No matter how many times I experience it, it still floors me. That first distant glimpse of the shimmering City on the northbound train. It comes at you all of a sudden, out of nowhere. A massive mountain range of glass, steel, and enterprise, towering past vast marshlands, beyond the glittering Hudson. It’s like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion go skipping merrily across the fields of poppies toward the Emerald City sparkling ahead—except I don’t pass out stoned on opium. I stare out my window in awe. I haven’t been around much: Boston and Philly a couple of times, Baltimore once, but no great world capitals like London, Paris, or Beijing, but even so, I somehow know in my soul there’s no City like mine. And nothing gets me stoked like just diving into it. Because in the City, you never know what’s around the corner. In the City, any and all things are possible.
---
When I arrive fifteen minutes early, I discover Celia Lieberman’s already there. Perched way up at the top of the great granite stairs to Low Library, sitting cross-legged, absorbed in a book. I almost don’t recognize her because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her when she wasn’t wearing a doofy gown or fluffy outfit that Gayle’s picked out for her. Bundled in a knit cap, parka, and jeans, Celia Lieberman actually appears somewhat normal. She quickly tucks away the book into a pocket as she spots me approaching. She stands. I hold out my hand for her to shake. She takes it. Looking her steady in the eyes, I shake her hand firmly for a full five seconds, then release it. Her arm flops limply at her side.
“So how was it?” I inquire by way of greeting.
“How was what?” she responds, mystified.
“The average college interview lasts a mere 6.3 minutes,” I explain. “Every second counts. Thus, the handshake, as my one PPC, assumes enormous importance in the Admissions Process.”
“PP say what?”
“Physical Point Of Contact. It’s in all the self-help books.” How so like Celia Lieberman not to know. But then anybody who gets in Early Decision to Stanford doesn’t need to know much about the gentle art of kissing ass like the rest of us mere mortals.
“A short, weak handshake exposes a lack of confidence,” I explain in all seriousness. “But squeeze too long and hard and you might come off as a pushy jerk. The secret’s a comfortable middle zone.”
“You’re scaring me, dude,” she says, stepping back.
I thrust out my hand again.
“Go ahead,” I instruct. “Give it another whirl.”
“If I must.” Celia Lieberman reluctantly re-shakes my hand. I give her the full treatment again—steady look in the eye, count to five, release.
“So how was it?”
“Weird,” she answers. She plucks two cups of hot Starbucks from the steps and presents one to me.
“Better not,” I beg off. “I’m wired enough as it is.”
“You’re nervous?” she asks, surprised.
Yes, I’m nervous. What does she expect? The lion’s den? What’s that about?
Dwarfed by immense edifices of higher learning on all sides, we wend our way through the bustling campus. This is a serious place, full of serious people thinking about serious things. It’s almost like you can hear all the brain cells humming. And you know what? I love it.
“So why do you want to go to Columbia?” Celia Lieberman drills me.
“Because it’s the closest Ivy League school to my house that I have a prayer of getting into,” I answer lamely but honestly.
“No, dummy, not the real answer. Authority figures totally get off on lofty, altruistic horseshit.”
Tell me about it. I think of Little Billy and what almost was and smile secretly. Celia Lieberman has no conception of just how lofty and full of altruistic horseshit I can be.
“Especially Uncle Max. He considers himself quite the intellectual giant, though he’s a bit lacking in the social graces,” she advises. “What did you say in your Short Essay?”
“I ended up writing about what a buzz I always get coming here.”
“Here?” She looks at me, not following.
“Here. Columbia. Van Am Quad.”
I stop, taking in the whole view. The Rotunda, with its weathered, chiseled words of wisdom from some forgotten notable. Taint Gate with its ancient clock that still works. Old school, understated, stately. An oasis of calm and reason in an increasingly crazed planet. Oh, to be just a tiny part of it.
“You come here a lot?” Celia Lieberman asks.
“Whenever I get the chance.”
We resume our trek. I expound, though I’m not sure why.
“I know it sounds hokey but I always picture the people who were once late to class on the very concrete we’re walking on. Alexander Hamilton. Jack Kerouac. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Even Lou Gehrig. Only when they were young like us and just anybody. Both Roosevelts, James freakin’ Cagney, Barack Obama. Before they did their things and made their marks. I don’t know, but it’s . . . it’s like touching greatness. That’s kind of what I said in my Short Essay, but better because I did like a thousand drafts.”
“Wow,” she says. “Good one.”
“And, actually, it’s not bullshit,” I admit a little shyly, wondering to myself why I am telling her any of this. Probably because I’m never going to see her again.
“Uncle Max will eat it up,” Celia Lieberman predicts, trotting ahead of me. “Just be sure and mention Enrico Fermi. He was a member of the Physics Department here when he worked on the Manhattan Project.”
“I know who Enrico Fermi is,” I object, even though I don’t, hurrying after her.
---
Uncle Max is a real bundle of charm. Craggy and gray, in a fraying sweater-vest, and out-of-control bushy eyebrows, which I have this tremendous compulsion to forcibly pluck. By the way he’s glowering at the prearranged interruption, Uncle Max must have been on the brink of some cosmic breakthrough. And I can kind of believe it, judging from the stacks of thick scientific texts piled everywhere and the twin blackboards crammed with hastily scrawled calculations of dizzying complexity. I can see what Celia Lieberman means now about the lion’s den. I’m way intimidated.
“Thanks, Uncle Max,” Celia Lieberman twitters nervously. “I really appreciate . . .”
“C’mon, let’s get it over with,” Uncle Max barks. What was it Celia Lieberman said? A bit lacking in social graces? Try totally lacking. He opens his office door all the way, brusquely motioning her out into the hallway, and double-locks it after her.
“The daughter’s as batty as the mother,” he grumbles, settling behind a cluttered desk. “You have a name?”
“Brooks,” I stammer. “Brooks Rattigan.” I hastily remove a surprisingly heavy centrifuge from a dusty chair and sit.
“Well, Mr. Brooks Rattigan, I’ll tell you what I tell everyone who asks for assistance for admission into this august institute of so-called edification. I’m a professor of physics, which doesn’t rate very highly around here. I have absolutely no influence with admissions whatsoever. So if you don’t mind, I’m an extremely busy man . . .”
Then, swiveling around in his seat, he surveys the two blackboards, picks up a nub of chalk, springs up, and resumes furiously jotting and erasing jumbles of letters and numbers. I sit there, stunned. That’s it? I got my hopes up and schlepped all the way to Morningside Heights not to get my 6.3 minutes? Uncle Max could at least pretend not to give me the brush-off. I’d like to mess up his equations. I’d like to tweeze the hairs in his brows one by one by the roots. Giant intellect, my left testicle. Try giant asshole.
But I don’t say this.
“Enrico Fermi!” I do blurt, desperate not to waste my only chance at a chance.
He turns to me, curious. “What about Enrico Fermi?”
As I rack my brain for a follow-up, Uncle Max’s cell vibrates. He grimaces at the number on the display.
“Close the door on the way out,” he mutters to me. Shuddering, steeling himself, he picks up his phone and clicks on. “What now, Marion?”
I’ve been dismissed. I will get no audience, no consideration, let alone glowing recommendation. Dejected, I stand and heft the centrifuge back on the chair.
“What do you expect me to do about it?” Uncle Max growls into his phone. “Take her myself?”
I reach for the doorknob. I start to turn it.
“Don’t yell, Marion!” yells Uncle Max. “I understand it’s her senior year. But be reasonable. In the overall scheme of the universe, the Winter Formal hardly rates . . .”
Winter Formal? I perk up. I linger, sensing opportunity, smelling fresh meat.
“That’s not fair. But . . . yes, but, but . . .” Uncle Max wages a losing battle to get a word in edgewise. “Of course I’m all broken up about it. Gravity’s our only child, but she’ll live.”
Suddenly I’m hearing electric guitar solos and a choir of heavenly voices. Dark clouds are parting, blinding celestial light is pouring down on me. I’m illuminated.
“Get a grip, Marion! It’s not a tragedy . . .” Uncle Max flinches as I hear the line go dead on the other end. He shakily clicks off, rubbing his temples, a monumental migraine coming on. He’s forgotten I’m there, that I exist. I let him twist in the wind for a moment or two, which is what the old grouch deserves. Oh, how swiftly the worm has turned. Picking my moment, I pounce.
“Excuse me, Professor,” I offer in my most helpful tone. “But I couldn’t help overhearing that you have a daughter . . .”
“Gravity,” he says miserably, reaching for a large bottle of extra-strength aspirin.
“A lovely name. Must be a very special girl.”
He puts down the bottle and looks at me. For a self-proclaimed genius, the cogs sure turn slowly for Uncle Max.
“Winter Formal,” I mention in passing, coaxing him with my palms to reason it out, to make the connections and arrive at the obvious solution.
“Oh, she is!” he professes fervently, finally, finally getting it. “An, uh, inspired ceramicist . . .”
---
Celia Lieberman’s pacing anxiously when we emerge twenty-three minutes later. Me with a shit-eating grin, followed by a fawning, effusive Uncle Max.
“The Dean of Admissions is an old poker pal of mine, Brooks,” he enthuses. “I’ll be sure to give him the full-court press first chance I get.”
“Thanks, Max,” I say magnanimously. “Anything you can do.”
Her mouth drops in astonishment as Max, overcome with gratitude, crushes me in an emotional bear hug.
“You are such a sleaze!” howls Celia Lieberman, almost choking on her foot-long after I tell her what went down.
I am a sleaze. A fat, happy one. I marvel at how the winds of fate have so suddenly and so uncharacteristically blown my way. I revel in my ability to spot and seize the moment, take immense pride in my complete lack of scruples. A sleaze, you bet your sweet ass I am. And to celebrate my underhanded feat, I’ve treated us both to two of New York’s finest, heaped high with all the fixings as we thread down the vibrant, teeming sidewalks of upper Broadway.
“I can’t believe you stiffed poor Uncle Max for 150 bucks,” Celia Lieberman says, mustard dribbling down her chin.
“Hey, that’s 40 percent off the normal rate, and he insisted,” I say, swallowing hunks of delicious animal fats and artificial additives. “What I can’t believe is that somebody named their daughter Gravity. No wonder she’s depressed.”
Suddenly, Celia Lieberman halts, stricken. “Hey, you didn’t tell him anything about me?”
“Please, I’m a trained professional,” I reassure her. “Discretion comes with the job.”
We come to the corner and the stairs to the subway. Celia Lieberman stops again.
“Well, this is me,” she says.
What she means is this is where we say good-bye, which I abruptly realize will be for the last time. All Lieberman business has been transacted. I should be jumping up and down for joy, but I’m not. I’m appreciative and grateful that Celia Lieberman, that anybody, in fact, has come through for me. As Celia Lieberman awkwardly sticks out her hand to shake a fond adieu, something falls to the ground from her parka pocket. Gallantly I bend to retrieve it for her.
It’s a paperback book, the one she was reading earlier. The blue cover crinkled and faded, the pages tattered, yellowed, worn around the edges. I recognize it. I should. We have a bunch just like it at home. Skies of Stone by Charles Rattigan.
Just seeing the title almost takes my breath away. I hand Charlie’s one claim to anything back to Celia Lieberman, looking at her questioningly.
“Where did you . . .”
“Online. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy . . .” she replies uneasily, quickly pocketing it again.
“How is it?” I ask, mildly curious, but mostly weirded out that she has a copy.
“So far a real downer, but in a really good way,” she informs me. She pauses. “Are you telling me you’ve never read it?”
And give that asshole the pleasure? No, I haven’t read it. For a whole slew of reasons that I’ve never been able to sort out and have long ago given up trying to. Mostly I guess because I’ve never wanted to experience firsthand the sheer magnitude of Charlie’s wasted potential. Good? I’m sure it is. But what’s done is done. No use crying over spoiled talent. What’s the point of thinking what might have been if Charlie could have just kept it together? Good? With my luck, I’m sure Skies of Stone is goddamn terrific. Read it? No fucking way.
But I don’t say that.
“Well, thanks for the memories,” I do say, a little more crisply than intended, sticking out my hand.
“You too,” she says softly, shaking hands with me. “Good luck with Columbia.”
“Give ’em heck at Stanford,” I respond, sorry to have been so sharp.
We just stand there, then Celia Lieberman starts down the stairs. I watch her go with strangely mixed feelings. Glad to be rid of her, but deeply grateful, a little nostalgic too. Can’t say it hasn’t been uneventful. Then, as she’s about halfway down—I swear to God I don’t know where it’s coming from—but I call after her:
“If you want to attract that Franklin guy, you have to make an effort.”
She stops, teetering on a step, and turns to me, surprised. What have I done? What am I doing? We look at each other. Neither of us speaks. Finally, she picks up the conversation where I so abruptly left off.
“I’ve tried everything,” she laments. “Laughing at his lame jokes. Dropping stuff and bending over. Listening to his incredibly awful taste in music. Get this, Franklin actually thinks the Backstreet Boys are underrated.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Seriously underrated,” she emphasizes.
“God,” I sympathize.
“I even let him beat me in chess, which is hard because Franklin really sucks.”
“I mean, how you dress,” I suddenly say, trying to stay on subject, again not sure why. Celia lowers her eyes, self-conscious.
“That’s a lost cause.”
Climbing back up the stairs, she rejoins me on the sidewalk. People stream in all directions around us. We’re in the way. She follows me through the fray, off by the storefronts where we can conduct a more private consultation. I turn to her, all business.
“You’ve got all the right fundamentals to build on,” I say, “analytically speaking, of course. You just need to find your own style.”
“Oh, and you’re an expert,” she says, ever the skeptic.
“After four months of being a stand-in, I happen to consider myself an authority on fashion,” I sniff haughtily.
Actually I kind of do. In the past months, I’ve pretty much seen it all. Strapless gowns, backless dresses, those halter jobbies. Hair straight, teased, curled, up, down, sideways, sometimes all at once. And shoes. Don’t get me started on shoes. Why the female gender’s so obsessed with them is beyond me. I own like two pairs. But not them. At least three pairs of everything. High heels, flats, open-toed, the variety is mind-numbing. I won’t delve into the dos and don’ts of makeup, the toners, enhancers, powders, and lotions, or the ins and outs of proper nail color. It’s like each girl is her own personal work of art. Before late September, I never realized the stupendous effort, infinite choices, and extreme anxiety that go into being a typical teenage girl. And, if you ask me, they’re all insane. Yeah, I know it’s how society tells them they have to be. But still. Lunatics, every last one of them.
But, again, I don’t say that.
“Well, maybe not,” I concede instead. “But I know what guys like, being that I am one.”
“My mother buys all my stuff,” she says.
“What would you wear if it was your choice?”
“My choice?” The idea seems inconceivable to her.
“Your hair,” I say. “Ever consider going shorter?”
“Like in a bob like—?” she looks at me, alarmed. “Isn’t that a little radical?”
I chuckle. There’s so much I could do.
“Give me two hours and I’ll rock your world,” I vow.
Celia Lieberman stares critically at herself in the front window of a Chinese restaurant. Despite the flocks of drying duck carcasses dangling from hooks alongside her reflection, she seems intrigued by her possibilities. Then I read the doubts flickering on her face. Self-expression, to sink or swim by one’s individual predilections and preferences, without mom and dad as an excuse and ultimate safety net, is too much for her.
“Sorry,” she says, wimping out. “But I can’t afford you.”
“No charge.”
“No charge?” She looks at me, incredulous.
This isn’t exactly the way I expected to spend my precious afternoon in the City. But like I said, in the City, you never know what’s going to happen. So I go with it.
“One good turn deserves another,” I toss off, casual-like. “Besides, I’m meeting a friend later so I’ve got some time to kill anyway.”
---
I take her to Williamsburg, the new hipster section of Brooklyn. She’s never been. I’ve been once, but act like I’m a regular. As we stroll down funky Bedford Avenue, I recount all my adventures at the local watering holes, making them up as I go. I nod in warm greeting at people I don’t know, and I’m quickly running out of material when we finally reach our destination. A techno hair salon of which I took mental note on my sole prior reconnaissance as a hotbed of super hotties. If I’m going to do a good deed, might as well soak in the scenery while I’m at it.
“Prepare to be transformed!” I announce grandly.
First, a multi-tattooed, multi-pierced beautician prepares to hack off a good six inches of Celia Lieberman’s unruly locks with a giant pair of medieval scissors. Celia Lieberman pleads with me for three inches. I hold firm at five. She resorts to death threats. It’s like she’s possessed by Satan, only her head’s not spinning around and she’s not puking up green slime. I remain resolute. Five it is.
Next, the glasses. The frames, I mean. They have definitely got to go. They’re earnest and clunky, and Celia Lieberman’s earnest and clunky enough as it is. We move on. I take her to an out-of-the-way place I’ve read about in Greenpoint with cool stuff. In her newly shorn state, she blindly squints at herself in the mirror in a succession of trendy, retro-hip items. Cat eye, rainbow, aviator, oval, oblong, octagonal. Most are hopeless on her. But I keep trying, methodically winnowing through looks and affectations. As I make my final selection—horn half-rims, bookish but with just the right touch of attitude—Celia Lieberman expresses loud reservations. I tell her to trust me. She has to since she can’t see a thing without corrective lenses.
By the time I practically drag her into the vintage store down the block, Celia Lieberman’s in full rebellion. She gapes at the racks and racks of rumpled garments.
“But they’re used!” she squawks, backing to the door.
“Oh, excuse me, your Royal Highness,” I say, yanking her back in.
But it’s the last time I will have my say.
For the next two hours it’s like I’m a prisoner trying to escape from a music video in some chick flick. Skirts. Dresses. Ensembles. Mod. Punk. Goth. A parade of major and minor fads of the past half century. One by one, Celia Lieberman tries them on for my inspection. Why, I have no idea. Because my opinions are roundly ignored, soundly ridiculed, or summarily rejected. In a minor snit, I throw up my hands and catch up on my email. It’s like a feeding frenzy, the cute little shopping bags with handles multiplying exponentially as we make the rounds. I become her Sherpa.
By the time we get to shoes, as I feared we eventually would, I’m zonked, going on fumes, but not Celia Lieberman. No, Celia Lieberman’s just hitting her stride. She balances on stilettos, spins around on disco platforms, poses in checkered sneakers. About ten cute little bags with handles later, when we finally leave the store, I’m in a dazed stupor but momentarily rouse myself as we pass a large picture window displaying skimpy, kinky lingerie. Now here’s a cute little bag with handles I would gladly add to my burden. I hasten to open the door for Celia Lieberman. She gives me a bemused look and marches on. A guy can try, can’t he?
---
Greenwich Village. Fourteenth to West Houston, Hudson to Broadway. A few blocks only, but its own special vibe. In the Village, the streets aren’t numbered or alphabetized or laid out logically in grids; they have names and go nowhere. MacDougal, Christopher, Grove, St. Luke’s Place: each is its own story. Right from the start, the Village’s been the part of New York reserved for the unconventional—the rebels, the oddballs, the outcasts. The dreamers. Super important writers composed masterpieces here. Edgar Allan Poe. Mark Twain. Robert Louis Stevenson. You can still feel their presence somehow. And Dylan Thomas, just about the only poet I halfway get. In the early sixties, when he was just starting out, Bob Dylan played the Gate and the Vanguard, both tattered and worn but still doing business. Later on, at the late, lamented CBGB, it was the Velvet Underground, the Dolls, the Ramones, the whole glam and grunge scenes. Gay rights started in the Village. So did the women’s rights movement. In the Village, the stuff of legend happens. It’s my favorite piece of the City, one I know well.
And the best time to be in the Village is right now, just before Christmas. It’s not just the strings of colored lights strewn everywhere, the rappers rhyming, the ethnic foods frying, the clusters of demonstrators demanding this, the counter-demonstrators protesting that, or the steady buzz and bustle of holiday commerce that makes December so awesome here. It’s the all of it. The energy, the expectation, the sense something Big’s coming.
So even though I’m laden like a pack mule with Celia Lieberman’s purchases, I’m feeling frisky. Uncle Max’s going to put in a personal word to the Dean of Admissions about me, my self-inflicted shopping ordeal is over, the mighty Pixies await! Crossing the narrow cobblestone lane, I breathe in Café Figaro with its intoxicating aroma of steamed milk, chocolate, and freshly roasted coffee. And almost get flattened by an errant taxi running the light. We’re talking inches. The asshole doesn’t even honk.
“DICKHEAD!” I shout, lucky to be alive.
The turbaned cabbie flips me the bird. I cheerfully flip him right back.
“God, I dig this city!” I exclaim.
“You certainly seem to know your way around it,” remarks Celia Lieberman, now having to do the scurrying to keep up.
“I come whenever I can,” I say loftily, surveying my domain. “It’s neutral territory.”
“Neutral territory?”
“Yeah, you never know anybody and nobody knows you so the gloves are off. You can be yourself without the slightest social consequence. It’s liberating.”
We safely reach the other side. Another cab rockets by. I smack a forearm at it, just for the fun of it.
“FUCKFACE!!”
In Pritchard if I shouted that in public on the street, I’d most likely be arrested. In Green Meadow, I’d be beaten to a pulp by the local police within seconds. But this being the City, I don’t get a single look, reaction, or objection. Not even by the beefy cop in a long coat, patrolling his beat, twirling a nightstick.
“See?” I boast. “No one gives a fart!”
Celia Lieberman looks at the cop, then at me again, a little appalled. “So this is the real Brooks Rattigan?” she asks wryly. “A seething mass of anger and resentment?”
“That’s me.”
Suddenly, from down the corner, I hear a familiar refrain.
“YO, BROOKSIE!”
Do my eyes deceive me? It’s The Murf, just as expected, but it’s The Murf of old: happily disheveled, hammered out of his mind, swinging one-armed from a lamppost. Can this day get any better? It can. He holds up a huge square bottle of wine, which God only knows where he scored.
“Manischewitz!” he toasts. “This shit’s kosher!”
---
“It’s good,” admits The Murf, furiously chewing. “I ain’t gonna lie. Damn good. But I’ve had better.”
The three of us are devouring an entire extra-large sausage and peppers, standing up, squeezed at a grimy counter. John’s of Bleecker Street is one of those places aficionados swear by, and who’s got the best pizza is the heated topic of an ongoing debate between The Murf and me since we were five.
“Wanna real slice?” pontificates The Murf, shoveling his down. “Come to Jersey! Tony’s in Neptune City. Now there’s crust. Now that’s a pie! Am I right or am I right, Brooks?”
Drying her fingers on a napkin, Celia Lieberman dutifully types in the name on her iPhone. “Tony’s. Neptune City. Got it.”
“The Murf’s the world’s greatest authority on junk food,” I inform her.
She laughs, relaxed and not uptight as usual. She’s actually having a good time with us. I hadn’t intended to include Celia Lieberman, but The Murf had insisted and I’d reluctantly given in. I’m not that comfortable with having my two realities intersect. Celia Lieberman and The Murf’s are very different sides of me that I’ve carefully kept separate from each other. But surprisingly, they get along pretty well.
“I don’t know,” she says, “we’ve got some pretty good places in Green Meadow.”
“Sure, if you’re looking for a nonfat, nontaste, tiny slice of nothing,” The Murf scoffs. “Quiche-eaters.”
“You’re right.” Celia Lieberman smiles, surrendering gracefully. “Give me Jersey anyday.”
She’s being open and nice, not patronizing and condescending. The Murf beams. I can tell he likes this Celia Lieberman.
---
It’s getting close to concert time. Under The Murf’s thoroughly amused eye, I dutifully haul Celia Lieberman’s plunder outside after her, staggering beneath the tonnage, and signal for a cab.
“Your friend’s nice,” she notes, almost as much to herself as to me.
Little does she know that, right behind her, displayed in the front window of John’s, The Murf’s flashing me two emphatic thumbs up like Celia Lieberman’s some kind of hot babe.
“Yeah, The Murf’s one of a kind,” I remark fondly. “Which is good because the world couldn’t handle two of him.”
Then, to up the ante, The Murf puts up paws and wags his tongue like a crazed canine, like I should totally go for it. The man’s got no shame.
Go for it? With Celia Lieberman? The idea’s preposterous.
A taxi skids over to the curb. I swing open the door and pile all her little cute shopping bags on the backseat. She slides in beside them and then turns to me, waiting. For what, I don’t know.
“Franklin will never know what hit him,” I tell her.
“It’s probably still a losing effort, but thanks, Coach.”
“Confidence! Positive mental attitude! Go team!” I close the door. This is it. This time I have a clear conscience and no regrets. All accounts have been settled. We part with a clean slate. As the cab rolls away, she lowers her window and leans out.
“Well, nice knowing you, Brooks Rattigan!”
“You too, Celia Lieberman,” I call back, slightly surprised because I kinda sorta mean it. I watch her disappear into traffic and out of my life forever.