by Gwen Cooper
It’s cold outside now, and the pigeons on the roof across the street almost blend into the snow. I wonder if Laura will miss them. She says we’ll be living in our new home by New Year’s.
New Year’s is another made-up story—like hours and minutes—that humans tell themselves. Years don’t begin and end because everybody gets together at the same time and says they do. Years really start when important things happen to you. When you’re born. When you find the human you’re going to live with forever. Your life begins when it becomes important. Like the day when Sarah found me. I’ve been counting my years from that day ever since.
Laura and Josh have brought all the Sarah-boxes downstairs into the living room so we can look through everything and decide what to bring with us and what will be left behind when we go. The Sarah-smell of them fills my nose and goes straight into the part of my mind that still dreams of her sometimes. Laura and Josh are dividing everything into three piles—a “yes” pile, a “no” pile, and a “maybe” pile. Josh put all of Sarah’s black disks into the “yes” pile right away. Laura put things like Sarah’s address book and bongo drums into the “no” pile. The matchbook toys and bird-clothes are in the “maybe” pile. “I hate to throw them away,” Laura says, “but it’s an awful lot of stuff to take with us.”
“We could put everything in storage for a while,” Josh replies.
Laura’s face is doubtful. “I guess. We’ll probably need to rent a storage unit anyway. How is it that every time you move, you end up with more stuff instead of less?”
“I think it’s a law of physics that things in closets and boxes expand over time.” His voice sounds very serious when he says this, but there’s a grin on his face.
“Speaking of things expanding …” Laura says, and scoops me out of a box. “Somebody’s put on weight these past few months.” I think how unfair it is for Laura to say anything about my weight when she’s the one who’s getting bigger every day. But her eyes sparkle the way they do when she thinks something is funny, so probably she isn’t really trying to insult me. She puts me on top of a stack of black disks, which surprises me because Sarah never let me touch her black disks. Josh looks surprised, too. But Laura just laughs and says, “Well, Prudence is coming with us, isn’t she?”
The stiff cardboard holders the black disks are kept in feel cool and smooth beneath my belly, and I’m happy to lie here for a while. Suddenly Josh jumps up and says, “I almost forgot!” I hear his footsteps going up the stairs, and then he comes back down holding the Love Saves the Day bag. “I put this in my room after I found Prudence shredding everything in it one day.”
Shredding! I remember that day. It was one of my first few days living here, and I just wanted a comfortable place to fall asleep with my memories of Sarah!
I try to fix Josh with my best indignant stare, but he’s already sitting on the floor with his arms in the bag. “I think this is just old newspapers and stuff,” he tells Laura, and puts the bag in the “no” pile. But I remember, now, that I found something else in the Love Saves the Day bag that day. Leaping from the pile of black disks, I dive into the bag headfirst and start pulling out all the old newspapers. (This is where having “extra” toes comes in handy.) Laura and Josh are laughing as more and more of me disappears into the bag, but when I get to the metal box in the bottom—the one Sarah took my red collar from the day she gave it to me—it’s too heavy for me to pry out. I pull and pull at it, my back straining so hard that it arches up and almost rips the thick paper of the bag.
Laura finally notices what I’m doing and reaches into the bag to help me. When her hand and my head come back out, she’s holding the box. It’s crushed and dented, and I remember how difficult it was even for Sarah to open it. I can’t see Laura’s expression, because she’s looking down, but she holds the box in her hands and turns it over and over for what seems like a long time.
“What is that?” Josh asks.
“This is from our old apartment.” Laura’s voice is hushed. “I always assumed it was lost the day they tore it down.”
“Do you know what’s in it?” Josh looks curious and then concerned when it takes Laura a few moments to answer.
“Not really.” She’s still turning the box around in her hands, looking for a way to open it. “How did she even get this back?”
“It looks like it’s been through a war,” Josh says. “Let me get a hammer from the toolbox and see if we can pry it open.”
“I think I can get it.” Laura slides a finger into a tiny gap between the crushed lid of the box and its body, using her other hand to flip up the latch that holds it closed. She strains against it for a moment, and just when Josh is reaching over to help her, the box flies open. Laura’s hands shake as she starts pulling things out. There are some red satin ribbons, and an old, balled-up T-shirt with a funny picture of a fake ear with black disks hanging from it and word-writing across the top. Laura says the word-writing spells EAR WAX RECORDS. There are also photos of a very young-looking Sarah standing next to a man who looks a little like Laura. Sarah is holding a baby and smiling at us. In another picture that’s creased, like it’s been folded in half, a young-looking Laura is hugging an old, old man.
Josh has moved over so that he’s sitting behind Laura now, looking over her shoulder as she finds a small velvet bag that holds a plain gold ring. “This was my mother’s wedding ring.” Laura looks up at Josh. “I don’t think she ever got over my father. She never dated. And every year on their anniversary, she’d pull out old records and listen to ‘their’ songs.”
Josh puts his arms around her. “That’s the trouble with romantics. Once they fall in love, it’s for life.” But he doesn’t look like he really thinks this is “trouble,” as he kisses the top of Laura’s head.
The last thing in the box is a small plastic rectangle with two holes punched into either side. “A cassette,” Josh says. “What’s on it?”
“I … I’m not sure.” Laura lifts it from the box and looks at the front and back of it, but there’s no word-writing on it. “She made so many mix tapes back in her DJ days. This could be one of them, or …”
She doesn’t finish the sentence, so Josh says, “Let me get my cassette player. It’s in my office.” Josh runs to the stairs again, and I hear the sound of things being moved around above our heads in Home Office before Josh comes running back down holding what looks like a black radio with a window on the front of it. It’s dusty, as if it hasn’t been used for a long time. He presses a button to make the window open and, taking the tape from Laura’s hand, drops it inside.
First there’s a sound like a long sssssssss. Then music starts playing. A voice that sounds like Sarah except a little higher says, Are you ready? A little girl’s voice says, But I can’t sing as good as you do. Sarah’s voice says, We’ll sing together. Just try.
“Oh my God.” Laura’s voice is a whisper, and one hand rises to cover her mouth. “We made this together, at Alphaville Studios. I was only a few years old.”
Sarah’s voice hums a little, like she’s trying to show this younger Laura what the tune should sound like. Then both of their voices sing:
Winter is over
Gone is the snow
Everything’s bright
And all aglow …
Hearing Sarah’s voice now is like being there again the day we found each other. Sarah’s singing was my first beautiful thing, the thing that all the other beautiful things in our life together came from. It’s the sound of cold nights cuddled up under the covers together and sunlight shining butter-gold on Sarah’s hair through the windows, and the hand that used to stroke my back when something frightened me. It’s the sound of feet-shoes coming up the stairs at the time of day when I knew Sarah was coming home and I’d wait for her in that little ceramic bowl by the door. It’s the sound of Sarah’s voice saying, Who’s my love? Who’s my little love? and knowing the answer to that question even though I couldn’t say it to her in human wor
ds. My first beautiful thing. It’s here in this different apartment in a whole different country.
I know now what Sarah meant when she said that if you remember someone, they’ll always be with you. Sarah is here with us now. As I listen to her sing, I know that she never left.
The water that fills Laura’s eyes makes them look darker, until they’re the same color as Sarah’s eyes were. When her hands rise again to cover her whole face and her shoulders begin to shake, I know it’s because this is the same for her as it is for me. Sarah’s voice was Laura’s first beautiful thing, too.
It’s the sound of Laura sobbing that makes Josh and me go over to her at the same time. Josh’s arms go around her again and I crawl into her lap. It’s harder for me to get comfortable there than it used to be, because her belly has gotten bigger, but I press my forehead against her chest anyway and purr as fiercely as I can. “Look,” Josh whispers. “I think Prudence remembers, too.”
The three of us sit together like that until Laura’s shoulders stop shaking and one hand falls to stroke the top of my head. In the light from the window, I think again how much Laura’s hands look like Sarah’s. Outside, on the rooftop across the street, the white and amber pigeons huddle together against the cold air and prepare to take flight. One after the other they throw themselves into the sky. Soon, though, they’ll flutter back down again and return to the place they know is home.
Author’s Note
On January 24, 1998, a century-old tenement building still in use and located at 172 Stanton Street was demolished by the City of New York following a 911 call reporting damage to the rear façade during a rainstorm. Some two dozen residents were evacuated early that morning without being allowed to gather any personal belongings. Firefighters and city officials assured them that they would be allowed to return within a few hours. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani entered the building without a hard hat at approximately eleven AM, but ultimately residents were not allowed to return before demolition commenced eight hours later.
Whether or not the building was in danger of imminent collapse is a question still hotly debated. Witnesses say that it had to be leveled to the ground over a thirteen-hour period and never collapsed on its own. Today, luxury condominiums occupy the site.
The events portrayed in chapter 13 of this book, while inspired by eyewitness accounts and newspaper articles about what happened that day, are a fictional creation and not intended to accurately depict real events. The characters in this book are also fictional creations and do not represent any actual persons who occupied 172 Stanton in 1998 or at any time in the building’s history.
There was, however, a real “Honey the cat.” Honey was one of two cats and a parrot living in the building on the day it was demolished, whose owners were not allowed to retrieve them. Neither the cats nor the parrot were ever seen again.
For Scarlett, the original Prudence
For Homer, the Original
For Vashti, sweeter than Honey
And for Laurence, always
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without these books:
Alphabet City, Geoffrey Biddle
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton
Alphaville: 1988, Crime, Punishment, and the Battle for New York City’s Lower East Side, Michael Codella and Bruce Bennett
Street Play, Martha Cooper
Blackout Looting!, Robert Curvin and Bruce Porter
Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture, Alice Echols
All Hopped Up and Ready to Go: Music from the Streets of New York, 1927–1977, Tony Fletcher
Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie, Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, and Victor Bockris
Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970–1979, Tim Lawrence
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
Resistance: A Radical Social and Political History of the Lower East Side, Clayton Patterson and Jeff Ferrell
Tompkins Square Park, Q. Sakamaki
New York Rocker, Gary Valentine
Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, Sharon Zukin
As well as the newspaper article:
Andrew Jacobs, “The Angry Urban Refugees,” The New York Times, May 10, 1998
This book would also have been impossible without the following people who allowed me to interview them about motherhood, music, record stores, lily toxicity in cats, life in a law firm, Mitchell-Lama housing, and everyday life in and around the Lower East Side in the ’70s and ’80s: Dr. Tracy DeMeola, Richard Finkelstein, Jim Kiick, John Kioussis, Andrea Kline, Manny Maris, Lorcan Otway, Clayton Patterson, Binky Philips, Dee Pop, Tony Sachs, Jay Wilson, and several female attorneys who wish to remain anonymous.
And, last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to:
Michele Rubin, superagent and “author whisperer.” My editors Caitlin Alexander—the first person to fall in love with Prudence—and Kate Miciak, who offered far more patience than I deserved as I raced to cross the finish line, and whose insights and feedback made this book better than it has any right to be.
Anise “Anise’s to Pieces” Labrum, for ten years of true friendship and crazy stories better than any I could have made up, for flying from Napa to New York a week before my wedding—with a broken arm!—to sew my wedding dress, and for allowing me such free use of her name, talents, and persona.
Peri Stedman, the woman at whose thirtieth birthday party I was introduced to one Laurence Lerman. I told you I’d work your name into the next book I wrote!
David and Claire Berkowitz, my grandparents and the inspiration for the Mandelbaums. I was lucky enough to have my grandmother living with us for twelve years of my childhood, telling me stories she probably doubted I’d remember. God was very good to me when he gave me two mothers.
David and Barbara Cooper, my parents and the greatest cheering section any daughter who wanted to be a writer could have asked for.
Laurence Lerman, the world’s best husband and my first editor, who read (and then re-read, and then re-re-read) every word of this book as I wrote it, whose brilliant suggestions occasionally made me wonder if I should turn the writing over to him, and who put up with me during the many, many months when I was utterly unbearable. Also Ben and Saundra Lerman. Nobody ever had better parents-in-law.
Melanie Paradise, a great friend, greater cat guardian, and this book’s first reader aside from my husband and editors.
Rhoda Palmateer, in loving memory. Rhoda’s love saved the day for many hundreds of cats and kittens who otherwise would have languished on the streets or died in shelters. Your extraordinary heart will always be missed.
Everybody who read Homer’s Odyssey, took the time to email me, followed Homer and me on Facebook and Twitter, and whose daily encouragement kept me going when I was positive I wouldn’t be able to finish this book.
And, finally, Clayton and Fanny Cooper-Lerman—the most adorable kittens ever (aside from Homer, Vashti, and Scarlett, of course)—for the frequent and necessary laughter breaks during the last few weeks of writing.
BY GWEN COOPER
Love Saves the Day
Homer’s Odyssey
Diary of a South Beach Party Girl
About the Author
GWEN COOPER is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Homer’s Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat and the novel Diary of a South Beach Party Girl. She is active with numerous animal welfare organizations. Gwen Cooper lives in Manhattan with her husband, Laurence. She also lives with her three perfect cats—Homer, Clayton, and Fanny—who aren’t impressed with any of it.
www.gwencooper.com