Falling in Love by Stephen Bradlee Page A

his life involved being shot twice. He explained that he used to be a policemen but that he was now on disability and that he ran a security agency. I remembered him asking again if he could buy me a drink but that was all I could remember until I woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover, nude and in a strange bed, and suddenly in a panic. I looked around and when I saw it was almost 10 o’clock, my head began throbbing harder. I was supposed to be at work by 9:30.
    I quickly threw on my clothes, while noticing a note on the bedside table. Below a phone number, it read, “Sherry, call me at work and I’ll take you to lunch. Thanks for a wonderful time. Mike.” Without the note I never would have known his name was Mike.
    Since it had been a neighborhood bar, I hoped that Mike lived near my hotel so I could run to my room, change and try to get cleaned up and make it to work by 10:30. But when I ran out of his building, I recognized nothing. I hurried to the corner newspaper stand where I learned that I was in Brooklyn. Brooklyn! I knew I couldn’t take the time to go back to my room and change. I wasn’t sure I had enough money for a cab so I took a train into the city, got lost and finally made it to work after eleven.
    I rushed to my desk but there was a redhead sitting there, struggling with a document. Mr. Lane strode out of his office and I said quickly, “I’m really sorry, Mr. Lane. It won’t happen again.”
    “I know,” he snapped, “You’ve been replaced.”
    I rushed down to the secretarial supervisor to apologize and explain about my broken alarm clock. She had been looking down at some papers and had seemed sympathetic but moment she looked up at me, her demeanor changed. I had been in such a panic that I hadn’t stopped to try to put myself together. My hair wasn’t combed and the neatly pressed blouse that I had worn the day before now had a wine stain on the front pocket. It was very obvious that I hadn’t gone home last night and that I had had a long night. She said, curtly, “Give me your time card. I’ll phone your agency if we have anything else for you.”
    I was too embarrassed to call the agency again but instead, I went to another agency on Dede’s list. I was working my way up to the top agencies that she had recommended. I was hoping that the higher up I went up on the list, the better secretary I would be but I was afraid that I might get to the top just in time to really go down in flames.
     
    Although I had purportedly come to New York to talk to my mother’s childhood friend, Elaine, I hadn’t worked up the courage to see her. A couple of times, I called her but always hung up after the first ring. I really only wanted to ask her two questions: did she know where my mother was and why did my mother leave me? I finally decided that the worst she could do was to tell me to go away and I was already used to people telling me that.
    One Friday afternoon, after working in midtown, I decided to walk by her place, which turned out to be an elegant limestone apartment building overlooking the East River. To see if she still lived there, I cautiously walked up to her entrance and saw the name, Harold Carter, PH. Since all the other apartments had numbers, I wasn’t sure what the PH stood for but I thought it might mean penthouse, which meant that Elaine must be fairly rich. I couldn’t see a girl from Rosebud making it to the top of New York. But there was the name. My shaking finger pressed her button.
    “Yes?” I heard a voice.
    “Hi. I’m—. My name is—” I stammered. Suddenly the door buzzed. I pushed it and entered the gleaming marble foyer. My heart was pounding furiously as I entered an elevator and pushed the top button. Three walls were mirrors from the waist up and I studied my frightened face. My body shook all the way up. I stepped out into a small hallway with mirrors and plants on each side of a lone door beside a brass container holding folded