The Futures

by Anna Pitoniak

  “Michael Casey?”

  “No. No, I’m Evan Peck. I work with Michael.”

  “Ah. Mr. Peck. My mistake. Please, come this way.” Her English was smooth and flawless, with no more of an accent than mine. She had a round and dewy face, and couldn’t be more than a teenager.

  I followed her down a hallway to a large sitting room. An older man with silver hair gazed steadily at the view of the desert through the window, indifferent to the luxury of the suite, to the Champagne chilling on ice, to the mirrored walls. He turned toward me.

  “Michael Casey?” He had a thick accent.

  I shook my head. My shirt, soaked with sweat from the walk under the scorching noonday sun, started to chill in the air-conditioning. The girl cut in, in rapid Mandarin. The man kept his eyes on me while they spoke, then he smiled. The girl turned back to me with a respectful tilt of her head. “This is my father, Wenjian Chan. He was expecting to speak to Mr. Casey. He has asked me to stay and translate.” She paused, waiting for me to nod. I did.

  “Thank you,” she continued. “Forgive our urgency, but he asks whether he may please have the briefcase you are delivering on behalf of Mr. Casey now.”

  She took it from me and laid it gently on the coffee table. Her father put on reading glasses and spun the combination lock. It opened with a pop. Chan removed a slim manila folder and scanned each page in the folder carefully. Several minutes later, Chan looked up and spoke to his daughter. It was clear from his tone that he was satisfied.

  The girl smiled at me. “Thank you. My father is very pleased with this. Please convey our gratitude to Mr. Casey.” She held out her arm and started to lead me to the door when Chan interrupted, barking at her.

  She stiffened and turned red, then shook her head at her father. Chan was pointing at me, his voice almost at a shout. She started speaking, but he cut her off, insistent. My heart started thudding like a muscle gone loose. The daughter drew a deep breath, glancing sideways at her father.

  “My father is very pleased with the help you have offered to us. And now that you have helped us with these papers”—she was so quiet I could barely hear—“he wonders if you might offer us help in the future, too.”

  “I’m sorry?” I said. Chan was chattering excitedly. My mouth had gone dry. Michael hadn’t said anything about this.

  She turned a deeper shade of red. “I’ll be applying to college next fall, here in America. My father is aware that you might have useful connections. You went to Yale, yes? You know many people there?” She took another breath and added, “He says that he would like to—as you say—keep in touch.”

  The words echoed through my head. Keep in touch. I began walking back to the hotel, then I broke into a run, sweat dripping down my forehead and into my eyes. I had to talk to Michael. So they knew where I’d gone to college. What else did they know about me? Just exactly how far did this thing go? What were they expecting from me?

  But at the conference, Michael was nowhere in sight. I ducked into a corner and dialed his number. It went directly to voice mail. I sent a frantic e-mail. I tried calling again, but his phone remained off. I refreshed my e-mail. Nothing.

  The afternoon panel was about to begin, and the others were drifting back into the ballroom. Chuck waved me over. I was the last one to file into our row and wound up sitting next to Roger. He didn’t seem affected by the night before. Bright-eyed, cleanly shaved, popping a stick of gum. His collar crisp and perfectly white. He raised an eyebrow, taking me in. “You look like shit,” he said.

  The panel was about to begin. There was an empty seat in the middle of the row, where Michael was supposed to be. I craned my neck, scanning the entrances to the ballroom. I had a sudden, dizzying fear.

  “Oh,” Roger said. “Who are you looking for? Michael, your boyfriend? He had to leave. Just went to the airport. He’s flying back to New York right now.”

  Chapter 8

  Julia

  I was standing in our tiny kitchen, humming to myself, stirring a pot of pasta and a bubbling skillet of sauce. It was Adam’s recipe. He was always giving me things like this—scraps of knowledge, bits of adulthood. I wanted to make it just so I could tell him later that I’d done it.

  I heard the door open, then the jangling of keys and the thunk of a briefcase dropped to the floor. “What’s this?” Evan said. He was home earlier than usual. I don’t think he’d ever seen me use the stove before. “Are you making dinner?”

  He looked so disbelieving that I smiled. “Pasta. There’ll be enough for both of us.”

  “It smells amazing.” He hovered a few inches away. A year earlier, he would have slipped his arms around my waist. “I’m starving.”

  We ate together on the futon. When I finished my pasta and looked up, Evan was watching me. He took my hand and pulled me to my feet. I let myself follow him. What I felt for Adam was spilling over into the rest of my life, like some blissful pharmaceutical. When Evan was on top of me, I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t want to have sex with him, but I also didn’t mind. I felt easy and calm about it.

  After, as Evan was catching his breath, he turned to me.

  “It’s your birthday on Thursday,” he said.

  “Yup.”

  “We should go out.”

  I’d been counting on Evan having to work, leaving me free to do something with Adam instead. “Oh. Okay,” I said.

  “Unless you already have plans?”

  “No. Uh, no plans. That sounds good.”

  “I’ll make a reservation somewhere. I’m glad I remembered.” He kissed me on the cheek, then rolled over and fell asleep.

  This was part of the problem. Evan remembered my birthday; he stayed faithful to me; he paid his share of the rent on time. There had been no dramatic betrayals. Instead there was a long stretch of absence. Where I saw an accumulating string of rejections, lonely nights and questions unasked, Evan probably saw a normal relationship. He upheld his end of the bargain. He checked the boxes required of him. And if there were no further boxes to check, he probably assumed he’d done everything he needed to do.

  On Thursday morning, two dozen red roses awaited me at the office, with a card that read: “Thinking of you today—Adam.” I propped the card next to my computer. Laurie saw the flowers when she came in, paused briefly, but didn’t ask about them. My phone rang later that morning, my sister calling.

  “Julia?” Elizabeth said. “Hey, happy birthday!”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I’m in the library. Studying for midterms. How’s the day been?”

  “Pretty good. I’m at work, so…you know. Boring old Thursday so far.”

  “Are you and Evan going out tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Somewhere good?”

  “I hope so. He was supposed to make the reservation.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s fine.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Jules?” she finally said. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine. I don’t know. Yeah.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  But that was the thing. I didn’t want to talk about Evan or what was wrong; I wanted to talk about what was finally right. Having to muffle the good news—Adam, this new turn my life had taken—was so annoying. I couldn’t do or say what I wanted, not even on my birthday. I inhaled the thick, sweet scent of Adam’s roses. What was wrong with this picture? I hadn’t heard a thing from Evan all day. Evan, the one who was supposed to be my boyfriend.

  “Is it Evan?” she prompted, interrupting my silence.

  “Kind of.” I sighed. “Things aren’t great.”

  “Oh, shit. What’s going on?”

  “Well, for one, he works all the time. I barely even see him.”

  “Poor guy.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Don’t feel bad for him. He loves it.”

  “Okay, then. Poor you.”

  “I guess it’s okay. I’ve been spending a lot of
time with”—I came so close to blurting out Adam’s name, so incredibly close—“with, um, friends. Keeping busy, you know.”

  The rest of the afternoon passed in tedium, with Laurie dropping off files and marked-up memos on my desk. Her eye kept catching on the roses, but she seemed strangely determined not to comment. Near the end of the day, my phone rang again.

  “Jules,” Evan said, his voice heavy. “I’m so sorry. I’m on my way to the airport right now. Michael just told me. Spire’s sending a team to this conference in Las Vegas, and he wants me along, too. I’m there all weekend. I feel terrible.”

  “A conference? Why?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s global macro, stuff I don’t even work on. Michael said he’d fill me in later.” A loud honk sounded. I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “Shit,” he said. “This traffic is insane. I’m sorry, Julia. I really am. I’m on the red-eye back on Sunday, so I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

  “Whatever. It’s fine,” I said. Evan, once again relegating me to second place, proving how little I mattered to him—a fact that was equal parts upsetting and liberating. I felt a weird mixture of anger and relief. It was fine. In fact, maybe it was better than fine. I’d be spared from dinner at some overpriced midtown restaurant, with mediocre food and nothing to talk about. The weekend was all mine. I put a smile back into my voice. “See you in a few days.”

  * * *

  I began running longer, farther that fall. I could go for six miles, eight, even nine or ten without tiring. Far north along the river and back down to the Queensboro, or in long loops around Central Park. I thought maybe I’d train for a marathon. Or at least a half marathon. The miles flew by while my mind was lost in daydreams, breath steaming in the cold morning air, the rhythmic crunch of gravel under my shoes. I felt my body growing lighter, stronger. For six months my imagination had been starved of oxygen, but I was breathing at last, enormous gulps of air.

  For the first week, after that kiss in the cab, Adam and I had studiedly sober interactions: brightly lit coffee shops, a walk at lunch, a gallery opening in the evening. Testing the water. That deliberateness seemed so grown-up, part of the reason I was sure it was the right thing to do. We didn’t talk about what had happened in the cab, but it saturated our relationship with a new intensity. Adam would e-mail me at work to tell me a funny thing he’d overheard or share a link to a story he thought was interesting. He’d ask how a meeting went, how my day was going. Things he hadn’t done before. It thrilled me, the knowledge that Adam—Adam McCard, the most dazzling man I’d ever met—was thinking about me all the time.

  We made plans to have dinner on a Saturday night in early November—a week after the kiss—then stop by his friend’s party afterward. Evan would be working late, as usual. We met at the restaurant, a small place in the West Village. He was waiting for me at the bar, and I could taste the liquor on his breath. I knew this was it, the night when things would go one way or another, once and for all. I was nervous. The way I imagined an actor might feel before the curtain rises for the first time.

  We had a drink before dinner, then shared a bottle of wine. Adam greeted the maître d’ by name. The sommelier, too. He was a regular. It skipped across my mind that he had probably brought other women here before, other girlfriends, but I didn’t care. It was my turn. There was candlelight, thick linen napkins, leather armchairs. The menu, tiny type on creamy paper. Jewel-like coins of tuna tartare, halibut crusted in a bright green sleeve, a tangle of golden pasta. The wine was a rich, deep Burgundy—at least that’s what Adam told me—and I was tipsy by the time we stood up to leave, my nervousness forgotten. Adam helped me on with my coat. He was so handsome up close. The dark hair, the cheekbones. He leaned forward to kiss the tip of my nose.

  “Come on,” he said. “Nick’s place is right around the corner.”

  The doorman nodded us inside a stately brick building on Christopher Street. Adam held my hand through the crowded apartment to the bedroom, where we added our coats and scarves to the pile heaped on the bed. It was a big room, an adult-size bedroom, with a proper four-poster, a woven rug, art on the walls, floor lamps. It looked like a room Nick must share with a girlfriend, one with good taste and plenty of money.

  These were all Adam’s friends. He was a few years older than me, and he ran with a crowd a few years older than him, so these people were miles beyond anyone I knew: journalists and editors and lawyers and producers, people who no longer had assistant in their titles. Adam steered me through the party, introducing me to everyone he knew. At one point, he bumped into a woman smoking a cigarette next to an open window. He turned to apologize, and I watched both of them light up with recognition. “Sara,” he said, kissing her on the cheek, then tugging me forward. “Hey. You two should meet.”

  She was Japanese, her hair like a long curtain framing her face, her clothing artfully draped, her build slender and delicate. Her silhouette was like an old Al Hirschfeld sketch. “Sara, this is Julia Edwards. She was at Yale a few years behind us. Jules, Sara runs a gallery in Tribeca.”

  “Hey,” she said. Her voice was smoky and cool. “Nice to meet you.”

  Adam cast his eyes across the room. “I just have to say hi to somebody. I’ll be right back.”

  I was nervous again without Adam there as a buffer. Surely Sara would dismiss me out of hand: a ditzy girl who didn’t belong, too young, too naive. She’d only talk to me until she could find an excuse to leave. But after he walked away, she smiled at me. She was less intimidating when she smiled.

  “When did you graduate?”

  “Just this year. In May.”

  “Tough year. What are you doing in the city?”

  “I’m working at a nonprofit. The Fletcher Foundation. I’m just an assistant, but—”

  “But you have a job? Hey, that’s great. That’s more than a lot of people can say.”

  I laughed. “I guess.”

  “Most of my friends had to intern for, like, years before they found jobs. You’re doing fine.”

  “It doesn’t really feel that way.”

  “It will, eventually.” She had a knowing glint in her eyes. A lot of the people in this room did. I wanted that—the knowingness—more than anything. An understanding of the world and where I fit in it. Sara told me about her gallery in Tribeca, some of the artists she represented. She was going to Art Basel in Miami Beach in a few weeks. We talked for a while about the recent Turner show at the Met and the new Koons installation. I was surprised to find I was actually having fun. Sara made me feel like myself.

  “Here,” she said as she lit another cigarette. “Here’s my card. Call me sometime. We can have lunch. And if you’re ever interested in leaving that job of yours, the gallery might be hiring next year.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. We could use someone like you. You seem smart. And nice, too. Too nice for Adam.”

  She exhaled a plume of smoke. I laughed nervously. Too nice for Adam? I glanced down at her business card. A simple square with her name in raised black type. SARA YAMASHITA.

  “There you are,” Adam said. “Come on—let’s say hi to Nick.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” I said to Sara, slipping the card into my purse. “And thank you, really. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” She smiled serenely. “Keep in mind what I said.”

  Nick had a real kitchen, too, a separate room with marble countertops and oak cabinets and a stainless steel range. He was holding court, in the middle of some story, and he turned toward us at the sound of his name. He was just like Adam, I could see—brimming with the same confidence, tailor-made for this kind of life. Nick stepped forward and reached for my hand. “You must be the famous Julia,” he said. “What can I get you guys to drink?”

  He was tall and tanned, with very white teeth and a shock of blond hair. He wore a navy blue cable-knit sweater and khakis and soft brown loafers. He seemed to match his apartment: old money, old-money taste.

>   “I’ll have a bourbon,” Adam said, “and she’ll have a vodka soda.”

  “With lime, if you have it,” I added. Adam always forgot the last part.

  While Nick was fixing our drinks, Adam nudged me. “So what do you think?”

  “This kitchen, holy shit. Is this guy a millionaire or something?”

  “You were talking to Sara for a while.”

  “Yeah. I like her. I can’t believe she runs her own gallery.”

  “Don’t be too impressed. It’s all her family. Their money, their connections. Nothing she got on her own.”

  “What, are you not a fan?”

  “No, nothing like that. Sara’s a good person for you to know. But her dad is one of the biggest art dealers in the city. How hard do you think she had to work to get that gig?”

  “She seems to be doing what she loves, at least.” I wished Nick would hurry up with the drinks. But he was distracted, greeting more people in that clubby way.

  Adam laughed. “Sara’s not like that. I’m not sure love is an emotion she’s capable of.”

  I tried to read his expression. For Adam to criticize someone else’s family connections seemed unfair. He had grown up in a Central Park West penthouse, his father a real estate mogul and his mother a society type. Adam was as privileged as they came. So what if he hadn’t chosen to follow his father into real estate? It was still strange for him to belittle Sara for doing something that almost anyone in her situation would have done. It stung, too, realizing that Adam could have said the same thing about me. The job I had, at a foundation run by our family friends—nothing I got on my own.

  A thought occurred to me.

  “How do you know Sara again?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Was she in your college, or what?”

  “No. We dated for a while.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was freshman year. We met through the magazine.”

  The same way that Adam and I had met. Adam’s reputation was well known. He’d slept around, a parade of flings and hookups, often a few at the same time, many drawn from the ranks of the magazine. This party had to be populated with other past conquests besides Sara. But weirdly enough, I wasn’t jealous. Maybe because I had no real claim over Adam. Being with Adam had become a way for me to step outside the bounds: a minor rebellion, leaving behind the boring life I had before. This was a different world, one of sommeliers and marble kitchens and doormen. It was a world where you could be blasé about the past and the consequences of your actions. A world where envy was what other people felt, not you.