Free Mimi by Lucy Ellmann Page B

timing turned against me (maybe that was why she turned against me?). I knew something was up when I was relegated to a position lower than an egg.
    But it was the loss of that family that really hurt. Even the mom had an appealing side, or so I told myself. I was all ready to start cashing in on security, stability, fidelity, coziness, a place in this family (a place in Montauk too), a million fried-clam dinners, my wines chosen for me by a real connoisseur, a whole plausible future of efficient Thanksgivings and Christmases in the bosom of a family whose traumas seemed less excruciating than my own. . . and it was all snatched away. Kaput! No more clams and climaxes, no more canoodling in the dunes with my colleen, or meditative strolls on the beach with the sozzled ma. No zone of warmth . . .
    These ruminations were forcibly interrupted when the cab in front of mine stopped so suddenly we rammed right into it. The drivers jumped out to wrangle. I was irritably extracting myself and my coat and hat and briefcase from the back when someone came up behind me and stole my cane! I turned around and saw a broad running up Broadway, waving my cane in the air, yelling something like, “You bastard, you come back here!” at some guy disappearing into the crowds of Union Square. I lumbered after her, making slow progress due to the wintry terrain and my faulty ankle. But she wasn’t that fast herself. I caught up, and then she turned on me!
    “Are you following me?” she asked.
    “Well, yes! Yes, I am.”
    “What the hell for?” She sure was steamed about something.
    “That,” I said, pointing at the cane in her hand.
    She looked at the thing as if seeing it for the first time, and without ado dropped it on the ground, leaving me to make a clumsy dash for it before it rolled into unscooped poop.
    “Jeez,” I couldn’t help remarking.
    “What’s with the limp?” she asked.
    “The limp’s why I need the cane!”
    We looked fiercely at each other for a second—and then we recognized each other. She was wearing a different kind of coat, a gray one this time, and no Eskimo hood, but it was the gal who saved my ass on Christmas Eve.
    “It’s you!” she observed.
    “Hey, you saved my life on Christmas Eve!” I said. And remembering that I had never thanked her, I started babbling, “I guess I really should have thanked you. . . but I had no way of getting in touch.”
    “It was nothing,” she said. “I mean, what I did was nothing, not that your life is nothing. . . ” She was blushing, quite becomingly. We started walking to our respective cabs. “That was John, my ex,” she said, nodding back toward Union Square. “His mother wears army boots.”
    So, not a crackpot in the Gertrude sense maybe, but a crackpot nonetheless. I thought this might be all the explanation I needed, we could say our friendly farewells and scoot. But she was determined to fill me in on why she’d sprung from her taxi like that when she caught sight of this John character on the street—leading to our collision. It was all John’s fault too that she’d run off with my cane.
    “You realize you almost caused whiplash in the guy you just saved a month ago?” I asked mildly.
    “I had to get hold of him.”
    “Still gone on him, huh?” Though she wasn’t my type, I kind of liked the look of her: strong bone structure, nice lips, tender brown eyes, and a mop of brown curls peeking out of her hat. A curious mixture of the erratic and erotic. She stopped dead. I was scared she was going to hit me!
    “Gone on him? You gotta be kidding. The guy’s a criminal! He stole my quilt.”
    “Your. . . uh, what?”
    Our drivers had settled their differences and were now honking at us . But before ducking into her taxi, the crazy dame shook my hand, with a notably firm grip, and said, “I’m Mimi.”
    “I’m just me ,” I clowned.
    And she was gone, whisked away down Broadway in a cloud of snow and steam. I exhaled my own cloud. As