Here I sit, surrounded by those same boxes. . .but I'm at the new apartment. My father's old station master's chair is here--and my beloved graduate-school desk that's elegantly constructed of 2 filing cabinets and 2 birch planks. Same modem, same old chatchka hold-all from Pottery Barn.
But over my right shoulder is a stunning view of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, buildings and water-towers, trees and pale streaked sky.
Downstairs the furniture is mostly set up, the kitchen organized, soap on a silver dish in the half-bath (I have 1.5 bathrooms!!)
Monday morning I woke up with 6 hours until the movers arrived--had a leisurely cuppa tea and told myself to relax for an hour, enjoy my last bit of time in the old place, in the dear old neighborhood. . .but some feminine instinct kicked in, and next thing I knew I was hauling the remaining clothes into suitcases, taping drawers shut, shoving a printer into a box, and keeping an eye on the increasingly uneasy Gigi Colette (who knew I was up to no good whatsoever.
Three hours later I was in a froth of activity still--madly taping things shut, putting numbers on boxes and noting the numbers and the boxes' contents in a red notebook--My Moving Bible. Caught a glimpse in the mirror; I had the mad eyes of a prophet and the hair-do of an 80's video star, was covered in a thin glaze of dust and sweat, and hadn't eaten in 20 hours. Staggered to the Appletree for an egg sandwich (the lunch crowds parted before me like the Red Sea and I realized that disgustingness can be an under-rated quality; I was served immediately).
Got home, brushed teeth and was gazing disconsolately at my suitcases wondering where the hell I'd put my underwear and t-shirts, when there was a knock on the door. Threw on some granny pants and an itchy woolen sweater the color of dead hair--and opened the door.
It was a small white haired man with absolutely beautiful olive skin and small almond eyes. He held out his hand, and it was small with the long sensitive fingers of a pianist.
This was Igor, the Mover.
80 minutes early.
Igor the mover was accompanied by two wiry, dark, and attractive young men who immediately began picking up boxes. "They're numbered!" I cried, "So I know what order to go in at at the other place!" The guys nodded, grabbed boxes number 7 and 23, and headed to the truck parked outside. Igor had pastel colored papers for me to sign, all tissue thin with much writing in very small letters, and I was hunched over reading when my friend Kendall arrived.
She was 30 minutes late, and we were supposed to have had an hour and a half to get the cat to the new apartment and all set up with litter and food. . .but K. stopped to check out a new cell phone deal on the way. At this moment Gigi Colette streaked out from under the futon in a mad dash for the door. Kendall moved fast-- got the cat by the front paw in a magnificent lunge.
So now I had to leave the movers with every possession I own, and head to the new place with the cat in a box (not a new fast food), and Kendall. K. kept talking about the pilot she works with--she's a chef for a millionaire and flies all over the world providing him with omelettes and profiteroles--while I pictured the movers ripping madly through my possessions searching fruitlessly for anything of value.
The car trip was a mile and a half, thirty city blocks, but it seemed interminable.
When I returned to 122nd Street, the movers were pretty much done--there were a few boxes left, and I checked the Moving Bible to make sure numbers 1-27 were accounted for. Suddenly the apartment was empty, completely empty except for a small bookcase I'd pulled off the curb, and a poster from a Film Distribution Company that I'd worked for which I decided I no longer liked.
And suddenly, my moving bible was missing.
I checked my handbag and the truck, I checked the top of the fridge and the bathroom--was so distraught by this disappearance, which left me feeling like an explorer without a compass, that I forgot to say goodbye to my old apartment. . .just got in the truck with the movers, and headed south.
The moving truck ride was just fantastic though, once I forgot my anxiety and loss of the Bible. The front of it was entirely glass, so it was like riding high through the city in some magnificent Pope-Mobile, if the Pope travelled in very, very close proximity with delicate yet wiry Russians.
And it was when we arrived here at the new building that I had to do my Being Brave thing: Face the Woman at the Concierge Desk.
Her name is Vernal, and she has hair dyed in an aggressive eggplant color. Her lower lip is very large and slack, and she likes to ignore you when you stand in front of her. And, I worried, she had the power to keep me out of the building, out of my (illegal) sublet--and I'd have to wander the streets forever, until the Russians kicked me and my stuff out of the Popemobile.
I threw open the front door of the building, and tried to hide my nervousness as I walked up to Vernal's seat of Power. . .
(cont'd tomorrow.)
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