Page 14 of Stay Awake
The camera crash zooms from street level to an apartment window. Painted on the window in red letters are the words
WAKE UP!
I’ve seen that message before. I push up my sleeve. The same words are scribbled just below my wrist bone.
Chapter
Nine
Wednesday 10:18A.M.
The laptop Josie brings me is a clunky old beast with a sticky space bar. While she sets it up for me, I stand by the meeting room’s internal window and scan the office looking for my missing handbag. I assumed I’d left it on my desk, along with my phone, when I went out to get breakfast and take a breather at the park.
I now know that my handbag’s not here since I clearly haven’t been in the office for some time. My desk isn’t even mine anymore. It belongs to Josie.
“Is there something wrong?” Josie asks as she rises from the floor after bending to plug in the laptop charger.
“I think I’ve lost my purse,” I tell her, without revealing that I’m more concerned that I might have lost my mind. How could I have forgotten that I don’t work here anymore?
“Let’s check with the police lost property,” she suggests. “Maybe someone turned it in.”
Before I can protest, she looks up a phone number for the local police precinct on the loaner laptop and dials it on the desk phone.
“I’ll take it from here,” I tell her, as the line rings. “I don’t want to hold you up from your work.”
She hands me the receiver and heads for her desk. I feel uncomfortable about involving the police. I have a deep distrust of cops, dating back to when I was briefly put in child protection after Mom was arrested for a DUI during her acrimonious divorce from Randal.
While I navigate the computerized phone system, pressing the various number options to get to the police lost and found department, I read the spidery ballpoint messages on my hands.STAY AWAKE, it says under my knuckles.
“I’d like to report a lost or stolen handbag,” I tell a curt duty officer when my call is answered.
“Which is it?” she demands.
“What do you mean?”
She sighs impatiently. “Was it lost or stolen?”
“I’m not sure. I fell asleep on a bench at Washington Square Park. When I woke, it was gone.”
“You fell asleep? And your handbag was gone?” she says with disbelief. “Okaaaay.…” She drags out the word. I feel like an idiot.
“Can you describe your handbag and tell me anything about the brand and color?”
Since I don’t remember which purse I had with me today, I describe the three handbags that I use interchangeably. I sense her impatience.
“You just described three different purses,” she snaps in exasperation. “Are you missing one or three?”
“One.”
“So which one are you missing?” She barely conceals her impatience.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember which I took today,” I stutter.
“Let me get this straight,” she says. “You fell asleep on a park bench. When you woke, your handbag was gone. You don’t know if someone stole it while you slept or if you lost it. And you don’t remember whatcolor it was, or the brand.” She pauses for breath. “Listen, lady, I have a suggestion for you.”
“What is it?”
“Why don’t you call us back when you remember,” she says in an angry staccato.
