Jamie said sincerely, “I mean it, Mr. Logan, really. Something personal’s come up and I really need the time.”
“You sick?”
“No. But there’re a few people need my help.”
“Yeah, you doing good deeds?” Logan laughed.
“Something like that.”
“Well, you find somebody to cover for you, yeah, then I guess it’s all right.”
“Thanks, Mr. Logan. I appreciate it. I really do.”
As he left he glanced back and noticed his boss studying him with a perplexed smile-as if he was looking at a brand-new Jamie Feldon.
Returning home that night, Jamie called around until he found a temp worker who was familiar with the company. He arranged for the man to start the next morning as a replacement.
On Tuesday, Jamie woke early, showered, dressed, and ate a bowl of cereal with low-fat milk. Then he cleaned his kitchen table off and went to work. A pad of yellow paper in front of him, he began the list. It wasn’t easy, compiling all the bad things in your life. Some were hard to deal with-he felt so much shame about them. Some, he wasn’t sure if they’d actually occurred. Were they figments of his imagination, dreams, a result of the booze?
He also realized that he had to decide which offenses to include. Some were serious, some seemed laughably minor. He told himself at first not to worry about the small things.
But something stiffened within him when he thought that.
No, he thought angrily. Either you do this right or you don’t do it at all. He’d include the smallest infractions, as well as the most serious.
He worked for two days straight and finally came up with a list of forty-three incidents. Then he spent another day identifying the people involved and finding out their most recent addresses. Some he knew, others required detective work. Using the phone book, directory assistance, and his computer, as well as actually pounding the pavement, he managed to get at least a lead to nearly everybody.
By Thursday night, Jamie was finished with the list and he celebrated with a tall glass of Arizona iced tea, mint-flavored, and a cigarette. Before he headed off to bed, though, he considered another question: Should he start with the older offenses, or the newest?
Jamie debated this for some time and decided that he’d start with the most recent. He was worried that he’d get bogged down finding people from decades ago, and he was eager to get his new life underway.
So, the most recent.
Who was first?
A glance at the list. The name on the top was Charles Vaughn, Lincoln.
The man awoke on Friday morning with the Memory.
This had happened nearly every day since the incident a month and a half ago.
The Memory was there when he awoke, and it was there when he fell asleep. And it popped up all by itself a couple of times during the day, too.
It was one of those things you try to forget, but the harder you try the more you relive it.
Then your gut twists, your palms grow clammy, and a chill pall of dread fills you. Anger too.
You hope that time will take care of it. And probably that’ll happen eventually, but like when you’re wracked with the flu, you just can’t imagine you’ll ever feel better.
Charles Vaughn had a good life. He was a senior sales manager for a large Internet software company. He’d gotten his MBA at New York University and had played with the big boys in the Wall Street finance world for a long time, then moved to Bean Town to join a startup. A year ago he jumped to his present company. He was tough, he played hardball (but never screwing around with the heavy-hitters, the IRS or the SEC), and he did well. Now, at forty-nine, he knew what the real world was about: doing a good job, being invaluable to your customers-and, just as important, if not more, to your boss-and paying attention to details. Looking over your shoulder, too-making millions and making enemies go hand in hand.
He’d moved up through the ranks of the company fast and had a shot at being president in the next few years.
The businessman had a beautiful home in Lincoln, a wife who was a successful realtor, and two kids headed for good colleges in the next couple of years. He had his health.
Everything about his life seemed perfect.
And it would have been, except for the goddamn Memory. It just wouldn’t leave him alone.
What happened was this: Vaughn and his wife and daughter made the mistake of spending St. Patrick’s Day at that tourist trap of stores and restaurants in Boston, Faneuil Hall, along with, of course, about a billion other people. Just as they were about to head home, his daughter remembered she needed to get a birthday present for her friend.
“We’re out of time on the meter,” Vaughn pointed out.
“Dad, it’s, like, what? A quarter?”
They’d been shopping for two hours, and only now she remembered the present? Vaughn sighed. “I’ll be in the car.”
“We’ll just be a minute.” His daughter and wife disappeared back inside. Vaughn pumped another quarter into the meter and climbed into the car. He started the engine and cranked up the heater to cut through the infamous Boston spring chill.
Of course, it wasn’t “a minute” at all. In fact, twenty of them rolled by without the two ladies surfacing. Vaughn sat back and was thinking about a man at work, a rival salesman who was making a move on some accounts that were up for grabs and that Vaughn really wanted. The rival wasn’t as good a salesman, but he knew the tech side of the product better than any other employee, except the programmers themselves. Vaughn’d have to come up with some plan to stop him. He was considering what he could do when he heard a honk. He glanced into the street and saw a driver in a car pausing next to him. The man had a pudgy face and was about Vaughn’s age, maybe a little younger.
He said something.
Vaughn shook his head and opened his passenger window. “What’s that?”
“You leaving?” Gesturing at the parking space.
“Not just yet,” Vaughn replied with a smile. “Waiting for the wife.”
Which any man would understand was humorous shorthand for: It could be five minutes, could be an hour.
But the guy in the battered car didn’t smile. “Just pull out and wait for her up there. Double-park.”
Vaughn blinked at the man’s bluntness. “Rather not. She and my daughter are expecting me here.”
“I’m not saying drive to the Cape. Just pull up a car or two. You’re leaving anyway.”
“I’m not sure how long they’ll be.”
“It can’t be that long. Your engine’s running, isn’t it?”