Midnight at the Europa Cafe

Margaret hides her eyes behind heavy, black-framed glasses that cover a third of her face. These glasses are not flattering, but Carrie Donovan wears them, so they are apparently fashionable for 60-something women in Manhattan. Ms. Donovan is a 60-something former fashion potentate who now pushes drawstring pants in television commercials for a chain store called "Old Navy." TV commercials may not afford her the prestige of pronouncing fashion trends, but being on television in any form makes people matter in a town beholden to recognition, youth, beauty, wealth and power.

Margaret reminds me of a little Carrie Donovan when I sit down across from her at Cafe Europa on West 57th street. It is Friday night. I have just come from a party at La Bar Bat, where two gentlemen try to make my acquaintance by talking about their clothing. One offers to take me to France. I choose the ladies' room instead. Before the real night-crawling begins, I wander down the street to the Cafe Europa.

It's around midnight. The Broadway shows are out. The late movies are over. The night is just starting. The tables at the Europa are filled with people having dinner before they club-hop until dawn. The coffee bar by the front window is lined with those of us having dessert before going home for the night. This is where I sit, across from the woman in Carrie Donovan glasses. We are not two feet apart, yet she avoids eye contact. This is New York for 'I think you might be crazy, therefore I do not see you and you do not see me.' Sometimes I play, sometimes I don't. Tonight I don't. I've spilled coffee in my saucer. I ask her for a napkin. She is frowning the way a lot of women do in Manhattan, as if the very act of smiling is an imposition. She hands me a napkin with a gesture of someone startled from a trance. I say it's a beautiful night. She nods and quietly agrees.

Something makes me want to engage her, so I talk about my silly encounters at the bar. I tell her I am learning to do things alone here now that I've failed at yet another relationship. I'm done with that nonsense, I tell her. From now on, the only trash I take out is my own.

I am intentionally glib because she seems so joyless. She is alone 15 years now, since her last husband died. She laments the paucity of single men her age in New York. She just wants someone to dance with, and maybe see a movie.

"Margaret," she says, repeating what friends tell her, as much to herself as to me, "you need a change of scenery."

She has lived in Manhattan since she was eight years old. She talks without conviction about moving to Florida. I fan the spark with tales of snow white beaches full of eligible bachelors. She lights up a little. The glasses come off. Finally, Margaret smiles. For an instant, with the sadness chased away, she is radiant. She again becomes the Margaret who was young and beautiful, who was recognized in certain circles and who was pursued by wealthy, powerful men. Then she looks past me at the couples walking down 57th street. The glasses go back on.

I must not renounce relationships, she admonishes. I must carve out my place in a man's heart while I am still young. There is no new love once a woman grows old.

"Especially," I think but don't say, "if that is what she believes."

Monday, April 5, 1999

Copyright 2010 by Deborah McAdams. All Rights Reserved. For Reprint Rights, click here.