Paper Roses

There's an episode of Sex and the City, in season two, when Big gives Carrie a present: a tiny, jewel-encrusted Judith Leiber bag in the shape of a duck. In the next scene, she bangs it down on the table in front of her three bitchy girlfriends and says, "He has absolutely no idea who I am!"

I had been apprehensive, earlier this evening, about meeting Jack tonight. He's never given me a birthday present before, and though I am actually very easy to please, I was afraid that somehow, he might get it terribly, terribly... wrong.

Not that I had any idea what he might give me. I had no frame of reference within even to imagine. It's well within his power to buy me a Rolex. Not that I want one. And that would have been very, very wrong.

We were at the Royal York. He gave me the card first: a modern art watercolour of a woman with red hair, wearing a green dress, and with her arm slung around a tabby cat that is nearly as large as she.

Then he handed me two small packages, wrapped in handmade paper, embossed with real leaves and flowers.

"Open this one first," he said.

It was a moleskine notebook, the kind Hemingway wrote in.

"And this is the companion," he said, handing me a rectangular box wrapped in the same beautiful paper roses.

It was what I used last night to write this story first in my moleskine: a Mont Blanc pen. Black, with platinum trim, and black ink.

Before tonight, I'd had my doubts about Jack. He'd always reminded me of Mr. Big, and that's not always a good thing. But now, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

He knows exactly who I am.

* * *
Tomorrow, Jack takes Sass to Wonderland.