times Square stands by the wall while others cross against the light.”
Lily turned away from the door and stared out the open window into the night, on Amy’s bed, alone.