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By Root 298 0

but she might have gone to work anyway, like young lawyers at W & K. He imagined her for a moment in her sweat suit and running shoes, carrying her papers, yogurt, and banana in the neat little backpack that seemed to accompany her everywhere. But, in any event, she and Jon would have slept later than usual. It wasn’t reasonable to expect that she would call before eleven. On the other hand, could she be waiting to hear from him, thinking he might want to say how pleasant the lunch had been? That would be a good thing to do, like stroking her hair or cheek, like his efforts to succeed with the Rikers. At a quarter past the hour, he dialed her direct line at the office. Six disconsolate rings, and he was switched to a recording: Rhinebeck Associates was closed; press 1 and dial the appropriate extension or the first four letters of the name of the person you are trying to reach and leave a voice mail message. No, he wouldn’t record a cheerful fatherly statement that Charlotte might or might not listen to before Monday. Instead, he tried her number at home. Jon’s voice, speaking very slowly, told him he could speak as long as he liked. What the hell; turning red in the face, Schmidt informed them that he had telephoned. They had gone out! A more pleasant explanation occurred to him. Charlotte and Jon were still asleep; that could be why the message had come on right away.

He found the senior Rikers’ number in the directory. It would have been the last straw if they had been unlisted. A voice he didn’t recognize, the secretary’s, he supposed—why would psychoanalysts have a nurse?—instructed him to state his name and telephone number. Dr. Myron Riker or Dr. Renata Riker would be in touch, as soon as they could. All right, he liked that formula. Albert Schmidt, calling to say what a wonderful time he had at Thanksgiving lunch. He would call again or write unless Dr. Riker or Dr. Riker called him first. It had been a dumb move destined to fail: In all of Manhattan, was there one shrink who answered the telephone? There had to be another number, real and unlisted, that rang elsewhere in the apartment.

Noon. A small, rapid rain had begun to fall. Why not break the rule against daytime drinking? Nobody would know or care. He poured himself a bourbon as big as the Ritz, added ice cubes, took the receiver off the kitchen phone, found a volume of Anaïs Nin he read on such occasions, and, glass and book in hand, went to bed.

VI

SCHMIDT’S FATHER had not shown much concern about his only son’s upbringing or education. Had anyone asked him the reason, it was a toss-up whether he would have answered that he was far too busy or that it seemed to him the boy was doing just fine. He did, however, as soon as Schmidt had learned to write, order him to keep a journal.

A man is responsible for what he does with his time, he said. Unless you get it down, it will be lost. Each day, make a record of what you did, and how long it took you.

Many years later, thinking about those words when his father was already dead, Schmidt came to the conclusion that, at least subconsciously, the old man must have meant something like time sheets, the attendance to which is a daily chore of every practicing lawyer who expects to be paid for his work. Thus, transposing, to take into account that you are a schoolboy, you enter: Meals, one hour and five minutes; cleansing of your person, seven minutes; attending school (transportation included), approximately eight hours, etc. Certainly, there was no diary or journal among the papers Schmidt and the executor of the estate reviewed. The record of the father’s deeds was in his firm’s ledger books and in the bills sent to clients. For professional services and advice rendered in connection with the arrest and mortgage sale in Panama City of The Iphigenia, and similar adventures.

As long as Schmidt had lived at home, until he went to college, the current volume of his diary, always a spiral school notebook with beige cardboard covers, his father having neglected to offer, even at the outset, a more enticing