My Famous Evening by Howard Norman

Author:Howard Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2004-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

I do not particularly delight in stories whose plots rely on coincidence, nor do I feel that synchronicity is necessarily a godsend. However, I can subscribe to the Buddhist notion of predestination—surely lives meet up and all things happen for a reason, yet if the reason remains a mystery, so be it.

One bitter cold December day in 1993, I had just left the ice rink in Central Park in New York City, having skated with my five-year-old daughter. Just as the Zamboni began to erase all evidence of the zigzag, etched choreographies of skaters from the ice, I glanced over and saw Kristen Heckman helping a little boy off with his ice skates. It was clearly Kristen, nineteen years after I had last seen her at the Halifax train station, December 1974, where we had said a tearless good-bye. She now looked to be prosperously dressed, a phrase I once overheard spoken by an old Russian woman at a bar mitzvah in Halifax. On the wooden bench next to her own skates was a steaming cup of hot chocolate. I thought, Nova Scotia to California to New York, and who knows where in between: Kristen’s come far in life.

“I think I know that person,” I said to Emma.

“Want to say hello?” Emma said.

“It’s cold, let’s get back to the hotel, okay?”

“She’s looking at you, Dad.”

I walked over and said hello. Introductions were made, my daughter, her son, about the same age. There seemed scarcely a thing to say to each other, really. “Your daughter’s beautiful,” she said. “Your son’s handsome,” I said.

“So, you live where now?” she asked.

“Vermont,” I said. “You?”

“Oh, I’ve lived here in New York for years. I moved here permanently in 1980.”

We exchanged brief résumés, our work, what our spouses did for a living, that sort of thing. She told me that her aunt Tanny had passed away. I bought my daughter a cup of hot chocolate. Everyone had gloves, scarves, heavy overcoats on; the Zamboni was moving in concentric circles on the ice to the accompaniment of Madame Butterfly.

“Where in New York do you live,” I said, “if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Near Park Avenue and 67th.”

But I refrained from mentioning Joseph Conrad; it would have needed so much explanation, and to what end? “Nice neighborhood, I bet.”

“My husband and I like it.”

“Well, good-bye, then, Kristen.”

“Funny, running into you here, of all places, huh?”

“It was a long time ago, but I always wondered why you never answered any of my letters.”

“To California? I never got them.”

“I sent them through Tanny. I even delivered them to her in person.”

“And of course you thought she’d send them on.”

“Of course.”

“My aunt never did, actually. Send along your letters.”

I said, “She must’ve had her reasons.”

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