Replay Read Free Page A

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