Read Replay Online

Authors: Marc Levy

Tags: #Fiction, #General

Replay (2 page)

BOOK: Replay
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“Yeah, right.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Maybe. How much?”

“Dinner.”

“I’m seeing someone, Andrew,” Valerie replied.

“I wasn’t suggesting a night in a hotel. How about dumpling soup at Joe’s Shanghai? Are you still crazy about dumplings?”

“Absolutely.”

“Just tell your boyfriend I’m an old girlfriend.”

“First let’s see if you can condense the last twenty years of my life into nine lines.”

Valerie looked at Andrew with the sly grin he remembered from high school, right before she’d suggest he come meet her in the shed behind the science wing. That grin hadn’t changed one bit.

“Okay,” she said. “One for the road and I’ll tell you my life story.”

“Not in this bar—it’s too noisy.”

“If you think you’re taking me to your place tonight, you’ve got the wrong girl.”

“Didn’t even cross my mind, Valerie. I just think that in the state we’re both in, we should grab a bite or our bet won’t stand a chance.”

Andrew was right. Although Valerie’s heels were now planted firmly on the dirty sidewalk of West 40th, she was swaying gently, as if she were on the deck of a boat. She could do with something to eat. Andrew hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of his favorite late-night spot in SoHo. A quarter of an hour later, Valerie was sitting down opposite him at a table and began to tell him her story.

She’d gotten a scholarship from the University of Indianapolis, the first of all the colleges she’d applied to that had accepted her. The Midwest had never been a part of her childhood dreams, but she couldn’t afford to wait for a reply from a more prestigious institution. Without this scholarship, she’d have wound up waiting tables in Poughkeepsie, the podunk town in upstate New York where they’d both grown up.

Eight years later, Valerie left Indiana with a degree in veterinary sciences under her belt, and followed in the footsteps of many ambitious young women by coming to try her luck in Manhattan.

“You did your whole vet degree in Indiana only to end up in New York?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Valerie asked.

“Sticking a thermometer up poodles’ asses? Was that really what you aspired to?”

“You’re such a jerk!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. But you have to admit Manhattan isn’t exactly rich in wildlife. Apart from Upper East Side pooches.

“In a city with two million single people, you’d be surprised how important pets can be.”

“Oh, I see. You also treat hamsters, cats, and goldfish?”

“I’m a vet for the NYPD, actually. I look after their horses as well as police dogs. Definitely no poodles—just Labradors trained to find corpses, a few aging German Shepherds, and some drug-detecting Retrievers and bomb-sniffing Beagles.”

Andrew raised one eyebrow and then the other. It was a trick he’d learned in journalism school. It always disconcerted whomever he was talking to. When he was interviewing someone and doubted the sincerity of their account, he would launch into this eyebrow dance and judge by the other’s reaction if they were lying to him or not. But Valerie’s face remained expressionless.

“I wasn’t expecting that answer at all,” he said, amazed. “So are you in the police or just a vet? I mean, do you carry a badge and a weapon?”

Valerie gaped at him, then shrieked with laughter.

“I can tell you’re much more grown-up than the last time I saw you, dear Ben.”

“Were you pulling my leg?”

“No, but that funny face you made reminded me of the way you looked back when we were in school.”

“I’m not surprised you became a vet,” Andrew went on. “You’ve always loved animals. Do you remember that night you called me at my parents’ house, begging me to sneak out straight away and come meet you? I thought you had something romantic in mind, but it was nothing of the sort. You made me carry an old, foul-smelling dog with a broken leg that you’d found on the side of the road all the way to the vet in the middle of the night.”

“You remember that, Andrew Stilman?”

“I remember everything we did together, Valerie Ramsay. Now will you tell me a bit more about what happened between that afternoon when I waited in vain for you at the Poughkeepsie movie theater and your reappearance this evening?”

“I’d received the admission letter from the University of Indianapolis in the mail that morning, so I packed my bag. I left Poughkeepsie that same evening with the money I’d been saving from my summer jobs and babysitting. I was so glad I’d never have to watch my parents arguing again. They didn’t even want to take me to the bus station, can you believe it? But, seeing as you can only devote nine lines to your ex-girlfriend, I’ll spare you the details of my university studies. Anyway, when I moved to New York, I had a string of part-time jobs in various vet surgeries, until one day I answered a police ad and landed a position. I’ve been on the permanent staff for two years.”

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I
t 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 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?”

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