Andrew asked a passing waitress to bring them two more coffees.
“I like the idea of you being a vet in the police. I’ve written more obituaries and wedding announcements than you could imagine, but I’ve never heard of that particular profession. I wouldn’t even have imagined it existed.”
“Of course it exists.”
“I was angry with you, you know.”
“What about?”
“About running off without saying goodbye.”
“You were the only person I confided in about wanting to leave the second I could.”
“I hadn’t realized your secret was a warning.”
“Are you still mad at me?” Valerie asked, teasingly.
“I should be. But hey, it’s ancient history.”
“And you? You actually became a journalist?”
“How do you know?”
“I asked you earlier about what you were doing with your life and you answered, ‘What I always wanted to do.’ And you always wanted to be a journalist.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything, Andrew Stilman.”
“So who’s this guy you’re seeing?”
“It’s late,” Valerie sighed. “I have to get home. Anyway, if I tell you too much you’ll never manage to put it all into nine lines.”
Andrew smiled mischievously. “Does that mean we’re having dinner at Joe’s Shanghai?”
“If you win your bet. I’m a woman of my word.”
They walked through the deserted SoHo streets to Sixth Avenue without saying a word to each other, Andrew holding Valerie’s arm to help her cross the uneven cobblestones.
He hailed a taxi and held the door open for Valerie as she slid into the back seat.
“It was a great surprise to see you again, Valerie.”
“For me too, Ben.”
“Where can I send you my nine-line masterpiece?”
Valerie rummaged in her bag, pulled out her eye pencil and asked Andrew to open the palm of his hand. She wrote her phone number on it.
“If it’s nine lines, you should be able to text them to me. Goodnight.”
Andrew watched the cab drive off. When he’d lost sight of it, he continued on to his apartment, a fifteen-minute walk away. He needed the fresh air. Although he’d memorized the number on his hand as soon as he’d seen it, he kept his palm open, glancing at the number every few seconds to be sure it hadn’t disappeared, all the way home.
2.
It had been a long time since Andrew had summed up someone’s life in a few lines. For the past two years, he’d been working on the paper’s foreign desk. He’d always had a strong interest in current events and world affairs.
Now that computer screens had replaced the banks of Linotype machines and typesetters, the entire editorial staff had access to the articles that would be appearing in the next day’s edition. On several occasions, Andrew had noticed flawed analyses and factual errors in the International News section. Each time, he’d flagged them at the daily editorial meeting, which all the journalists attended, saving the newspaper from having to publish corrections in the wake of readers’ complaints. It didn’t take long for his keen eye to get noticed and when it came to choosing between an end-of-year bonus and a new position, he had no difficulty deciding.
He found the idea of having to write another “life chronicle,” as he liked to call his past pieces, very stimulating. He even felt a tad nostalgic for his old job as he began work on Valerie’s obit.
Two hours and eight and a half lines later, he texted the interested party.
He spent the rest of the day attempting, in vain, to write an article on the likelihood of a Syrian uprising. His colleagues reckoned it was improbable, if not impossible.
He couldn’t concentrate. His eyes wandered from his computer screen to his cell phone, which remained hopelessly silent. When it finally lit up around 5 P.M., Andrew lunged for it. False alarm—it was the dry cleaner informing him his shirts were ready.
It wasn’t until around noon the next day that he received the following text: Next Thursday, 7.30 P.M. Valerie.
He replied immediately: Do you have the address?
And he regretted his haste when a few seconds later he read a laconic: Yes.
* * *
Andrew continued working and stayed sober for seven whole days. Not a single drop of alcohol. (Well, except for a beer, but that didn’t count.)
On Wednesday he popped into his dry cleaner’s to collect the suit he’d left the previous day, and then went to buy a white shirt. He took the opportunity to go to a barber’s to have his neck and face tidied up as well. As he did every Wednesday, he met up with his best friend, Simon, at around 9 P.M. in an unassuming little café that served the best fish in the West Village. Andrew lived nearby and Mary’s Fish Camp was his canteen on the many evenings he worked late at the office. While Simon ranted, like he did every time they had a meal together, about the Republicans preventing the President from implementing the program he’d been elected on, Andrew stared dreamily through the window at the passersby and tourists strolling through his neighborhood.
“And I heard—from a very reliable source—that it looks like Obama’s fallen big time for Angela Merkel.”
“She is quite pretty,” Andrew answered distractedly.
“Andrew, either you’re working on a mammoth scoop, in which case I forgive you, or you’ve met someone, in which case talk right now!”
“Neither,” Andrew replied. “Sorry, I’m just tired.”
“I haven’t seen you this clean shaven since you went out with that brunette who was a head taller than you. Sally, if my memory serves me right.”
“Sophie. But how could you be expected to remember? I only went out with her for a year and a half! It just proves you find my conversation as interesting as I find yours. Why would I mind you forgetting her name?”
“She was mind-numbingly boring. I didn’t once hear her laugh,” Simon continued.
“That’s because she never found your jokes funny. Are you done eating? I want to go to bed,” Andrew said with a sigh.
“If you don’t tell me what’s eating you, I’ll keep ordering desserts until I explode.”
Andrew looked his friend in the eye.
“Do you have one particular girl who you remember from when you were a teenager?” he asked, waving to the waitress to bring him the check.
“I knew it wasn’t work making you act like this!”
“It’s not what you think. As a matter of fact, I’m working on a horrifying story at the moment—stomach-churning.”
“What’s it about?”
“Sorry, confidential, I can’t talk about it yet.”
Simon paid in cash and stood up.
“Let’s go for a stroll. I need some fresh air.”
Andrew got his raincoat from the rack and went outside to join his friend on the sidewalk.
“Kathy Steinbeck,” Simon muttered.
“Who’s Kathy Steinbeck?”
“The girl I remember from when I was a teenager.”
“Valerie Ramsay,” Andrew declared.
“You don’t give a damn about why Kathy Steinbeck had an effect on me when I was young, do you? You only asked me so you could tell me about your Valerie.”
Andrew took Simon by the shoulder and led him a short way up the street, down three steps leading to the basement of a small brick building, and into Fedora, a bar where Count Basie, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan had once performed as young musicians.
“Do you think I’m too self-centered?” Andrew asked.
Simon didn’t answer.
“You’re probably right. I’ve written summaries of strangers’ lives for so long, I’ve ended up believing tha
t the only time anyone might take an interest in me is when I appear in my own goddamn obituary.”
Andrew raised his glass and proclaimed: “‘Andrew Stilman, born in 1975, worked for most of his life at the famous New York Times . . . ’ See, Simon? It’s like with doctors—they can treat anyone but themselves. The basic tenet of my trade is: only use adjectives to describe the deceased. I’ll start again. ‘Andrew Stilman, born in 1975, worked for many years at The New York Times. His meteoric rise led to him becoming executive editor in 2020. With Stilman at the helm, the newspaper enjoyed a boom and once again became the most respected paper in the world.’ Am I going a bit overboard?”
“You’re not going to start again, are you?”
“Hang in there. Let me get to the end. Then I’ll do yours.”
“At what age are you planning to die? Just so I know how long this nightmare’s going to last.”
“With all the progress in medicine, who knows? Where was I? Oh yes, ‘With Stilman at the helm, blah blah blah, the newspaper rediscovered its former glory. In 2021, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his visionary article on . . . ’ Hmmm, not quite sure yet—I’ll figure that out later. ‘ . . . a subject that led to him writing his first, award-winning book, which is on reading lists at all the top universities.’”
“And the title of this magnum opus was A Treatise on Journalistic Modesty,” Simon jibed. “How old will you be when they give you the Nobel Peace Prize?”
“Seventy-two. I was getting to that. ‘He retired from his position as Editor-in-Chief at the age of seventy-one after a remarkable career, and the following year he was . . . ”
“ . . . arrested for first-degree murder after he’d bored his best friend to death.”
“You’re not being very sympathetic.”
“Why do you need sympathy?”
“I’m having a weird moment, Simon. Loneliness is getting to me, which isn’t normal, because I’ve never loved life more than when I’m single.”
“You’re approaching forty.”
“I still have a few years before I turn forty, thank you. The atmosphere at work is asphyxiating,” Andrew continued. “It’s like there’s a sword hanging over our heads. I just wanted to cheer myself up. So who was this Kathy Steinbeck of yours?”
“My philosophy teacher.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have imagined that the girl who marked your adolescence was a grown woman.”
“Life’s strange. When I was twenty, I fantasized about women fifteen years older than me; now I’m thirty-seven, it’s girls fifteen years younger who catch my eye. Tell me more about this Valerie Ramsay of yours.”
“I bumped into her last week on my way out of the Marriott’s bar.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. I was crazy about her in high school. When she left our hometown without a word, it took me years to forget her. To be honest, I wonder if I ever totally did.”
“Big disappointment seeing her again?”
“No, quite the opposite. There’s something different about her that gets to me even more now.”
“She’s become a woman—I’ll explain the mechanics to you one day! So are you telling me you’ve fallen in love again? ‘Andrew Stilman falls head over heels on West 40th Street.’ What a headline!”
“I’m trying to tell you I’m confused, and that hasn’t happened to me for a long time.”
“Do you know how to get hold of her?”
“I’m having dinner with her tomorrow evening. I’m as nervous as a teenager.”
“I don’t think you ever get over those nerves. Ten years after mom died, my dad met a woman in a supermarket. He was sixty-eight at the time. The day before his first date with her, I had to drive him into town because he was absolutely set on buying a new suit. In the tailor’s fitting room, he told me word for word what he was going to say to her during dinner, and asked me what I thought. It was pathetic. Moral of the story: you’ll always lose your cool around a woman you’re attracted to, whatever your age.”
“Very reassuring. Thanks.”
“I’m just warning you that you’re going to say one wrong thing after another, you’ll think your conversation is boring—which it probably will be—and when you get home you’ll curse yourself for being so pathetic the whole damn evening.”
“Please don’t stop, Simon. It’s so good to have real friends.”
“Hey, stop complaining. I just want you to remember one thing for tomorrow: sit back and enjoy the evening. After all, it’s a date you never thought you’d have. Be yourself. If she likes you, she likes you.”
“Are we that powerless in the matter?”
“Just look around this bar and you can see for yourself. I’ll tell you about my philosophy teacher another day. We’re having lunch on Friday—you can give me the rundown on your reunion then. Oh, and try not make it as detailed as your obit.”
The coolness of the night air took them by surprise when they left Fedora. Simon jumped into a taxi, leaving Andrew to walk home.
On Friday, Andrew told Simon that his evening had gone as he’d predicted, maybe even worse. It had started off disastrously—on the way to the restaurant, Andrew suddenly realized he hadn’t specified whether they were to meet at the Midtown location or the one in Chinatown. He panicked for half an hour thinking that Valerie might go to the wrong location and think him a fool for not being more specific. But she showed up in Chinatown smiling, and Andrew did his best to hide his relief. Andrew thought he’d probably fallen back in love with Valerie Ramsay, which was inconvenient because she’d mentioned once again that she was seeing someone, though she hadn’t offered any details.
She didn’t phone him the following day, or the following week, and Andrew was starting to feel pretty low. He spent all day Saturday at the office. On Sunday he met Simon at the basketball court on Sixth Avenue and West Houston, where they exchanged a few passes, but not many words.
His Sunday evening was as gloomy as Sunday evenings get: he’d ordered Chinese takeout, then sat flicking between a movie he’d seen before, a hockey game, and yet another TV series in which police scientists were getting to the bottom of grisly murders. Basically, a depressing evening in. Until around 9 P.M., when his cell phone lit up. It wasn’t Simon texting him though, but Valerie, who wanted to meet up ASAP.
Andrew texted back immediately to say he’d love to and ask when.
Now, the next message told him. 9th and A, across from Tompkins Square Park.
Andrew glanced in his living room mirror. How long would it take to get himself looking halfway decent? The shorts and old polo he’d kept on since his basketball game with Simon weren’t exactly stylish, and he really needed to shower. But the urgent tone he’d detected in Valerie’s message worried him, so he slipped on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, grabbed his keys out of the dish in the hall and raced down the three floors of his apartment building.
The neighborhood was quiet: not a taxi in sight. He began running towards Seventh Avenue, spotted a cab at the light at Charles Street and caught up with it just before it drove off. He promised the driver a generous tip if he could get him to his destination in under ten minutes.
Tossed around in the back seat, Andrew regretted his offer. But the driver earned his tip, and he arrived sooner than planned.
Valerie was waiting for him in front of a shuttered café called the Pick Me Up. The name made him smile briefly. Only briefly, when he saw how haggard Valerie was looking.
He walked up to her. She slapped him hard across the face.
“You made me come across town to slap me?” he asked, rubbing his cheek. “What did I do to deserve that?”
“My life was just about perfect until I bumped into you outside that damn bar, and now I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
Feeling a wave of warmth wash over him, Andrew t
hought to himself that he’d just received the most delightful slap of his life.
“I’m a nice guy, so I’m not going to hit you back. But you took the words right out of my mouth,” he whispered, not taking his eyes off her.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we had dinner, Andrew Stilman.”
“When you ran away from Poughkeepsie, I thought about you day and night, for three, four years . . . If not longer.”
“That was then. I’m not talking about when we were teenagers, I’m talking about now.”
“It’s the same, Valerie. Nothing’s changed—not you, and not the way I felt when I saw you again.”
“What if you’re just saying that? Maybe you just want to get back at me for what I put you through.”
“Where do you get such warped ideas from? You can’t be all that happy in your almost perfect life to be thinking that way.”
Before Andrew realized what was happening, Valerie had put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hesitant at first, her kiss soon became bolder.
She broke off and looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“I’m screwed,” she said. “What are we going to do, Ben?”
“Be together. For now, maybe for a while longer. If you promise never to call me Ben again.”
3.
To be together, all that remained for Valerie to do was leave her boyfriend. Breaking up after two years of living together wasn’t something she could do in one evening. Andrew waited eagerly, but knew that if he hurried things she wouldn’t stay.
Twenty days later, in the middle of the night, he received an almost identical message to the one that had turned his life upside down that other Sunday. When his taxi stopped in front of Café Pick Me Up, Valerie was waiting for him, a black smear down each cheek and a suitcase at her feet.