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Visitation Rites

Sometimes out-of-towners have the power to make you doubt your place in the world.

by Natalie
posted on May 01, 2007

Credits: Benjamin West

The poet Kahlil Gibran once said, “If it were not for guests, all houses would be graves.” I couldn’t disagree more. Unless, of course, what he actually meant was that a house without guests was a place where one could rest in peace—in which case, we’re on the same page. Though I’m as social as they come, I’m positively Salingeresque regarding my personal space. So when one of my closest friends, who now lives in New York, announced that as a belated birthday present for me she’d be coming to stay for a long weekend, I immediately broke out in a cold sweat.

Maggie and I had been inseparable for four years of school in Boston—we were alike in too many ways to count, and had always planned to move to New York together after graduation. But when the time came and I got a surprise job offer in San Francisco, we parted ways. Maggie did go to New York, eventually landing what had been a dream job for both of us: working as a fashion editor at W.

We made a fairly successful stab at keeping in touch—clocking in marathon phone catch-up sessions approximately every two weeks—and in some ways, it seemed as if nothing had changed. But whenever the conversation turned to work, and Maggie would fill me in on her goings-on—what hiccup she’d faced at the Mario (Testino, of course) shoot and the funny thing Michael Stipe did at an art opening in SoHo—I found myself crossing my own anecdotes off our conversational to-do list. The only time I doubted my decision to move to SF was when I talked to Maggie.

She got in on a Friday night, the same night an acquaintance was hosting her birthday party at Vessel. I’d yet to check out the newcomer nightspot, and figured it would be a good place to start off the weekend. By the time we were ready, it was already midnight, and I called for a cab. “You have to call for a cab?” Maggie asked, perplexed. I could tell she wasn’t used to having to track down transportation. Twenty minutes later, it still hadn’t arrived, so I suggested we walk a few blocks and try to flag one—which, finally, we were able to do.

Inside Vessel, neither of us seemed entirely prepared for the scene we encountered—legions of girls in cocktail dresses and stilettos squealing over thumpingly unidentifiable dance music. I knew our hour-late-and-a-drink-short perspective made for an unfairly harsh judgement of the place, and resisted the urge to leave. I was determined to show Maggie a good time. After battling the crowd at the bar for our cocktails, we made our way to a slightly raised mezzanine at the back corner, where I’d been told the birthday party would be holding its base of operations. “Nat!” I heard a high-pitched voice squeal. I turned to see my friend Alexis, who had clearly been there a while, as evidenced by her end-of-night mascara and red-wine-stained dress.

“So nice to meet you!” Alexis enthused to Maggie. “You’ll have to excuse me—I’ve been drinking since I got out of work at 5 p.m. I love your necklace, by the way.”

“Thanks!” Maggie said, “Actually, you’ll never believe this, but I got it at H&M.”

“What did we ever do without that place?” Alexis answered, wide-eyed. “Remember when it opened, Nat? It was like the biggest party ever.”

“Oh, I meant H&M the department store,” Maggie said.

“Yeah!” Alexis said. “There was a line around the block!”

Maggie looked puzzled. I spotted my friend Bill and waved him over, hoping for better conversation. “So where are you eating this weekend?” he asked. I said I’d made reservations at Delfina. “I saw Sean Penn there last month!” he said, grabbing my arm. “And once I spotted that girl from Real World: Seattle too.” Maggie smiled, pretending to be impressed while I inwardly cringed.

We adjourned to a nearby booth and after an hour or so of reading each other’s lips over the noise, we were both surprised when the lights went on. “What’s going on?” Maggie asked. “They close at 2 a.m.,” I told her. She gave an interested nod, as if she were an anthropologist pondering a previously undiscovered society.

Back at my place, Maggie was asleep before her head hit the pillow. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get comfortable. Besides the fact I wasn’t used to sharing my sleeping space, I was totally disturbed by our lackluster evening, in particular by the impression my city was making on my most glamorous friend. Through Maggie’s eyes, SF must seem so provincial—I had no doubt she viewed it as a knock-off of the real deal. Well, our nightlife might not be on par with New York’s, and we might only have one—maybe two—real celebrities to our name, but I have other reasons to love living here, I thought to myself huffily. I ran through the weekend’s itinerary as I lay in bed, attempting to put together a schedule that would show SF at its best. The Farmers Market, a concert at the Fillmore, a hike in the Headlands, the works. Still, I wondered if it would be enough to compensate for the damage that was already done.

We woke up and went to breakfast at Rose’s Café—an easy walk from my apartment. I was silent most of the way, lost in my own thoughts about the weekend and, by extension, SF in general. We got to Rose’s around 11 a.m. and put our name in for an outdoor table—the wait was about 30 minutes. “Wow, I’m surprised it’s so busy this early!” Maggie remarked aloud. “I guess people go to bed earlier here, so naturally they get brunch earlier too.” I bristled at her reminder that SF was an early-to-bed town.

Eventually, we sat down at a table on the patio, and Maggie sighed contentedly. “I haven’t felt this good in so long!” she exclaimed. I looked up from my menu. “Your apartment is so quiet! And do you know how long it’s been since I’ve woken up before noon on a weekend? It’s like you have the whole day! And the air here—it’s so clean.” She took a deep breath and exhaled audibly. “And the views—I couldn’t even talk the whole walk here, I was so busy looking in every direction. Not to mention I finally get to spend some quality time with you! I’m having the best time.”

I beamed back at her, totally caught off guard. I’d been so busy picking everything apart—guessing at what Maggie would see that didn’t measure up—that I’d totally missed the fact that she was too busy noticing what I took for granted. Our breakfasts arrived within 15 minutes of our ordering, and Maggie looked down appreciatively at her plate. “I think that’s a mango!” she said, clearly starstruck. “I can totally see why you live here.”

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