The rose seller:
Red shirt with ruffles (Flamenco! Flamenco!)
Black jeans (Old Navy sale)
Black pointed shoes (stolen from cousin)
Amla hair oil (Dabur)
Total est. cost: $65
‘I think you both movieee starrrrs.’
When Annie crept back towards the sofa bed after an early morning bathroom visit, Lana woke up and immediately burst into tears. ‘Oh, it’s all true, isn’t it?’ she asked mournfully as she pulled the sheet over her face.
Annie sat beside her and stroked her back. ‘Why don’t you come back to the hotel with me? Have breakfast with us. You’ll feel much better once you’ve washed your face and had something to eat.’
‘But what will Dad say?’
‘About what?’
‘About the whole Taylor thing. I mean, we were just having dinner with you on Friday night. It’s only Sunday morning and I’m already dumped,’ she wailed.
‘Ed will only say nice things. You know he will. He’ll feel very sorry for you and want to cheer you up. So c’mon, wash face, nice outfit and we’ll go and have a lovely breakfast.’
This was Ed’s last day in New York as he was leaving very early on Monday morning. There were many special things he’d planned to do on his last day: a music museum visit, the Empire State Building at sunset once again, a candlelit dinner in a tiny Jewish restaurant. But now all these plans came with a terribly sad teenager in tow.
Ed and Annie totally wanted Lana to come with them. They were hoping to cheer her up and could never have left her weeping by herself in the apartment. But the day wasn’t as either of them had imagined. Lana was a sighing, tear-stained presence. She tried very hard not to cry all over the sparkling city views, but letting her drink a cocktail turned out to be a vast mistake.
Finally, right in the middle of dinner, she declared a terrible headache and Annie and Ed found themselves gulping down the remains of their meal so they could hurry her back to Elena’s.
‘Do you want me to stay with you, my darlin’?’ Annie asked with as much big-heartedness as she could muster at the apartment door.
Fortunately Elena was there to intervene. She put her arms around Lana and insisted that she would be in charge of her for the night.
‘I don’t think Lana wants to go out,’ Annie warned.
‘No. I stay in too,’ Elena replied, ‘but you two must go out. Lana and I look after each other. Single girls have to stick together. You two lovers go off and enjoy Ed’s last night in New York.’
‘Are you honestly single?’ Annie asked Elena, ‘have you not made up with—’
Elena shook her head vigorously and waved away any further questions about Sye.
‘But …’ Annie tried to protest.
‘Go out!’ Lana told her. ‘Or I’m going to feel even worse.’
As Annie stepped out of the building’s front door, her hand in Ed’s, the great burst of energy that was New York at night took hold of her.
Lights were bright; cars were honking, sirens still blaring up and down the nearest avenue. People were out and dressed up big even though this was Sunday, the very last gasp of the weekend.
‘How tired are you?’ she asked Ed.
‘Hardly tired at all,’ he replied, although when he turned to grin at her, his eye bags told an entirely different story.
‘Shall we go out? You know, just go out without a plan – like we used to. Well, no,’ she remembered, ‘we never used to because I’ve always had children, but do you remember, way back, going out and not knowing where you were going or how long you’d be out for? Can we do that? Just for once?’
‘Yes!’ Ed agreed with a grin, ‘that’s what we’ll do. Go have a New York adventure!’
First of all, they bar-hopped in the streets off Union Square. Sipping long, icy cocktails, they chatted but also could not help listening in on the loud and totally New York conversations going on all around them.
‘Poor Morty, I kept telling him to go to the dawcta’s. I’d say “go to the dawcta’s Morty, it might be serious.” But no, he just kept taking the tablets, hoping it would go away. And he’s dead now. Let that be a lesson to us all. If something’s not right, you’ve got to go to the dawcta’s.’
‘What kind of a wedding is this going to be, already? They’re not going to use Schwartz’s for the flowers? Why not? Everybody knows if you want the best flowers, you gotta go to Schwartz’s. And have you seen the size of her ring? Microscopic. Really. Barely half a carat. She’s throwing herself away.’
‘My date? My date was terrible. Truly. He had alopecia and eczema and, oh my God, he grew up in Queens!’
‘Yeah, well my therapist wants me to think about Freddie and how this is affecting him. But I’m thirty-seven, it’s time to think about me and ask: whaddo I want?’
Ed drained the last of his drink and leaned back in his chair: ‘He’s dead now, let that be a lesson to us all,’ he repeated, making Annie laugh.
‘What would you like to do tonight?’ he asked, ‘what’s your idea of New York big night out heaven? Do you want to go and queue for a nightclub? Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge?’
Before Annie could answer, a small, sharp-faced man in a pinstriped waistcoat and vibrant red, ruffled shirt appeared at their table.
‘You are a very beeeeeauwtiful couple,’ he said in a heavy accent Annie couldn’t place. ‘Famous? I think I know your faces from somewhere.’
Ed shook his head and laughed.
‘Yeeeeees. I think you both movieee starrrrs, but trying to keep it quiet, no?’
‘No,’ Annie assured him.
As if by magic a large bunch of roses was revealed.
‘Ah, roses for sale.’ Ed understood the flattery now.
‘It has been so long since we were offered roses for sale!’ Annie exclaimed.
‘I’ll take three red ones,’ Ed volunteered without hesitation.
‘Thirty dollar,’ the man said, without blinking.
‘Fifteen,’ Annie offered.
‘Twenty,’ the man agreed.
‘The romance,’ said Ed, extracting a $20 note from his pocket.
Annie took the three roses and unpeeled them from their tragic cellophane wrappers. ‘Thank you, you’re very sweet,’ she told Ed, holding the slightly droopy flowers up to her face.
‘So where would you like to go?’ he asked again.
‘What do you think about a ride round Central Park in one of those horse-drawn carriages? Do you think that’s just tooooo cheesy?’
‘Your wish, my darling, is my command,’ Ed promised. He led her out of the bar and into the street, where they hailed a cab for Central Park.
There was a queue at the rank for the horse-drawn cabs, but it didn’t take much longer than half an hour to get to the front.
In the back of the carriage, it was a little breezier and bumpier than Annie had expected. But she snuggled up against Ed for warmth and watched the glittering lights of the buildings on Fifth Avenue go by.
‘Is this as romantic as you were hoping?’ Ed asked.
‘Yes, definitely,’ she insisted. Although really, she hadn’t expected the horses to break quite so much wind. Then there was the whole business of the rubber sheet at the back of the horse which caught the droppings – noisily. That wasn’t quite so picturesque or romantic either.
But still, she snuggled up under Ed’s arm and told him: ‘This is beautiful. I think I’m falling in love.’
‘Well, that’s good, what with us being married and everything.’
‘I’m in love with you already, babes. But I’m falling in love with this city. Deep, deep, deeply in love.’