My mind suddenly snapped back to the present moment, in subway with Javier. I realized I had the bag with Mary Todd Lincoln's shawl in it now clasped tightly around my neck as I listened and recollected. Was the ghost of America's 16th First Lady trying to strangle me from beyond the grave? I wondered inexplicably as the train blasted along its track.

        Javier then said, "The blue hair wouldn't be so bad if it was slightly darker. But it gets lighter on the back of his head."

        Then I remembered. November 1st. All Saints Day. Light hair, particularly blond hair, always makes me think of November 1st. That was the day I bumped into a stranger with a shock of natural blond hair in the elevator at the office.

            The day before All Saints Day had been a very special day in my hometown of New Orleans. On Halloween, the day before the 1st, for all of my life we attended to my ancestors' cemetery. We'd wash down the tomb, place loads of fresh flowers and spruce everything up so that the next day, All Saint's Day, a public holiday in New Orleans, the tomb would be graced and dressed. It was  a tradition I let slip away after I moved to New York.

        It was the blond stranger who shook me out of my forlorn sense of nostalgic duty, when I bumped into him in that elevator that day. I remember looking at him with a smile and saying, "If we were in New Orleans this would be a holiday." It was something I often said to people on that day in work situations. It made me feel better somehow.

        He replied, "Why?"

        To which I said, "Well, you must be Episcopalian." This was the exchange that usually occurred, and lead to conversation. Except that in this case it led to more. Thus began a long friendship that would act as a catalyst to get me out of that office and on to greater things. It was hard to believe someone like him could be the cause of all that..

        His name was Marshall. I'll admit that when I saw him that day it was like the feeling you get when you spy something in a shop window that you just have to have. He was ripe for the picking (as I would learn later). A straight boy who had "leanings," wonderment, and questions on his mind about his own sexuality. And there I was; an older, but not much wiser, frustrated, closeted queen. A match made in heaven? The only person who thought I was in the closet was me; everyone else knew I was gay as a goose.

        We began having lunch, flirted casually, and innocently, I might add. I remember one of these afternoon meals, on a beautiful day in Central Park. We were sitting on a bench eating lunch, and my paper napkin blew off of my lap. He quickly retrieved it and then just reached over and tucked it into my waistband without pause. During another lunch in the park, I asked him if he would like a piece of my banana. Without answering, he surprised me by taking his right hand and, placing it at the back of his head, slowly coming down to take a bite out of it in a none-too subtle simulation of fellatio! We both burst out laughing, but inside I was gasping in disbelief. I was in love… or in a "crush."

           At some point our friendship shifted onto "that" plateau–the one where one, or perhaps both, are wondering if it's more than just a friendship as they teeter on that edge (it's a treacherous plateau). It's a scary place to  be because people in those situations do everything they can to avoid having confirmation of their hopes or fears, which would mean either ascending to the next plateau (becoming lovers) or plunging forever into the roomy, bottomless pit of rejection. No, Marshall and I were just friends who occasionally flirted, and that was just fine with me.

            He would come over every Friday evening. I used to have a group of friends over every Wednesday night for roast chicken and lima bean dinners. However, I abandoned that tradition for my new Friday nights with Marshall, which included lavish, aromatic food I had fussed over in preparation. They were nights mixed with amazing meals, pot smoking, music blaring out of my answering machine tape player, and thick intimacy. Oh my, the romance! They were long evenings full of tension-filled touches, plate passing and tasting each other's dishes. Then we would light up the joints and pass them back and forth. We often smoked them shotgun style, that's when someone inhales the joint, puts the lit end in their mouth and exhales the smoke into the mouth of the receiver. When we did that, our lips would touch. It was sweeter than any kiss. Nothing sexual ever happened between us, actually, and that's was most rewarding. I had had sex before. Sex was quick, easy, practically disposable. This was different. "Everything but the sex" can be its own potent elixir.

        I felt that while other people in the city were fucking anonymously, not even knowing each other's names, we were having long nights of real intimacy, romance, and the infinite supply of thrills that it allows. The sensuality between Marshall and me was as thick in that apartment on Friday nights, as the tension was between me and everyone else back at the office all day Monday through Friday.

        We saw each other for two years like that, and of course word got around. I remember when someone asked, telling them it lasted two years. His first words were "what kind of fuck is he?" (so New York).

        I said, "I don't know." I hadn't actually ever seen him undressed.

        "No? What a waste of time!" they blurted. So very, very New York.

        I remember trying to convince him of how special it was, and saying, "Oh no, you're wrong. It wasn't a waste of time at all." To which he just stared. I couldn't convince him of how special it really was to me. It was special. Perhaps that's why it hurt so much when it got spoiled, and I had been the one to spoil it.

        During our two years, he had always been secretive about his past, and his whole life for that matter. But one night, intoxicated, he opened up. He confessed that his brother was rich, stinking rich in fact, "wealth oozing out of every pore" is the way he put it. I was amazed because he wasn't the type of person to make a vulgar statement like that. I immediately wondered why he had kept it from me, and also wondered why he felt the need to tell me now. I couldn't make up my mind about which was more telling. All of these thoughts were racing through my mind as I simply said "Oh, that must be nice."

        "Well it is!" he said, "He buys me really beautiful clothes at Christmas."

        A trillion hellish subtexts ran through my jealous skull. I wanted to scream and throw my answering machine tape player through the window. But again, I held back and  instead just calmly said, "That's interesting." I'm glad I did because he then opened up more than he ever had. As his stories unfolded, I calmed down.  He told me about how growing up in Kansas had been an experience that he found enjoyable, yet lonely. He told me other stories about how his mother wouldn't let him watch Mr. Rogers because she thought the sweatered man was gay. The openness continued as he elaborated on his past, how he felt that very past made him who he was in the present, how it shaped what he hoped not to be in the future. You could have cracked me with a hammer during those listening sessions.

            The next day, one of his stories led to the admission that his brother was going to buy an apartment and would need a decorator. And would I do it? I said, "I would love to do the work, if he wants to interview me. I think he would be pleasantly surprised." I was thrilled.

            Maybe a little too thrilled.

        Our arrangement headed south because our friendship went straight to Hell, dragging everything it meant to me down with it. It was me. I did the worst things. I became compulsive, obsessive, thinking too much about him in all the wrong ways: sneaking into the employee coat closet to feel in his lapel pockets at lunch, wandering over to his desk when he left work in the evening and pressing his redial button to see whom he called. I became crazy with questions and jealousy, which of course at the time seemed perfectly sane to me.

            In becoming the best of friends with him, I became my own worst enemy. I developed a second face, then a third, plotting and planning, justifying everything along the way. It all was going to add up, I just knew it, the equation being that yes, I was truly loved by him. To be crazy and in love–nothing makes you feel younger. When you're older, it's to be crazy and un-medicated–nothing comes closer to making you feel younger.

        The last time I heard about Marshall was a few years later, while chatting with a client who was also his sister-in-law. He was getting married to a girl named Frankie who had been his roommate for a while (he had lived with a guy and two girls, all architects). I knew that Marshall and Frankie had only been friends during the period that he and I were spending so much time together, but I admit I was less than surprised.

            Days later when I passed Frankie on the street, we stopped to say hello and I congratulated her. She looked a bit shocked when I did. She asked "how do you know" when I told her his sister-in-law told me, she smiled again and looked slightly relieved. I imagined that she probably wondered about the Friday night get-togethers from a couple of years past, when her now-fiancé was coming home drunk and loaded from evenings with me and had told Marshall that their marriage had to be the end of his "questionable" period. As we talked I laughed to myself thinking that if Marshall had wound up with anyone else during that period of his life, he'd probably have ended up with pierced nipples and a Puerto Rican boyfriend. Frankie really owed me a debt of gratitude!

        My mind snapped back to the present again. Blue hair. Could he be medicated? Or was he medicated then? And now he's not?

        One day I did receive a call from Marshall's brother. He had indeed purchased a Fifth Avenue apartment. A really big one. This was the type of apartment that only an interior designer with an established firm would be considered for. And although Marshall and I weren't even friends, or much less speaking any longer (not enemies, just uncomfortable acquaintances), his brother did nonetheless hire me–obviously on Marshall's advice.

            I wound up working for the family, and did four jobs. Four amazing jobs. Marshall's brother wanted José Maligno. But more specifically he wanted José Maligno on a budget. And I gave it to him. I emulated José's style because that was what he wanted. And naturally, as the jobs increased, my own style came out. And so did I.

                I made money and had fun. Those jobs turned into other jobs, and others, and others. Eventually I became, if not a famous interior designer, at least a noted interior designer. I was working for movie stars and celebrities and Wall Street mavens–a coterie of people I never thought I would associate with.

            My first time published was on the cover of Architectural Digest. I hadn't even been in a newspaper, but because of a movie star client I wound up on the cover of the bible to the trade.

            I was published several times thereafter and became one of their esteemed "100 Decorators." making that list three years in a row. Quite a feat for an eleventh grade dropout from New Orleans. Talk about hitting the next plateau.

        Ten years later I saw Mr. Maligno again at a dinner thrown by Architectural Digest. We were seated at the same table. He was wearing a black vest (I'm sure it was Dolce & Gabbana; if it wasn't it had to have been something trendy like that).

            He had muscles! Lots of them! He had leather straps tied tightly around his biceps, his deltoids and his forearms, with long chains hanging between his waist and his ankles. He clinkety-clinked like one of my Chihuahuas when he walked. I approached him and grabbed his muscles and whispered, "I love those muscles." He giggled. It was the first time I had seen him in ten years. He didn't have blue hair yet.

        But now he did.

        Our train reached its destination and I kissed Javier goodbye and thanked him. We both exited and went off to our separate destinations. I  ascended and strolled up the avenue to my friend's massive loft. I noticed my grip on the bag with the shawl had loosened.

        "Blue hair" I kept thinking. That's amazing when you think about it. It's almost like Quentin Crisp, or a drag queen performing on a cruise ship. You can't help yourself in that situation. You have to be who you are. And I guess even at sixty, having blue hair and being who you are is the true mark of success. It was like something from the future, if only because it was something I never pictured my past contemporaries doing, ever. It was a new barrier to be crossed, a rule to be broken.

            The thing about looking back into the past is that everything looks so perfect, but it also allows you put into focus things ahead of you that you could never have seen if you hadn't taken the path to that point. Like an additional rung way up high on a ladder that for some reason you had never really noticed before, because you couldn't see it from the bottom, or the middle... or even the top.

        I arrived at my friend's loft. He was thrilled about the shawl. We talked endlessly about everything. He told me about two major plantation houses he owned down South, one Creole (the true Louisiana Creole) and one American. Lunch was lovely, as were the endless rooms, the paintings, the birds. As was he. So much fun.

        Blue hair. Truly amazing.