Pug Hill - Alison Pace [32]
Also, this past week has gone by very quickly. Apparently, a week goes by much more quickly when there is a class called Overcoming Presentation Anxiety at the end of it. My plan for tonight had been to stop by Pug Hill before going to the first class. Though I know now that there is always the chance that the pugs won’t be there, I’m beginning to learn that, just maybe, that’s okay. I’m beginning to think that while for me it will always be more about the pugs, just like for Holly Golightly it was always more about the diamonds, the place itself holds some, if not quite a lot, of importance, too. There’s a reason Breakfast at Tiffany’s was not called Breakfast Anywhere There Happens to Be Lots of Diamonds. The Tiffany’s part, just like the Pug Hill part, is pretty important, too. Just think if it had been Breakfast in the Diamond District, think how much poetry, how much symbolism would have been lost.
I thought I’d go to Pug Hill after work, hang out there for a while and just try to chill out. I thought Pug Hill, even without any pugs, would be the best place to try to get ready for class; for the inevitable introducing of ourselves, saying our names and our occupations, all of this while very possibly standing in front of the room. I had it all planned out. I’d even brought along my fleece gloves, in case it was cold. It’s important, I often think, to have a plan, and what with the fleece and all, I had mine.
As I leave the museum, it’s a downpour. A downpour I was not at all aware of, having spent the day, as I spend so many of them, in the basement of unrequited love. The Conservation Studio, to protect the vulnerable paintings from light damage, is in the basement; the unrequited love part you know about. There are, to be fair, windows right up at the top, close to the ceiling, and even though it seems like it would be easy to tell if it was raining through basement windows, it’s actually never very clear.
I stand in the doorway of the staff entrance of the museum and look out at the rain pounding down on the plaza like darts. On a few different levels, it’s not looking so good. The plaza in front of the museum, while a great place to get a coffee, a pretzel, a black-and-white photograph, or even a bus, is not the best place to find an umbrella stand. I head back into the museum but I pass the Conservation Studio, I don’t want to go back there again today. I keep walking down the internal hallway, to the end of it, emerging at the far end of the Antiquities Wing. I pull my ID out of my pocket and slip it around my neck, turning right into the Met’s gift shop, open late, along with the museum because it’s a Thursday. I stand on line with so many other people, and think how something like this, me being out in the museum rather than always in its background, was how I met Evan. If only that hadn’t been a lie.
I buy a bright orange Metropolitan Museum of Art umbrella with my employee discount, wondering how many of these umbrellas I have stashed away at home, and if I always select orange umbrellas because my mother believes with some conviction that red heads should sooner die than be seen carrying or wearing anything orange. It clashes.
I exit through the grand front entrance of the museum. A glance at my watch reveals that in my plan, I had not left much extra time for walking the length of the museum and back, and then waiting on line in the store. There isn’t much time left now in which to go to Pug Hill. Even if I had, come to think of it, wanted to go there right after it turned dark. It’s the second time in as many weeks that it has been revealed to me that a good plan consists of more than just fleece.
I stand for a moment, up at the top of the great steps, and look out. It’s one of those great New York scenes, the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the rain. It’s a Woody Allen view, standing at the top of the stairs of the Met and looking down at Fifth Avenue. I love that about New