Bono

Chapter Forty

OLD HAUNTS

A cat feels at home when she is invisible.

My heart sank when Michaela told me Monique and Berry had gone away for a couple of days. The Bono reunion was on the back burner.

With her usual sixth sense, Michaela invited me out to a night of my dreams—dinner at the Algonquin Hotel followed by a Broadway performance of An American in Paris. For years I’d been in awe of the Algonquin and the witty circle of writers who met for lunch there every day throughout the 1920s. Fortunately, the hotel has maintained enough dark wood and carpet to keep the ghosts of Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross, Robert Benchley, and the rest alive.

Michaela and Gene were waiting for me in the foyer. As we threw arms around each other it felt as if we’d been apart for five minutes rather than two years. Whenever our kids fret over losing friends who are moving away, I assure them distance has little impact on true friendship. Besides, intermittent catch-ups with people you have a shared history with is, like the finest cognac, all the more treasured for its rarity.

“Have you met Matilda?” Michaela asked.

Casting the name through a mental list of her friends and colleagues, I couldn’t think of a Matilda.

Michaela pointed across the room at a gray and white Rag-doll cat who was busy greeting guests.

“The hotel cat,” Michaela said. “There’s been a Matilda at the Algonquin since the 1930s. Different cats, of course, but the same name. Unless it’s a male, and then it’s called Hamlet.”

“How Shakespearean,” I smiled.

“Well, we are in the theater district,” Michaela said. “And it was an actor who suggested the name.”

I crossed the room and bowed before Matilda. My homage was acknowledged by a regal lick on the back of my hand.

“Matilda has her own Facebook page,” Michaela said.

Of course. What self-respecting hotel executive wouldn’t?

* * *

I’ve always loved Gershwin, and An American in Paris was a delicious concoction. The dancers reminded me of Bono and how his feet barely touched the floor. Watching a young man flex his spine backward, I winced and hoped he wasn’t lining himself up for arthritis a few years down the road. When I was younger, I used to think dance and acrobatics was to do with showing off. These days, I watch openmouthed and wonder how a human body can do such things.

I caught a cab back in time to listen to my neighbor saying goodnight to Darling . . . you hang up first . . . go on . . . love you . . . are you still there? . . . Oh. No, you hang up!

One of the traits I identify with cats about is their invisibility. Compared to roughly 85 million cats in the United States, there are only about 75 million dogs. Cats are tucked away in houses and apartments. They observe the world from the top of garden walls or from under hedges. Cats spy on people, but we seldom see them. They’re the tail disappearing behind a fence, the curtain twitching inside a window. Aware of others’ sensitivities, cats take pains to leave no trace. Dogs, by contrast, demand center stage. They dump on the sidewalk on the assumption someone else will deal with it. On the streets of the Upper East Side, it seemed every third person was escorting a tiny pedigree on a leash. I stopped outside grooming parlors to watch dogs getting outlandish haircuts. The window of a doggie day care framed a restless sea of pugs and Pomeranians, miniature poodles, and terriers. A tired-looking woman trailed after them with a mop. She wasn’t about to win Happiest Employee of the Year.

Last time I was in New York, I didn’t have to take the subway seriously. Living on the Upper East Side was a different matter. Provided I stayed clear of rush hour, I found the subway system endearingly archaic and almost spacious compared to Tokyo’s. I read somewhere it’s advisable to avoid eye contact with other passengers, but that applies to just about any transport system these days.

After getting off at Grand Central, I wandered past familiar shops and boxes of orange tulips up to Second Avenue. It was always spring in New York. There was so much I’d missed—the rumble of trains under my feet, the steam gushing from grates and manholes as if the city was about to erupt any second. And the fire hydrants. Every other city I know has fire hydrants you wouldn’t look twice at, but New York’s are miniature works of art. I stopped off at the bakery where Lydia and I had demolished a pastry with a million calories. I ordered one for old time’s sake, which was a crime seeing there was no one to share it with. Like someone haunting the scene of an ancient love affair, I made my misty-eyed way up to the corner of 44th. Once the handbag sellers had assessed I wasn’t a potential customer, they turned their backs. Outside our old building the same old beggar was sunning his stump on the steps and munching something out of a paper bag. I wished I’d been bold enough to make friends with him when I’d been living there.

Standing on the sidewalk and gazing over his head up at the red door with the heart-shaped lock, I almost felt like I was home again. Though the neighborhood was achingly familiar to me, I was back to being an outsider. Even if I could work out which buzzer belonged to Patrick, he’d probably forgotten me. I had not caused a ripple on the surface of his existence. In two years, nothing and everything had changed. Bono and I did not live there anymore.