house and out of her role as her parents' daughter. By now she was probably settled into some new life, and she'd surface when she wanted to. Or she was dead, in which case there wasn't a whole lot I could do for her.
I thought I'd go to a movie, but instead I wound up spending the day talking to theatrical agents, asking the same old questions, passing out pictures. None of them recognized the name or the face. "She probably just went to open auditions," one of them told me. "Some of them look for an agent right away, others buy the trades and go to the cattle calls and try to get a few credits so they have something to impress an agent with."
"What's the best way?"
"The best way? Have an uncle in the business, that's the best way."
I got tired of talking to agents and tried the rooming house again. I rang Florence Edderling's bell and she shook her head as she let me in.
"I ought to start collecting rent from you," she said. "You spend more time here than some of my tenants."
"I've just got a few more people to see."
"Take all the time you want. Nobody's complained, and if they don't mind I sure don't."
Of the tenants I hadn't yet interviewed, only one was on the premises. She'd lived in the building since May and didn't know Paula Hoeldtke at all. "I wish I could help," she said, "but she doesn't even look familiar to me. My neighbor across the hall said she'd talked to you, that this girl disappeared or something?"
"It looks that way."
She shrugged. "I wish I could help."
When I was first getting sober I started keeping company with a woman named Jan Keane. I'd known her before, but we'd stopped seeing each other when she joined AA and took up again when I started coming to meetings.
She's a sculptor, living and working in a loft onLispenard Street , which is in TriBeCa, just south ofCanal Street . We began spending a fair amount of time together, seeing each other three or four nights a week, occasionally getting together during the day. Sometimes we went to meetings together, but we did other things as well. We'd go out to dinner, or she would cook for me. She liked to go to galleries, in SoHo or theEastVillage . This was something I'd never done much of, and I discovered I enjoyed it. I'd always been a little self-conscious in situations like that, never knowing what to say when confronted by a painting or a piece of sculpture, and from her I'd learned that it was perfectly acceptable not to say anything at all.
I don't know what went wrong. The relationship escalated slightly, as relationships do, and we reached a point where I was half living onLispenard Street , with some of my clothes in her closet and my socks and underwear in one of her dresser drawers. We had conversations in which we speculated gingerly on the wisdom of my maintaining my room at the hotel. Wasn't it a waste to pay rent when I was hardly ever there? On the other hand, was it perhaps valuable as a place to meet clients?
There was a point, I suppose, when it was appropriate for me to give up my room and begin paying my share of the expenses at the loft.
And there was a point, too, where we might have gone on to talk about commitment and permanence and, I suppose, marriage.
But we didn't do any of this, and, having left it undone, it became impossible for things to remain as they had been. We disengaged gradually, in little fits and starts. Our times together were increasingly marked by moods and silences, and our times apart became more frequent. We decided-- I honestly forget who suggested it-- that we ought to see other people. We did, and subsequently found that made us that much more uncomfortable with each other. And at last, gently, and with a surprising lack of drama, I returned a couple of books she had lent me and retrieved the last of my clothing, and I took a cab uptown, and that was that.
It had dragged on long enough for the ending to be something of a relief, but even so I felt lonely a lot of the time, and possessed
I thought I'd go to a movie, but instead I wound up spending the day talking to theatrical agents, asking the same old questions, passing out pictures. None of them recognized the name or the face. "She probably just went to open auditions," one of them told me. "Some of them look for an agent right away, others buy the trades and go to the cattle calls and try to get a few credits so they have something to impress an agent with."
"What's the best way?"
"The best way? Have an uncle in the business, that's the best way."
I got tired of talking to agents and tried the rooming house again. I rang Florence Edderling's bell and she shook her head as she let me in.
"I ought to start collecting rent from you," she said. "You spend more time here than some of my tenants."
"I've just got a few more people to see."
"Take all the time you want. Nobody's complained, and if they don't mind I sure don't."
Of the tenants I hadn't yet interviewed, only one was on the premises. She'd lived in the building since May and didn't know Paula Hoeldtke at all. "I wish I could help," she said, "but she doesn't even look familiar to me. My neighbor across the hall said she'd talked to you, that this girl disappeared or something?"
"It looks that way."
She shrugged. "I wish I could help."
When I was first getting sober I started keeping company with a woman named Jan Keane. I'd known her before, but we'd stopped seeing each other when she joined AA and took up again when I started coming to meetings.
She's a sculptor, living and working in a loft onLispenard Street , which is in TriBeCa, just south ofCanal Street . We began spending a fair amount of time together, seeing each other three or four nights a week, occasionally getting together during the day. Sometimes we went to meetings together, but we did other things as well. We'd go out to dinner, or she would cook for me. She liked to go to galleries, in SoHo or theEastVillage . This was something I'd never done much of, and I discovered I enjoyed it. I'd always been a little self-conscious in situations like that, never knowing what to say when confronted by a painting or a piece of sculpture, and from her I'd learned that it was perfectly acceptable not to say anything at all.
I don't know what went wrong. The relationship escalated slightly, as relationships do, and we reached a point where I was half living onLispenard Street , with some of my clothes in her closet and my socks and underwear in one of her dresser drawers. We had conversations in which we speculated gingerly on the wisdom of my maintaining my room at the hotel. Wasn't it a waste to pay rent when I was hardly ever there? On the other hand, was it perhaps valuable as a place to meet clients?
There was a point, I suppose, when it was appropriate for me to give up my room and begin paying my share of the expenses at the loft.
And there was a point, too, where we might have gone on to talk about commitment and permanence and, I suppose, marriage.
But we didn't do any of this, and, having left it undone, it became impossible for things to remain as they had been. We disengaged gradually, in little fits and starts. Our times together were increasingly marked by moods and silences, and our times apart became more frequent. We decided-- I honestly forget who suggested it-- that we ought to see other people. We did, and subsequently found that made us that much more uncomfortable with each other. And at last, gently, and with a surprising lack of drama, I returned a couple of books she had lent me and retrieved the last of my clothing, and I took a cab uptown, and that was that.
It had dragged on long enough for the ending to be something of a relief, but even so I felt lonely a lot of the time, and possessed
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