At long last, a love scene, but not quite yet..."If you're looking for Prince Charming, he ain't out there," Amanda told her.
Debbie looked outside the window of her friend's Long Island apartment. Oh, yeah? Well, I'm going to find him, she vowed silently. How she was going to do that was a mystery, even to her.
"I think you'll get married soon," Amanda said.
I hope so, she thought.
"And it's not going to be to Prince Charming. Every guy you go out with, you've said something about his looks. Too this or too that..."
"Oh, yeah? I didn't know that," Debbie wondered aloud.
Asleep on the velvety couch late at night, she thought of Amanda's words. She heard a car drive quietly but surely into the parking lot and stop beside its home. As surely as that car had stopped, Mr. Right would finally come home to her and she would wake up from her sound sleep and say, "Oh, there he is." It would be as simple as that.
She met her roommate at Madison Avenue, near the address of the prestigious Conde Nast publishing company.
"Who knows where I'll be? California? London?" Debbie gazed across Madison Avenue, breathless with the excitement of Secretary's Week. Her boss had given her perfume, Coco Chanel. She did not have the guts to take her to lunch!
Stop, Debbie had wanted to say when her boss thanked her and told her why she had chosen Coco Chanel.
"I used to wear it on Saturday nights when I would go out with Rick," she said. "Don't you agree that some perfumes are not meant to wear in the office?"
Too bad I don't have anyone special to wear it for, Debbie thought wistfully. And today, Mary had given her a bottle of Frexchenet champagne in addition to the vase of tulips. Then she hugged her lightly before Debbie left for her three-day weekend. As if she knew, this would be goodbye...
And then, she remembered, the rent for May was due! She called her roommate, Nicole, looking up her number at Conde Nast.
"Well, I guess I'll have the apartment to myself," Nicole said.
"Yeah...it's kind of spooky, isn't it? All winter long..." All winter long, Debbie had spent the weekends alone.
Then she asked Nicole, from a working phone booth, "I don't want to go to class. Let's just go out."
"No, you should go," Nicole said.
"I'll call you when I get out," OK?"
"All right," Nicole sounded impatient, as usual. Well, Debbie did not have to call her at all.
They would be reading each other's stories to the class tonight...
DARN IT! Time's Up! Way too short --- like, 5 minutes???
