Selective breaking of rules

Cab drivers in Manhattan have scathing opinions on everything like analysts

My colleague follows a strict three-kilometre arc in Manhattan and will not deviate from it under any circumstance. Between our office and our respective hotels — merely a block or two, while New Yorkers think nothing of walking 20 or 30 blocks — she prefers to take a cab, blaming it on her teetering shoes, but on an evening that is so blistery and temperatures have plummeted to minus 6 degrees, when taxis are scarce on the ground and it would be mere minutes even against the gale to reach the safety of our respective hotels, she gives in and I escort her to the beleaguered Subrata Roy’s Plaza Hotel.

 
Our ears have gone numb, the tips of our noses have frozen, and I’m regretting not wearing those long johns that sit in a drawer in my room every time I’m here because indoors is always too cosy for such layering. Nevertheless, the short dash past the stores is illuminating for my colleague’s chatty comments. Past Fendi (“too feminine”), Miu Miu (“too oriental”), Chanel (“my favourite”), Salvatore Ferragamo (which she’s wearing and the reason for her grief about walking). Other illuminating comments are snatched away by the wind, and as I thaw in my hotel room, I forget the others.

 
She’s refused entreaties for ordering in lunch at work, a general practice for most of us, because she doesn’t like the “soupy things from that Asian place” that, in fact, we love. So, heave ho and down to Lavo, which is excellent Italian where we share a pizza because she’s not hungry, though it doesn’t show when lunch is served. Next day, our pit stop is Nobu where I have to fight her off to keep away from my share of the sashimi.
 

My own work takes me almost daily to Soho, a maverick part of the eccentric city that I enjoy, not that I get around at all with the exception of a glass of wine or a quick and excellent lunch in a neighbourhood diner for when we need a break from staring at the computer screens. Some of the buildings are cast iron, and it has a character that loses its charm when I’m looking for a taxi back during rush hour and none appear available, and I can feel the blood in my veins freezing up. I think of crying because it’s so cold, but that would mean more ice on the face. Fifteen minutes later, inside the warmth of a cab, I’m so grateful, I do cry, and the driver says, “It’s all right man, let it out, she ain’t worth it if she won’t respect you.” Cab drivers in Manhattan should be paid for being like analysts, they have scathing opinions on everything. Just don’t start them off on Trump!

 
At a meeting in another beautiful office, my colleague and I are invited to the superb show home of the designer that has been covered in international design magazines — he checks — 29 times. Do we want to come for dinner? Nothing would keep us away, we say, nothing but my colleague’s three-kilometre-only caveat, because the house is in the East Village. I guess, some rules are meant to be broken, so we confirm our attendance and our ability to eat fish. She promises to dress up for the event. If the distance rules no longer apply, I’m reckoning nor will her resistance to certain brands she finds offensive. Maybe she’ll wear Fendi. Or Miu Miu. Either way, I, at least, will know tonight.