Page 95 - Philly Girl

Philly Girl 79

Janet

I met Connie at an actual meat market, but I met Janet at
The Meat Market Café. It was 1978. I had just arrived in
San Francisco, thinking that everyone only read books about
astrology. Janet was with her best friend, Faye, who was read-
ing Joan Didion’s A Book of Common Prayer.
The two of them were inseparable, and I became the
third buddy. We ate a lot of Just Desserts chocolate cake,
laughed hysterically at Faye’s unstoppable drippy nose, which
she always wiped with one of her schmattas. We were three
Jewish girls from back east who had all escaped a proscribed
boring future. Janet and Faye were in a theatre company
together, and for money, Janet was a taxi driver and Faye
drove a van for disabled people. Faye eventually moved back
East and later died from brain cancer. We still miss her and
love her. Janet and I became a twosome then, always sensing
that empty seat at the table for Faye.
Janet is seriously the most private person that I have ever
met. No one really knows what is going on inside her mind.
This used to frustrate me, but she is always there for the
people she cares about—and even for those she doesn’t care
about. She drives old ladies to synagogue, volunteers at a
literacy nonprofit for small children, plays a serious game of
Jewish Mahjong, and belongs to a great book group. Janet
always put others at the top of her list. She would drop what
she was doing for anyone who needed something. Janet
always shows up.