Read The Girl with the Phony Name for Free Online Page B

viewed all the phone books back to 1945. No Trelaines. It didn’t prove that Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine wasn’t a jewelry store, but still she felt a little better.
    Â 
    The following morning Lucy got out the Yellow Pages and started calling hospitals. Her mother had left from New York. Circarillo was from New York. It was reasonable to assume that she had been born here, and if she had there would be a record of the birth somewhere.
    To her disappointment, however, none of hospitals she reached kept old records. “Check the health department,” said one polite gentleman with a Spanish accent. Lucy found a listing for birth and death records in the back of the phone book and dialed the number.
    â€œ … the information required for obtaining a birth certificate,” said the recorded voice, “is the full name as listed on the certificate, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, father’s name, borough of birth, name of hospital or building address where the birth occurred, and the reason the certificate is needed.”

    The recording gave another number for further assistance. Lucy dialed. A human being finally answered on the fourteenth ring.
    â€œYou must give specific information in order for us to find a birth record,” said the woman patiently.
    â€œBut I was orphaned as a child and I don’t know the specific information. That’s why I need you to check.”
    â€œYou should ask your adoptive parents for more specific information.”
    â€œI wasn’t adopted,” said Lucy, collapsing onto the bed in frustration. “And there weren’t any records in the first place.”
    â€œAll adoptions go through Albany,” said the woman, oblivious. “I can give you the number there.”
    â€œThanks anyway,” said Lucy, putting down the phone unhappily. This was obviously going to be harder than she had thought. And more expensive. The Cokes in her room’s honor bar were $2.50 and they were charging her a dollar a phone call. By the time Theresa Iatoni got back from California, Lucy’s hotel bill would be over $2,000. And what if Theresa Iatoni wouldn’t meet with her or didn’t know anything?
    She sighed and rolled to the other side of the bed, where there were still some springs. New York seemed impossibly large. Lucy blanched at the thought of renting and furnishing an obscenely expensive Manhattan apartment, but she would have to find a cheaper arrangement—and a job—if she expected to survive here. And Lucy was a survivor.
    Â 
    Lucy dumped the monster Sunday New York Times on the bed. The room was too hot. The odor of garbage wafted up from the alley below. So did the characteristic sounds of Love Choo-Choo, at it again. Lucy had been here nearly a week now but still couldn’t figure out whether Love Choo-Choo was a prostitute or just an enthusiastic housewife.
    â€œI can do it! I can do it!” callioped Love Choo-Choo at
unlikely hours of the day or night, until a final “Woooo Wooooooo!” indicated that she had left the station.
    Lucy took out the Help Wanted section and started going through the classified ads. She didn’t know exactly what type of job she was looking for, but figured she would recognize it when she saw it.
    The listings weren’t too promising. Lucy figured she’d need at least what she had been making with Welcome Inn to get an apartment and pay the exhorbitant city taxes. The problem was she wasn’t qualified for anything.
    Lucy glanced at the resume she had worked up on her computer. Six jobs in eight years wasn’t going to impress anyone. The printout from her little dot-matrix Diconix wasn’t going to impress anyone either. At least “Harvard” looked good under “Educational Background”—as long as no one asked what degree she had earned. She was too honest about some things.
    After half an hour with the paper, Lucy’s fingers