Luck Be a Lady Tonight

Luck Be a Lady Tonight - Part 4

He kept saying, “I’ve never been in this situation before,” which was funny at first, but later it became annoying, and eventually, profound. He was a nice man. Someone’s aunt should have set him up with Constance instead. We finally made it home in silence and he never told anyone about that night. I know because something like that, of that magnitude, would have gotten back to me.

I only ran into him once, just before Christmas in Manhattan, a year and a half later. We were both alone and walking quickly in opposite directions. He looked startled and tried to be polite. He was, he was very polite. He made conversation, told me a musical called Guys and Dolls had come out on Broadway. Like the time before, he said the book was better. He told me about the story and about the songs and how his parents love musicals. He told me he collected Playbills and he talked about the composer and how the songs were written in a flurry in the spring of the previous year. He stood about six feet away from me the whole time. Then he looked at me and said he knew where songs came from.

It was a cryptic thing to say. I had wondered that—where songs came from—in the car that night with him, but it had seemed to me a strange thing to wonder so I kept it to myself that night. I was certain I hadn’t said it out loud. Now, standing in mid-town with a long beach of sidewalk and the passage of time between us, this man seemed to have his own secrets.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said my goodbyes and walked away. He hadn’t asked why I hadn’t finished school, although I suspected he must have noticed I did not come back in the fall. I had completed our junior year—the year it happened—so as not to look suspicious, but it was difficult. In May everyone had said, “See you senior year!” and I would say, “Yes, of course. See you then.”

Anyway, the money is almost gone. I’ve been living off it, living in this cold, brittle apartment for six years now, I think. It’s 1959 now, isn’t it. Maybe seven years. After leaving Cambridge that summer I spent a year in Manhattan near my family, tolerating cocktail parties and unnecessary advice, and delighting idiots with the magic word, “Radcliffe.” But after that conversation with my nameless blind date in the street that winter, I just wanted to run away even farther from what had happened. On New Year’s Day, I left without telling anyone where to find me.

And so the years pass and it’s almost gone. I didn’t invest it as my father surely would have suggested. I just put it in the bank and spent it slowly, methodically, to see how long it would last. I am not sure what to do with myself now, I guess something will have to happen. You start out at age ten, seeing The Wizard of Oz at the picture show and thinking you’re Dorothy. Turns out you’re the bad witch. I wonder how many witches across America sit around in their underwear and shut themselves inside a small apartment because they’re afraid to go outside?

My family doesn’t know where I am. I moved to Dallas years ago. They would never look for me here. I’d like to be found, but I’m not sure by whom. And I’m sure I’d like to try my luck again, but I’m not sure with what. Maybe I’ll surprise myself.

End.