My Funny Valentine

Carefully, one by one, she placed the dishes and the tumblers on top of the lacy white tablemats. Her finest sterling silverware gleamed next to them. She felt confident that now everything was absolutely perfect for Valentine's Eve dinner with the love of her life, Jonathan Scuro.

The one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan's land mark Chelsea Hotel had been her home since her mother died, more than five years before. All the things she loved were here. The poetry collections of Elizabeth Barrettt Browning and Lord Byron were all bound in the finest leather. Although she could not have read them, for none were written in Braille, the poems were as much a part of her memory as every inch of space in her home. So too were the Dresden porcelain and cut glass pieces she had inherited. They lived in beauty just as Byron's immortal words in the china closet by the window, where the rays of the sun made them shine even through the thick leaded glass.

The old hotel with its white porticos and ornate grillwork stood like a faded peacock between two worlds. Its presence hinted of another time, when hansom cabs glided along cobblestoned streets dimmed by the dull glow of gaslight. Here the spirits of Thomas Wolfe, Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas were still lodged deep within the memory of the paneled walls. Here Vida had merely existed before meeting the man who made her feel like she was eighteen instead of forty-one. His gift on this day celebrating all lovers, an antique ebony walking stick with a silver handle, had cost her dearly and was wrapped and waiting in the hall closet.