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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 that 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