Never Too Late, the Signs Say

February 9, 1996

The Boston Herald

It's not that I haven't asked for signs before. I have. When I was a kid, signs were my religion. "If the light doesn't turn red before I get to it and if it continues to stay green for as long as I can see it in the rear view mirror, then John White will call someday," I used to say out loud in the car all by myself when I was young and obsessed with John White.

"If I turn the dial and 'Johnny Angel' is playing, that means that he'll call soon.” "If I turn the dial and 'It Ain't Me' is playing he may never call."

I courted signs. He loves me, he loves me not. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. If the elevator doesn't stop until I get to my floor . . . If the last Dot in the box is red . . . If the phone rings in the next five minutes . . . 

It was an obsession which continued even when I was older and had children, though by then John White, thank God, was no longer the coveted prize. I had different goals. If no one has to go the bathroom until we get where we're going . . . If the light is green at Dedham Street . . . If there is no line at the donut store . . .

Then one day after close to four decades of this nonsense, I learned finally and irrefutably that there is absolutely no statistical significance between good luck and green lights. I learned this the morning I drove my husband to the hospital for open heart surgery. We got every red light in Massachusetts. We got behind every slow driver. The parking lot was full so we had to park in another state. The elevator stopped at every floor. And then when we finally got to where we were going, the background music was "The Party's Over.”

The operation was a success in spite of these things.

I bring up all this today because despite what I've learned, I'm believing in signs again. A book is responsible, "White Rabbit," written by a 28-year-old, a kid, practically an infant. You should see her picture. "Kate Phillips, now only 28, has achieved the unusual feat of imagining the final day in the life of a woman who is 88," The New York Times wrote in its rave review. The paper called "White Rabbit" a "remarkable debut.”

Remarkable it is. Phillips gets into the head and heart of an old woman and never misses a beat. The story hinges on the fact that Ruth Hubble, 88, begins the first day of every month with a game. She calls her friends and says "White Rabbit" to them before they can phone and say it to her. The winner gets a month of good luck. The loser? Well, the novel is about this. 

I wish I had written "White Rabbit," I said the second I finished it. And I've been walking around muttering, "She's 28. I can't believe she's only 28," for days.

I was on the Southeast Expressway still thinking about "White Rabbit," feeling like Methuselah, looking at all the young people in the cars passing me, and taking this as a grand symbol because even if I wrote a novel this very minute, "Beverly Beckham, now only 28" is not possible and "now only 50," which would be the truth by the time the book was published, just doesn't have the same cheery ring.

And then I saw it, not some fickle green light, not some cranky elevator, but a real sign, right in front of me, a great, huge, bold billboard bearing these words: "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN.”

And I who grew up wishing on every star, and blowing dandelions in the wind, and not stepping on cracks, and searching for four-leaf clovers even after snow covered the ground, know better than to question this.