Pug Hill - Alison Pace [92]
“Bye, Lindsay! Bye, Lawrence! Bye, Amy! Bye, Rachel!” I say cheerfully, one by one. But as I watch my classmates drive away in the back of taxis, I can’t help thinking that this is a sadder good-bye than we’re all giving it credit for. I can’t help thinking that this is one of those good-byes, the kind that is the hardest, the kind where you know, if you stop to think about it for a second, that you won’t ever see these people, this group, that was important, that meant something, ever again.
I want us to hug each other and say that we’re glad to have known each other, and that even though we only knew each other for six weeks, it was an important six weeks, and we’ll remember each other because this meant something, it did. I want our good-byes to be heartfelt. Or maybe I just want someone to tell me that when I make my speech next week, it will, in fact, be okay.
And then it’s just Alec and me standing alone on the corner.
“Do you need a taxi?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah,” I say, “I do.” He reaches his arm up.
For a moment I can see my thirties, stretching out in front of me: years and years of saying good-bye to men outside of taxis. I hear Ben Harper playing in the background. It’s a song called “She’s Only Happy in the Sun.” I listen for a moment, up until Ben Harper gets to that line that says, The story of your life is hello, good-bye. I walk over to Alec and stand right next to him. He looks down at me. I reach up to his arm and pull it down. He smiles at me and I smile back. I notice a few taxis driving by, their numbers all lit up, as Alec leans in to kiss me.
chapter twenty-eight
Breakfast at Pug Hill
Okay, in case you were thinking, well it’s about time the poor girl got some action, in case you were thinking that you were about to turn the page, and at last, find yourself at the big juicy sex scene chapter, you can stop thinking that. Nothing happened, it was just a kiss. But it was a really good kiss, a really cinematic kiss right there on Tenth Street with all the empty taxis whizzing by. It was a Woody Allen kiss if ever there was one. And I think it helped me out with my need for a heartfelt good-bye. But that’s all it was.
I’m leaving in a few hours to go to Long Island for the week, a week at the end of which, I’ll be giving my speech. Before I go, I’m meeting Kara and Chloe for an outdoor breakfast. And of course, no question, we’re meeting at Pug Hill.
I head to the park and walk across it, drinking an iced coffee from Columbus Bakery. When Holly Golightly went to Tiffany’s, generally she got out of a limo, generally she was wearing an evening gown and, of course, she looked just like Audrey Hepburn. My eyes are nowhere near as big as Audrey Hepburn’s and my neck is nowhere near as long. I’m wearing yoga pants and I’m holding an iced coffee and a brown paper bag with three muffins it in, as opposed to, say, an antique cigarette holder, and a really fetching clutch. I’m wearing a ponytail, not a French twist. I don’t have the long gloves. Holly Golightly was going to look at the most elegant of accoutrements, at so many diamonds, and I am going to look at a bunch of pugs. But surely you see the poetic connection, the pure beauty in actually eating breakfast at Pug Hill, and on a Saturday morning no less, when the pugs are actually there.
There are so many pugs. There’s one of the extremely girthy ones: his name is Buster; and there’s Roxy, resplendent in a new faux-leopard harness. I sit on the bench so as not to torture the pugs with the muffins. It’s not that I don’t like to share with the pugs, of course I do, it’s just that I’ve learned that pugs, more often than not, are on a diet; it’s just that I’ve also learned that if you feed the pugs, more often than not, their owners will look at you disapprovingly, and ask if you could please not feed their dog.
“Hope!”
“Hey, Kara,” I say, motioning her over. “And hello, Chloe.”
“Ho!” she says.
“Sorry,” Kara says, smiling sheepishly.
“It’s okay,” I say, “it’s nice she knows my name.”
“Right?” Kara agrees enthusiastically,