Ringing in the New Year the Right Way

Here I was with a bona fide, grown-up boyfriend, and once again without a date or a plan. “What do you mean you’re just staying home?” my mother gasped during our regular Sunday phone call. “It doesn’t matter,” I lied. “But it does! It’s New Year’s Eve!” she said, as if I didn’t know. By then my parents had stopped celebrating at the Ramada Inn. But still I was shocked when they showed up at my apartment door with a bottle of prosecco that evening, having driven four hours to New York City to be with me. “We were not going to let you be alone,” my mother said.

We would go to a fancy place and celebrate in style, I decided. We would have a glamorous Manhattan night on the town. Until I tried to get a reservation. Anywhere. I called all of my favorite trendy restaurants, then the not-so-trendy ones, then the local neighborhood places. Nothing. Even Josh couldn’t squeeze us in at his restaurant. “Are you kidding? We’ve been full for over a month,” he said. Deflated, I suggested my go-to Mexican place, Tortilla Flats. It was off the beaten path, way out in the West Village. But the margaritas came by the pitcher, and they had Christmas lights up all year. “It’s festive,” I told my parents — and myself.

That New Year’s Eve was one of the coldest on record. Luckily, we got a taxi right on my corner, and were deposited at Tortilla Flats. The wind whipped across the Hudson. Our teeth chattered. There were no cars, no people in sight, just my parents and me. I pulled on the door to the restaurant. It didn’t budge. I pulled harder. “Is it closed?” my father asked, looking at the desolate street. “Not on New Year’s Eve!” my mother chirped hopefully. I futilely pulled again, wondering how we were ever going to find a taxi back to my apartment where we would call for Chinese takeout and I would once again have a sad New Year’s Eve.

I was thinking about muggers, dark streets and my bad luck, when suddenly the door flew open and a surprised, curly-haired man stepped out. “You’re open!” I said, resisting the urge to hug him with relief. “No, sorry. I gave my staff the night off so they could go have fun,” he said. I think I harrumphed. Fun. “We came all the way from Rhode Island so she wouldn’t be alone tonight,” my father explained. The man studied us. I could tell he pitied me, out with my parents on New Year’s Eve.

“My other restaurant is open,” he said finally. “I’ll take you there and be sure you get a table.” He motioned for us to follow him into a van parked around the corner.  It probably was not a good idea to get into a stranger’s vehicle on a dark, empty street. But we were desperate, and true to his word, 15 minutes later, we were eating alligator at his Cajun restaurant.

Making new resolutions

That was the night I gave up my childish expectations of the holiday I had come to dread and maybe even hate a little. That was the night that I realized I had two people who loved me so much that they drove 200 miles to be with me. I had a boyfriend pouring chablis uptown who didn’t need New Year’s Eve to show me how he felt. Why had I held on so long for some idealized version of this one night, when all along I’d had everything I needed just about every day?

Many New Year’s Eves have come and gone since, and I’ve gone to parties alone or with dates. I’ve even thrown a few. But mostly I make a nice dinner, pour a glass of wine and spend it with the people I love doing things we love: making jigsaw puzzles, watching old movies, reading books, playing games. And I’ve never again been disappointed.

My father died 25 years ago; my mother five years ago. I can’t even recall how many times we talked about that New Year’s Eve we spent together, stranded in the frigid weather on an empty street, saved by a guy in a van. Whenever it came up, one of us always said, “That was the best New Year’s Eve ever.”

By coincidence, I now live five doors down from Tortilla Flats. Shortly before it closed in 2018, I was walking past, remembering that night with my parents, missing them, when the door opened and out stepped a man with curly gray hair.

Hood and her husband raise a glass to cheers the year ahead.

Ann Hood

I stopped. “Are you the owner?” I asked him.

He told me he was. “I’ve always wanted to thank you for something,” I said. “A long time ago, my parents and I came here on a really cold night.”

His face brightened. “It was New Year’s Eve,” he said.

“You remember that?”

“I’ll never forget how they’d come to spend it with you,” he said.

“Neither will I,” I said.

And for a moment, I heard the wind howling, felt the cold air and saw my parents’ young faces lit by the holiday lights flashing in the window. I had everything I needed that New Year’s Eve. And I’ve never needed more than that. This New Year’s Eve, as my husband and I stay home together happily, I’ll drink a cup of kindness, dear, for the sake of auld lang syne.