Bono

Chapter Fifteen

IN PRAISE OF MELANCHOLY

Sometimes a cat craves nothing more than solitude.

One of the reasons Lydia had wanted to visit New York was to walk the same streets as her literary hero, Nora Ephron. Sadly, the witty, self-effacing author of Heartburn (along with magnificent works of journalism) had died the previous year. In one of her pieces, Nora made a reference to eyebrow threading as a “fantastic and thrilling” form of hair removal. The practice had yet to arrive in Melbourne in any noticeable way. My daughter had been quick to point out a salon a few doors up from our neighborhood deli. I knew she was keen to undergo the process in homage to Nora, and I was curious. Besides, I wasn’t about to discourage her from exploring vanity as a concept.

Peering through the salon window, we watched a therapist insert a string of white cotton between her teeth. She then bent over her client and manipulated the string into a sort of cat’s cradle. Client and therapist were deep in concentration.

This ancient practice, which began in Asia thousands of years ago, looked enjoyable compared to the agonies of waxing. I have often wondered what kind of sadist dreamed up the idea of smothering hot wax above someone’s eyelids before ripping it off, along with multiple layers of skin.

We bounced into the salon to emerge thirty minutes later chastened, our faces red and stinging. Compared to eyebrow threading, waxing’s a holiday in Fiji. Still, I had to admire Lydia’s brows, which now formed perfect, elegantly shaped arches.

We both wanted to look our best for our big night on the town. Michaela had invited us out, along with Gene, to contra dancing, which she assured us was a simple form of folk dance imported from the British Isles. While musicians played reels and jigs, the caller instructed the dancers in a series of moves that sent them spinning around the room in intricate, aerobic patterns. I noticed that the dancers smiled and laughed a lot, and a good deal of flirting was taking place.

The event was held in the basement of a church hall in Chelsea. At first glance, it seemed a perfectly normal get-together by New York standards—until I noticed the athletic woman wearing an ankle-length blue velvet gown and diamante earrings was in fact a handsomely bearded man. Contra dancing was a vigorous and complicated workout. I was hopeless at it and was soon panting on the sidelines. Lydia was awash with suitors asking her onto the floor. She accepted all invitations, and I was delighted to see how much she was enjoying herself.

Content to drink in the spectacle on my own, I hardly noticed an approaching male. He was unusually short with charcoal hair scraped into parallel lines.

“So you hate dancing, too, do you?” he asked.

As he sat down next to me he exuded moroseness. It didn’t worry me. In these grindingly positive times, I find the company of melancholics refreshing.

“I’d like it more if I was fitter,” I replied.

We fell into mutual silence. Fear of sadness has become a global phobia. The moment someone is unhappy, people send them off to get antidepressants instead of sitting down and talking to them, which in many cases, is probably all they need. Without sadness, life would be flat and superficial like a roadside billboard. It would become impossible to appreciate joy. Besides, every great artist has found inspiration in pools of sorrow.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

I told him.

“I’m from the Upper West Side,” he said. “My ancestors were from Albania. Everyone in New York is from somewhere else.”

I quaffed my nonalcoholic cordial as he unraveled the story of his life, a string of disastrous romances. During a lull in his monologue, he turned his mournful face toward me and asked my marital status.

“Twenty-two years!” he said in a tone that implied I’d confessed to keeping a basement full of sex slaves. “How can anyone be married twenty-two years?”

I didn’t like to say it was a question I’d been pondering, and that I was taking a sabbatical from my own marriage to figure out the answer. Instead, I told him the basis of a long marriage is about hoping the other person forgives your faults. In return, you try to overlook theirs.

“That wouldn’t suit me,” he said, shaking his head.

I agreed it wasn’t for everyone.

“I want one hundred percent passion, sex, and romance,” he said, warming to his theme. “For it to just fade into the two of you staring at your phones over the dinner table . . .”

He threw up a hand in disgust. The man had a point. As Michaela and Gene spun past, locked in each other’s gaze, it occurred to me that perhaps they had the ideal relationship. Though they lived in separate apartment buildings, they’d been together for fifteen years. In their case, it seemed a little personal space kept the oxygen flowing through their romance.

“Wanna know what my problem is?” he said, not waiting for an answer. “I’m lonely.”

New York’s a loner magnet. I’d heard some people go to live there specifically because they crave solitude. They’re convinced they can live more quietly on an island crammed with 72,000 people per square mile than one populated by a single coconut tree. Still, there’s a difference between being alone and loneliness. Personally, I could think of nothing more appealing than being alone and free in this dazzling city.

“Everyone’s alone to some extent,” I said. “Even if you meet your soul mate and spend blissful decades together, one of you has to die first.”

He didn’t seem convinced.

“Besides, when you love someone you’re always putting them first,” I added. “When my mother was dying of cancer she spent her time reassuring the rest of us she wasn’t in pain and everything was going to be okay.”

“Guess it took her mind off things,” he said.

“Sex and passion’s fine, but there’s only one person you’ll go to bed with every night of your life,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one.”

“It’s a good insurance policy,” I said. “If nobody else warms to us, we can at least like ourselves.”

“But I do love someone,” he said. “Wanna know who that is?”

There was no need to answer because he was going to tell me anyway.

“My dog.”

I was immensely relieved. I took his happy confession as confirmation he wasn’t trying to pick me up. Also, the fact he had the sensitivity and wisdom to appreciate the love of an animal meant he was probably going to be okay.

“She has the most amazing personality,” he went on. “We go for walks twice a day, and she’s always waiting for me when I come home. She has this funny, sad face. When my uncle died last year she just knew it. She slept on my bed every night. She’d do anything for me . . .”

I patted the man’s hand and said how happy I was for him. Then it was back to the dance floor for another round of dosi-dos, swings, and allemandes. I loved dancing with happy strangers who were no longer strange at all. Accepted and yet alone in a primal soup was exactly where I needed to be. And yet, I wondered how long the elation was going to last . . .

A couple of hours later, after we arrived back at the apartment, I inspected Bono’s food bowl. The chicken had been licked clean away, but the pill lay on its side, alone and dateless.