Pandora's Closet

A gaudy looking woman in her early fifties had latched onto my red hoodie. The Cinderella blonde dye job on her wild hair was fading, and large clumps of gray were seeping through, giving her a manic appearance that perfectly matched her actions. She tugged again, harder this time.

“Excuse me,” I said, clamping my arm against my body to maintain my hold. I almost laughed at the absurdity of her, but my amusement was quickly shut out by my animalistic desire to keep the hoodie. I viciously tore it away from her. “Mine!” she said, lunging for it, but missing it completely. Instead, her nails raked dryly against my skin, causing something primal and protective to snap inside of me.

“No,” I said politely but firmly, “it’s not.”

I held it at arm’s length away from her. The crone moved even closer, and the earthy old-person stink of her choked me. Her eyes twitched back and forth, following the hood that now dangled from my outstretched arm. She practically foamed at the mouth.

I realized everything seemed a little scary and off kilter. This type of surreal behavior didn’t happen in the middle of a store. I felt my heart racing like a scared little girl, and I wondered if my friends had been right about me coming to city after all.

“I want that for my daughter,” she screamed, spittle flying.

I was startled as she raised her voice, but just then the balding man behind the counter spoke up.

“Hey,” he shouted, breaking the strange spell that wove between us. “Mrs. Punzelli, knock it off. You play nice or I’m go

The old woman’s body relaxed, but her eyes were still intent on the hoodie. I backed toward the register, calming a little with each step. I was thankful she made no effort to follow. She glowered at me several moments longer and finally made an unpleasant (and not to mention unsanitary) gesture flicking her thumb against her teeth. With that, she wandered off to the back of the store and muttered into a filthy gothic mirror hanging from the wall.

“What a pushy bitch,” I said as I put my purchase on the counter.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “She’s usually not that bad.”

“Why do you even let her in?” I took a crumpled wad of bills from my backpack and pulled out three singles.

The old shopkeeper shrugged. “I feel bad for her. She’s got a daughter up in Bellevue. They’ve got her locked away up on one of them top floors, where they keep all the cuckoos. The old lady’s just about gone crazy herself over that. I hear her daughter got in regular trouble too, helping other crazies escape out the window by letting them climb down her long, golden hair. I’ve seen pictures, girl’s got the longest hair you ever seen!”

I suddenly felt a little bad about they way I’d duked it out with the old woman, but hey, what the hell was I supposed to do? Besides, she’d already lost interest, and despite the sad little tale I had just heard, the hoodie was mine now and I needed it. College students couldn’t afford guilt in NYC. I paid the owner and thanked him.

“You need a bag?”

“No. I’ll just wear it.”

I waved as I headed out the door, and he smiled, instantly restoring my faith in the kindness of most people I had met during my short time in the city. Sure, I had noticed pockets of rude and indifferent folks living in The Big Apple, but I still held onto my optimism.

The sun was begi

I flipped the cell phone open and put it to my ear.

“Little Red Riding Hood,” I answered.

“What?” my mother said. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just bought myself the cutest little hoodie for three bucks, that’s all.”

“Oh,” she said stiffly. “I see. You have time to shop, but not enough time to study.”

I had done little in the way of attending classes so far this semester, and, still wowed by being in Manhattan, I had already gotten chewed out about my impending miserable grades.

“Enough about me,” I said cheerily, hoping to change the subject, “Is everything okay?”

She sighed into the phone. “Just another charity fund-raising luncheon for the victims of the latest Blunderbore Corporation’s chemical dumping. You know your father.”

Jack the Giant Killer they called him, always taking on the corporate big guns.

“But that’s not why I called,” she continued. “It’s about your grandmother.”

“Which?” I asked.

“The one in Queens,” she said. “Nana.”

Nana was by far my favorite, although I didn’t get to see her as often as I would like. She was the one who had convinced me I’d be fine in New York. She was the hip grandma, active, the cool one I could actually talk to. She had never moved from the Russian neighborhood she had settled in when she arrived in the States from her tiny European village. Her old garden brownstone had been modernized since then, and the Jackson Heights neighborhood had changed over the years, but she was still the same old lovable Nana. When my mother mentioned her, I was concerned.

“Is anything wrong with her?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. She’s a little under the weather and, well, I was hoping you would be a dear and pick up some things and run them out to her.”

I utilized my mental pla

“Not a problem,” I said. I fished a pen out of my backpack and a piece of paper, the trusty weapons of any English major. “What does she need?”

My mother rattled off a list of items. Bread, milk, something for her stomach, a couple of cabbages, fresh beets, flour, eggs, and, last, red wine. I was going to ask if Nana was hosting a cocktail party, but I held my tongue. Would she be needing pigs-in-a-blanket too?

“And remember,” my mother said in the infamous lecturing tone I had grown up around, “I just want you to go straight there, okay? Your father and I worry about you. Make sure you give yourself enough time to get out there and stay for a visit this time. And be careful. Make sure you don’t poke around her place. Make sure you spend some time with her.”

My mother had always been borderline neurotic when it came to protecting me, but this seemed beyond and above the call. I said a quick goodbye before she could cycle conversationally back to my grades. Then I immediately set out north to the organic market at Union Square.

Half an hour later, as I stepped to the curb with four plastic bags full of Nana’s groceries, a Manhattan miracle happened-a cab pulled up before I had to figure out how the hell I was going to flag one down with my hands fully loaded. I threw my stuff in the back seat, slid in, and slammed the door.

The driver was coughing, and I waited for him to stop. He looked Eastern European, probably in his forties. He wore a short black goatee that on a younger man would have been trendy five years ago, but on him, it was befitting.

“Where to?” he said when he stopped coughing up his lungs long enough to speak.

“ Jackson Heights,” I said, then checked the exact address I had scrawled on the back of the shopping list. “ 3352 85th Street. Between Northern Boulevard and 34th Avenue.” I hadn’t been there in a while.

“You want me to take the Willamsburg or 59th Street bridge?” he asked, pulling away from the curb.