I didn't remember that today was my first day at my new job as associate editor until I entered my office building. It was too bad that a blackmailer had pictures of me leaving the body of the man I'd killed against a trash can, and that the world had just found out that my dead girlfriend was a psychotic killer, or I might've had something to look forward to today.
When I got off the elevator, I went right to my new office and tried to get involved in my routine. On my calendar, I had scheduled two early phone interviews with analysts familiar with the operations of Prime Net Solutions, the DSL company I was doing a story on. I called the analysts who had some doubts about the company. Due to severe competition, unreliable customer service, and a mixed balance sheet, the future of Prime Net was uncertain. I began writing my article:
Odds are you've never heard of Prime Net Solutions, but that's about to change. Thanks to a flood of new subscribers and an already satisfied customer base, this resurgent DSL company is about to take charge of Manhattan's high-speed Internet industry.
Writing the positive opening paragraph improved my mood. I outlined the rest of the article and started pulling out the most positive portions of the analysts' quotes. I also came up with a title for the article: Prime Net Primed for Greatness." By later in the morning I was able to block out most of my worries, and I felt almost normal again.
"You're here," Angie said.
I swiveled away from the computer monitor and saw her standing at the entrance to my office with a baffled expression.
"Yeah, I decided to come in," I said. "You know, it being my first day at the new job and all."
"Oh," she said. "I just figured you'd be taking some time off. So how are you?"
"Okay," I said. "I mean, considering."
Angie pulled up a chair and sat across from me. In the fluorescent light I noticed her bleached mustache hairs.
"I was going to call you today anyway," she said. "That Detective Romero talked to me again. This time he came to my apartment."
I felt a surge of panic, wondering why Romero wouldn't leave Angie alone.
"So I guess you heard everything," I said.
"I couldn't believe it," she said. "So is it all true?"
"I guess so."
"Detective Romero told me she might've made a mistake. She might've really meant to kill me."
"I doubt that. Rebecca had a lot of strange friends, and she was probably mixed up in some kind of drug thing downtown."
By the look Angie was giving me, I wasn't sure she believed me.
"It was just really scary," Angie said. "I mean, to even hear something like that."
"They're just following up leads," I said. "They get all kinds of crazy leads they have to explore in cases like these. But I'm telling you, I really doubt it had anything to do with you."
"It's just all so freaky," she said. "I mean, I know it's even freakier for you, but still… So you're really okay?"
"I'm just trying to go on with my life," I said. "Hopefully, in a day or two, everybody'll forget all about this."
Angie looked at me as if she thought I was joking. She left my office and returned with a copy of the Daily News. She held the newspaper up and I saw the headline, "MANIAC," with what looked like an old mug shot of Rebecca.
"The Post has the same picture except they went with "PSYCHO' as their headline," Angie said.
I remembered how, months ago, my friends had warned me that Rebecca was psycho and how I'd refused to believe them. I was going to ask Angie to hand me the copy of the News so I could read the article, but I decided against it.
"Hopefully it'll all die down by tomorrow," I said, but I knew it wouldn't. This was the type of story that grew and grew. The tabloids would have a field day with it.
"I still can't believe you came in at all today," Angie said. "You should go on vacation to Mexico or someplace. Just lie on the beach for a couple weeks and veg."
"Maybe we could go together."
Angie seemed surprised for a couple of moments, not sure how to react, and then she played along. "Okay, where do you want to go? Puerto Vallarta? Cancun?"
"How about Cozumel?"
"Cool, let's do it," she said. "How long do you want to stay?"
"How about a week?"
"A week it is," she said. "I better go bikini shopping. I better go on a diet too, if I want to fit into it."
"You kidding? You look perfect just the way you are." There was awkward silence, and then I added, "Well, better get back to work."
"Me too," Angie said. "Hey, you up for going to lunch later? Or maybe we could order in?"
"Jeff and I talked about doing lunch today," I said.
"Ooh, an editorial lunch," Angie said jokingly.
I smiled. I could tell she was waiting for me to suggest another time to go to lunch or to do something else, but I didn't say anything.
"Anyway," she said. "Maybe we could do something tomorrow?"
"Yeah, tomorrow," I said, leaving it vague.
Angie left and I tried to lose myself in my work again, but people kept stopping by, interrupting me, to offer their condolences about Rebecca.
I thanked everyone graciously, although I really wanted to be left alone.
After Kevin and Amy from Payroll came in together to offer their support, Jeff stopped by.
"I heard what happened," he said. "I'm really sorry."
"Thanks," I said.
"You know, you could've taken some time off, just to rest or»
"I wanted to get back into the swing of things," I said.
"You sure? Because if you want someone to cover your stories for you, that's no problem. And we don't have to discuss your new editorial duties until later in the week."
"Aren't we having lunch today?"
"I thought you'd want to take a rain check on that."
"No, I really want to go," I said.
"Okay," he said. "I didn't cancel the reservation yet, so I guess I'll come by to pick you up around noon?"
"Sounds great," I said.
As the morning went on the flow of people stopping by my office dwindled, but I kept getting interrupted by phone calls. The media had found out that I worked for Manhattan Business, and reporters from all over the country were harassing me, trying to get me to comment about Rebecca. After I hung up on reporters from the Miami Herald, the L.A.
Daily News, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the Hartford Current, I turned on my voice mail. I wrote a rough version of the entire Prime Net article, in which I described the company's twenty-seven-year-old CEO as "a young Lee Iacocca" and concluded that the company's stock price it was currently trading at about two bucks a share on the Nasdaq was a bargain at current levels. When I checked my voice mail there were about a dozen new messages from newspapers and radio stations around the country. There was also a message from Aunt Helen. She said she'd read about me in the newspaper and was very concerned that she couldn't reach me at home. She told me to please call her as soon as I got her message.
I was deleting all the messages when Jeff came into my office and said,
"Ready?"
I didn't see how it could possibly be noon already, but it was.
"Let's do it," I said.
Jeff and I went to a steakhouse on Forty-ninth Street. The maitre'd seated us at a table upstairs, and a waiter automatically arrived with a mixed drink and a plate of fried calamari. The waiter asked me what I wanted to drink, and before I could answer Jeff said, "Another Manhattan."
Several minutes later, my drink arrived; then Jeff lifted his it was already half-gone and said, "To better days."
"To better days," I said.
We drank. The alcohol was relaxing me, and, for a while, I managed to forget all of my problems. It helped that Jeff was avoiding talking about Rebecca. He went on about his daughter Gretchen, who was the star of her high school soccer team and had just had a small role in her school's production of Our Town. I told him about how my sister, Barbara, had played Emily in Our Town in our high school production. As he went on, telling me about his daughter, I remembered how Barbara had looked so pretty and confident onstage and how proud I'd been that she was my sister.