Central Park Romance
Okay. So I’ve been cooped up all week with this Corona thing. When my friend Troy asked me to go for a walk in Central Park, of course I said yes.
Central Park is in New York City, and it’s not too far from my house.
Since everyone in the city is under quarantine with this Corona thing, I wasn’t expecting it to be as busy as it was.
Yet the sun was shinning pretty bright for March 21 (the first day of Spring).
… and even though the the temperature was only 50 degrees, the sun made up for it!
Walking In the Park
Trees were bursting with pink flowers, and birds were singing in the air. For all practical purposes it looked like a normal weekend …
… except that most of the people were wearing masks.
The Walk
Anyway, Troy isn’t a boyfriend or anything. He’s a writer – or he says he is. Sometimes he works events as a waiter. Sometimes he models. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what he does most of the time, but then again I don’t really care.
We walked over the Bow Bridge, past the conservatory garden, and finally settle for parking ourselves on a bench near the river.
Then we watch people walk up and down with children and dogs . We can’t resist catty remarks – more about the dogs, than the people.
Most of the dogs were cute. Lots of King Edward spaniels today. Troy and I don’t know breeds all that well, so before dogs pass us by we speculate about what the breed could be …
…. Then we asked the owner as the dog passed by.
At any rate, Troy knew I liked wine so he brought a wine to blind taste me on. Now Troy isn’t really much of an expert, but he has a wine store clerk friend who’s pretty right on.
So Troy had the set-up down pat. Two Riedel glasses in a professional looking case. And the bottle of wine. Chilled.
“What, no snacks?” I say as he takes the glasses out of the case.
“No bitch, I’m watching my figure,” he says, like some ditzy blonde from an Old School 1950s movie.
Troy can be that way.
Anyway – we’re friends.
This is not a Central Park romance.
I was a bit surprised when he pulls a wine with an unfamiliar label from his Louis Vuitton backpack. I lower my sunglasses to better read the label.
“Moretto Fattoria,” I say, racing my mind for what it could be.
Obviously Italian. But what?
“You’re the expert,” he says, reaching for a corkscrew.
As soon as he opens the closure, the familiar fragrance bursts out.
Along with a spurt of foam.
“Lambrusco!”
That scent was unmistakable.
In case you don’t know this wine, it’s kind of an old-school wine popular in the fifties, and at cheap prices.
I just learned about it in Somm school.
“Here you go,” he says, pouring some of the frothy purple liquid out.
I taste it. “$25 bucks, right,” I said, having trained myself to deduce the price of a wine from its quality.
Troy looks at me. “Spot on.”
“Perfect for pizza,” I say, thinking of food pairings. “But like a really quality wine. I could see putting this on a wine pairing menu.”
“Sass, it’s impossible to stump you,” he says, pouring himself a glass.
We spend the rest of the hour trying to guess the breeds of dogs and the ages of the little kids who hop, run, and are wheeled in strollers before us.
We’re slightly better with dog breeds than ages of young children, because neither of us have any friends – yet – who have them. And it’s been a long time since we were kids ourselves.
“What kind of dog would you have, if you could have one?” I ask, when the bottle is finished.
“Please. Don’t even say it. You’ll give my cat an anxiety attack. She’s psychic, you know.”
“Yeah. But if you could.”
“Not in the question,” he says, packing up. “And you?”
I try to imagine a dog – any dog – running around my tiny apartment.
“Same.”
Walking out of the park today, I’m already wondering when the mask scene is going to end. When Spring is going to come. When I can lay out in Sheep’s Meadow in the new bikini I bought from Amazon and looked killer on me.
But that was two weeks ago. I’ve avoided carbs so far, but what if the Whole Foods shuts down or something?
Anyway, I’m not going to think about it today. It’s the first day of Spring and the enticingly sour taste of Lambrusco is still on my lips.
