Aftermath of Dreaming by DeLaune Michel Page B

Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the phone book, my hands like a stranger’s doing a task of their own, I thought of my walk home from work the night before when I passed Andrew’s hotel on Central Park South as I did every time I walked home, the large red square carpet that took up most of the sidewalk, the two epauletted, gold-buttoned doormen in front. Now it all meant something different. It was where Andrew was. And had been for how long? How many nights had I passed that building never knowing it housed him? Walking past his hotel last night and peering in, I had thought how simple it would be to go in and ask for the phone number, or at least nab a packet of matches that surely would have it. I imagined going up to the front desk and saying, “I need to call Andrew Madden here tomorrow, what’s the phone number?” As if by connecting to his hotel early, I was connecting to him.
    â€œGood afternoon, the Ritz-Carlton, how may I direct your call?” The voice was elderly in a formidable way, not weak and kick over-able.
    â€œMr. Madden’s room, please.” I tried to say it like I said it a lot, said it so much that I could do something else while I said it, said it and barely knew I was saying it. I tried to say it like that.
    â€œWho may I say is calling?”
    I wasn’t prepared for that. Not that I didn’t have the answer, but that question never entered my head in the zillion times I had practiced this.
    â€œYvette Broussard.” I was afraid to not give my last name. Not that there were so many Yvettes calling him, although there might be a curious run on the name, but the operator sounded so officious that it was clear only one name would never do.
    â€œOne moment, please, I’ll check.”
    Check? That sounded ominous. At least from her it did. She put meon hold, leaving me no idea what to do with the empty, controlled time. I pictured the hotel where it stood across the street from the southernmost part of Central Park. The hotel my call was buzzing through, on hold but still viable, while the operator did what? How long could it take to put my call through? I was waiting in telephonic purgatory.
    There was a small pulsing noise on the line, the hotel’s hold sound, rhythmic and thrilling, like step after step after step up a ladder to the high dive. I wondered what view Andrew Madden’s window had that he might be gazing through. Or, oh God, maybe he wasn’t there. Maybe I should have called earlier, maybe he meant this morning, and I had messed up. God, I hoped he was at his hotel. The nicest one I’d ever been in was the Monteleon, a century-old hotel in the French Quarter. My parents would take us there on special weekend trips when we didn’t stay with one of the many relatives that city was filled with. I supposed Andrew’s room at the Ritz-Carlton was a whole lot nicer than the ones at the Monteleon in a Yankee definition-of-luxury way.
    â€œThis is Andrew.” His voice suddenly was in my ear, curling up in my head. I jumped, thinking for a second he had somehow appeared.
    â€œHi,” I said, regaining my composure. “It’s Yvette.” He had used his first name, to direct me as to how to address him. I wondered if the operator had told him that I had asked for Mr. Madden.
    â€œYvette.” He said my name as if he had been speaking it my entire life. “Yvette, Yvette.” Fluid and comfortable and mellifluous. His voice made the two syllables more familiar while placing them in an atmosphere they had never before been, yet were at home. It was exhilarating. “Yvette from Pass Christian, Mississippi.”
    â€œHow’d you know how to say it right?” My accent became happily heavier hearing him speak the name of my hometown.
    â€œI did a movie down there once.” His words sounded muffled.
    â€œOh.”
    I had a vague recollection of the one he meant, but I had never seen it. He might as