Good Charlotte

I was never all that active in my sorority. But I was fortunate enough to meet three of my closest friends in the house. Mayumi, who lives with her boyfriend in San Diego (and with whom I may collaborate on a book); Liz, who married her college sweetheart (whom she met at a frat party the first weekend she was at school) and is now a mother of two in Manhattan; and Nicole, who spent a semester abroad with me in London and, after several years living near D.C., got married, moved to Charlotte, N.C., and gave birth last fall to a baby girl.
Considering the geographic distance between the three of us, we still manage to see each other pretty often. Mayumi and her boyfriend came out to NYC and stayed with us in February. Liz lives just across the East River and I see her at least once a month (she is often at the Shore during the summer weekends). Nicole came up to NY, along with Mayumi, last year for my wedding (all three were part of it).
I've visited Mayumi a few times--in part because my sister used to live in San Diego and my husband's sister still does. And we also have friends in L.A. and San Francisco. So we can visit both friends and family whenever we go to California. And we love it there. (A quick aside... When Victor and I made a list the other night of cities where we'd be happy living in the U.S., here's what we came up with after 20 minutes and a beer each: #1 New York #2 L.A. area #3 the San Francisco Bay area, and #4--well, there was no #4).
But I had not been to visit Nicole since she moved to Charlotte a couple years ago, despite her continued requests. And then--seemingly out of the blue--I got a freelance assignment to travel down there. And the editor was cool with me just going down there on a weekend (I was concerned about missing a day of work). So not only did they pay for me to travel to Charlotte, but I would be paid to do a story, and I'd be saving them some money since Nicole insisted that I stay at their home at least one night while I was there.
On Friday, I went straight from work to the airport, where I spent the next three hours waiting for my flight. It was scheduled to leave at 7pm. But the remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy had passed over New York on Friday and dumped several inches of rain, so the FAA ordered my flight--and several others--to remain at their cities of origin until the rain let up. I didn't mind the wait so much. I spent more than 2 hours of it on my cell phone with Mayumi, catching up and talking about our potential book collaboration. Then my battery died mid-sentence. So I ate an orange scone that I'd bought at Au Bon Pain and started reading "Nice Girls Don't Get Rich." (So that's why I'm not rich yet!).
Our flight finally took off at nearly 9:30. It was 12:30 by the time I reached the Marriott hotel in Charlotte. I showered and went straight to bed. The next morning, I woke up around 9 and headed to the fitness center downstairs. Fox News was playing on the television and the only other person in the room had turned up some R&B station so loud that I couldn't even hear my CD with the headphones on. When she left a few minutes later, I turned off the radio.
I checked out just before noon and went to meet with two of the four people in Charlotte I had to interview for my story (I'd done several other interviews by phone). Then I got lost on the way to meet Nicole and her husband and daughter for lunch, and ended up in a beautiful old neighborhood. Tall elms curved into each other, creating a canopy over the winding road. Stately brick houses, guarded by painted gates and tall columnades, lined the street. When I finally found my friends, they told me that I'd veered off into one of Charlotte's nicest neighborhoods and had probably driven past the Bank of America CEO's home.
After lunch, we spent a couple hours at Nicole and Dan's two-story house--part of an 800-home development that includes a lake and a large outdoor pool, located in southern Charlotte. I stroked their dog's head and watched from a chair at the kitchen table as Nicole cut up cheddar cheese, avocado, and green beans and spread them out before her daughter Kelly on the tray of her high chair. "She loves avocado," Nicole told me. She tried to sneak in spoonfuls of stewed carrots in between and Kelly, who had bits of avocado all over her bib by this point, seemed surprisingly receptive.
After Nicole finished feeding her daughter and cleaning her up, we drove to a nearby mall. I bought a black shirt and a white embroidered skirt from Ann Taylor, a store I never visit in New York. I'd gone in because Nicole was looking for a shirt (she bought a floral, sleeveless shirt with ruffles), and ended up buying more than she did. We went home and changed our clothes then drove with her husband and daughter to a new sushi restaurant in a nearby shopping center. I wasn't impressed with the white tuna, but they made a good 7 spice crispy salmon roll, served in a martini glass. Then Nicole came with me (as "the navigator") to another interview for my story. She was afraid I'd get lost in the dark, and was nervous about me meeting sources "so late" (I was meeting them at 9 o'clock since they'd had guests all day). I spent an hour with them and then we drove back to her place, where we stayed up another hour talking.
Charlotte is a beautiful city, but it seems so small. It's hard, once you've lived in New York, to imagine yourself living in a city of just 700,000 (even if it is North Carolina's largest city). I don't think I'd be happy living in Charlotte, but I was happy to visit. And it was wonderful to spend a day with Nicole and to meet her daughter. She has created a nice life there and there are parts I envy (a walk-in closet, a home and a car she owns). But I always ache for the city when I am away for even a day or two.
On Sunday, we had just enough time for a latte at Starbucks and a trip to Babies R Us (Nicole needed extensions for her baby gates) before I left for the airport. The trip by car and plane from Nicole's home in Charlotte to our apartment in Brooklyn took just three and a half hours. But what a world away. As the plane descended, I smiled when the little boy in the seat behind me (who had never been to NYC) asked: "Mommy is this all New York?" He added, in awe, "It's SO big!"
And it is. When we took off from Charlotte, I was struck by how green the city seemed--the city is surrounded, almost dwarfed, by the woods and dotted with golf courses. But as we flew into New York City, I could actually identify most of the green spots--Central Park, Yankee stadium, the strip that lines the East River. New York is not green so much as silver. It sparkles--the skyscrapers' millions of window panes reflecting the sun. And there were rows upon rows of homes and lines of cars as far as your eye could see. I couldn't wait to land.
We actually arrived 15 minutes early, but the line for the taxis was four deep, so I figued I'd spend at least that long waiting for a cab--until someone told me there was a new taxi stand two lanes away. I rushed over and got a cab right away. My driver was a large African woman wearing beads and a headdress. She insisted on carrying my suitcase to the trunk of her cab. She was also the first woman whose cab I'd ever ridden in, and she got me to Williamsburg in less than 20 minutes. I called my husband, Victor, en route. And he was waiting on the sidewalk for me with a big grin when the cab pulled in. I smiled when I saw him. It was good to be home again.