ONE
The prospect of taking a restorative bath， dressing in the candy-
striped flannel nightgown which so reminded her of childhood，
and sinking into immediate sleep---badly needed sleep at that--
was not attractive. For one thing， it was only early evening in
New York， and she would surely waken sometime after mid-
night with the unappetizing small hours of the night to be tra-
versed. It would be t6o late to call friends， and she had nothing
to read. She had read and reread the many books in the second
bedroom， which had ~een turned into a study， and she knew
from experience that fresh reading material was needed to com-
bat jet lag.
Scooping the contents of her suitcase onto her living room
floor， Sarah began to sort the garments into piles for the laundry
hamper and piles for the cleaner. The apartment building
seemed unnaturally quiet， but street noises insinuated their way
up to her seventh-floor fastness with an irritating regularity she
had almost forgotten. The blasting sirens and whooping， self-
important bleats of ambulettes were a constant， of course， but
for the first time she noticed the frequency with which automo-
bile burglar alarms made their bid to join the little symphony.
When had they become so ubiquitous?
Well， you experienced a trade-off when a neighborhood be-
came gentrified. Instead of the jolly shrieks and murderous
howls which had once floated up from the welfare hotels at
either end of Sarah s block， she was now treated to the screams
of glee of well-fed young people who poured from the doors of
sushi parlors on nearby Columbus Avenue. The bracing sounds
of a shattering pint of Thunderbird had been replaced， in warm
weather， by the cacophony of street musicians. There were
brass bands and string quartets， mimes and fire-eaters， tap danc-
|
内容加载中，请稍后...
商品评论（0条）