Free Falling in Love by Stephen Bradlee Page B

tea for herself.
    Her name was Dede Dalton and she spent the next fifteen minutes talking about the audition she had in an hour for an off-Broadway play about some scandal in the Twenties and that if she got the part, it could lead to her big break. She talked so fast that I had trouble keeping up. Then she reached down and pulled a vintage silk dress from her purse and held it up. “What do you think?”
    I really didn’t have a clue but said that it looked fine to me.
    Then Dede got around to the reason we were there and grilled me about my meager work experience. When I told her that I had worked for Paul her eyes lit up, so I quickly added that because we had gotten involved, I was worried about using him for a reference.
    Dede didn’t seem to care. She took a notepad from her purse and scribbled on it, while asking, “You ever been to L.A.?”
    “No.”
    She ripped off a page. “Now you have. You worked for these three firms for eight years.” She looked closely at me. “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-five.”
    She crossed out one of the firms and changed some dates. “These two firms for five years.”
    I was shocked. “What if they check them out?”
    “They can’t. Both of these firms went belly up. But they were big. Offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. Every agency in New York has heard of them. You worked in the L.A. offices.” She handed me the paper. “You now have five years of top drawer legal experience.”
    “You don’t think it’s a coincidence that both the firms I worked for went out of business?”
    “Think anyone cares? This is like underage drinking. The bartender asks for an ID, you show him one and he doesn’t care if you’re twelve. Same here. You know what a brief is?”
    “I think so,” I said, not exactly sure.
    “You can type?”
    “Yes,” I replied more emphatically.
    Dede gave me the names of five temp agencies. “These are the best in the city. Go to them last. Go to any others and take their test. Make sure you are confident that you can pass the typing test for these agencies before you go to them. Then you’ll always have a job because lawyers are never going away. You may not like the job but you will always have one.”
    I couldn’t really believe that this false resume would get me work as a legal secretary but I was grateful to Dede for at least trying to help me. “Thank you so much.”
    “No problem,” she smiled. “We Geminis have to stick together.”
    I gaped, surprised. “How did you know?” I didn’t know much about astrology but I did know that my June birthday made me a Gemini.
    “You’ve got split personality written all over you.” Dede laughed. “Just kidding. I don’t follow it that much but I can always spot another Gemini. When’s your birthday?”
    “June thirteenth.”
    “Sixteenth. We’re almost celestial twins.”
    Then Dede was off to the bathroom and in a few minutes emerged in the silk dress, gloves and a new hairdo, coming over to me with a twirl. “What do you think?”
    “Fantastic.” It truly was a stunning transformation into some kind of flapper.
    Dede dropped her card on the table and said, “Go do it. If you have any questions or problems, call me. Drop my name as a reference. The top agencies all know me and one day everyone will know me,” she made a grand gesture, “as a star.” Then she was gone.
     
    The next day, I began doing exactly what Dede said. I was so nervous that I failed the first test, barely passed the second one and did respectable at the third agency. By the fourth one, the woman said that she would send me out. But when she didn’t call the next day, I finally went to the first agency on Dede’s list, passed the test, smiled a lot and the next day they sent me to a midtown law firm to fill in for three days.
    The firm was on a high floor with light airy offices and plush carpets. I worked for a young woman associate who was a gift. She did almost all of her own work and mostly