Running Down A Dream

I'm Picking Up Whatever's Mine

Regent Berlin Hotel
Berlin, Germany
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
(11:30 pm)
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The Nanny again.

Lindsey had been watching the show dubbed in German for the past three nights in a row, and, he was embarrassed to admit, he was hooked. Fran Fine and Maxwell Sheffield were embroiled in the classic will-they-or-won't-they love affair, the blonde woman who loved Maxwell was upset, Niles the butler was all for it...and Lindsey lay in his bed a seventy-three-year-old rock musician, incapable of looking away.

He'd called downstairs for room service a few hours ago and ordered an omelette, and he'd eaten half of it, thinking of Stevie and the life-changing omelettes she used to make when money was scarce and eggs were cheap. The secret to the tomatoes not making everything wet, she'd told him one Sunday morning in the kitchen, wearing his Rolling Stones t-shirt and nothing else, was to salt the tomatoes before adding them into the eggs. She'd add cheese, green peppers...whatever she found in the fridge to chop up...and it was still one of the best meals he'd ever eaten.

In his pajama bottoms and an Abbey Road t-shirt, he wandered over to the rolling cart of food and picked at the cold French fries that had come with his omelette. He quickly abandoned the unappetizing plate, and walked back over to the bed.

"She was working at a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens till her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes...What was she to do? Where was she to go; she was out on her fanny..."

After a few consecutive nights of watching The Nanny dubbed in German, Lindsey was still wondered why the theme song was still in English. He had been holed up in his hotel room for four nights in a row, watching The Nanny and other old American TV sitcoms from the 1990s dubbed in German, and so he found himself singing along, raising his voice to a high falsetto that made his throat hurt a bit, "So over the bridge from Flushing to the Sheffields' door...She was there to sell makeup, but the father saw more...She had style, she had flair, she was there! That's how she became The Nanny...Who would've guessed that the girl we described...was just exactly what the doctor prescribed..."

That was when he heard a knock on his door. It was eleven-thirty at night and he wasn't expecting anyone; he chose to ignore it at first, singing along to the end of the theme song, "She's the lady in red when everybody else is wearing tan..."

The person knocked again. With a shrug, Lindsey walked over to the door, asking, "Who is it?" The person didn't respond. Finally, he unlocked the top latch on the door and pulled it open a crack. He saw blonde hair. He pulled the door open a little wider, and for a moment, he thought he was dreaming, or that the medications he'd been taking all week were making him hallucinate.

"Hi." Stevie stood in the hallway, dressed all in black except for a pink cardigan sweater. She had a black purse over her shoulder, and behind her he could see a Louis Vuitton duffel bag sitting on top of a black wheeled suitcase. She was wearing her glasses, and she looked exhausted. And if he wasn't imagining things...she looked like she'd been crying.

"Stevie?" He closed his eyes and opened them again. "My God, Stevie, what are you doing here?"

Stevie's response was to drop everything in her hands and throw her arms around his neck. Lindsey, completely stunned, wrapped his arms around her, and he couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard her starting to cry. There were two things, however, that he was absolutely certain of as she continued to hold onto him for dear life and he held her close in return - she was actually trembling with emotion, and the feeling of Stevie's body close to his, tiny and soft and warm, had never felt better to him in all fifty-six years he had known her. Two minutes ago he thought he'd never see her again for the rest of his life. Now he couldn't imagine ever having to let her go.