I think the mix of entendres was foreshadowed when, on my way to a bridal shower on Saturday, I saw a hand-lettered sign that said "Crabs at the Sunoco station." (This being a coastal region, there was all likelihood they were advertising a local catch for dinner, but just in case it was a cautionary alert, I drove right by.)
The shower was as much fun as I thought it would be: amusing and appealing guests; fetching bride; great weather; beautiful pool to relax in and around; lots of liquid refreshments of the grown-up variety and of course, the requisite naughty gifts among the "real" ones. And, always up for wordplay—especially when it's unintended—I loved it that my most charming malaprop-y friend pointed out that one of the presents was for the "erroneous" zone. (You know...that's the zone that is most frequently mistaken for something else, and subsequently mishandled.)
Valerie was the smart, sassy redhead across the street. All of seven years old to my six when I met her, she already knew how to laugh from deep down, was bitingly witty, and glittered with an excitement that we kids wanted to be near. The first Seventh Day Adventist I’d ever encountered, she tried to convert me, offspring of a zealous Catholic mother, within days of our first hello by luring me to her bible study group: “We have cookies there—does your church give you cookies?” (I have to say that communion wafers placed a weak second to the mouth-watering prospect of actual Seventh Day Adventist cookies.)
Our two families intertwined on that street with another, also full of girls, and our three moms became fast friends. We all moved freely in and out of each other’s homes, played Beatles records, sunned together on our front lawns, put on plays in our backyards, dressed up like clergy and pretended to conduct Mass (because we just couldn’t get enough of it on Sundays, I guess) and, feeling the power of a couple years’ seniority, snubbed our younger sisters from time to time. We grew up, and over the years Val and I lost touch, occasionally converging at weddings or neighborhood gatherings; once in a while seeing each other in New York, after my sister and Val both landed there with husbands and jobs.
When the planes hit the towers on 9/11, I heard the news and didn’t recall at first that she worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, the company that inhabited the floors just above the impact zone, with the unspeakable loss of nearly 700 people: Val among them, only 46. I spent time afterward trying to get to know the adult that Val had become when I wasn’t watching, and her generosity, compassion, hard work, coolness, success and humor—always humor—were mentioned, over and over again. One of my favorite stories about Val is from her early days at Cantor Fitzgerald… a senior trader gave her some shoes he wanted repaired, and Val acted the part of the dutiful newbie, took them to a shop, and returned them with taps on the toes and four-inch heels. When she was ordered to reverse her mischievous additions, she had the shoes bronzed. She knew how to make a point.
Her husband Sam said of Val that “she collected people.” Her brother Steve said, "Val could talk with a homeless person or the chairman of the board. She would empty her purse to someone in need. Despite her professional and financial success, she never lost touch with what mattered—relationships and people, not money."
It seems surreal that it has been a decade since 9/11, since the shock and the pain and the bittersweet beauty of the world working to heal this unfathomable hurt. I silently remember you, Valerie...you were—are—a shining example of what we have learned again, over and over, since that day: relationships and people are what matter. I hope wherever you are, you’re glittering with excitement, surrounded by those you love, laughing so hard you can’t stop, and wearing a slammin’ pair of shoes with four-inch heels and taps on the toes.
I have to laugh when I think of myself as a clichein other people's eyes: single woman with a cat. There are no pastoral scenes in my house with my feline; no moments of purring and sweetness; no sleepy kittenish stretching that makes me go "Awwww."
I have the most frustrating cat in the world. She's absolutely beautiful, but gives me no love. If she deigns to come out when I have visitors, I have to warn everyone not to pet her—even when she's winding around their legs as if she can't wait for a rub behind the ears—because they're liable to need surgery afterward. She has been known to bitch-slap me when I'm trying to carefully extricate her claws from my ankle, as if I'M hurting HER; has destroyed two sofas and numerous carpets; and made my wrists look, at times, like I'm self-mutilating. But every once in awhile, like a disinterested boyfriend who throws out an unexpected compliment, she is nice to me. Just a little. And in my mind, I paraphrase Michael Corleone: "Just when I thought I was out...she pulls me back in."
