I don't drive. Don't be shocked. I lay this fact before you boldly and with not a trace of shame. Having always lived in large cities where owning a car was almost a liability, I never took up the habit. Thing is, here in Miami Beach taxis don't behave as they ought. Here, one is obliged to phone first and then wait three quarters of an hour. Nothing like New York where they fly, like migrating birds round every streetcorner, waiting to be summoned by an outstretched hand. As I never really venture too far from home, and no less than ten buses go up and down the street just outside my door, I've become a 'bus traveler'. Paul has too. He who in his native Belfast zipped all over town in a snappy little roadster savouring his independence and no doubt singing at the top of his voice to the radio, has adapted marvelously. Together we've decided not to keep a car here, primarily because we can't be arsed, and generally speaking, with buses and taxis (when they finally show up) we make do.
I take buses. And I am indistinguishable from the others around me, my beach brothers and sisters, all of us in shorts, flip-flops, sunglasses, with Ipods strapped to our heads. As far as bus travel goes this ain't bad: breathtaking views of the beach and gorgeous towering blocks whizzing by and palm trees and sun and tanned bodies all help to make that trip down the shops a pleasure. But the other day I heard my name- in its unabridged form no less, addressed to me as the S bus careened down Collins Avenue, and I panicked. I felt as though my cover had been blown. Who was this person accosting me? Who knows me here? Well, I knew exactly who he was, didn't I?
If I think really hard (or read the archives of this blog) I can remember the parties and galas and lunches that comprised my life in New York. But it seems a lifetime ago (before Paul rescued me and gave shape and meaning to an otherwise paltry and idle existence). I can see the expensively augmented faces of the celebrated hostesses and the feted artists and overdressed, overpriveleged denizens of society who gathered at one sumptuous apartment or another to sigh and groan and pick at their plates, and ask each other what on earth So-and-So was thinking. The man leaning over me on the S bus had come straight from that world, just taking a few days away from the stresses of the city, you know, pausing only to change from his ubiquitous black to a tropical white ensemble and rejoiciing that at last he'd discovered the onetime 'celebutante' who'd suddenly dropped out of sight what was it two years ago now? , 'well what a stroke of coincidence this is...'
Naturally I denied it. Told the unfortunate gentleman (whom let's face it, I never liked) that he was quite mistaken. Without another word I turned my attention back to the splendour outside the window, the Chris Moyles podcast on my Ipod and my thoughts as New York receded to the back of the bus.
Think he believed me?
