Midway Through The Journey Of Our Life

What we can’t avoid, we might as well celebrate. Why else would anyone throw a surprise 50th birthday party for a woman who seemed decades away from her real age? The party was being given that evening and a young woman and her new boyfriend were already late, delayed by what new couples generally do. They had just left the subway at 96th Street and Broadway and were hurrying eastward, hand-in-hand, towards Central Park West. They did not notice the pink sky behind them, slowly turning purple. It was May Day. Earlier, a coven of Druid wannabees danced around a makeshift maypole in Central Park. Other celebrants were commemorating a revolution, a labor movement, feminist power, a day when someone died for some cause or when some god had made a significant contribution to the welfare of some nationality or ethnic group. Marika Meyer didn’t mind missing the “surprise” part of the affair, because Karin, the fifty-year old, had known about it, and had been prepared to be surprised, for at least two months before. Marika’s concern was about exposing her new boyfriend to the rarified world of the birthday guests. She didn’t know what impression he’d make and how she would be judged accordingly. “Remind me why we’re going,” said the boyfriend. She told him that Karin Sorensen and her husband, Theo Xenakis, were among her parent’s best friends and that she’d known them all her life. She had babysat for their daughter, Evie, who had become something of a kid sister. They’d shared Christmases and Thanksgivings from the time she was born to the time she left for college and she regarded them as family. “So there’s no way to avoid this.” “None whatsoever.” “Does this mean I’ll meet your parents as well?” asked the boyfriend. “I think it’s best if you meet them for the first time in a crowd,” said Marika. “My father is less likely to come at you with a meat cleaver.” The boyfriend smiled but thought there might be a grain of truth in her answer. Neither of them suspected that their lives would be inextricably bound together from that evening on and that, before a year had past, they would be entirely different people. They entered an old, weathered apartment building, which seemed grim and dark but whose location, overlooking the park, made it prime real estate, worth millions to each apartment owner. A middle-aged doorman in a blue uniform checked them off a list and directed them to a closed elevator with the face and character of a vault. The boyfriend pawed the ground nervously until Marika comforted him. “Don’t worry, they’ll love you. And so will Karin. You won’t believe she’s fifty.” “She’s well preserved?” “She’s incredible,” said Marika. “She used to be a dancer, and still has a dancer’s body.” “What does she do now?” “She’s a vortex of energy.” “Is that a paying profession?” “It got her through medical school and residency.” The boyfriend grimaced inwardly. The woman sounded like everything he was not — disciplined, motivated, one of these whirlwind types who expect everyone around them to match their enthusiasm. Marika was bad enough. She had wit and verve, but at least she had a decent body and a reservoir of lethargy that made her tolerable. Marika wasn’t a serious girlfriend, he knew, but she was a serious amusement, which would tide him over until the next one came along. The elevator opened, revealing a young Puerto Rican whose uniform looked somewhat shabby and ill fitting, which was not the fault of the uniform. Mario looked awkward in clothing; nothing really fitted him. And on second look, he wasn’t really young. He had a young expression in an older face, a natural innocence that no street smarts could erase. He was, however, astonishingly perceptive. He could see the constant anxiety in Marika’s life and that, despite her positive persona and breezy demeanor, she was in despair about her prospects in life. It didn’t take much perception to see that her companion was a predator. “Hi, Mario,” said Marika. “You going to the party, Miss Marika?” said Mario. “Are there lots of people there?” “I think I take up maybe seventy-five, hundred.” “Then we won’t be missed,” said the boyfriend. “Yes, we will,” said Marika. There was no hallway on the penthouse floor. The elevator opened directly onto a large living room, jammed with people. To one side, a string quartet played ballet music, which could barely be heard over the animated voices, clinking glasses, laughter, exclamations, declamations, noises of the throng. Young servers in black, four of who moonlighted as a classical quartet, snaked through the crowd offering hors-d’oeuvres and distributing glasses of Champagne. Several couples were dancing gracefully in a clearing near the quartet. Knots of serious people had taken over the chairs and sofas and were in the throes of arguing, interrupting, making or conceding points and attempting to impress one another. There seemed to be a continual explosion of greetings, hugging and kissing, and shrieks of recognition. It was a glittering assemblage. Theo Xenakis (his wife had kept her maiden name, Sorensen), the host and architect of this non-surprise, had invited many of his colleagues at Columbia, something of a galaxy of academic stars, along with Karin’s peers in the medical establishment, the top brass at Lenox Hill and — the main source of the glitter — a troupe of ballet dancers from Karin’s former company and other luminaries of the New York dance world — in addition to old friends, Karin’s mother, Effie, her father, Magnus, in his wheelchair, petrified with age but still enjoying himself, her two sisters and other relatives. Naturally, the academics and doctors who weren’t expostulating among themselves did their best to mingle with the dancers, who were somewhat in awe of the academics. The boyfriend was appropriately overwhelmed by the august guest list but didn’t have much time for gawking, as Marika’s parents were almost the first people they encountered as they walked off the elevator. Marika had utterly misrepresented her father, who couldn’t have been nicer, perhaps because the boyfriend had been introduced as “my friend,” without any sexual or relational overtones. “Are you a friend from Marika’s office?” he asked. Marika froze, not knowing how the boyfriend would reply. She was praying that he wouldn’t reveal the true source of their relationship: that they had met at a bar and consummated the flirtation in a downstairs rest room within half an hour of meeting. Miraculously, they found that they liked each other afterwards. “No, we met at the opera,” he said, to Marika’s relief, with an infectious smile that seemed to indicate how ridiculous this was, and perhaps how ridiculous opera was in general. “We were introduced by a mutual friend.” “I didn’t know you liked opera,” said her mother. “I’m learning,” she answered. “What exactly do you do?” asked the father. To Marika, this seemed unnecessarily paternal for an introductory meeting. And why the “exactly,” as if her boyfriend would try to fudge the answer. “I’m a philanthropist,” he answered, with a shrug of feigned embarrassment.. “Oh,” said the father, impressed. “That is, I’m training to be a philanthropist.” “Don’t you need a large fortune?” “That’s the problem, of course,” he answered, laughing. They chatted briefly but the boyfriend couldn’t help noticing a woman in the center of the room. She was tiny, barely over five feet, with the tight frame and perfect posture of a dancer, accentuated by a black, skin-tight outfit studded with sequins. Her black hair was short, done in a shaggy, elfin cut, from which her impish ears pointed outwards.