Chaper 2 - Evie's First Visit to New York

According to Boy: Ten bucks seemed like an awful lot of money, at least for me. I didn’t have a real job—I was a graduate fellow at NYU (At least that’s what I called myself. I had an "NDEA Title IV Fellowship"). The stipend I received covered food and lodging, but that was about all. I am not sure what indentured servitude might feel like, but I think my first year at NYU gave me a hint.

The bus ride from the East Side Air Terminal (which might have been Grand Central Terminal) to LaGuardia cost ten dollars. It would be times three—one fare got me to the airport, then two fares got the two of us back to Manhattan. Then there would be three more fares for the return trip. Sixty bucks, plus subway fare from my apartment to the Air Terminal, plus cab fare from the Air Terminal back to the apartment after I had picked Evie up at LaGuardia.
I had planned to take the subway from the apartment to the Air Terminal, but I would not put Evie on a subway with her luggage.

I had a whole list of subway rules. One of them was, "Never ride the subway carrying anything that was not a weapon, could not be used as a weapon, or was too precious to leave behind." If I rode the subway, I always wanted to be able to run in case of trouble. I was an excellent runner—five miles twice a day. I figured it was smarter, and safer, to run away from trouble than to confront it.

Another subway rule was never to sit down. It’s just too hard to escape from that position. Also, I never liked to ride the subway with anyone for whom I was responsible. I always believed I could escape a conflict, but the odds against avoiding danger diminished when there were additional people to protect.
For the most part, my subway rules applied only after dark, not during rush hours. Rush hours were pretty safe, I thought. But if I wanted to go to a club or a restaurant at night, I hailed a cab.

I took a subway this night because I could dress down to quasi street person level. That made me feel safe—I didn’t look like I even had subway fare. And, I wanted to save money.

"Sometimes a little paranoia is just good thinking," I always thought and frequently said.

I was so looking forward to seeing her. Even though I was mentally complaining about the cost of airport transportation, I would have gladly sold my car (if I had one) to cover the cost. For the first time in my life I loved someone more than I loved myself. I was crazy about her. Her lips were soft and kissable. They had an unbelievably sweet taste, and I am not talking about her lipstick, or her Estee Lauder Youth Dew perfume. When we kissed, her lips, or perhaps her breath, had a hot sweetness. I was captivated by that taste 24/7. I could think of nothing else.

I had not seen her for over a month. It was horrible. It was like nothing I had ever before imagined. Food didn’t even taste good. All I could do is think about her.

She was tall, by most standards—five feet, six and a half inches. I think she appeared even taller because she was very trim. Not skinny, though—her butt was full, and her legs perfectly shaped.

She enhanced her aura of tallness by wearing high-heeled footwear—high-heeled boots, high-heeled clogs, and just plain high-heeled shoes.

And she was good at wearing high heels. "Elegant" is the best word I can think of to describe her. Not even a hint of awkwardness. I had never seen a woman handle herself as well as she did in high heels. That thought alone could keep me up nights.

Her face was beautiful, with high cheek bones. She liked to think of herself as an Audrey Hepburn "Sabrina" in Paris. And I think that she did have that look. I think she liked to identify with the Hepburn’s character.

But, I thought of her more as an Ava Gardner. I just hoped she would never find a Spanish bullfighter and leave me high and dry like Ava did Frank.

Anyway, I always thought Ava was the most beautiful woman to have walked the face of the earth, and I was in love with her younger look alike, Evie.

Then, as now, I loved her more than anything else in this life.