I hover. As a mother, I mean. Sometimes I try not to, and sometimes I lean into it but either way, it’s my instinct. I was raised by hoverers. I was also raised in Staten Island. These facts are unrelated but relevant to my point which is: I grew up in the city but was not a city kid – at least not until I started high school in Manhattan. I was neither sophisticated, nor saavy, nor independently mobile.
Even as a little girl. I loved Manhattan – the lights! the smells! the people everywhere! – but I didn’t develop a borough inferiority complex until later, when I was in middle school. This, of course, is when one is most susceptible to developing complexes.
My parents would drive me over the Verrazano into Bay Ridge every morning, and I would dream we’d keep going until we crossed that cathedral of bridges, with its twinned arches, into the glittering metropolis of Manhattan. I had a small town girl’s adoration of the city, which was stoked by my favorite sitcom, Mad About You. Nothing could be better, I thought, than to live in a doorman building and order Chinese food every other night. That was the life I wanted.
And that life was mine, every time I visited my aunt, uncle and two cousins in their apartment on East 78th Street. I visited them frequently, for weeks at a time in the summer, like some kind of reverse Fresh Air Kid. When I was in high school, for almost three years, I lived with them Monday through Friday, because it took me just thirty minutes to get to school instead of an hour and a half and three modes of public transportation – bus, train and, incredibly, boat.
Staying at my aunt’s apartment was like living in a Mad About You episode. I would greet the doorman on my way in, take the elevator sixteen stories up and gorge myself on Chicken Chow Fun and Moo Shu Pork from takeout containers.
I even had a building bestie, Leah Goldstein. Leah was just my age and lived four floors below us. Leah was a city kid. She enjoyed an independence I dared not dream of. She walked places by herself. She took buses unsupervised. She had HBO and was permitted to watch anything she wanted, including Fatal Attraction.
I was fairly successful at fitting in with Leah and her savvy, independent friends, but a close look would have revealed I was an impostor. For example, I made it through all of Fatal Attraction without closing my eyes, but had nightmares for months afterward. If I’m being honest, my palms still get a little clammy when I look in a bathroom mirror.
One weekend afternoon, when I was about eleven, I was hanging out at Leah’s apartment, with her and her friends, when someone suggested we go out for lunch.
“Ooooh, we should go to Hard Rock,” said a girl with killer bangs.
There were murmurs of agreement and within minutes, feet were being shoved in shoes.
“Let me just go grab my wallet,” I said. “Don’t leave without me.”
I raced upstairs, beginning my begging before the door was even closed behind me. My mother was called. My request was denied.
I implored my mother. I bargained with her, I appealed to her basic humanity.
“You can go,” she said. “As long as your aunt goes with you.”
It was a preposterous idea. It was like offering someone a freshly-baked chocolate cake that was full of dysentery. I told her as much, and amped up the waterworks. I was then, and am now, a fast and voluble crier.
“What if,” my aunt chimed in. “What if Harry and I just happen to have lunch at Hard Rock too? At the same time? We won’t sit with you. We’ll just be there, on our own.”
“Because the food is so good,” my uncle Harry said. “And not at all overpriced.”
Beggars can’t be choosers. People who have never been to the mysterious but inarguably incredible place called “Hard Rock” must find a way there, even if they are accompanied by a secret security detail.
“All right,” I agreed, grabbing my wallet. “Just walk really far behind us. And don’t- you know- talk to me. Or look at me too much. From now on, we’re strangers.”
I still don’t understand why they caved to my outrageous demands, but a few minutes later, we were taking separate elevators down to the lobby, where I rejoined the group. To my horror, they’d decided in my absence we were going to take a cab to the restaurant. Which was not part of the plan I’d thrown together with my aunt.
But, I reasoned, this is what city kids do. They probably come out of the womb hailing taxis. And so, throwing a discrete and apologetic glance at my aunt and uncle, who were waiting in the lobby, I piled into the taxi with the other kids.
I wasn’t privy to the part where my aunt and uncle raced for the next taxi and yelled, “Follow that cab!” All I know is that soon after our group was seated at a large round table in the big, boisterous dining area of the Hard Rock Café- every bit as cool as I’d imagined-my aunt and uncle walked in and were ushered to a table on the upper level.
I followed suit as Leah and the other kids ordered burgers, fries, milkshakes. It was, I thought, the best meal I’d ever eaten. The burgers were juicier, the fries crispier, the milkshakes creamier than their outer borough counterparts. I felt so suddenly grown-up. I was keenly aware that I was in the middle of an important metamorphosis.
I would never be the same after dining (mostly) unsupervised at the coolest restaurant in the coolest city in the world. After this meal, I’d be an adult. A saavy, sophisticated adult. I’d be ready to pay rent for a studio apartment and tell tourists the fastest way to get to Bleecker Street from anywhere. It was a straight shot from here to Mad-About-You city -iving bliss.
And then the waitress brought our bill.
We were short. Significantly so.
“You guys, we forgot about tax!” shrieked Leah.
“Well, isn’t that, like, optional? Like a tip?” one of her friends ventured.
Panic percolated among the group as it was concluded that tax was not optional. What would happen to us now? Would the waitress call the police? Would we have to wash dishes?
I glanced up and found my aunt and uncle paying their own bill. They’d just turned from a liability to an ass-saving asset.
“Oh my God, you guys!” I exclaimed to the group. “This is so crazy but . . . I think that’s my aunt and uncle up there.” I pointed to their table. “How weird is that? They must be eating here too!”
“Can you ask them to lend us some money?” Leah asked.
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed.
My aunt and uncle did not bother to mask their delight at this unexpected reversal.
“Sorry,” my uncle teased. “But we have no idea who you are. We’re just perfect strangers enjoying a delicious lunch at the world-famous Hard Rock Café.”
Back then, I didn’t understand this delight. Now that I’m a mother of kids around this age, I understand it all too well. It’s not just the simple satisfaction of being able to wield an, “I told you so.” It’s the desperately-needed confirmation that you, the parent (or parent proxy) know what you are doing. That, despite all the misgivings and mistakes, the bad calls, the wrong-headed battles waged (and lost), that you still possess enough parental instinct to get the job done. More specifically, it’s a welcome reminder that your kid (or surrogate kid) still needs you, even when they insist they don’t —and never will again.
So it was with immeasurable pleasure that my aunt and uncle descended the stairs to serve as a real-life deus ex machina.
“Hi guys,” my uncle said. “I hear you’re a little short? We can cover you.”
I emerged from the lunch a hero. Or at least, the guy that knew where to find the hero.
When the bill was settled, my uncle asked: “How are you guys getting home?”
“Oh, just walking,” Leah said.
“We are too,” he replied.
They trailed us the whole way home.
Heather Heckel is an artist and educator living in New York City. In addition to the Park Slope Reader, her clients include Whole Foods Market, Kids Footlocker, Juice Pharma Worldwide, and The Renwick Hotel. Her artwork and children’s book has won international awards, and she has been published numerous times in the 3×3 Professional Illustration Magazine. Recently she has completed artist-in-residencies through the National Park Service in Arkansas, Connecticut, Washington, and California. Heather is passionate about social and environmental justice, and is an advocate for human rights and animal rights.