Day 27: Brief Encounters

Danny pauses downtown at night after an evening at A.C.T.

The woman in line in front of us was curved into her walker, but her hair was dark and her skin still stretched tight across her face. She was dressed for an evening out: white linen jacket with swirls stitched in rows across her back, chunky necklaces with bead of stone draped down her chest. "You from the city?" she asked as we filed in behind her. I felt self conscious in my t-shirt, even though it was a relatively nice one.

"Berkeley," I answered.

"Subscribers?"

"Nope." By this time Danny had retreated to the safety of the crowd behind us. I was making my own new friend.

"Ah, so you like Noel Coward." This was true. We'd seen a Cal Shakes performance of "Private Lives" in June. It was witty and fresh, despite the script being decades old. Young compared to Shakespeare, of course.

"I'm trying to figure out what this line's about," she continued. "I was running late already, and I need to use the restroom, and now this."

"Well if everybody's stuck outside, I'm sure they'll hold it."

"That's what I'm doing right now!" she replied. I smiled.

Then she started telling me about another play she'd seen last year, one she was sure I would have liked.

A security guard with grey polo shirt and a foam earpiece stopped by and interrupted. "This one's just fun and really well done. You're going to love it," she told my companion as she lay a hand on her shoulder. As she turned to move further down the sidewalk, my friend said something that got lost in the din of the crowded sidewalk. The guard turned back, catching my eye. I shrugged. By the time she reached us again, the older woman was staring straight ahead, gathering her thoughts perhaps. The guard left again. The older woman must have remembered her thought, or had a new one; she turned herself this time and started talking. The guard was long gone. I shrugged again. "I wanted to ask what the line was about," she said, before resuming her explanation of the last play.

I had trouble concentrating on what she was saying. I noticed her lipstick. She was wearing more make-up than me. Something about a rich untalented piano player?

Just as I was about to ask her her name, a large black man in a suit came and tapped her shoulder. "You can come with me," he said, leading her away from the stairs and towards the ramp to get in. It seemed like he knew her too.

"When I'm her age, that's how I want to be," I told Danny.

"What, people helping you but independent too?"

"Yeah, helping me because they know and like me, not because they feel sorry for me or anything. And going to the theater all the time."

Once we inched through the double doors and the slow, ritual, ripping of the tickets, I noticed my friend standing near the elevator. "What do you think, should we join her?" I asked Danny.

"I just always automatically take the stairs."

I wavered. Then I grabbed his arm and dragged him across the lobby to where she was standing. Just as I was about to mosey up beside her, I noticed the wrong button was lit. She was going down; we needed to be two floors up. I made a sharp turn for the stairs, and in my head I wished her a good night.

The play, which I loved, was called Brief Encounters.