39. Do You Know Who You’re Playing With?
The Year Of Paying Attention
Long ago, an online Scrabble algorithm matched me up with an opponent named Nicole, a superior player happy to consistently beat me. We’d trade occasional in-game messages, and became Facebook friends and kept playing, year after year. While traveling I’d think, “Nicole has no idea I’m in Italy playing Scrabble with her.” When my marriage was ending, I’d think, “Nicole has no idea my wife just moved out,” or, “ I just had cancer surgery,” or, “my job was just eliminated.” In our online Scrabble universe, what was significant was a triple-word score, or the rare game I’d somehow win.
“Do you know who you’re playing with?” Sarah asked me once, and I told her mostly no, all strangers, but this woman named Nicole is very good, and I think I saw on social media that she has a restaurant somewhere. “Don’t you want to know who she is?” Sarah asked. I said I didn’t want to mess with a good thing. Nicole was a great Scrabble opponent, the tiny picture posted above her winning score showing an attractive woman with a direct gaze. Sarah thought the whole thing was odd.
Months ago, early for the wedding of friends in northern Manhattan, Sarah and I decided to look for coffee. We parked, hiked up a hill, turned a corner, and without warning, were standing in front of The Pandering Pig. “Oh my GOD!” I shouted — “It’s Nicole’s restaurant!” I felt like I’d fallen through a rip in the space/time continuum. “From Scrabble? We’re going in!” Sarah cried, and feeling as if I were crossing the Rubicon, I hurried after her.
“Is Nicole here?” Sarah asked a woman inside. Nicole was in the kitchen, we were told. “Can you tell her Tim from Scrabble wants to say hello?” This was surely a violation of online Scrabble etiquette — but it was too late to turn back. Looking dubious, the woman carried Sarah’s message to the kitchen, and seconds later, a second head peered around the corner. It was Nicole! The face from the tiny picture!
I walked briskly, but not at all like a crazy online stalker, toward her, and said, “Nicole — I’m Tim Warfield. We’ve been playing online Scrabble for years, and I thought I’d just… say hello…” Nicole’s face went from concerned to somewhat relaxed, and she smiled, the way I suppose one might smile meeting a second cousin from the old country who’d made his way to the new world. “Oh! It’s nice to meet you!” she said, and I introduced Sarah, and explained why we were in the neighborhood. Then there was nothing else to say — Nicole and I were in the middle of a game, as we always are, so I could have said something about whatever word she’d most recently played, but that seemed unnecessary. I babbled something about coming back for dinner, so nice to meet you, and back out to the street we fled, to find the temple where the wedding was happening.
Last night, we invited the newlyweds, Alex and Daniel, to join us for dinner at the Pandering Pig. Sarah and I arrived first, and greeted a tall man holding menus and standing guard at the entrance. He said “You’re Tim.” Was he confirming our reservation? Or did he know about the Scrabble? I spotted Nicole behind the bar, chatting with a couple of patrons. The man ushered us to our table. Sarah was aflutter — “You know the chef. It’s making me a little nervous,” she admitted.
We examined the menu, hoping our friends would arrive soon to help dissolve our self-consciousness. Would Nicole come to our table? The man returned to ask the water question (tap would be fine). He said something that acknowledged the Scrabble, and confirmed he was married to Nicole. Then Nicole was standing next to us, at the precise moment our friends walked in. I tried to introduce everybody as they slid into the booth, and when Alex said “I know all about you,” to Nicole, it stayed slightly awkward, slightly weird, weirdly exciting.
The four of us settled down, and caught up, and ordered. A miniature version of Nicole was refilling water glasses, bringing salads and more bread and main courses. “Are you by chance related to anyone else in the restaurant?” I asked. She was Nicole’s daughter. We learned the beets were named to honor the angel investor who’d helped get the restaurant up and going. After dessert, Nicole returned with gifts, frozen chicken stock she plans to sell in retail shops. Just in time, Sarah said later, because I’d waxed enthusiastic about home-made soup in Maine. It seemed fated. This morning I opened up the Scrabble app on my phone and saw it was my turn to make a word. Nicole is winning, which is no surprise.
***
“Which one is this?” asked the lady in the elevator, referring to Sarah. This happens, an old neighbor mistaking my younger partner for my daughter. “This is neither one of my daughters. This is my partner Sarah,” I explained. The woman looked stricken. Time slowed to a crawl as the elevator descended lobbyward.
The neighbor sheepishly bid us a good morning, and rushed away. I noticed my mind exploring familiar terrain. Should I feel embarrassed for having a younger partner? Should I be annoyed at my neighbor’s misunderstanding?
The awkward feeling lingered, and later as I was meditating, it beckoned me down another rabbit hole, as I imagined my daughter’s upcoming 30th birthday dinner, scheduled in a nice restaurant with her mother and her sister Lizzie, who hasn’t spoken to me for months. Should I reach out again to Lizzie before dinner? Should I be in touch with my former wife, to catch up on, I don’t know, things? How can I make sure the evening goes well…
And off my mind takes me. Sitting in meditation, I remember that no one has appointed me the entertainment director. I don’t need to do anything. Sitting quietly makes it easier to notice the thoughts distracting me, the compelling narratives, what happened, what will happen, what mustn’t happen, or should have happened, or might happen if I can just wrestle control of things. Maybe it’s time to put on my t-shirt that reads, “This never happened.”
***
My computer never forgets a birthday. It reminded me that today is my late college roommate Jack’s, who’d been a little older than me for forty years. Now I’m older. Other dates pop up, like my wedding anniversary, and former sister-in-laws’ birthdays. I don’t cancel the computer settings, so now they are reminders that there’s nothing to do, no card to send, call to make, wish to extend. Now that he’s gone, I miss Jack in a way I didn’t during the last years of his life, when it was difficult to have a relaxed conversation with him, Jack caught up in his own tortured thoughts, pinned down as if by a sniper fire of regret.
We bonded when we were teenage boy-men, making each other laugh, and measuring ourselves against each other into our twenties and thirties. We knew each other when we didn’t know much of anything. When I see our daughters, now close friends, it’s variations of Jack and me I see. Happy Birthday, Jack, old man. All the musicians we listened to and revered are going, going, gone, all the comedians, the places, the references. Your birthday reminder will keep popping up on my computer screen, even when I’m gone, too.
***
I feel like Toady in “The Wind in The Willows” (Disney animated version), excited about a new mania. It sprang into being on my friend Daniel’s rooftop, during our monthly transition group meeting. Over dinner, seven of us listened as Daniel described a book he’s working on, a photo essay/cookbook using his mother’s recipes, and documenting the Bensonhurst neighborhood where she bought her ingredients, and where Daniel still does.
“You should create a podcast about the book,” I said. Daniel liked the idea. So yesterday, after I drove my Subaru to yet another repair shop, this one in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to replace, at Subaru’s expense, the faulty Takata airbags, Daniel picked me up for breakfast, and a tour of his old neighborhood. First stop was Frank & Sal’s. Daniel waved hello to a guy behind the counter. “That’s Frank,” he said. We were waiting for the octopus to come out with the lunch offerings when Frank came over with a paper plate on which were heaped pieces of fresh mozzarella cheese.
“Hand made, so the texture’s different,” Frank said. Frank looks like he could be Daniel’s cousin. I put a piece in my mouth. It was different. It was the best mozzarella I’d ever tasted. I wondered if I might be dreaming. Really, I wasn’t sure. Frank’s adult son came into the shop, “from the gym,” and walked over to talk. Daniel told him John Turturro might be writing the introduction to his book. Then Frank was back with another paper plate, this time with four rice balls, arancini, just out of the oven. It became clear that Daniel and I were having breakfast standing in Frank & Sal’s, waiting for the octopus to come out. Breakfast was on Frank.
“You’ll hear people speaking Italian in the aisles here,” Daniel said. I nodded, chewing. The octopus came out, and Daniel bought some for himself, and some for me. We walked to the store where he buys his olive oil. I bought some. And cans of beans, the name on the label the same as the name of the store. On line to pay, Daniel pointed to signs behind the register for various kinds of ravioli. “That’s what they’re known for. I think it’s too salty,” he said. I bought some caponata. I wondered if I should move to Bensonhurst. Daniel drove me to the subway, me toting my octopus, caponata, beans, olive oil and three-dollar plastic sandals I bought at the store where Daniel exchanged his own defective pair (“I can’t get my foot into it, it’s too small, see?”). A Chinese man judiciously examined the offending slipper and okay’d its replacement, and a Chinese woman rang up our purchases.
The next day, on the hour-plus subway ride back to Brooklyn to retrieve my car with replacement airbags, I started listening to a new podcast, about a new podcast company the podcast host was launching. I’m not kidding. So my research has begun in earnest. Will this turn out like the group coaching enterprise? Whatever happens, I have Chinese plastic slippers, and mine fit.
Next week: I Saw What That Guy Did
