Stranger than Fiction

The time I sat on the steps outside 117 Hudson clutching a lamp and 2 bags and a chair, waiting for the car service with my ex-friend L. M was moving out of the NYC home of the company and everything that couldn't be moved was sitting out on the street. A pile of boxes and bags probably 12 feet long and 5 feet high at least. I don't remember what we were talking about, because what could we be talking about? Life as we knew it was moving. And this family comes along, 2 women and I think 2 kids, elementary school age. They saw the couch and the living room chair and they were considering taking them home. L and I, desperate for our surrogate home not to be thought of as useless and trashy, proceed to sell the items. Not for money, I mean, but tell that family how comfortable and how easy to carry. We go down to the enormous pile of life and find the bag with the cushions in it, help them figure out the load, offer to wait with any bits they can't carry until they can get back. And we watch as they wander away with the living room furniture.

Walking behind my married boyfriend and his wife in a crush of people walking back to Columbus Avenue from the Delacorte Theatre. Knowing that he knows that I'm there but knowing that he'll wig if I show myself and, more importantly, not knowing at all if the wife would recognize me if she saw me. At the time it was exciting and surreal. Thinking about it now, it's embarrassing and ridiculous.

The time that my grandmother died and my mom took her wedding and engagement rings and told me to put them in my pocket because she wanted me to have them but she had to take care of it with my uncle first. So later that night we're getting into the car. Uncle J driving, mom in the passenger seat and me behind her. So I'm sitting there and mom says,
"J, I'd like Kizz to have mom's rings. I mean, after all, it might be the only diamond she ever gets."
I'm sitting right there.
I got the rings.
I mean, who could have refused that pitch in honor of my pathetic loveless life. I didn't realize quite how pathetic and loveless until mom pointed it out.
And I'll bet a dollar that if I told that story to my mom she'd tell me it never happened that way.