And I Miss You Like My Left Arm That's Been Lost in a War

Chapel Apple was waiting for me to come down the stairs to the bus. I could see her standing just beyond the slush puddle in a lime green North Face jacket approximately two sizes too big for her, wearing her rainbow hat that she'd thought she'd lost the last time I was in New York in winter. Which would have been about three years ago, maybe four.

We hugged. “You found it,” I said.

“Oh, yeah! But I lost the gloves that go with it.”

We laughed and the wind whipped past, suddenly, catching my breath. I remembered, again, that I'd forgotten to bring my hat.

I grabbed my bags from under the bus. I'd packed two small suitcases instead of one larger one so we could carry them more easily on the subway. I was Planning Ahead. I knew that the Port Authority was a ways away, in Manhattan terms, from Harlem.

We were standing at the corner waiting to cross the street—I was worried about not stepping in the slush puddles, about not taking up too much space on the corner, about not looking like a Tourist or a Bumpkin or the Unhip Frumpy College Friend now carrying a few extra pounds and wearing her frumpy Wisconsin snow gear in this place where you have to be hip and you don't carry extra pounds and my god, I was the only person I knew who didn't have an iPod. Who did not actually even know how to work an iPod. And what was I doing here anyway? And how did I get so far removed from all of this, from this kind of life that I could have had, maybe, if I'd pursued it?

“Oh, gee,” Apple said, too obviously to someone standing behind yet sort of in front of us in all the bustle, “Imagine seeing you here.”

“Yep, I was just hanging out down here around the Port Authority,” said the Clever Rockstar as he crowded in to hug me.

“Clever!” He took the bag Apple was carrying and the two of them ushered me across the street as the lights changed. “I thought you couldn't come! I thought you were auditioning, or something.”

Apple pursed her lips the way she does when she's managed a Good Surprise. “Oh, gee. Why would you have thought that, Sparky Lee? Hmm.”

They shuttled me into the subway entrance and debated the best sort of subway pass for me to buy. Apple worked the automated ticket machine for me. I was so concerned with lifting my suitcase over the turnstile that I forgot to slide my subway card and I rammed the bar full across my hips, stopping short. Tourist. Bumpkin. Unhip Frumpy College Friend.

Clever slid my card through for me.

We stood in a little cluster at one end of the platform, my bags in the center. I was worrying about not getting pushed too close to the platform edge. Apple was saying something about the rats. Her hair was short and wild from her hat and a stray lock was hanging, perfectly, on her trendy purple glasses frame—it looked good. She looked good. So did Clever, in his stylish winter hat (They make such things?) with his iPod wires hanging from his coat. Young. Hip. Urban.

“Oh, here Sparks.” Apple stuck her hand into one of the many deep pockets on her lime green coat and offered me something. “I brought you a hat,” she said. “You can keep it.”

I smiled. I took the hat and put it on—it was a little too big and covered my glasses at first.

We laughed.

“It's perfect,” I said.

“It's good to see you, Kid,” Clever said.

“Yeah,” I said, and stopped worrying. I looked down the platform for a quiet minute before smiling again. “It's really good to see you guys, too.”