1Florence Gordon was trying to write a memoir, but she had two strikes against her: she was old and she was an intellectual. And who on earth, she sometimes wondered, would want to read a book about an old intellectual?
Maybe it was three strikes, because not only was she an intellectual, she was a feminist. Which meant that if she ever managed to finish this book, reviewers would inevitably dismiss it as “strident” and “shrill.”
If youre an old feminist, anything you say, by definition, is strident and shrill.
She closed her laptop.
Not much point, she thought.
But then she opened it up again.
2
She didnt feel strident or shrill. She didnt even feel old.
And anyway, old age isnt what it used to be — or at least thats what she kept telling herself.
This was her reasoning. Florence was seventy-five years old. In an earlier era, that would have made her an old lady. But not today. Shed been a young woman during the 1960s, and if you were young in the sixties — “bliss was it in that dawn to be alive” — theres a sense in which you can never grow old. You were there when the Beatles came to America; you were there when sex was discovered; you were there when the idea of liberation was born; and even if you end up a cranky old lady whos proud of her activist past but who now just wants to be left alone to read, write, and think — even if you end up like that, theres something in your soul that stays green.
She wasnt — this seems important to say — a woman who tried to look younger than she was. She didnt dye her hair; she had no interest in Botox; she didnt whiten her teeth. Her craggy old-fashioned teeth, rude and honest and unretouched, were good enough for her.
She wasnt a woman who wanted to recapture her youth. In part this was because she found the life she was living now so interesting.
So she was a strong proud independent-minded woman who accepted being old but nevertheless felt essentially young.
She was also, in the opinion of many who knew her, even in the opinion of many who loved her, a complete pain in the neck.
3
She was writing a memoir that began with the early days of the womens movement — the modern womens movement; her own womens movement, the one that had been born in the 1970s. If she could finish it, it would be her seventh book.
Each book had posed its own difficulties. The difficulty with this one was that she was finding it impossible to bring the past to life. Her memory was efficient; she could recall the dates and the acts and the actors. But she was finding it hard to remember the texture of the past.
Tonight she had finally begun, she thought, to crack the code. Shed remembered a moment that she hadnt thought about in years. It was just a moment, not important in itself. But precisely because she hadnt thought about it in so long, she was able to remember it now with a sense of freshness, and she was hoping she might have finally found the door that would lead her back into the past.
She was glad that she was free for the rest of the night. It was seven oclock on a Friday in early May; she was through with her academic obligations and her mind was clear. And this evening, in which shed finally, finally, finally, begun to make some progress — this evening was the happiest one shed had in a long time.
Except that Vanessa kept calling.
Her friend Vanessa kept calling, and Florence kept not picking up. After the fifth call, she thought that Vanessa might be in some sort of trouble, and on the sixth, she finally answered.
“Thank God youre home,” Vanessa said. “Ive got a problem.”
“Whats wrong?”
“Nothing big. Nothing terrible. Its just that I got pickpocketed, evidently, and I dont have anything except my phone. I need some money to get back home.”
“Where are you?”
“Thats why I called you. Im three blocks away.”
She named a restaurant.
“Well Im right here,” Florence said. “Just come up.”
“Thats nice of you. But its a little bit complicated.”
“Why?”
“The people I was having dinner with had to run, and I stayed to pay the check, and thats when I found out my purse was gone. So the owner doesnt want me to leave. He wants to be sure Im not going to skip out on him.”
“Vanessa, youre a very respectable-looking woman. Youre a very old woman. Youre obviously not skipping out on him. Tell him youre not Bonnie Parker.”
“Thats just what I told him. Thats exactly what I told him, in fact. I told him Im not Bonnie Parker. But hes not being very understanding. I think he thinks I am Bonnie Parker. Im really sorry. But itll just take a minute.”
People, Florence thought as she put on her shoes. What do I need them for again?
Hes afraid shell skip out on him. As Florence waited for the elevator, she was muttering to herself. She reminded herself of Popeye
the Sailor Man.
She crossed the street, still muttering. Muttering, and clenching and unclenching her fists.
She was doing this with her fists because shed been having some trouble with her left hand. Carpal tunnel syndrome. Her fingers sometimes jumped around as if they had five little minds of their own. A neurologist had told her to get an ergonomic keyboard and an ergonomic mouse and an ergonomic splint for her wrist; shed gotten all of it, and shed faithfully done the exercises he prescribed, but none of it was working so far.
Muttering, clenching, unclenching: I must look, she thought, like a madwoman.