is on the second floor in an elegant Upper West Side brownstone residence just off Riverside Drive on West 91st Street, and every Saturday morning we meet there to put the world to rights over coffee. Sitting at her maple table by the large picture window, I can see out to the street below. ‘Sit for long enough in New York and you’ll see everyone in the city walk by,’ Mr Kowalski always used to say. He was the original owner of my florist’s shop, before he retired to his beloved Warsaw with his daughter Lenka, where he lived until his death, just over five years ago. Mr Kowalski was another of the first true friends I made in my adopted country.
‘Rosie, you have no idea how blessed you are to have History in England,’ Celia declared one Saturday morning as she appeared from the kitchen with the coffee and a basket of warm muffins. As usual, we had entered a conversation a little way in from the start and continued as though we’d been there from the beginning. I couldn’t help but grin at her as she flopped down into the chair beside me.
‘Ah, history…’ I replied in a learned tone.
‘I mean, you Brits just don’t appreciate the awesome privilege of having kings and queens going back centuries. I can’t say that my ancestors were walking in New York in the tenth century. I can’t say that my family is born-and-bred American. I mean, heaven only knows where my family came from. I’m probably four-sixteenths Ukrainian with a touch of Outer Mongolian thrown in somewhere along the line.’
I was about to say that there is actually no such thing as a true English person either, and remark that my family probably came from Moravia or somewhere originally, but I could see this was a serious topic of concern for Celia. So I stayed quiet and poured the coffee instead.
‘Why are you so hung up about it, mate?’ I asked.
Celia’s troubled countenance softened and she reached for a muffin.
‘It’s my column for the Times next week. I’m thinking about the importance of history for humans to find their place in the world. The more I consider it, the more I realise it’s a nonstarter. Most of us don’t know our own history here—save for what we learn at school. We’re a hotchpotch of immigrants, convicts and dreamers, all clamouring for some damn utopia that doesn’t exist. We want to belong, yet we don’t know what we want to belong to.’
Somehow, I suspected those sentences would appear in her column soon. This is a regular phenomenon; in fact, I think our Saturday morning chats must be the best documented in history. If, in a thousand years’ time, historians want to know what things twenty-first-century friends were discussing, all they will have to do is to examine the archives of Celia’s column at the New York Times (which will, by then, be thought-transmitting to its readership, I suppose).
‘You are such a writer,’ I smiled. ‘Every word beautifully crafted…’
‘Honey, everything is copy. My father always said that.’ She picked up a teaspoon and frowned at her reflection. ‘And I am starting to look like my mother.’
I couldn’t help but smile at her. ‘You are not.’
It has to be said, Celia is a good-looking lady, immaculately turned out at all times and with one of those complexions that most women would walk over burning coals (or inject odd bits of animal into their skin) to achieve. To look at her, you could never guess her age; despite her strenuous denials of the fact, she can easily pass for an early thirtysomething, when in reality she’s nearer the middle of her forties than she would ever admit. She has a style that seems to exude from deep within her—a quality my mum would call ‘effortless’. Even that morning, when her only appointment was in her own apartment for coffee with me, her jeans and blue linen shirt looked a million times more elegant than they would have done on anyone else.
‘So, my Authors’ Meet next Tuesday night…’ she said, discarding the subject and brandishing the next with a warpspeed that would impress even Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, ‘I thought Café Bijou in TriBeCa would be ideal. It’s new but worth a risk, so I’m told.’
‘Sounds promising,’ I said, watching sunlit steam rise as I broke open a warm muffin, letting the pieces fall onto my plate. ‘Who’s coming?’
‘Henrik Gund is a definite, and I’m awaiting replies from Mimi Sutton and Angelika Marshall, though of course I’m kinda confident they’ll find it hard to resist. In fact, most of New York’s finest will be there. It has the potential to be amazing…of course there are still a few worries to iron out…’ Celia paused, turned squarely to face me and smiled one of those immaculately painted, high-maintenance Jewish smiles of hers that, I have learned, always precede a Celia Reighton Big Favour.
Somewhere, way in the back of my brain, a familiar little voice began screaming, Don’t do it! Don’t do it…!
But it was too late. I had already conceded to the inevitability of surrender. With acting that would have had Spielberg armwrestling Scorsese for my services, I replied as if I hadn’t a notion of what was coming, ‘That’s wonderful, Celia. It sounds like everything is going to plan, then.’
‘Well…almost everything, Rosie,’ Celia replied slowly.
So, it starts, announced the irritated voice in my head. The smile was widening with every grovelling word Celia spoke. ‘It’s a little delicate, but I have to tell you…seeing as we’re such good friends…it’s just that I’ve been let down by Philippe—’ (for your information: incredibly pretentious and over-priced ‘Floral Artiste’)—‘you know how whim-driven these people can be—And I really need some stylish table pieces.’
‘Oh, that’s dreadful, mate,’ I sympathised, mirroring her agonised tone.
You are SO on your own… The little voice in my head let out an exasperated sigh, packed its suitcase and caught the first Greyhound for Vegas.
‘It is so dreadful you wouldn’t believe.’ Desperation was setting in. ‘Honey, you know I only use Philippe because my agent is seeing his brother. His creations often verge on the vulgar, in my opinion. Did I mention how I just adored what you did for Jessica Robards’ wedding last fall?’ Celia’s increasing grip on her coffee mug was threatening to crush it completely and her smile was fast becoming a cheery grimace.
It was time to put my friend out of her agony.
‘How many pieces do you need and what flowers did you have in mind?’
‘Oh, darling, would you?’ Celia flung her arms around me, lifting me several inches from my chair and letting out a squeal of delight.
‘Yes, OK, I give in! You can have my great expertise at extremely short notice and, no doubt, at a sizeable discount. Now, let me go before you kill me!’
I was duly released and she fell back into her chair, giggling like a delighted schoolgirl.
‘Ooh, you’re so wonderful, Rosie! I knew you wouldn’t let me down! Well, let’s see…I need ten—no, make it twelve—with gardenias—no, roses…Or maybe both? I’ll leave it to you to decide—after all, you’re the designer. But I’m picturing them hand-tied, of course, with plenty of that straw stuff.’
‘Raffia?’ I offered.
Celia didn’t hear. She was already in full artistic flow, gesturing flamboyantly with each
