Obituary Writer (9780547691732) by Porter Shreve

reading
Discovery
magazine for half an hour. The next day at 7:30 A.M. he had returned the video before going to work. For lunch he had chili, for dinner that night pasta primavera, which he had cooked. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings he had "worked on the newsletter," but was no more specific than that. Peppered throughout the grid were trips to the park with the dog, daily one-hour sessions on a stationary bike followed by the
NBC Nightly News,
and long blocks, thoroughly notated, describing the work that he did at the bank—"Kinney IRA," "Walker account," "Promissory notes from NDSL."
    I added Arthur's grid to the other envelope along with my advancers and the note from Jessie Tennant, then went about my morning chores—reading the obits from Kansas City and the suburban weeklies, looking over the story budget, sifting through the mail, checking the fax machine and the AP wires, losing myself in the day's repetitions.

    When I returned from lunch, there was a message on my desk from Thea, left by one of the switchboard operators.
    "The flowers are beautiful. They just arrived. Thank you. Apology accepted."
    I immediately called my mother at the journalism school.
    "You're unbelievable," I said.
    "What?"
    "You're really beyond help." I hunched over the desk so I wouldn't be heard.
    "What did you send her?" I asked. "A dozen red roses? A note saying I'm sorry and I'll always love you? I wonder if you're ever going to quit."
    "Look, Gordie, don't give me that attitude."
    "What did you tell her?" I asked. "Where did you say I was?"
    "I'm the one who should be angry," she said. "Don't turn this on me."
    "I'm not turning it on you, but this is none of your business. She called me! It was our dinner date! I'm the one who needs to deal with this."
    "Listen, you made it my business by not showing up."
    My mother's voice had an annoyingly even pitch when we fought. The more excited I became, the calmer her voice. She spoke her words slowly, as if my poor comprehension required such care.
    "She called me because she was concerned about you," she said.
    "What about you? Why weren't you concerned about me?" I shot back, recognizing my mistake.
    "I knew you were home by ten because I called you twice," she said. "Your machine sounds different when the messages have been erased. Why weren't you picking up the phone, Gordie?"
    I had no answer.
    "So have you called her?" Her tone was nagging again.
    "I plan to call her, Mother. I've been incredibly busy."
    "What happened?"
    "I forgot, okay? It slipped my mind. I talked to her in the morning. Everything was all set. Around midday I had to go to St. Charles for an investigative piece I'm working on. I had an interview with a witness and totally lost track of time."
    "What's the story?" she asked.
    "I can't tell you right now. I'm at work."
    "I just wish you had called her when you got my message."
    Apparently, my mother had woken Thea at one in the morning to say that I was too ashamed to call but had just returned to the apartment from a surveillance mission. She said I had been tailing a certain high-level official in the city government who, I had reason to believe, was involved in money laundering, that I'd followed him in the car from his office to a warehouse on the other side of the river, watched him enter the place through a rusted-out door, and couldn't help myself from going in behind him.
    She said I had moved in his shadow along the corrugated walls of the warehouse, hiding behind some boxes next to an office with no door. A host of suspicious types emerged from the office, fanning out around the warehouse to stand guard. The meeting lasted from midday until well into the night and there was nothing I could do; I was stuck with no way out. The whole time I sat crouched behind those boxes, my life in danger, unable to make a sound, I had one eye on my watch thinking, "What will I ever tell Thea?"
    "I hated to lie, Gordie," my mother said. "But I had to tell her