Wednesdays With Phyllis

The morning after my ambulance adventure with Phyllis, I stopped by her building.

The doctor gave her an antibiotic prescription, I explained to the doorman. Perhaps she needs someone to drop it off?

Pharmacy delivered it an hour ago, he replied. But thanks for checking.

On the day her stitches were scheduled for removal, I stop in again.

Phyllis? She left an hour ago, another doorman informs me. Doctor appointment.

I scrawl her a note from my moleskine—call if you need anything, hope you’re healing well—and hand it over the reception desk.

A day later I receive her card in the mail.

Two lines in, I’m smile-crying.

Two paragraphs in, I’m laughing—I feel pretty good for someone who looks like a raccoon that got in a fight with another raccoon, she writes.

Two lines before signing off, she calls me the best of daughters, nieces, friends and neighbors and makes me want to call my Good Samaritan parents and thank them for passing on more than a high metabolism and low sense of humor.

The next day, I visit her building—you just missed her, the doorman says—and leave a tube of arnica and a message on a postcard.

She thanks me in a voicemail that sounds not unlike Betty White with a splash of summer on Nantucket.

When I return her call, we catch up on the week’s highlights:

Her stitches came out and so did the gore from her jacket, thanks to hydrogen peroxide.

I’m not bothering about my broken nose though, she confesses. I had a bad experience with a dermatologist once, and frankly, I think noses just heal themselves. Plastic surgery is…silly at my age.

Wisdom before beauty, I agree.

Also, my friend Larry—who you met the night I fell—he teaches creative writing at the senior center on Ninth Avenue. That’s how I know him. Anyway, he thinks it would be great if you come to one of his classes and read from your book.

A day later, it’s settled:

On a Wednesday in late February, I’ll be reading for an audience of Phyllis’ peers.

And if anyone needs help crossing the street afterward, I’m pretty sure they know who to ask.