Searching for Amy in Back Alleys
For Amy and me, post-college life on the upper east side of Manhattan was great. We shared an apartment and many of our friends lived near us. I worked at a cosmetic company where I managed the packaging for the cosmetics and perfumes. I got endless supplies of free makeup, samples of all the latest nail polish colors and trial sizes of all the beautiful perfumes. I also got invited to fabulous holiday parties and were always assured of seeing a steady stream of celebrities walking through the hallways and lobby of our office building. Lucky for me, it was only a few blocks away from where I lived.
Amy had a different situation. As an assistant fashion buyer in the garment district, with a subway commute to midtown, she had to leave the apartment incredibly early. She also had way too many meetings. As soon as I got into the office, I would call her. Despite the fact that we’d only parted a few hours earlier, we had plenty to catch up on, and our conversations covered topics like guess who I saw on the way to work; Where should we eat dinner? Which movie should we watch later? And if we’d spoken to Mom, Dad or Michelle.
One morning, I was at my desk, having just flipped the plastic lid off of my take-out tea and unwrapped my apple muffin. I was settling down to call Amy, when a marketing manager interrupted me with a question that would set off another crazy day in the cosmetics industry. By the time I got back to making my morning call to Amy, my tea had gone cold, my muffin had dried out, and I had two work-related phone messages waiting, one from a packaging engineer looking for fragrance art, and another from my friend, a copywriter down the hall who wanted to make plans for lunch. But, there still was no word from Amy. This wasn’t like her. We’d always connected at least once in the morning. I dialed her number. No answer. Strange! I waited about 30 minutes and dialed again, still no answer. A whole bunch of thoughts raced through my mind. Did she forget to tell me about a meeting? Had she gone home sick? I called the apartment, not there. I left a trail of messages at Amy’s office, but no one had seen her, then the apartment, again. Nothing.
Now I was sweating and thinking the most horrible thoughts. Could Amy have gotten mugged and left in an alley. Should I rush out of the office to search the city? What if she’d been hit by a bus; which hospital would she have been rushed to? Or maybe she had become ill and was holed up in some bathroom, throwing up and too weak to get to the nearest pay phone? (There were no cell phones back then). Maybe I was watching too many bad movies, but I couldn't help but think these terrible thoughts.
Amy and I could always sense when something was not right with the other. And, my intuition told me to get out of my office cubicle and to go find her. Forget the nail-polish launch, the perfume art, the missed deadlines, lunch date, happy hour, and the guy who didn’t call me last night, I had to find twinny!
My phone rang just as I was about to exit not really sure where I was headed. It was Amy! “What happened? Where are you? Are the police there?” I asked. My heart was racing.
"I’m at the apartment. I got laid off. I was talking to the Human Resources people when you called and calm yourself down, you're being a fool!”
“I’ll be home in ten minutes,” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “It was time to leave anyway. Now, I can go back to school and get my master’s in social work which I always wanted to do.”
“I’m coming home anyway,” I insisted.
“No, no,” she said. “You’ll get in trouble for leaving work!”
“No worries, I deal with it, I’m leaving now!”
“Well, okay,” she said. “And since you’re going to pass Grace’s Market, can you pick up tuna sandwiches, and chips and dip? And that ice cream we like and oh, don’t forget a large lemon-flavored iced-tea. One’s enough, we can share!”