Friday evening Hania and I drove down to the Colony Theater in Miami Beach to hear my godson, Antoine, play trombone in the Palmer Trinity School orchestra.
There was no sign of his mother, Zosia, at the entrance, so we walked inside. "Someone was to leave tickets for us," I told the theater manager, an attractive young woman in a dark gray dress.
"What's the name?" she asked.
"Swick," I said.
"That's my name," she said. I asked her her first name. "Megan." "My niece is Megan Swick," I told her.
We sat next to two proud parents, originally from Hungary by way of Venezuela. "At home we speak Spangarian," the mother said.
Antoine walked with the horn section onto the stage, his tuxedo jacket almost to his knees. For students at a non-music school, they played pretty well.
But classical music takes a lot out of a young horn player. We located Zosia and headed to Frieze Ice Cream Factory, where Antoine had a three-scoop cone of raspberry sorbet. Then we went to the creperie next to Anthropologie where he downed a sugar crepe.
Walking to the parking lot, Antoine remarked on the crowds of what he called "stupid people." I asked him to explain, but it was more of an intuitive feeling, unsupported by hard evidence. I mentioned that you didn't see people carrying books. And I liked the fact that he didn't want to grow up and be a flaneur on Lincoln Road.
