Margie on Fire!

Margie was dressed in a beautiful houndstooth jacket when I knocked on her door. I admired the jacket and she told me her daughter Lucy made it for her. “She’s an excellent tailor!”

We walked four blocks to the coffee shop, and she had trouble with the buttons on her jacket (Extras 1 & 2). “You know my mother made this jacket. She was an excellent tailor, but the buttons are trouble.” 

Then she leaned across the table conspiratorially and whispered, “Let’s be wild! I’m going to order hot chocolate instead of coffee, and damn the calories.”

When she took off the jacket, I said wait, I have to make another photo. She began striking poses. Click, click, click (Main, and Extras 3 & 4).

“I stole these, you know. These clothes were my mother’s, and I just took them and put them on, and nobody asked any questions.” This led to stories about her mother and father: how critical her mother was, how kind her father. “But I was the baby, and of course everyone protected me, especially my father. He’d wink at me and say let’s go out for a walk. Those were happy times! So tell me, what do you do with your time?”

I said I’ve been re-reading Hannah Arendt’s books. 

“That name, I’m not sure it rings a bell,” she said carefully. I told her a little about Hannah Arendt and her books. She listened attentively, sipping chocolate, making eye contact and all the right noises, “Ah, I see,” “How interesting!” “Oh yes, I’m sure.” 

The man sitting next to us stared at her for a moment and then went back to his computer. 

“When was she born, this person?” Margie asked. I said 1906. “And me, when was I born?” I said 1926. Again, the man looked up, eyes wide. I told her Arendt’s books came out when her children were babies, so she probably didn’t have time to read them. 

She nodded, “Right. Who reads when they have small children? But I never was a big reader, was I? Wasn’t I sort of stupid?”

No indeed not! I insisted to her that she is and always was an intelligent being. I said her mother and sister treated her as if she were stupid but in fact…. "And how do you know that?" She asked, a bit suspicious. I said you told me, Margie!

And so it went. On the way back to her place, she stopped for a moment on the sidewalk and mused, “One thing about being old is that you lose your fear. I’d say I’m quite fearless now. And where did we meet, us two?”