Famous Last Words Read online

  I search for the funeral home’s number so I can get the scoop on the pastry chef. I sigh and pick up the phone.

  Oddly enough, even though I’m surrounded by death all day, this gig is tons easier than high school. I enjoy being the youngest person in the room. It’s like I’m the foreign-exchange student around here.

  “Moronica! Where’s my feature?” Bernadette yells.

  Except I’m not Olaf. I’m Moronica.

  chapter two

  Breaking News

  It’s finally Friday. A disturbing number of people have taken their last breath in the past twenty-four hours. For the past hour, AJ and I have been sitting at our face-to-face desks typing nonstop, with phone receivers wedged between our ears and shoulders. Name. Born. Died. Survivors. Services. Obits have a poetic structure all their own. My neck is stuck in this position. Headsets would be a nice addition to the obit desk.

  “We are so not doing a feature obit,” I hear AJ say as he slams down his phone. “I just took three in a row. That makes twenty-seven.”

  I’m about to hang up my own phone and fist-bump AJ when the back door slams open and in steps Michael Fishman, the cool, married thirtysomething who sits beside me. He angrily swats down the Nerf basketball as it arcs for the net, much to the dismay of the moaning copy-desk editor who launched it. Michael tosses his reporter’s notebook onto his desk and puts his hands on his hips. He surveys the newsroom for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and sitting down.

  “I just got called an a-hole by that a-hole,” he says.

  “Mayor troubles?” I ask.

  “Mayor troubles.”

  The Herald Tribune has been trying to prove that the mayor of East Passaic, the town Michael covers, misused federal funding and gave his friends no-show city jobs. (They can’t teach this stuff in social studies.) Harry refers to the mayor and his cronies as Robin Hoods. He amuses himself with his play on words.

  “What happened?” I ask Michael.

  “I questioned him about Sy Goldberg being on the payroll without there being much evidence to support that he actually works in exchange for the fat salary he’s collecting. I’ve talked to a lot of folks and no one has ever seen this guy. So the mayor says, ‘You’re an a-hole. Sy Goldberg is dying. You’re an a-hole to even ask that.’” Michael pauses and raises one eyebrow, a look that cracks me up before he even utters a word.

  “And I said, ‘Yes, but is he still on the payroll?’ Am I right? I mean, it begs the question, how much work can a dying man do?”

  Michael does not shy away from the tough questions. I love listening in on his phone interviews and anxiously await his caustic comments when he hangs up. I wish I were doing real reporting like Michael, but sadly, me and AJ are newsroom bottom-feeders. In addition to obits, we write web copy, compile blurbs for the Community Calendar and Arts Happenings sections, type up movie timetables, sort mail, answer phones, go on food and coffee runs, organize stacks of extra newspapers, and do whatever else Harry commands. AJ writes music and concert reviews too, but I haven’t proven myself worthy of bigger stories yet.

  “Well, we don’t think you’re an a-hole,” I say.

  “And more important, it’s Friday,” AJ says.

  Michael sits down at his desk and begins to type. “I’ve just got to bang out this feature on the grand opening of the mayor’s new coffee shop slash bookstore, and then I’m outta here.”

  “Screw the feature,” AJ says. “I wouldn’t do him any favors.”

  “Yeah, especially after what he called you,” I add.

  “It’s part of the game. You try to make your sources happy. Even if he’s a total bastard, I’ve got to keep him talking to me. Anyway, the favor is more for his daughter. He’s opening the place for her.” Michael turns to me. “In fact, it’s in your town, Sam.”

  “A new coffee-shop and bookstore in Chestnutville?” I say. Hmm. It actually sounds like the kind of place I’d go.

  “Yeah, his daughter lives there,” Michael says. “Anyway, this won’t take long, and then happy hour is starting early for me today.”

  I glance at the clock. It’s only five. Cool. I should be out of here by six o’clock, myself. I’m gonna go for a run (I’m working up the nerve to run my first 10k at the end of September), take a bubble bath, and watch Sixteen Candles on DVD with my mom. We’re in the middle of a 1980s film marathon.

  My homebody fantasy is interrupted by the sudden blaring of the police scanner. I’m used to its omnipresent crackling in the newsroom and have come to regard it as a strange heartbeat. But at the moment, Rocco, the police reporter, is cranking up the volume. I fear the off-the-charts decibel count is causing me permanent hearing loss.

  “What the hell?” AJ asks. He swivels his chair in Rocco’s direction.

  Sirens and horns from a fire truck, or two, or three, drown out the scanner’s urgent cacophony.

  “Four-alarm fire in Clifton,” Rocco says. He’s already in motion, grabbing notebooks and pens from his desk. “There’s been an explosion.”

  “Call in as soon as you can so we can get something up on the website,” Harry says as Rocco bolts for the door, nearly slamming into a chair and doing a complete three-sixty before recovering.

  “Fishman! Are you on deadline?” Harry says.

  “No.” There goes Michael’s happy hour.

  “Follow Rocco to the fire. Intern scum!” Harry yells in our general direction. Coming from anyone else, it would sound offensive, but I caught on quickly to his brand of humor. “Plan on staying late and answering phones.”

  And there goes my five-mile run. I’m bummed. I need my weekly long runs to clear my head. It’s also when I get my best ideas. I’ve been mulling over concepts for my blog, when and if I ever start one. I’ve thought about calling it Something to Blog About, but that’s taken, or Notes from the High School Trenches, but that’s too long.

  Harry’s booming voice interrupts my blog musings. He barks out more orders to others around the room. To the copy desk: “Bernie, what’s our page one look like right now? Start making room.” To reporters: “Meg, I may pull you to do local react if anyone dies.” To the city desk editors: “Grace, as soon as Rocco calls in, tell him to start feeding you copy.”

  Everyone seems caught up in the heightened energy brought on by the fire. Except yours truly. I’ve been rendered temporarily immobile as people whirl around me like leaves on a windy day. I snap out of it when the air-raid siren sounds, calling volunteer fire departments from surrounding towns.

  “That can’t be good,” I say. My stomach is in scary-movie mode.

  AJ doesn’t look up from his texting. Bandmate or Jessica the pseudogirlfriend, no doubt. I get an unexpected pang thinking it may be the latter but quickly shake it away. I need to calm my nervous energy, so I spend the next half hour putting a huge pile of press releases in date order.

  When the city-desk phone finally rings, Grace Yadlowski, the assistant city-desk editor, snatches it up. Usually the editors wait for me or AJ to answer. Answering phones comes with our intern status. At least we get paid, which technically makes us editorial assistants, but Harry says “intern scum” sounds punchier. He also doesn’t believe anyone should work for free—even high school interns. Despite his gruffness, Harry’s fair. Underneath that polar-bear exterior, Winnie the Pooh is alive and well.

  “Rocco! What’s going on?” Grace says.

  Everyone in the newsroom is eavesdropping and holding their collective breath, waiting for Grace’s reaction.

  “A five-story apartment building collapsed,” she yells. “Three people confirmed dead. Unknown number trapped inside.” Grace turns toward her monitor and starts typing.

  “Meg!” Harry yells. “Get down there and help Rocco and Fishman.” Harry turns toward the obit desk. “Sam, AJ! If we get victims’ names, I may need you two to start calling around for reactions.”

  Harry uses the remote to flip through channels on the overhead TV until he lands on a loc
al news station with fire footage. I’m at once horrified and excited. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, raises my body temperature, and makes my chest all splotchy—my usual nervous reaction. It’s very attractive.

  “I’ll be in the back,” Harry tells Grace. I watch him walk through the swinging doors on the far side of the rectangular room. He’s probably going to talk to the press guys. We’re one of the few newspapers left that have press guys, but that may all be ending soon. The paper has been losing money, and there’s been talk about shutting the presses down and sending the paper out for printing. It would stink to end a century-long run, but it’s better than having to close our doors completely.

  Because the Herald Tribune still prints the paper on the premises, the newsroom is more like the front office of a warehouse than a corporate work environment. The ceiling is high, with exposed fluorescent lighting, like the kind in a school gym. The metal desks are clumped together in groups of four or five. There are no partitions of any kind, except for the ceilingless walls around Harry’s office, the conference room, and sports.

  “This bites,” AJ says to no one in particular. “We’re just waiting around.”

  He’s right. Despite the amped-up newsroom chatter—due to both the TV and the police scanner being louder than usual—it’s pretty much business as usual for everyone else. The last obit cleared the copy desk a while ago, and just when I’m thinking Harry is about to send us home, Rocco calls Grace with two names. There are still only three confirmed dead, but Rocco says firefighters from every surrounding town are struggling through the charred debris in a desperate search and rescue. The fire is just smoldering now.

  Harry comes over to the obit desk with the victims’ information. One was an elderly man who lived alone; the other, a high school track star who went to Northside High School. He gives AJ the older man, Mitchell Dawson, and I get the teenager, Anton Richards.

  “I don’t know what you’re gonna get right now on the old guy,” Harry says to AJ. “Meg is working the scene for react too. D’Angelo, see if you can find the high school track coach, and start with him.”

  My first instinct is to Google the track team, but then I remember the stacks of local yearbooks dating back to the 1940s that we keep in our makeshift library behind the partition, where the sports department lives. I jump up from my seat and head off in that direction, but when I reach the door to sports, I realize an online search is probably faster. I reverse course, then spin around again, because I’d rather look through the yearbooks.

  “What are you doing?” AJ asks. “You look like an indecisive squirrel trying to cross the street. Those are the ones that always wind up as roadkill, you know.”

  “Shut up. I’m just trying to find the coach’s name.”

  “Sit down, Squirrel Girl with Limited Search Engine Knowledge,” he says while looking at his computer screen. “I’ve got it right here. Let’s see if he’s listed.”

  “Uh, thanks. Any leads on your old man?”

  “Nope. I’m trying to figure out if he has relatives in the area or belonged to any local groups,” he says.

  Lucky AJ. I’m dreading this phone call. At least the chill in my body made my red splotches fade fast. I wind up retrieving the Northside High School yearbook anyway. Yes, I’m stalling. But I’m also curious to see what Anton Richards looks like. Looked like.

  I begin paging through the yearbook, and I’m surprised by my own sense of longing as I see the happy faces of the kids in French Club, Student Council, and marching band. I flip to the pages with all the sports. In the Varsity Track section there’s a close-up of Anton clearing a hurdle. A simple black-and-white pic, and yet I can feel his grace and speed. I turn the page to the team picture. A smiling Anton is kneeling in the front row. There will be an empty space there next spring. My mouth goes dry. Anton is now as still as these photographs. Was he burned badly? Did he die from smoke inhalation before he felt the flames? Will his parents be able to recognize him? My dark thoughts make me shiver.

  I reach for my bottled water as I close the book. When I again feel capable of speech, I pick up the phone and dial. A woman answers.

  “Hello. I’d like to speak with Coach Davis,” I say. “This is Samantha D’Angelo from the Herald Tribune. I’m working on a story about the Paterson fire.”

  I hear muffled voices as the woman covers the mouthpiece. A man speaks next.

  “This is Coach Davis,” says a deep voice.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir. I’m working on a story about the Paterson fire.”

  “Fire?” he asks.

  “Yes, sir. A five-story apartment building collapsed, and…” I trail off.

  How am I supposed to tell this guy that one of the kids he coaches is dead? I don’t have much experience with this. I’m only sixteen. I don’t know many dead people. Books and TV hospital dramas are my sole sources in this area.

  “Young lady, are you there?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t know how to say this, but we’ve learned, it seems, one of the guys on your track team didn’t make it out of the fire.”

  “What? Who?” he asks.

  “Anton Richards.”

  There’s a moment of silence on the other end. “Are you sure? Maybe it’s a different Anton Richards,” he says.

  “My editor told me that this Anton ran track for Northside,” I say.

  “Oh my God! No. My God,” Coach Davis says, his voice breaking.

  “Sir?” I say quietly, not knowing which I fear more, pressing this poor, shocked man for a quote or telling Harry I just came up empty-handed. My heart thumps loud and fast in my ears.

  And then the line goes dead.

  “I guess he can’t talk right now,” I say. I put both hands on my forehead and then rub my eyes. I screwed it up. My first chance to do something real, and I screwed it up.

  AJ looks at me sympathetically. “You want me to call him back in an hour?” he offers.

  “Nah, that’s okay,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

  My eyes are welling up both from my fear of Harry and disappointment in myself. My heart is breaking for Anton and his family. Someone my age just died. It feels so wrong. There will be no first day of school for him this year. No more track medals. No graduation tassel hanging from the rearview mirror. Obits are supposed to be for dead old people.

  With the back of my hand, I swish away the tears threatening to escape my eyes before AJ notices. Then I go over to the city desk and tell Harry about the coach. Harry grimaces and gives me a sharp “okay.” I feel my neck turning red and retreat to my desk, where I torture myself for the next fifteen minutes. I’m considering looking through the yearbook for the names of Anton’s teammates when Harry cuts us a break and tells us we can go home. It’s like a trig test I forgot to study for just got postponed.

  “Good job, you two,” he says. “Meg and Fishman are on the way back. They can take it from here.”

  “Harry,” I say. “I’m sorry about the coach, I—”

  “It’s all right, D’Angelo. We got it.”

  I’m pretty sure he’s not mad. Or maybe I’m just being overly optimistic. AJ appears beyond unaffected by the evening’s drama. I don’t know how he does it. Without thinking, I start typing on a blank screen.

  Anthony John Bartello, drummer for the local band Love Gas, died Friday. He was 19. A student at Rutgers University’s Newark campus, AJ, as he was known to his friends and bandmates, finally succumbed to the pressures of trying so hard not to care.

  “You want a ride home?” AJ asks. “I’m on my way to band practice. I can drop you off.”

  Select all. Delete.

  “Huh? Oh, sure. Thanks,” I say. “I’ll call my parents and let them know they can put their jammies on.”

  * * *

  As we get into AJ’s Jeep Cherokee, my phone vibrates. It’s Shelby. I’m tired and don’t feel much like talking to her, but I answer.

  “What?” I say softly.
>
  “Don’t say no,” she says.

  “You haven’t asked me anything.”

  “Wanna go to a party at Ryan Mauriello’s tonight?”

  “The football crowd? What are you trying to do to me?”

  “Oh, come on. Even if Rob’s there, he’s not going to bring up what I said. Everyone was pretty lit that night.”

  “Forget it,” I say, and hit end call. I switch my phone back to the ring setting (it needs to be on vibrate in the newsroom), only to hear it play “Don’t Talk to Strangers” less than thirty seconds later. I listen to the entire chorus before I answer.

  “Rick Springfield? Could you have picked a less cool ringtone?” AJ asks.

  “What?” I say, to both AJ and Shelby, who I know is on the other end. “My dad plays bass in an eighties cover band.”

  “I know,” says confused Shelby.

  AJ just nods. Shelby keeps going.

  “Okay, Sam. How about this? If you’re not having fun after, like, half an hour, we can leave. Please. I promise.”

  I’m about to hang up on her again, but then I picture Anton. And the way he was smiling in that team picture. Yesterday at this time, he was still here. He should be on his way to a party tonight with his best friend.

  “Fifteen minutes,” I say.

  Shelby pauses, slightly stunned. “Okay, fifteen minutes.”

  “Deal,” I say. “I’ll go to the dumb party.” I surprise myself and AJ, who raises both eyebrows at me when I glance toward him. He has watched from the front row as I’ve avoided Shelby. But this isn’t about her, it’s about me. And Anton Richards. Tonight, I just want to be an ordinary teenager while I’ve still got the chance. It’s probably time to let Shelby off the hook. Anyway, who else do I have to hang out with? The other girls in our group are away this summer. Caitlin has a beach house, and Ashley went to California to stay with her dad.

  “Cool. My mom can drive. We’ll pick you up in an hour. Oh, and Sam?”

  “What?”

  “Uh, never mind. See you soon.”