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Running for Her Life
I’m updating Ambassador Ainsley’s obituary, the reporter had shouted, because Rebecca was walking the sales floor and could hardly hear over the din. Not the national-security angle, the reporter explained. The personal side. The scandal. In case he dies this time.
And wondered whether she would care to comment.
Beck had said something rude and unprintable. Hanging up, she had called the house, the number she never forgot although she had not used it in years. She feared and half hoped the number had been changed, but Audrey answered on the second ring and said that Jericho had been asking for her: Audrey, who never went anywhere. If Audrey was at the bedside, things were grim indeed. The doctors have surrendered, she said. My father’s future is in God’s hands, added Audrey, who preached that all things were.
Beck promised to come at once.
At once proved complicated. She arranged for her conniving deputy to take over the semi-annual inspection tour of the 19 New England stores owned by the retail conglomerate that employed her, then called her boss, an acerbic little man called Pfister, who grumbled and fussed and told her that this was a really lousy time to take family leave.
Had Rebecca finished college, she would be Pfister’s boss rather than the other way around: They both knew it. He scolded her all the harder as a result. But when Rebecca for once stood her ground, Pfister, astonished at his own generosity, told her that she could have three days, no more. He needed her back in time for the regional managers’ meeting, set to begin Friday morning in Chicago. Beck promised she would be there.
Actually, she would not.
By Friday, Rebecca DeForde would be running for her life.
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Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale. His seven nonfiction books include God’s Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics and Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), spent 11 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. His latest novel, Jericho’s Fall, is about a mentally ill CIA director.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Give Obama a Break
Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. His seven non-fiction books include God’s Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics and Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), spent eleven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His fourth novel, Jericho’s Fall, will be published in July.
Sonia's Batting Average
Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. His seven non-fiction books include God’s Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics and Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), spent eleven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His fourth novel, Jericho’s Fall, will be published in July.
The Sonia I Know
Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. His seven non-fiction books include God’s Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics and Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), spent eleven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His fourth novel, Jericho’s Fall, will be published in July.
Uhhh...Perhaps he should have taken a little longer to write this....
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