Four years ago, my best friend Pauline moved from San Francisco to New York. Like so many bright young women before her, she moved here to become a writer, to have a snazzier life, to get away from her parents. I did the same thing the year before, and so she stayed with me for a few weeks.
Her first weekend in the city, I accompanied her to my local post office--the grand turn-of-the-century beaux-arts building that wraps around the corner of Fourth Avenue and 11th Street. There were some packages waiting for her there, so I left her in the east corner of the vast lobby, to wait for someone to get them for her while I bought stamps. About three minutes later I went back to the line she was in--certainly less time than it would take for her to reach the font of the line, present I.D., and retrieve the boxes--and she was gone. She wasn't in line, she wasn't where I had just been by the stamp machine, and she wasn't outside.
My first thought was that some grimy civil servant had taken my lovely, guileless Northern California desert flower of a friend and stashed her among the shelves of "packages too large for box." I became agitated, I started to describe Pauline to the other people in line and even to the wacko Unabomber wannabe affixing individual two cent stamps onto a hoary looking package. No one had seen her. Did she think that this was what New Yorkers did--accompany their friends on dreary daytime errands and then wordlessly slip away? To have a drink? At 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday?»
She wasn't outside. I rehearsed the inevitable phone call to her mother: "Mrs. O'Connor, we went to the post office together (yes, I swear, the post office) and I went to buy stamps (yes, stamps) and she went to pick up a package (some clothes, yes, and some bedding) and then she just disappeared. I promise I looked everywhere, I even asked. No they didn't announce her name over the loudspeaker. No, New York post offices, don't have loudspeakers."
I walked home. I was sure that I had lost her. The theme from All That Jazz came into my mind--with that song and the image of all of Broadway's future stars--each one the Chita Rivera of their hometown--bushwhacking their way through the NY streets to get to the career-making audition of their lives. That is why Pauline moved here, to join the chorus, not to die on my watch.
I arrived at my apartment. She was out front, wondering where I had gone. I was furious--spanking her was out of the question so I screamed: "Where did you go? You could have been killed? Why did you do that to me?"
She responded, "God, is this what this city has done to you?"
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