Guest Author Stephen Bradlee

PROLOGUE“I have a great story for you.”This is a sucker line for every writer. Almost everyone thinks that their life would make a great story but few of us live lives that are the stuff of great drama, and even less have material for its counterpart, great comedy. Still writers listen, at least for a few lines, because we are always looking for that great story.The caller was Candice, an old friend whose own life story actually was worth telling. A century ago, her family was among America’s richest but alcoholism had wracked every generation, dissipating the wealth until now it was nearly gone. I had known her through years of pristine sobriety and years of hard drinking and nothing in between. Now, here she was, sober and saying she had a great story.“What is it?” I asked curtly. I was on a deadline and didn’t have time to chat. I knew she would never tell her own story and who knew if she could spot great material any better than the rest of us.

“She’ll be in New York this weekend,” Candice shot back. “She wants to talk to a writer. Confidentially. When can you meet her?”

I hadn’t yet said that I would meet her. I snapped, “Two o’clock, Friday. Figaro’s.” Figaro’s was a Greenwich Village café. I was already afraid that this rendezvous would turn out to be a waste of time but I had a three o’clock meeting two blocks away. At that hour, Figaro’s would be fairly deserted and I had a side table that I sometimes used as an office cum cappuccino.

“Fine,” Candice replied.

“What’s her name?”

“She’ll find you. She’s seen your picture.”

“Why me?” I asked. Candice knew other writers.

“Just be there. I’m late for a meeting.”

“Is she some kind of whistleblower?” I asked but Candice had already hung up.

I had three days to mull over the meeting, deciding whether or not to cancel it. But in the end, I knew I’d show up. I was a writer, a sucker. Maybe this time.

At two-fifteen, I was sipping a cappuccino and scribbling notes on a manuscript when she walked in. She looked in her early thirties, with auburn hair, aquamarine eyes, and was breathtakingly beautiful. She looked so perfect that it seemed hard to imagine that her life wasn’t also perfect but that gave me hope. Nobody’s was.

She walked up to me like an old friend. “Hi, Stephen.”

“Hi,” I said, rising. We shook hands. She didn’t offer her name.

She sat down and ordered an herbal tea as we made small talk about her trip to New York. She was even more beautiful close up but her eyes gave her away. Although large and soft, they revealed that they had probably seen a lot more life than thirty years worth. She asked me several questions about myself. I answered them all. She answered none of mine except her name. “Sherry.” Her story might be great but she didn’t seem ready to tell it.