The Love Proof

by Madeleine Henry

  He spit white foam and rinsed his toothbrush.

  “Where do you want to be in ten years?” she asked.

  He imagined Sophie ten years older.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I know.”

  They got into bed facing each other. His hard chest squished her nose, flattening the turned-up tip of cartilage. She crept up to his mouth and kissed the acute corner of his lips, a part of him she’d never felt before.

  “Did you miss your session with Malchik?” he asked suddenly.

  She crept back down.

  “We’re meeting tomorrow,” she lied.

  “Okay.” He kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”

  She rubbed the back of his head.

  “You do so much for me,” he went on. “How can I be a better boyfriend?”

  “By going to sleep.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t know. What about me?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  As their breaths slowed, Sophie gazed at his profile backlit by stars. His nose slanted like an arrowhead. His soul had the same palpable sense of direction. No one else was as good as Jake. He’d stayed loyal to goals so far away. Who else had that focus at their age? That balance of passion and order? Who else was so ambitious and so kind? She hadn’t known there was anyone else like her, but she’d found him and didn’t need more. She was happy just to be.

  * * *

  The morning felt like ten minutes.

  At last in Lionel’s office—the end of a road beginning in his dreams—Jake panicked. Even sitting down, Lionel was a foot taller than Jake expected. The top-floor view was dizzying. Jake had only just bought his suit off the rack at Bergdorf’s, and the tags were still on, awaiting its return. Every snaggy desk corner was now a $999 threat. Standing next to a photo of Warren Buffett, Jake was so nervous that he launched into an impromptu spiel before Lionel even said hello. He detailed his portfolio over glossy color printouts, from inception through today. His pot, now $25,090, had never dipped more than 4 percent in any month. He explained that his stock-picking method was to bet on history: Apple, Walmart, Google, and other giants had left their steps to success in plain sight. Jake looked for companies on similar paths. He bought only a few and prepared to hold them for decades. The best investments required time.

  “Good afternoon,” Lionel greeted after Jake finished.

  “Sir, right. Hello.”

  “That’s all very impressive, except for the bit about time.” Jake furrowed his brow. “If waiting’s so important, then why didn’t you? You launched right into your spiel without introducing yourself. I’m Lionel.” He laughed and offered his hand.

  Jake shook it.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry. I’m Jake.”

  “Have a seat.”

  Jake sat.

  “You know why you’re here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I read every résumé I get directly because I like confidence.”

  “Well, I have that, sir.”

  “You sure do. You’ve got a lot to learn, but I was the same way, believe it or not.”

  Jake smiled, hopeful.

  “You know what?” Lionel rapped the table and offered Jake a summer job on the spot: making trade recommendations to Lionel himself. Jake’s Yes, sir didn’t leave room for even a space after Lionel’s final question mark. As if through a wormhole, Jake found himself on the street, hands quivering. He called Sophie and told her everything: from the lobby’s turnstiles to how exuberantly validating it had felt to accept Lionel’s offer. Her thrill doubled his. Her presence with him on the street was invisible but powerful.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I know.”

  He called Janice next and broke the news. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d sounded so joyful. Then, time slowed. He reminded her that a job meant she would meet Sophie. He tasted sour silence after that, hard to swallow.

  “Fine,” Janice agreed.

  “Would Friday work?”

  * * *

  That Friday, Jake fidgeted with Sophie’s hand all the way into New York City, as they sat side by side on the Metro-North. Their windows framed blurry green suburbs: impressionistic Milford, then Darien. Sophie wore a blue wrap dress, its scalloped hem printed with waves. For once, she’d brushed a neat middle part into her long hair.

  Of course Janice would love her.

  So why was he fidgeting?

  He reached for his earbuds, handed one to Sophie, and gave them “The Classics.”

  The melody of “Stand by Me” soothed him.

  Sophie had heard so much about Jake’s neighborhood by then that the rest of the trip verged on déjà vu: off at Harlem–125th Street station and then onto an uptown subway to 168th Street, where they surfaced between a McDonald’s and a Duane Reade. They exited with their backpacks, planning to spend the night at an Airbnb before apartment hunting tomorrow. They passed an unnamed restaurant advertising $1 PIZZA SLICE, OPEN 24 HOURS next to an awning claiming GROCERY & CANDY. Heat waves rose off the bus lane.

  Jake stopped suddenly.

  “You okay?” Sophie asked.

  He gazed at his mom’s rectangle in the building’s grid of dark windows. He and Janice had never had guests over before. He nodded yes and stepped forward to buzz 3C under a layer of graffiti. The door rattled. Sophie stepped inside first, grinning, unthwarted by the waft of marijuana. They creaked upstairs until Janice came into view in the doorway, her arms crossed over a denim button-up. She looked only at Jake, silently ecstatic. As they hugged—reunion energy lifting everyone’s spirits—he kept holding Sophie’s hand. He leaned back first.

  “Mom, this is Sophie.”

  “So great to meet you!” Sophie radiated sincerity.

  Janice smiled hard.

  “Come in,” she managed.

  Jake and Sophie held hands as they entered. Without turning around, he led Sophie on a guided tour: every photo in the living room including the framed sketch of Janice he’d drawn as a toddler. Sophie was rapt. Jake did call over to Janice a couple of times, but not with anything substantive. “Right, Mom?” And, “That fair?” The way he and Sophie clung to each other, Janice had never seen him so… dependent. He tucked a strand of hair behind Sophie’s ear. She rubbed Jake’s bicep. They never stopped touching. Janice just stood there and answered Jake’s questions with monosyllables. She opened and shut the oven—she had to do something more than loiter—fanning fragrant steam into the air. The smell of chicken lured Jake into the kitchen. He kissed Sophie’s forehead beside a table set for three.

  “Your hair’s off,” Janice said.

  “What?” Jake looked at Sophie, who squirmed with non-opinion. He found his reflection in the microwave and realized he’d been running his hand so nervously over his scalp on the train that he’d tousled his hair into waves. Janice patted his hair back into crisp alignment.

  “There,” Janice said. “Messy hair, messy life.”

  “Gotta fix that before my first day.”

  They slid into easy conversation about Lionel. Janice asked every question. When would Jake start? Next week. How much would they pay? Ten thousand dollars for two months of work. During that pause, she ushered Jake and Sophie to sit down. She served everyone a plate of chicken, roasted broccoli, and Uncle Ben’s rice pilaf from the microwave.

  “Was he nice?” Sophie asked.

  “Definitely. I mean, he actually wants to help.” Jake forked chicken into his mouth. “He wants to develop me. Get to know me. Make me his protégé or something. It’s crazy. Have you ever heard of something like that?”

  “Only once,” Sophie admitted.

  She pictured Professor Malchik.

  “Well, it’ll be good to have you back here,” Janice said.

  She nodded her head at his room.

  Jake tensed.

  “Sophie and I were planning to live together.”

  “Oh?”

 
“She’ll be working here, too.”

  “And what will you do?” Janice’s tone was hard-edged.

  “I’ll be at Free People.”

  Janice crossed her arms.

  “The store? Jake said you study physics?”

  “She does,” Jake intervened.

  “I’m talking to her,” Janice said. “And what will you do at Free People?”

  “Inventory.”

  “What does that have to do with physics?” Janice asked.

  “Mom,” Jake said.

  “I’m just curious why she chose it.”

  “I was waiting to see where Jake got hired first.”

  “Ah,” Janice said.

  “She’ll study physics on her own,” Jake butted in. “The job’ll be easy enough that she’ll have the downtime to think and read what she wants to during the day. Plus, it’ll keep her weekends free.” Janice scowled. “What? What’s that look?”

  “So she took the job not to do it.”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  Sophie looked at her hands as they argued. Jake wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t quite right either. The truth was that she cared less and less about the questions that used to keep her up at night: What really controls us? What plucks the strings of the universe? What is the real power of love? The best she could describe it—and she hadn’t yet—was that her energy had shifted down from her head and into her heart. She was on another wavelength: genuinely content. By the end of the year, her mind was wandering in even her smallest seminars, imagining what movie she’d watch with Jake next. She’d chosen Free People without angst because work was finally just a job. She only wanted one with good enough pay, close to home, because her greatest joys were no longer her greatest insights. Her bliss came from time with Jake.

  “What do you want to do after graduating?” Janice interrogated.

  Sophie looked at Jake.

  “She wants to figure out how the world works,” Jake said so aggressively that it stifled all noise. He stood to rinse his plate in the sink. Sophie excused herself to the bathroom, left the room with her head bowed. The door shut.

  “Well?” Jake whispered.

  “Well what?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Silence.

  He leaned toward Janice.

  “Mom?” he said.

  “She’s not what I expected.”

  “Excuse me?” he asked.

  His eyebrows flew up.

  “You said she had her own dreams.”

  “Of course she does.”

  “You can’t see people the way they really are when you’re in love with them. Remember, the decisions you make now—”

  “I know exactly who she is.”

  Janice’s mouth was a firm line. “She’s just pretty, and you’re not thinking straight. Come on, Jake. She wants to ‘figure out how the world works?’ ” Janice shook her head. “She’s not going to figure that out any sooner than I am.”

  The toilet flushed.

  Sophie returned.

  Jake stood, still riled.

  “Thanks for dinner, Mom. Tonight was special for me.”

  “Jake—” Janice started.

  “I’m sorry we have to head out.”

  * * *

  Their subway car downtown was empty except for a man sleeping across a row of seats. The soles of his sneakers had split from the toes. Jake glanced at the face. Not him.

  “Was I okay?” Sophie asked.

  “Of course.”

  He kissed her forehead.

  “She loves you very much,” Sophie said.

  “I know.”

  So why hadn’t Janice loved Sophie?

  One of his fears had been that Sophie would be paid too much attention. But “just pretty”? Jake had never expected that. Maybe the problem was that no one was impressive up close. From one second to the next, everyone was a boring human being. You couldn’t tell if someone was a genius just from watching them eat chicken, broccoli, and rice. People distinguished themselves over years, not over a single meal.

  Still, something wasn’t right.

  Jake realized that even though he wanted people to treat Sophie normally, he wanted them to know she wasn’t. Because Sophie was beyond special. She was a generational event. The depth of her mind was matched only by the depth of her heart.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jake and Sophie rose, fingers braided, in the elevator up to Lionel’s penthouse. Sophie stood on strappy high heels, the first she’d ever worn. They’d been a twentieth-birthday gift from Isabel, arriving with a note that said, Be irresponsible! in swirling script. Sophie’s black A-line dress was short but modest. She looked like she might’ve been on her way to class—except for the shoes. Jake pumped her hand.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  “I know.”

  It was a month into junior fall, and they’d barely talked since school started—even though they lived together. Jake was working part-time for Lionel. They’d converted one of the two bedrooms in their double into a shared office that replaced Bass in their routine. Jake’s work for Lionel came in waves, and the last had just ebbed. During that weeklong frenzy, Jake had slept less than four hours a night, only finishing the company analysis that morning at the tail end of an all-nighter. He’d napped for most of their train ride into the city.

  The elevator opened to Lionel’s fiftieth birthday party where the fancy mob shocked Sophie. One hundred overlapping conversations rang like an alarm, loud and frightening. Shiny suits and glittery dresses lit up the enormous living room. She and Jake had never been to a party this big. She doubled her hold on him, grabbing his arm with her unheld hand.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  He kissed her forehead.

  “There they are.”

  Jake nodded toward Lionel and his wife, Giulia, a few paces away. Lionel looked like an older version of Jake: fit and confident. He was in the middle of a story captivating a few guests. Giulia, an Italian beauty, smiled elegantly in a floor-length gown. Lionel spotted Jake and, if possible, perked up. Sophie felt Jake’s posture lift—the way a child might stand taller onstage when his parents joined the audience. Lionel returned to his story.

  On the way to the deck, Sophie took in several women’s faces, both old and unwrinkled. Plastic surgery, most likely. Sophie wondered why they didn’t let their bodies change. The idea that some people felt valued only for their faces seemed terribly sad. What about their interests and dreams? Their internal intricacies? How deeply they loved? She felt lucky to be with Jake as they walked through open French doors. Under hanging lanterns, they leaned on railing overlooking the city. Jake took her hand, kissed her knuckles three times.

  “Would you decorate this place?” she asked.

  He smiled. She’d remembered his rule not to decorate until he landed for good.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  He kissed her cheek.

  “So what does Lionel know about me?” she asked.

  He searched his memory with visible effort. The first thing he’d ever told Lionel about Sophie was that she studied time. Jake remembered that moment in detail because Lionel had been so confused. “It’s a topic in physics,” Jake had explained proudly in Lionel’s office. During the summer, they’d met there every day at Lionel’s request after the markets closed. “She thinks time is the least understood, most important thing in the world.” Sophie had never said that exactly, but that was how Jake had interpreted her interest. Since then, he and Lionel had talked so much, he must’ve said thousands of things about her.

  “Smart. He knows you’re smart. I talked about you at the beginning.” Then it had become work talk.

  “Jake, my boy!”

  Lionel’s deep voice made them turn.

  “Sir!”

  The two men shook hands like swinging baseball bats, clapping midway between them.

  “Thanks for making the trip,” Giulia said.<
br />
  “The kid hasn’t left!” Lionel said. “My in-box, that is.”

  Jake looked at Sophie.

  “Sir, Giulia, this is my girlfriend, Sophie Jones.”

  Lionel had been looking forward to this. Jake had been singing Sophie’s praises for years. Her Wikipedia page read like science fiction. But even more fascinating, something happened to Jake every time he mentioned her. Normally, Jake was specific. Whenever he mentioned a stock price, he named it to two decimal points. But when Jake talked about Sophie, he was vague. “Special.” “Incredible.”

  “Lionel Padington.” He extended a hand. Sophie shook it quickly, then pulled her arm back and held it bent on her chest as if in a sling.

  “Giulia Padington.”

  Sophie nodded.

  “ ‘The Next Einstein!’ ” Lionel cued.

  Sophie’s smile wobbled.

  Lionel cleared his throat.

  “Jake said you study time?” Lionel asked.

  Jake sensed her discomfort. Was it Lionel’s importance to him? Their work relationship aside, she knew the care he’d taken in getting to know Jake. Jake had told him unvarnished stories about Harlem and Tribeca. They flagged news articles to each other every morning and forwarded each other headlines about Yale’s sports wins suffixed with their own commentary. They’d competed in the Mighty Montauk Triathlon together in July. Lionel was a key person in Jake’s life whom Sophie checked on in daily conversation: “How’s Janice?” “How’s Lionel?”

  Now, she gazed inward.

  “I did,” Sophie said at last.

  Lionel leaned forward an inch.

  “Oh?” He put a hand in his pocket.

  Sophie didn’t offer more.

  “So, what’s next?” he asked.

  Her cheeks turned pink.

  “Well,” Lionel said, his tone gentler. “I must’ve lost my manners and skipped right over the basics. Please excuse me. Where are you from?”

  She opened her mouth.

  “New York.”

  “City?” Lionel asked.

  “No, Westchester.”

  “How are you liking New Haven?”