An Acquaintance
My friend Marianne died last week. We met through a writers' group that started through the local public library and continued on Zoom during the pandemic. In the beginning, the group was fluid, writers, coming and going, sometimes for weeks, sometimes longer, usually without explanation. But in time, the regulars emerged, with a few of the original members as the bedrock. Marianne was one of those.
We were primarily women in our seventies, writing stories, essays, poems, material for blogs or comedy routines. One member had published a successful non-fiction book, a source of pride for all of us. Two were working on novels they read from time to time, requiring the rest of us to catch up on plot lines and characters. These works in progress, like our own stories, were filled with the conflicts and desires of characters struggling as the world shifted around them. The pandemic had shocked us all with its intensity and duration, an outrageous insult, wasting our precious time.
For the most part, we attempted to stick to business during our meetings, reading aloud and waiting patiently for comments. We tried to avoid personal stories, a rule Marianne routinely ignored. Instead, she found parallel plots in our stories and related them to her life. And occasionally, we did the same. In that way, over the years, we slowly got to know her and each other.
Marianne liked to write short humorous pieces, describing events she observed while she was in transit, on a bus or subway or one of her daily walks in Central Park. She took notes, first in her head and later back in the apartment where she lived alone, writing on an ancient laptop that routinely misbehaved. Despite a growing basket of rejections, she remained optimistic that one piece might find a home in the NYT or in one of the city's small community papers.
She described the bent, elderly man who dropped his COVID mask the M4 bus, outraging the other passengers until a young woman in a head scarf handed him a mask. A young woman on the 7 train, applying make-up with her right hand while holding a wobbly cup of coffee in her left. The Times didn't publish any of Marianne's stories, although they did publish one about a woman applying make-up on the subway. Just not Marianne's. Even so, I thought Marianne's was the better version.
We met in person only once, two years into the pandemic, on an early fall Saturday at the Met where she worked as a volunteer in the gift shop. I had driven down from the country to check on our apartment. By then, I had been vaccinated twice, so was less resistant to going out in public and more flexible about masking, which had, in any case, become optional. I had promised to let Marianne know if I was available for lunch, so I sent her a text and she responded with an invitation to meet for lunch in the Met cafeteria, where she had staff privileges. After lunch, she suggested a visit to one of the exhibits and a visit to the gift shop where I could take advantage of her employee discount
At lunch, we seated ourselves at a safe distance from other tables and spent the better part of two hours filling in the blanks in our personal lives. Apparently, we had once worked at the same firm, possibly at the same time, and knew many of the same people. Marianne had almost been engaged once, but later tied herself to a man who turned out to be the proverbial bad boyfriend. She spoke affectionately about nieces and nephews who lived in a neighboring state and about how she took the train to see them for holidays. But it was the Metropolitan Museum which gave her life structure and meaning. During the pandemic, she had cut back her hours, worried that any infection could be a setback to a health issue, one she alluded to, but did not explain and I did not ask.
Would I like to visit the gift shop?
I would. I loved the Met's gift shop. With two kids and six grandchildren, there was almost no chance I couldn't find gifts for some or all of them. So, we skipped the exhibits and headed for the main floor to wander about the gift shop examining cases of brightly colored medieval jewelry, stacks of massive art books, racks of long, flowing scarves with deco designs. The item that caught my eye was in the children's section; a small pink knapsack covered in lively dancing unicorns with sly smiles and small pointed horns. Just the thing for my four-year-old granddaughter, who had recently informed me that pink unicorns were her thing. I bought the knapsack, a matching pencil case and a small lunchbox, paid for my gifts and looked at my watch. Afternoon had turned to evening and I still had work to do in the apartment. Marianne walked me through the museum lobby and watched as I walked down the steep steps. I waved from the street and saw her turn back.
The following day, I received an abundance of Grandma kisses in exchange for my unicorn finds. As the pandemic raged, I no longer waited for holidays or birthdays to present my gifts. I sent Marianne a video of my granddaughter modeling the knapsack and received a smiling emoji in response. Two years later, as life returned to some version of normal, I noticed that Marianne was on the screen less often for our Monday meetings. After she had been absent for a few weeks, she wrote to say she had been ill and apologized for her absence. We reassured her that her place in the group was secure and sent love and prayers for her recovery.
Last Friday, I learned that she died peacefully, without pain, in the hospital, accompanied by a neighbor. I thought to write a note but wasn't sure where to send it. So, it seemed right to put my thoughts to paper, which is generally where they seem to make the most sense. And throughout that day, and then the next, I thought of her as I went about the activities of my own life, which felt less like exhausting and practical chores, and more like a gift. And I wished Marianne safe passage as made whatever journey was ahead. And hoped that she might be arriving in style, accompanied by the smiling pink unicorn of my granddaughter's dreams.
-Lou-Ellen Barkan
Lou-Ellen Barkan lives in the Berkshires where she teaches writing classes, runs a writer's group and writes for her pleasure and, hopefully, for others. She holds a BA from Hunter College and an MA from Columbia University. Two children, six grandchildren, four dogs and three careers have produced enough material for a lifetime of stories, some of which are available at https://www.clippings.me/lebarkan