The Futures

by Anna Pitoniak

  I felt myself curling in at the edges, growing blacker. Evan. It spun together into one theme: Fletcher, Spire, Madoff, all of it. I grasped at it through the vodka, the point I was trying to make to Adam. How had I never seen it before, the way the world worked? I described the strange identification I’d felt with Madoff’s sad, gray-haired victims on TV. We were casualties of the same greed-fueled catastrophe. Adam nodded vigorously. He understood. Don’t we have to do something about it? Don’t we have a responsibility to stop these things? He asked me about Evan again. What had I meant about Spire? What was going on there? You don’t have to protect him, Julia. You need to let these things out. You can’t carry this around by yourself.

  The afternoon plunged into darkness.

  At some point I got up to use the bathroom, wobbling in my heels. In the hotel lobby, people came and went. It was nighttime. My head spun as I sat down on the toilet. I propped myself up with one hand against the stall. Later, minutes later, hours later, in front of the bathroom mirror, I tried to fix my reflection in one place, but it danced and wavered no matter how hard I stared.

  I spun around and stumbled back into the stall and threw up. The bile came in miserable waves. With one hand on the toilet, then one on the stall, I pushed myself up like a fever-weak patient. I rinsed my mouth in the sink and hunched over the basin, watching the water swirl around the white porcelain before vanishing down the drain, wishing I could follow it down there, away from all this.

  * * *

  In the time that has passed since that day, I’ve asked myself, over and over, whether I was aware of what I was doing. Aware of what I was setting in motion. Did I think it was the right thing to do? Did I know the impact it would have? I ask myself now: Is guilt determined by outcome or by intent?

  I woke up the next morning in Adam’s bed, and I knew this wasn’t a regular hangover. The headache and dizziness and dry mouth were compounded by a nagging awareness. I had done something wrong the night before, something not on a continuum with the cheating and the white lies. But, amazingly, I got up and went about my normal routine. I drank two glasses of water, took a long shower, dressed. I pushed the previous night to the back of my mind and I walked out the door. I didn’t even say good-bye to Adam, who was sleeping soundly. Outside, the sidewalks were white from the blizzard. The doorman hailed me a cab, and we flew across the silent snowscape of Central Park. It was early, and the snow was pristine, unmarked by footprints and sled tracks. I had no idea—no conscious idea—of the turning point I had just passed. One chapter of my life over, another about to begin.

  Time has made it worse. It isn’t just regret for that afternoon, for the things I shouldn’t have said to Adam. It’s the bigger realization that the entire thing was a mistake. Last year is like a movie starring somebody else. It’s a scene in time lapse, sped-up and frantic, everything moving too fast to grab hold of. That girl, the girl who existed from July to December—she wasn’t the person I had been before. She tricked herself, twisting the reality around her into something different. She was looking at it all wrong: like it was a plan finally coming together. She should have known better. The signs were always there. But there was something narcotic about the fantasy I was living, the idea of becoming someone else. No one had told me that doing these things could feel so good. They could feel so good that they blocked out everything else. They put to sleep the part of me that should have been watching.

  * * *

  The afternoon plunged into darkness.

  “Jules, babe, it’s okay. Shh.”

  I was crying again.

  “I’m sick of it. I’m sick of him. He told me all this like it was my problem, too. He dumped it on me, and I’ve been carrying it around for weeks.”

  “What is it? What did he tell you?”

  “Spire. It’s this deal they’ve been working on. It’s messed up. It’s rigged. They’ve been lying about it the whole time.”

  “Who has? People at Spire?”

  “His boss, Michael. Evan is part of it, too. He went along with it.”

  “Michael Casey, you mean? Shh, Julia, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”

  I was still crying, hot and angry tears.

  “I’m so si-si—sick of him. He’s an asshole.”

  “Tell me what Evan told you. How was the deal rigged?”

  “It’s Michael. He knows people. Government officials in China. He bribed them to let them import from the Canadians, to get around the taxes.”

  “How did he bribe them?”

  Did I notice Adam reaching for the notepad in his pocket? Did I register his one-handed scribbles under the table? Did he even do this, or am I trying to rewrite the past, to insert a screaming siren for my former self, to make her sit up and notice what she was doing?

  With his other hand he held mine, rubbing his thumb across my palm.

  “Jules. Did Evan say how they bribed them?”

  “Immigration. Canadian immigration paperwork. Spire and WestCorp helped the Chinese get their papers. That’s why they went to Vegas. I could kill him. He’s such an idiot.”

  “They got papers for the Chinese, is that what you’re saying? In exchange for getting them visas, these officials are letting them export their lumber to China? Jules? That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “I hate him. Hate him.”

  “Julia?”

  * * *

  Saturday, the day after. There was a feeling clinging to me that refused to be brushed away. A hammering in my heart. In the cab across Central Park, from Adam’s apartment to mine, I texted Abby. My phone buzzed with her reply a minute later. Oh, Jules, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Can you still make it tonight? I’m so sorry.

  The cab let me out. I brushed the snow from our stoop and sat down. My dad picked up the phone. My mother was out, walking the dog. How was I? What was going on? I told him everything, including what Adam had said about Fletcher Partners’ investment in the new start-up. When I finished, he sighed heavily. I could picture him in his study, the leather-bound books and diplomas lining the walls. Leaning into his elbow on the desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose where his glasses sat. Finally he said:

  “Sweetheart, obviously I’m sorry to hear about this, but I hope you understand how complicated it is. The Fletchers have many factors to consider. It hasn’t been an easy year for them. I’m sure they were very unhappy to have to do this.”

  He’d used this voice on me before. A voice with an unbearable weight to it. My father wasn’t someone to whom you talked back. His lawyerly gravity made you so painfully aware of your shortcomings: your irrational emotions, your unthinking reactions, your taking things personally when nothing was personal. The world wasn’t against you. Stop indulging yourself. Why had I expected this time to be any different? But part of me had hoped for that, for some rare tenderness from my father, and I felt a doubling of the heaviness. A deflating of that hope and an awareness that I should have known better than to harbor it. He was taking the side of his client over his daughter. It shouldn’t have surprised me.

  An ache in my throat made it hard to swallow. “I know, Dad.”

  We hung up. The sky was clear blue, and the sunlight reflected off the snow. It was still early for the weekend, and Evan would probably be home, not having left for work yet. I could have lingered longer at Adam’s, stayed for breakfast, but a voice in my head had propelled me out of his apartment. But now, at home, something kept me stuck to the stoop, just shy of the threshold. Evan probably wouldn’t ask where I had been, or care. He’d keep assuming whatever he’d been assuming all along. But he would notice the redness in my eyes and know that I’d been crying. Over the previous few months, I’d built such a careful distance between us. He went to his office, I went to mine; he had his life, I had mine. I had Adam. There was barely anything left. But Evan would ask what was wrong, and I would start crying again, and I knew, just knew, that he would comfort me like he used to. He would remind me that everything would be
okay, like the good boyfriend he always was in times of crisis. That careful distance would disappear, and I didn’t know what would happen next. I wasn’t sure I had the courage to find out.

  When the door behind me opened with a suctioning whoosh, I stared straight ahead, ready to avoid eye contact with whichever neighbor was coming out. It would be easy; I knew no one in our building.

  “Yup, yup, I’m on my way in now. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” the familiar voice behind me said. I turned around.

  “Julia.” Evan looked surprised. He bounced down the steps to the sidewalk, where he stood and faced me. “Hey. I was just on my way to the office.”

  I had to shield my eyes to block the sun. It was too bright. “Hey.”

  “That was Michael. He needs me to come in for something.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  He seemed at a loss for words. “Hey, are you going to Abby’s party tonight?”

  “I think so.”

  We were a pair of strangers.

  He looked closely at me. “Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, well…” I was so tired. I couldn’t keep doing this. My voice cracked. “It’s work. I got laid off yesterday.”

  He stood perfectly still. “Shit. Julia. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  My eyes hurt from the sun. I glanced down at the sidewalk for relief, at the snow and my salt-crusted boots, and then looked back up from under the hood of my palm. Evan was regarding me quietly, like a hunter watching a wild animal. Getting no closer than he had to. Eventually he reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, leaving it there for a moment. That was all he would give me.

  “I’m sorry,” I started to choke out, the tears returning to my eyes. And I was—all of a sudden, I was sorry for everything. I wanted to rewind to six months earlier, when we stood on this stoop in the June humidity with our boxes, when we opened the door for the first time, when we hadn’t yet started down this path.

  But at that very same moment, he said, “I have to get to work.” I don’t know if he heard me. When he removed his hand, then removed himself and walked down the street toward an available cab, I felt the imprint of him linger on my skin, like a memory pressing itself to me one last time before it vanished forever.

  Chapter 13

  Evan

  “Where the hell is he?” Chuck said, craning his neck toward the glass walls of the conference room. The meeting had been called for 9:00 a.m. sharp, and it was 9:06. “He’s keeping half the company waiting.”

  Roger took a swig of coffee. “I don’t think Michael’s real concerned about how busy the rest of us are.” He jiggled his knee, knocking against mine on purpose.

  This was the weekly Monday status meeting, the last one before the end of the year. An empty chair awaited Michael at the head of the table. Roger and the other analysts and I sat around the perimeter of the room. Chuck, seated at the back end of the table, turned his chair around to talk with Roger. Most of the higher-ups at the table were in a sedate Monday mood, chatting about soccer practice and piano recitals, plans for Christmas in Aspen or Saint Barts. Chuck’s wedding was fast approaching, and his fiancée spent most of her weekends in Connecticut ironing out the wedding details, which left Chuck by himself in the city, enjoying one final run of debauchery. Every Monday morning, he and Roger traded stories from the weekend.

  “A model? I don’t believe you,” Chuck was saying.

  “For real. Apparently she’s the next big thing out of Croatia.”

  “Did you check your wallet before she left? Or maybe you just paid her up front. I know some of them won’t have it any other way.”

  “Fuck you, man. I’m not washed up like you. I don’t have to pay for ass.”

  “Bullshit. What about Vegas?”

  “That’s different. That’s Vegas. Even Evan was paying for it in Vegas.”

  Chuck raised an eyebrow. “Evan?”

  “Our first night there. He didn’t come home until the morning.”

  Chuck threw his head back and laughed. “You think our little Evan was out with a prostitute?”

  I felt the heat rising under my collar. I should have said something, changed the subject. But in the previous few weeks, I’d learned it was better not to draw attention to myself.

  “Well, where was he, then?” Roger was acting like I wasn’t right there.

  “He crashed on our couch that night, in my and Brad’s room. After you and your hooker locked him out.”

  Brad, sitting across the table, glanced up at his name. He froze, thumbs hovering above his BlackBerry keyboard. He looked at Chuck, but Chuck had already moved on. Then Brad shifted his gaze to me. I could see the rapid realization in his stare.

  The room went quiet. Roger’s knee stopped jiggling. “Finally,” Chuck muttered, spinning around to face the table.

  “Morning, everyone,” Michael said, and the room murmured in response. He took his seat at the head of the table. “Steve, why don’t you start us off?” Steve nodded and launched into an update, doing his best to make the macro group’s weak results sound palatable. Michael watched him with his hands steepled together, like a villain out of a movie. He did look the part: steely gray hair, a face carved with deep wrinkles, a skeptical squint. People still feared Michael, as they always had, but now the fear was earned. He was in charge; he’d saved the company. Things were going exactly as planned on the WestCorp deal. The rest of the world had noticed WestCorp’s growing exports, and their stock was rising rapidly, just as predicted. There were whispers that Kleinman was going to stay in DC and angle for the top job at Treasury in the new administration. That would mean Michael was permanently in charge, and that my trajectory at Spire could continue unchecked. Michael hinted at a raise and a promotion on the horizon. I couldn’t really believe how lucky I was.

  But I had miscalculated what would happen after the deal went live. The rest of Spire didn’t want to see that the firm’s survival hinged on this one specific deal. The only thing they saw was their exclusion from it. We were the competition. Roger confirmed it for me a few days earlier. I bumped into him as I was leaving Michael’s office. “Shit, sorry,” I said, bending down to help gather the papers he’d dropped. While we were crouched, our faces close, Roger snarled: “You think you’re real hot shit, don’t you?” People stared at me pointedly in the hallways—others, not just Roger, had noticed how much the newly powerful Michael had taken me under his wing.

  I thought they’d be happy about the success. I thought I had finally proved that I belonged in this world, too. But I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  A parallel had become clear to me. For a long time I’d hoped that things would get better, at home and at work. That the small daily miseries—jealous glares from coworkers, stiff silences from Julia—would eventually prove temporary, if I worked hard enough. But it was Julia, the previous weekend, who finally made me understand. I’d been hurrying out the door on Saturday morning, and Julia was sitting on the stoop, her eyes red and puffy. She told me that she’d been fired. I felt a pulse of sympathy for her, and then—nothing. I was struck less by the news than by my own lack of reaction. It was like hearing about a minor plane crash in a distant country. Sad, but not sad for me. On the way to work, I wondered whether it was a delayed response. Maybe the feeling would come later, the feeling of watching a loved one suffer. But it never did. I didn’t love her anymore: that was the answer. Simple and clear. I was relieved to realize this, actually—it was about time. I shouldn’t have kept loving Julia for so long after things had turned so bad. And I shouldn’t have expected that Roger and the others at Spire would see me as anything but the competition. It wasn’t worth it, caring about people who didn’t care about you.

  The droning at the front of the conference room stopped. Wanda was waiting for Michael in the doorway. He gestured at the person talking to continue. On the other side of the glass wall, Wanda fluttered her hands as they spoke. She looked nervous.

  Michael stuck his
head back in. “I have to take this,” he said to the room. “Finish without me.”

  In the silence, Steve cleared his throat, said we might as well keep going. But I wasn’t listening anymore. I leaned back to watch Michael and Wanda retreating down the hall toward his office. Michael was walking so fast that Wanda had to run to keep up.

  Around noon, I passed by Michael’s office for the umpteenth time that day. The door was still closed. Wanda’s chair was empty. I turned my back, pretending to examine the papers in my hands. The hallway was quiet, and I strained to hear something, anything, through the door.

  “Excuse me,” a woman said, pushing past me. It was our head of PR, a woman in a bright green dress and a crisp bob, her bracelets jangling as she knocked hurriedly on Michael’s door. Her perfume had a distinctive musky scent, a trail she left whenever she barreled through the hallways to put out a fire. A smell I had come to associate with panic. She opened the door without waiting for a response. A loud conversation erupted through the opening before she slammed it shut again.

  I walked back to my side of the floor, scanning faces and computer screens and conversations for clues. The floor was emptier than usual, but the lunch hour would explain that. A muted TV flashed silently in the lobby. Two analysts tossed a Nerf football back and forth from their opposing desks. The wind outside had picked up, and when I stood at the windows at the edge of the building, I could see black umbrellas popping up like mushrooms on the street far below. The last of the lingering snow would be gone by the afternoon.

  At my desk, I hit the space bar a few times to wake my computer. I watched Roger nodding his head to the music in his earbuds, typing with emphatic keystrokes, looking perfectly normal, exactly like he looked every day.