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So I went to New York. I took the red-eye from San Francisco, landed at 5:30 a.m., and made my first stop in Rye, NY, at the home of my dear friend Leonard Wagman, the hero lawyer who defended me pro bono when I got sued for $110 million dollars in Georgia for conspiring to take over an art college there. (Don't ask. I get letters from lawyers every time I mention this bizarre episode. I will simply say, the chief lawyer for the other side was the same one -- Abbe Lowell -- you are now seeing on your television screen in the impeachment hearings. Not a guy you want to meet in a dark alley, let me tell you.) After bagels in Rye, Leonard drove me into the city that remains, I have to say, my favorite in the world. Thanks to a wonderful reader friend, who owns a mostly-vacant apartment on Central Park West, I was put up in the style to which I am NOT accustomed, and my son Charlie, who has been studying in New York City this term, got to join me for a couple of days there. We took in a wonderful performance of Swan Lake and a terrible (we thought) rock musical about a cross-dresser, called Hedvig and the Angry Inch. Depressed by that one, we high-tailed it to Tramps, to catch The Funky Meters. I had about twenty years on most everyone in the crowd, besides the Meters themselves. Never mind. Just because I'm 45 doesn't mean I can't dance. Next day, Charlie cut out to do some skateboarding while I had breakfast with an old friend from New Hampshire, Sheri, who is now a public school teacher in Manhattan. Shopped in Greenwich Village (sum total of my purchases: one glass bird for our tree). Stopped by the wonderful little apartment of a reader friend from this website, who had offered to read my tarot cards. I don't know if I think it's in the cards, or the person, but I believe this woman has a true gift of perception. I asked her lots of questions. She knew all sorts of surprising things, that weren't even in my books. I left her magical little place feeling oddly reassured. I'd never met her in my life, but she told me I was going to have a wonderful rest of my life, and I chose to believe her. The weather was eerily warm -- so much so that when my son and I went skating in Central Park, we wore t-shirts. Charlie had to work on a history paper on the political cartoonist Thomas Nast and the Tammany Hill Ring, so I helped him do research in the amazing New York Public Library. If I lived in Manhattan, I think I'd go there every day to work. Went from the library to the all-leopard skin office of Helen Gurley Brown (in leopard print Diane Von Furstenberg) who had dropped me a kind note of encouragement after the publication of my new memoir. Another friend took me out to what was probably the fanciest dinner of my life, with Dom Perignon and caviar -- not something I'd do often, believe me, but it was pretty nice. Late that night, my son did skateboard tricks for me in Columbus Circle. All around us, the city glittered, jewel-like. Next day, I saw the wonderful Jackson Pollock show at the Museum of Modern Art. Met with a number of magazine editors and friends. Got taken out to lunch at Le Cirque, the kind of place where you know Ivana Trump might walk in at any moment. Maybe it was dining at Le Cirque that did it, but that afternoon I bought myself a red boa, and (inspired by Helen Gurley Brown) fake leopard skin gloves. Looked in shop windows, gave money to street musicians, tried on hats, bought little things for my children, and then headed over to the Players' Club for my evening presentation there. I could write a whole letter about the Players' Club -- a classy old building facing Gramercy Park , whose membership includes a combination of theater people and theater lovers. The president -- an actor himself, who first tracked me down here on this discussion forum, gave me a tour of the place, including the bedroom of the nineteenth century acting sensation Edwin Booth (brother of John Wilkes) who started the place, in 1888, partly in an attempt to improve the reputation of the acting profession, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Many old friends (editors I've worked with, lawyers who've defended me, my modern dance teacher from when I was eight years old) turned out to join me at the Players' Club, but what moved me most were the readers I'd never met in person before (and a couple I had) who made the trek from New Jersey and elsewhere, that night. After my talk, I got to hang out in the Players' Club bar with a man who might qualify as the best guy in America to hang out in a bar with: Frank McCourt, and his wife Ellen. Another hour in Frank's company, and I would have been talking with an Irish accent myself. Just thinking of him, I start to do it. A friend had given me a very beautiful, very expensive scarf I knew I'd never actually wear, so Friday morning I took it back to the shop to see what I might exchange it for, and I found the perfect thing. They sold oversized limoges china cups and saucers -- the finest china, at a price I would never normally have spent, but what could I do? I had store credit! So I picked out two, with different patterns -- one for me, and one for my lifelong friend Laurie, back in New Hampshire, with whom I have a cup of coffee every Friday morning, when I get my Sprint Free on Friday long distance calling. "We may not be the richest women on our block," I wrote to Laurie in my gift card. "But nobody we know -- nobody, anyplace -- could have a more beautiful cup and saucer than ours." I made a quick trip to Canal Street, to buy presents for my children, and meet another old friend, Vicky -- a reader who first wrote to me fifteen years ago, when I was pregnant with my son Willy, to invite my whole family to come stay at her house in New York. Three weeks after Willy's birth, we took her up on the invitation, and have been friends ever since. Then I raced out to the airport, with just barely enough time to make my plane. I was home just before midnight. My son Willy, who had been staying with friends all week, was happy to see me I think, though nobody is ever happier to see me than our dog Opie. But then, he would also be happy to see a shoe, or an old dishtowel, or a piece of tin foil. So now I'm home again, preparing to see my son Willy and my daughter Audrey off to meet up with their brother and father in New Hampshire for Christmas. They'll all be away till just before New Year's. I'm sitting the big day out, this year, in favor of a work-blitz. Don't feel sorry for me, though. I love Christmas with my family, but I have also learned how to love being by myself. I'm hoping to get lots of good work done. Meanwhile, there may still be time--if you do this quickly--to order Christmas presents from the Joyce Maynard Catalogue, where, in addition to the autographed books and tapes and CD's previously talked about here, we have finally gotten copies of my much-requested tape, Nobody's Daughter Anymore: The Summer I Lost My Mother. You can now make credit card orders online, and Myrna (unlike the woman who used to be responsible for this: me) will fill your orders promptly. If you don't want to buy anything, but enjoy this website on a regular basis, you might also think of sticking a contribution in the mail for Myrna. (Myrna Uhlig, PO Box 636, Clatskanie, OR 97016). She puts in many long hours here every week, for no pay, except your contributions. I'll be offline from Dec. 18 to Dec. 30, working on a new book. Meanwhile, I know you'll find plenty to talk about without me. It's your turn.
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What
else did I do in New York? I met a wise woman, teacher at NYU, who reminded
me not to let my critics get me down. I rode the subway to the upper West
Side, but took the wrong train and got out in the middle of Morningside
Drive in Harlem, instead. I travelled out to Dobbs Ferry, to teach a writing
seminar at my son Charlie's school, and that night took in The Blue Room
-- the show getting a lot of press at the moment for the semi-nudity of
its star, Nicole Kidman, who was responsible for providing me with two
tickets (one of which was meant for my son, only it turned out -- talk
about pain -- he had to go with his class to see The Nutcracker that night
instead.) Next day, more meetings and business, dinner with another dear
writer friend, Judy Blume, and her husband (also a writer ), George Cooper.
I had gotten a standing room ticket to an off-Broadway show, Killer Joe,
and loved it. After the show, I met up with yet another friend from this
group, who had invited me for a drink at a piano bar at the Carlyle hotel,
where we listened to Barbara Carroll on piano while I ate every brazil
nut in the bowl, and I got to request Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.
Talk about a perfect night.
