What a relief. Funny I never thought of that. You just somehow don’t think of a phone booth having a number.
Mary sounds pretty relieved, too. I get the number and call her back, and with Pop making suggestions here and there we settle that I’ll go over to Macy’s and meet her on the ground floor near Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway at the counter where they’re selling umbrellas for $2.89, which Mary says she can see from the phone booth.
“O.K.” I say, and then I sort of don’t want to hang up. It’s fun talking. So I go on. “Look, just in case we miss each other at Macy’s, what’s your phone number at home, so I could call you sometime?”
“COney 7-1218.”
“O.K. Well, good-bye. I’ll be right over. To Macy’s, I mean.”
I grab my coat and check to see if I’ve got money. Pop asks if I’m going to bring her home for dinner.
“Gee, I don’t know.” I hadn’t given a thought to what we’d do. “I guess so, maybe, if her mother hasn’t come by then. I’ll call you if we do anything else.”
“O.K.,” Pop says.
I go out and hustle through the evening rush-hour crowds to the subway. The stores are all open evenings now, for Christmas, so the crowds are going both ways.
I get to the right corner of Macy’s, and I see Mary right away. Everyone else is rushing about and muttering to themselves, and she’s standing there looking lost. In fact she looks so much like a waif that the first thing I say is, “Hi! Shall we go get something to eat?”