“Because you’re meeting Walden. I shouldn’t even have been making the sausages. You’re not going to be here at lunch.”
“What? What are you talking about? Walden Fisher?”
“Do you know any other Waldens?”
“He’s coming over to see me?”
“At eleven. I think he said coffee, not lunch, but when you go out at eleven, there’s a good chance it’ll turn into lunch.”
“This is all news to me,” Don said, an edge in his voice.
“Oh, no,” Arlene said. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?’
“He called here yesterday. I’m pretty sure it was yesterday. He said he was going to drop by. Didn’t I tell you? Are you sure I didn’t tell you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I wrote it down. I’m sure I wrote it down. Look on the calendar.”
By the phone was a promotional calendar from a local florist that came in the mail every December. They kept a record of their appointments—mostly medical these days—in the tiny squares.
“Here it is,” he said. “‘Walden, eleven.’”
“I knew I wrote it down. I was sure I told you.” The ice pack slid off her leg and hit the floor. “Oh, Christ almighty.”
Don bent over, carefully retrieved it, and put it back on his wife’s leg. “Feeling any better?”
“What hurts most is my pride.”
“Why the hell does Walden want to see me? I haven’t talked to him in years.”
Arlene shook her head. “Well, he’s going to be here in a few minutes. You get ready. I’m fine, really.”
“Did he say what it was about?”
“For heaven’s sake, Don, a man can’t get together for coffee? He’s a friend of yours.”
“That’s kind of debatable,” Don said.
Walden Fisher, a good fifteen years younger than Don, was still employed by Promise Falls. Before Don retired from his position as a building inspector, he and Walden occasionally crossed paths, even though Walden worked in the town’s engineering department as a draftsman. It was there, however, where Don had gotten his start when he went to work for the town back in the sixties.
Don had worked with Walden’s father—long since passed away—and when Walden graduated college with an engineering degree, Don put in a good word for him with personnel. Walden’s dad had figured a recommendation would be better coming from someone who was not a relative. Walden always credited Don with getting him into a decent job with decent benefits, where the risk of getting laid off was minimal.
“It wouldn’t kill you to have a social life,” Arlene said.
“I suppose,” Don said. “But I haven’t talked to him since I retired.”
“You heard, I guess,” Arlene said.
“About his daughter?” he snapped, almost defensively. “Of course. Who the hell hasn’t heard about that? It was only three years ago. Who could forget that?”
“You don’t have to bite my head off. And I’m not talking about her. Walden’s wife. She passed away a couple of months back.”
“How do you know that?” Don asked, his voice softening.
“I read the paper. Or I did, when there still was one. It was in the death notices.”
“Oh,” Don said. “Didn’t know.”
“Maybe he’s just looking to get out there, get out of the house, now that his wife is gone.”
“You know what happened to her?” Don asked.
“Cancer, I think,” she said. “Go on, he’s likely to be here any—”
The doorbell rang.
Don was frozen. He didn’t want to leave Arlene. “It’s okay,” she said. He told her one more time to keep the ice on her leg, and left the kitchen.
He swung open the front door, and there was Walden Fisher. Looking older and grayer than the last time he’d seen him, that was for sure, although there was less hair to turn gray than there used to be. A bit more padding around the middle, but he wasn’t a heavy man. Had to be about fifty-five now, Don figured.
“I’ll be damned,” Don said. “Look who it is.”
Walden smiled awkwardly. “Hello, there, Don. Long time.”
Back in the kitchen, he could hear the phone start to ring.
“You retired?”
“No, I got nearly five more years to go. But I’ve built up so much overtime, I’m taking a day here and there. Taking the better part of this month off. I get you at a bad time? You knew I was coming, right?”
The phone rang a second time.
“Of course, yeah. What’s on your mind?”
“I wanted to pick your brain some. It’ll take five years, but all the town’s planning and engineering is going to computer. Most of the infrastructure was built before computers, so it’s all on paper. Blueprints, schematics, everything. Details of every water main, bridge support, sewer grate are on huge sheets rolled up with rubber bands, and God knows where they’ve all gone to. If you can believe it, some guys retired and took their work home with them when they did.”
“I never did that,” Don said.