One
Nadine Barbault eyed the Cemeteries of New Orleans calendar as she rolled a small toy hearse around the miniature tombstones, coffins, and scythes littering her desk. The calendar was stuck to her cubicle wall with a thumbtack shaped like a skeletal hand, June 21 circled in red.
When she became theHerald’s obituary editor, Nadine had decided to leave everything as it was for one month. After all, Tom, her predecessor, had been in the role for over twenty years before it was time for his own story to appear on the section’s back page. People were used to how he’d run things. It was better for Nadine to hold off before making changes—out of respect for the dead if nothing else.
Now the waiting period was over, and although she hadn’t yet decided what to do with the section, a woman who had outgrown her goth years could only deal with so many ankhs. She put the hearse down and picked up a miniature of Dante’s death mask from a long-agoHeraldreporter’s trip to Italy.Palazzo Vecchio—La Commediawas written on the bottom in thin Gothic script. She couldn’t believe a man as dedicated to the dignity of the obituaryhad enjoyed all this funeral tat. Then again, Tom had also worn bow ties, so all bets were off.
“Hey, Lady Death.” One of her colleagues tossed out the casual greeting as he passed, and she gave him the frosty stare she’d worked hard to perfect. He shifted his shoulders and winced. “I mean Nadine.”
That was better. She returned to her scheduled decontamination.
Into the trash went the death mask, where it landed with a satisfying thud. Next was a dusty, never-lit vulture candle in a garish purple. She brought it to her nose and cautiously sniffed to find it emitted the faint smell of lilies, far preferable to a more realistic carrion. Still, into the bin it went.
She was about to tear down the calendar when a stern voice came from over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Nadine’s hand stopped. The disturbance in the force had summoned Irina Skoll, keeper of the Crypt, theHerald’s in-house research library, and its first defense against change of any kind.
Irina moved to the side of the desk—located at the back of the newsroom and near the window, as if to separate the frenetic pace of the living from the slower gait of the dead—and pushed up her glasses to give Nadine her full and unwelcome attention. Under Irina’s gaze, the invulnerable persona Nadine had cultivated for work crumpled like an old discarded draft. Irina’s soft, drapey clothes and puffy hair covered an uncompromising terror of a woman. The entire newsroom had fond memories of the day Daniel Starr, the editor in chief, had suggested that perhaps, in the interests of saving half a floor of space, Irina digitize theHerald’s library. The two had gone literally toe-to-toe, Irina’s head tilted almost horizontally to meet the gaze of their six-foot-tall boss. Daniel had been the one to back down that day, an act never repeated at theHerald, and it had cemented Irina’s reputation as a woman not to be messed with.
“Hello, Irina. It’s time for me to clear out this space.” Nadine tried to channel cool unflappability and gestured to the desk with what she hoped was authority and ownership. “Make it my own.”
Irina bent down with surprising grace, the deep scent of iris wafting from her pink shawl, and plucked the vulture candle out of the trash. “This was a gift from Maxwell Levins in 2008,” she said. “A piece of newsroom history from one of Canada’s preeminent columnists. He said it represented the establishment’s perspective on his work.” Irina’s glasses magnified her pale blue eyes, mesmerizing Nadine like a mouse in a snake’s sights.
“I thought it might be nice to organize the desk.” Oh, pathetic. Shethought. Itmight. She straightened her shoulders and firmed her voice and language. “None of this is good for my focus.”
“A professional can concentrate in any environment. Are you not a professional?”
“Um, yes?” Dammit, her voice rose at the end. Farewell, intimidating poise.
“Good. Then it’s best if the mementoes of lost friends stay, don’t you think?” Irina put the candle on the table and glanced meaningfully in the trash before leaving. Chastened, Nadine reinstated Dante to his place of honor near her monitor.
It would only take minutes before news of her ignoble defeat made the newsroom rounds. Inmates of theHeraldaffectionately called it theCrierfor the speed at which gossip traveled.
Keeping a stony expression on her face as she rammed down her irritation at Irina’s interference and her own spinelessness, Nadine pulled up an editing task she’d been avoiding all morning. It was an obituary Daniel had strongly recommended she run because the deceased was a good friend of theHerald’s owner. The assigned writer had struggled mightily to find meaning and impact in a life that apparently revolved around cruises, galas, and being obliviously rich. His email noted that the woman’s nickname had been Pandora, because she couldn’t keep a secret and had ended several marriages thanks to her reckless gossip.This provided some much needed color, but I decided not to include it, he wrote.
Nadine tapped the toy hearse against the desk. Surely the womanmust have done something else of interest—like have sex with Mick Jagger. Didn’t everyone do that back in the day? She sent a note to the writer before moving on to her other duties.
After a quick scan of theHerald’s death notices that thankfully didn’t list any young parents or children—those were guaranteed to make her choke up, and she couldn’t have that at work—she opened her bookmarked tabs to search for stories that might be worth a full obit.
Would you read about a woman who ran away to join the circus and later became an animal rights activist?she texted Lisanne, her best work friend.
Probably, replied Lisanne.
She legally changed her name from Katherine Brown to Lady Lionheart. She also tried to adopt her pet iguanas and named them in her will.
How many iguanas?
Nadine checked.Six.
Then unequivocally yes, wrote Lisanne.
It would be a change to run an obit on someone like Lady Lionheart, or the world’s only talking mime, who she’d read about yesterday. Too bad theHerald’s reputation as a capital-Sserious newspaper meant Nadine’s obituary subjects had to meet certain parameters and tended to be people who wore gray suits and white shirts rather than matching outfits with lizards.
Not that it mattered. She would do her best, but this was only a temporary stop to lick her wounds. Soon, she would be back to her old job on the politics team, covering real stories, ones that mattered.
Nadine pushed away a skull-shaped plastic chalice from the Paris catacombs and forced herself back to her work. It was time to call the widow of a self-proclaimed philanthropist who was always happy to support a hospital as long as they named a wing after him.
***
