Flipping a Coin for Dr. Coyne (Part 6)

 

After you hit rock bottom there is nowhere to go but up.   I was shocked to hear that J. J. knew I had flipped a coin in hopes of "winning" the opportunity to ask him to the Junior Dance.   Once he revealed that he knew this embarrassing story, I simply "let go"; the worst had happened (in my silly and immature understanding of life) and I didn't die.    What else could happen that would be any worse? 
We entered the Ballroom, festively decorated for the holiday season, Christmas tree and all.   I don't remember if we had assigned seating but what I do remember is that we sat at a big round table with the other interns and their dates.  I am not sure who arranged this seating but for some reason, it seems like the men took charge of a lot of things that night.   In 1963, eighteen was the legal drinking age in New York, so that, too, helped me relax.  The band played and 

at some point, my friends coaxed me to demonstrate an outrageous dance move for which I was notorious.  So we laughed, we ate and drank, we danced a bit, and mostly we talked and talked, our chairs facing each other, and all of a sudden I realized I was indeed having the time of my life.   I no longer felt the tightness of my undergarments, the stiffness of my hairdo, my awkward self-consciousness.  We were simply, and marvelously, a young woman and a young man having a really fantastic time together at the most wonderful time of the year, in the greatest city in the world.   What more could a girl ask for?

Before you could wink an eye, the band was playing the last song.   I guess it is a well-known fact of life that the good times of our lives fly by much too quickly.
Not knowing what, if anything, to expect next, we were pleasantly surprised when "the men" tell us that our night wasn't over yet.  They had talked among themselves and had planned something else - something special - for us.  Being a rather large group, the mystery ride to our next destination required several cabs.  Imagine my excitement when our cabs stop at the world famous Playboy Club to drop us off.  We enter this legendary, risqué'  establishment and deposit ourselves in the crowded entrance way while we shuffle around to organize our winter coats, hats and gloves to give to the Coat Room Bunny who is standing by, waiting patiently.  Then, we are directed to follow behind another Bunny – there are Bunnies everywhere – who proceeds to takes us in a parade of sorts up a spiral flight of stairs. When we reach the next level, it becomes quite obvious that it is going to be a major ordeal for the Bunnies to find an area big enough to seat such a large crowd.  There is a lot of commotion and upheaval as tables and chairs are pulled from other sections of the room and shoved together every which way in an effort to seat us all together.   We are making quite a significant scene; everyone in the place knows we have arrived!   I remember I had to scoot along each seat as I worked my way back into the corner of two connected tables  Finally, we are all seated and the waitress Bunny passes out menus.  After much deliberation, we are finally ready to place our order and one of the men gives a nod to our Bunny.  She approaches our table, pen and pad in hand, ready to record our requests. 
Gentlemen, she says in her low, provocative voice, which one of you will be using your Key tonight?
Dead silence ensues.  The guys look around at each other and slowly the realization hits them that you have to have some sort of membership (aka a Key) in order to be served at the Playboy Club.  They don't serve any Tom, Dick, or Harry at this prestigious establishment.  Oh no, only the exalted, bona fide members are served at this exclusive club.  Our money was not good there and we were not wanted.  No amount of sweet-talk; cajoling or coaxing could persuade them to give us so much as a drink of water.   We were, in plain English, thrown out of the Playboy Club!  But we didn't go quietly into the night.  We made at least as much noise scrambling out of our seats, from behind our tables and back down the spiral staircase as we did on arrival. 

"Our gentlemen" handed the coat check tickets to the Cloak Room Bunny and, as we all donned our winter gear, I clearly remember the incongruous look of the scantily clad Bunny assisting J.J.  with his full length dress coat, as two twelve inch cardboard dolls hung precariously in each of his side pockets.  These Christmas angel dolls were decorative ornaments that had adored our tables at the Junior Dance.   They looked completely and totally out of place at the Playboy Club!

At the least, I can always honestly say I went to the Playboy Club in Manhattan with the sexiest Intern at St. Vincent’s Hospital. 

Flipping a Coin for Dr. Coyne ( Part 5)

I can barely breathe as I walk across the 158 W 12th Street lobby to meet him.  Only a few simple steps away, and yet it seems as insurmountable as Mount Everest on this particular evening. I'm feeling almost physically ill and I'm thinking, this is supposed to be the greatest night of my life and instead I am mummified into sheer terror.  We greet each other and I'm relieved that he seems to recognize me.  After all, he has only seen me once for a few fleeting moments in the hallway on one of the hospital wards.  And by now, that shocking confrontation by a total stranger was already a few weeks in the past.
After a brief hello, we're out those stately brass doors and into the cold December night.  J.J. and a friend (one of the other Interns or Residents who is escorting a fellow student nurse to the Junior Dance) hail a cab for us and before I have much time to think, we're crowded together into the cab and on our way through the gaily illuminated streets of Manhattan.   I remember feeling some slight level of comfort in the fact that my classmate, Mary Ann Dellafiora (Madi) is in the same cab with me.  I sense that she is a lot calmer and much more in control of herself about this whole experience or at least she seems that way to me.  I, on the other hand, can't find a word to say, and even if I could think of something clever to say, my mouth is so dry it is literally glued shut.   I don't know where to put my eyes, or my limbs so I kind of awkwardly turn away and look out the window, pretending to be amused by the sights and sounds of the city.  I feel like the biggest fool on God's great earth. 

I know my vibes were coming through loud and clear since every molecule in my body was in chaotic upheaval.  I am sure J. J. was probably wondering if he'd soon be called upon to resuscitate a victim of a Code 99.  My pure, unadulterated panic lasted for the entire cab ride.  Mercifully it wasn't too long before we're dropped off at the entrance way of the new, impressive New York Hilton. All around us there is an exciting, vibrant feeling of New York City in December as glamorously dressed couples are exiting cabs and entering the hotel.
Now, J.J. is far from stupid.  He has also been around the block a couple of times more than I have and he knows a thing or two.  So, he seizes the situation before him and quickly realizes that this tightly-wound, petrified mummy needs desperately to be loosened up a bit.  We enter the lobby and J.J. assists me as we step onto one of the escalators which is rising upward in the middle of the stately and glamorous hotel.   While the stairway is moving, J.J. turns to me, looks directly into my face and says,”So what's this I hear about you flipping a coin?"  Now, I'm sure you've heard of those tragic accidents where escalators malfunction and basically swallow those unlucky individuals who happen to be on them at the time. Oh how I wished that fate would befall me at that very moment. But alas, it did not. Instead I instantly respond in total horror, "OMG, I can't believe she told you that!"  I was shocked, horrified, stunned and appalled.   What could I say, what could I do, it was the God's honest truth; I had literally flipped a coin in the stairwell outside of St. Joseph's East in hopes of winning this once in a lifetime date with a magical, mystical, untouchable Intern.    Witnessing my reaction to his mischievous question, J.J. broke into hearty, robust laughter.  Amazingly, as we stepped off the moving stairway and he took my arm and escorted me into the Ballroom, my anxiety had disappeared. The ice was broken and my night of Moonlight and Mistletoe had finally begun.............. By the way, in case you are wondering, I did tell him that I had actually lost the coin toss.
So what happened next?  To be continued.....

Flipping a Coin for Dr. Coyne (Part 4)

On June 15^th 1963, a mere 6 months prior, I had attended the SVH semi-formal Capping Dance held at the Hotel Biltmore (Madison Ave. and 43^rd Street in Manhattan).  I wore the same sedate, powder blue fluffy dress that I had worn the year before to my High School Senior dance,  “Evening in Paris,' which was held in the basement auditorium next to Our Lady of Wisdom Academy in Ozone Park, Queens.   In my four year of High School it was the one and only dance ever held at my traditional all girls Catholic School and it was as far from a “big deal” as a church basement is from a fancy Manhattan hotel.  

From the minute I realized that I would be going to the “Moonlight and Mistletoe” Gala at the New York Hilton in midtown Manhattan with the sexiest Intern on the medical staff at St. Vincent’s Hospital, I knew - without a doubt  - that  I was in need of a major make-over.  I had to quickly transform myself from a naive, unsophisticated teenager into a mature, grown-up woman of the world.  The first thing I understood for certain was that my sedate, powder blue dress had to go!   I needed to find another dress and it had to make me into a mature, older woman, overnight.   I enlisted my mother’s help; she was more than willing to oblige.  I’m sure you’ve heard the boastful brag of the Jewish mother, proudly presenting, “My Son, the Doctor!” I guess you’d say this was the case of a Brooklyn-born, Irish-American mother thinking in her mind, “My daughter, and her Doctor!”  So we went shopping together and I picked out, and she paid for, a sleek black dress – strapless except for a see-through black chiffon over-lay.  There was only one basic problem with this dress; it required that I wear a strapless, waist length brassiere under it.  I had never worn or even owned such a contraption and I didn’t think I was going to like it.  I had always hated uncomfortable clothes and this undergarment was the epitome of scratchy, itchy, awkward and unpleasant all rolled into one.   I bought this distressing brassiere nevertheless.  It was a compulsory requirement in order to pull off wearing the grown-woman black dress.

The day of the big dance, I went to get my hair done by a professional beautician.  I couldn't risk anything less than perfection.  Instead of the fantasized outcome I sought, my natural, free-flowing healthy looking hair became as stiff and immovable as that solid, tight and rigid brassiere beneath my dress.

If I can trust my memory for accuracy, my parents drove me from our home in the East New York section of Brooklyn to the nursing school dorm at 158 West 12th Street, and my mother went up with me to my room to help me dress for the dance.   I guess they - honestly, probably mostly my Mom - wanted to witness firsthand, this once in a lifetime, monumental event.  My Dad waited patiently down on the first floor.  When the switchboard called to say that I had a guest in the lobby, my Mother and I came down in the elevator together and my mother discretely disappeared into the energized crowd that was forming there.    I made them both promise emphatically "not to be seen". I would have died of mortification, if they were discovered watching me leave for my date.    I look back and feel foolish for being such a silly, little girl.   But now, the moment of truth has arrived. I see Dr. J.J. Coyne standing near the entrance way in his distinguished dress wool overcoat. Oh dear God, give me strength, and legs don't fail me now.