Living New York Stories, With a Personal Sequel

By 4 p.m. that cold day in Manhattan, my brisk walk had slowed to a trudge. My mind was crammed with sights and sounds; my shoes were crammed with toes.

A small sign beckoned me into the Viand Coffee Shop on Madison Avenue near 61st. I sat at the counter.

“Coffee--black,” I said. It sounded less an order than a plea.

“And?” asked the young Greek, with a gesture to a large glass case. Inside were chocolate cakes, carrot cakes and swirls of pastry. Whole cantaloupes rested near a bowl of white goop.

“Try the rice pudding,” he went on, since I seemed unable to speak. “It’s good for you.”

“Just coffee,” I said.

After a couple of sips I began to perk up. I realized that I was a bit hungry.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I heard myself say. “I will try the rice pudding.”

“You won’t regret it,” said the dark-eyed lad, as he spooned it into a tall sherbet dish.

A Tasty Treat

He was right. The dessert was cold, fresh, sweet--with hints of brown sugar, perhaps, and a trace of lemon.

I did not tell him how long it had been since I had tasted rice pudding, because this might have been my first. Rice pudding was something like rhubarb or sweetbreads, which I had avoided by instinct.

As I thanked him and stood to leave, I realized that once again I had been treated with kindness in New York City. Just as I had mastered my wary Manhattan mode--walk fast, avoid eye contact, press purse into ribs--a native had shown compassion. How disconcerting.

My step was livelier as I hastened up Madison Avenue toward my hotel. It would be pleasant to stretch out before going to dinner and the opera. I saw a grocery store and veered in to buy milk, a favorite bedtime drink. Brown bag in hand, I marched on.

At 72nd and Madison I succumbed to the hearth-and-home spell of Ralph Lauren’s old mansion of a store. It is fragrant with leather and wood shavings, cashmere and fine tobacco. A fireplace crackles near the entrance. It’s a place to curl up for the winter.

Shirt Shopping

Instead, I talked cotton shirts with Sean, a clerk not long out of Texas. He showed me half a dozen striped models that might appeal to my 15 1/2-34 friend. He invited me to put my parcels in a handsome upholstered chair. Since one held a quart of milk, I placed them on the floor.

New shirts in hand, I returned to my hotel and let my thoughts drift to the Metropolitan Opera and “La Boheme.” Placido Domingo was singing that night. Fiamma Izzo D’Amico would be Mimi.

Shortly before curtain time an usher unlocked the door of our box. We were the first to arrive. It was a splendid perch from which to observe the excitement in the grand hall. And then the door opened again.

“Hi,” a man said. “We’re Sid and Hermione. This your first time?”

“We’ve been to the Met before,” I replied. “But we’ve never sat in a box.”

“You’ll love it,” Sid said. “Whatta view. Right, honey?”

“Yeah,” said Hermione. “When the chandeliers go up to the ceiling it’s like ‘Phantom of the Opera’ in reverse. Want a lemon drop?”

She pulled a tin from her purse and passed it around. I remembered the admonition in the program: “Next to talking, the most serious offense to auditorium peace is to open cellophane-wrapped candies.”

The program suggested opening throat-soothers between acts or musical selections, or, if you’re caught off-guard, open them swiftly. “Trying to be quiet by opening wrappers slowly only prolongs the torture for everyone around you,” it concluded.

More to the Box

Then a white-haired couple arrived, completing our box. They nodded, settled into the front chairs and pulled out opera glasses.

Hermione offered them lemon drops. Sid told us about a pal of his who had gone to a rehearsal of the New York Philharmonic that week:

“He was about to open the door on the Broadway side when a guy reaches out from behind and opens it for him. He turned around and it was Zubin Mehta. ‘Wow,’ he said, ‘wait till I tell my friends that Zubin Mehta opened a door for me.’

“So the maestro smiles, reaches out and holds open the second door.

“ ‘Tell them he did it twice,’ Mehta said.”

Sid and Hermione laughed. The lights dimmed. The conductor lifted his baton for “La Boheme.”

And I found myself thinking of tailgate parties.