Falling in Love (24 page)

I bought a box of the plainest cards in the store—a boring wreath on the cover and only “Merry Christmas” inside. I then proceeded to write the beginning of fifty different Christmas cards. I knew it was exactly fifty because I used up the entire box. Yes, I could find demons even in a Christmas card. What if I began Dear Mom and someone else opened the card, someone who didn’t know she had another daughter? Like my half-sister with the phone crisis, or worse, Mom’s mother-in-law! Ditto with signing it, “your daughter, Sherry.” But if I just signed it Sherry, she might think she didn’t know any Sherry and throw it out. In the end, I flipped the last card into my overflowing circular file and chalked up another failure in a life filled with them.

But in the end the failure wasn’t the letter writing or the card. I could have sent anything and probably got some response. Even though I had told myself all of my life that I wanted to call or write my mother, I really didn’t. I wanted to her to call or write me. To show me that I meant something to her, anything, but something. Sure, I would have loved for her to admit that she had been wrong and expressed regret but almost anything would have been better than nothing. But all I had ever gotten from her was nothing and nothing was what she would get from me.

But every night, I came home and sat on the sofa sipping hot chocolate while I admired my wondrous Eve and breathed in her fragrance, sometimes with Robie beside me, someone alone. I not only hadn’t invited my mother to see Eve but not even Elaine or Dede or anyone else. I had created that magnificent masterpiece for me. After a lifetime of hating myself and especially hating being alone with myself, I was finally enjoying my own company. When Dede wanted me to go with her to Palm Springs for the Holidays and Elaine invited me over for Christmas dinner, I told them both I had other plans.

On Christmas morning, I showered, fed Robie, watered Eve and opened the two presents under her, a CD and a purse, both from Santa Sherry. I had purchased a 15-pound turkey along with stuffing, potatoes, corn, yams, marshmallows, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Having searched the internet for various turkey cooking instructions, I settled for one in a bag. That turned out to be a great idea because even though the turkey was supposed to have thawed out in twenty-four hours on Christmas morning it still looked like a slab of concrete with legs. When I finally got it unfrozen, the bag cooked that sucker in three hours. I didn’t need a thermometer. Robie, on his hind legs and stretching his nose as close as he could get it to the oven, was enough for me.

I made my first fire in the fireplace and Robie and I proceeded to gouge ourselves until we were almost sick. Then I lay back on the sofa and looked lovingly at the glowing embers playing pretty shadows on Eve and fell asleep. It was, far and away, the best Christmas of my life.

I didn’t want my tree to become another dried-up crumbling fantasy so on New Year’s Day, I stripped Eve down and packed all of her splendid trappings in a closet. But I couldn’t part with her yet. So I enjoyed one last evening of admiring her natural beauty. The next morning, I couldn’t bring myself to set Eve beside by the garbage cans. She deserved better. Instead I set her by the front steps, letting her stand tall, and for the world passing by to enjoy glimpses of her beauty. When I returned home from work that night, Eve was gone.

When Dede learned about my Christmas and related the horror she had endured in the desert with her mother and her new stepfather, she let me know that she wished that I had invited her to spend Christmas with me rather that the other way around. But then she quickly chided me for working for less money instead of returning to Whitney, White and Spencer. “You quit for a full-time job. Fine. It didn’t work out so now you go back. That’s what temps do, Sherry. It’s not like you screwed up and made a fool of yourself.”

If Dede only knew. But she was right. Whitney was so big that they could find a place for me, hopefully with some lowly first-year associate. I decided to give them a call but promised myself that the moment I acted out, or even had one drink, I would call in sick and never return. Dede said that she now had her choice of cruise ships but I knew that if she literally broke a leg, she could well be back at Whitney and I didn’t want to soil her star status.

“Johnson. Johnson,” said the new secretarial supervisor, a stunning-looking black woman, as she studied her computer screen. Then slowly, she turned toward me. “You’re Sheryl?”

I nodded.

She clicked another screen and mused, “He still doesn’t have a permanent.” With an odd look, she said, “There’s a note that if you ever returned here, Mr. Turner wants you to work for him.”

No! If, or probably when, I screwed up again, I didn’t want to do it to him. “I’d prefer someone else,” I tried to say cheerfully.

She laughed out loud. “This place is filled with rainmakers but Adam Turner is a tsunami. If he wants you, he gets you.”

“No, please!” It sounded like a plea. It was.

Her eye became slits. “Look, I don’t care how big he is. If anyone messes with my—”

“No!” I practically screamed. “He was always a perfect gentleman, a great boss and…”

She waited, “…and?”

“Nothing.”

She stared at me for several seconds. Then her face softened and she leaned back in her chair, never taking her eyes off me. “Well, Ms. Johnson, let me put it this way. You will work for Mr. Adam Turner or you will not work at Whitney, White and Spencer. Now, where do you plan to be at ninety-thirty next Monday morning?”

At nine-fifteen the following Monday, wearing Dede’s smartest suit, I sat at my station outside Adam’s office with a body filled with more mixed feelings than I had felt in a month—tingling fear, upset stomach, dry mouth, slight perspiration. I longed to take off my suit jacket but I wanted to make my best impression on Adam.

Then I heard a loud sniff and knew that Grace had come onto the floor. She was holding a sheaf of phone messages. I had forgotten to stop by reception to pick up Adam’s early morning calls! Grace stared at me, then sniffed again, “At least, you won’t last the week.”

She was almost right. A few minutes later, Adam rushed in and set a couple of documents on my inbox with a quick smile. “Hello. Welcome back.” Then he began returning phones calls. I barely spoke to him all day. I tried to rush the changes on the documents and messed up most of them but Adam patiently told me to relax and take my time. The closing wasn’t until Friday.

The closing was huge, a merger between two Fortune 500 companies. While dozens of lawyers were working on it, Adam was the main man and by Tuesday I was too busy to type documents. I was constantly making and fielding Adam’s calls, receiving and sending out documents and mostly parceling out Adam’s time. Some of the most powerful people in the corporate world wanted to talk to him and they all had to go through me. It was exhilarating.

The closing took all day on Friday and my job was strenuous and easy. I did whatever Adam asked. When I was done with one task, he gave me another one. I couldn’t believe that with everything on his mind, he still made sure that I wasn’t overwhelmed. The closing was still going strong at seven when Adam told me I could leave. I felt great. I felt that working for Adam was a lot like being in recovery. I may screw up royally one day but I hadn’t done it that day. The best part of the week had been at five-thirty. Armed with a very important certificate, I rushed by Grace as she stood at the elevator waiting to go home and with a sunny smile, I said, “See you on Monday.”

I went straight to group looking like a real business woman “dressed for success.” Even Katherine, Claire’s sponsor, commented on how nice I looked.

Even though I was flush from my first real successful week of work ever, I was worried about the following week because I was beginning college. What if I failed? How could I become a teacher? Then what would I do? And what if I passed? At one course a semester, a degree would take forever.

But when I voiced my concerns in the Shamrock, Gregory laughed, “You’re worried that you might fail and worried that you might succeed? A perfect addict’s attitude.”

“But what’s one course going to do for me, really?”

Elaine smiled. “It will get you one course closer than you are now. Maybe you’ll learn that you don’t want to be a teacher.”

“But I do! But I’m afraid. Sitting in a classroom again might bring up memories that I’d rather keep forgotten.”

“They are going to come out sooner or later, Sherry,” Elaine assured me.

Gregory smiled. “Am I the only one who thinks it’s ironic that you want to be a teacher but are afraid of a classroom?”

Just thinking about my last bout with college made me shiver. Finally, I admitted, “I’m not really sure why I’m so worried about being in a classroom. As I recall, the last time I was in college I spent all of my time in bars and beds.”

“Small successes, Sherry,” Elaine reminded me. “If you are still sitting in that classroom at eight-thirty Wednesday night, it’s a success.”

That weekend, I read the first two books in the course,
Pickwick Papers
and
The Mill on the Floss
. I wasn’t taking any chances. On Wednesday evening, I got to class early to sit there alone in case I threw up or something. Strangely, it felt great. My fear wasn’t about sitting in a classroom but about sitting there drunk or hungover or wearing the same clothes I’d worn the day before with half of my underwear missing.

As the room filled up, I made eye contact with no one. The teacher arrived last, an elderly man with thinning silver hair, kind eyes and a cardigan sweater that looked as old as him. I immediately knew I could learn from him and I was right. By the end of that night I was hooked on the class and on learning again.

Cracking books was hard while working full time but having a zero social life was a big help. My whole life soon consisted of working, gym, class, studying, eating, sleeping and, of course, repeating a thousand times a day that I would show love for myself but becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be. Whoever the heck that was.

I had planned to write my first paper on
Great Expectations
but after reading
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
, so many ideas came flowing out of my head that I started to write them down. I thought it would be good practice to see what my teacher thought so I would have an idea of what he might be looking for. I carefully explained that I was writing my “real” paper on Dickens but that I had just “jotted down a few notes” about Tess. The next class he handed back my “notes” and on the front was a large A. An A! I had finally gotten an A in a college course!

Excited, I could hardly wait for group to tell Elaine. The moment she arrived, I assaulted her. “I got an A on my first essay,” I proudly announced.

“The one on
Great Expectations
? Sherry, that’s great.” Elaine was practically glowing.

I shook my head. “I wrote about
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
.”

Elaine’s face darkened and she shook her head. “Are you serious? A novel about a virgin who gets raped and it then goes straight down hill until she is hanged? You don’t see any correlation here?”

“I got an A,” I said weakly. “An A. I wanted an A.”

Elaine wasn’t mollified. “Let’s see if you can get one for
Great Expectations
. Or
Jane Eyre
.”

I didn’t speak to her for the rest of the night and I didn’t go to the coffee shop afterward. Elaine called to make sure I was all right. I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t wait until spring finally sprang. I was getting tired of sitting in a gym riding a bike to nowhere while watching an all-news cable station or sports shows pondering whether or not the Knicks or Yankees or Giants will make the playoffs but I never had the courage to change the channel. Besides, I was always clicking away, trying to tell myself I would become the person I’ve always wanted to be. The instant an hour was up, I would quickly shower and run outside so that I could have a cigarette. I got so good that occasionally I could make the transition from jock to smoker in less than seven minutes.

Because I tried to make myself as unattractive as possible, bundled up in sweats with a baseball cap pulled down to cover half of my face, men usually left me alone but one afternoon, as my parole time neared, a muscular young man mounted the bike next to me, even though there were several other vacant bikes.

“Good workout?” he asked with a smile

I nodded without looking at him.

“I’m Carl. You like the bike, huh?”

I nodded again and then glared at him, hoping he would realize that I didn’t want to talk. “Afterward, would you like to get a glass of juice or something?” I shook my head. “Come on, how about a quick drink?” I shook my head again. “Then maybe tomorrow. I see you here all the time.”

I turned toward him. “No,” I said emphatically.

“You got a boyfriend?” he asked.

I answered, “No, but…” Why didn’t I just say yes!

“Then let’s go out. See if we hit it off. How about this weekend?”

I got off my bike. “No,” I repeated.

“Why not?”

“I’ve got to go.”

I started to walk away but he grabbed my arm. “Come on, I’m harmless. Give me your number.”