The Futures(10)

We rode through town that first day, Evan pointing out the landmarks of his childhood: the high school, his first girlfriend’s house, the hockey rink where he’d spent so many hours practicing. Weeks, months, years of practice. Someone called his name as we were pedaling away from the rink. “Peck? Is that you?”

“Coach Wheeler?” Evan called back. The two of them hugged, the coach clapping him hard on the back. “Julia, this is my old coach, Mr. Wheeler. Coach, this is my girlfriend, Julia Edwards.”

“Where are you from, Julia?” He knew right away I wasn’t a local.

“Boston,” I said. “Evan and I go to college together.”

“How is it out there? Been meaning to ask your folks how your season was. He was the best player I ever had.” He winked at me. “No one ever worked as hard as Evan Peck. I knew this guy would go places.”

Evan beamed from the praise. They talked for a long time, catching up on Evan’s college career, on how close Yale had come to winning the championship that year. His coach asked whether he knew what he was going to do after graduation. “You going to try and play in the minors, maybe?” he said. “Or you could go over to Europe. You’re good enough for it.” Evan shrugged, his smile slackening, the light dimmed. I couldn’t read the expression on his face.

The next day, we biked over to the river to meet up with some of his friends. Most of them had stayed put, working construction or other odd jobs in town, still living in the houses they grew up in. They brought along beer and a waterproof boom box, and we went tubing down the river. It felt like something out of a movie. We floated with our inner tubes lashed together, our toes trailing in the cold water, the beer light and fizzy on our tongues. Evan traced circles on the back of my hand. He tilted his head back to look at the summer sky, a bright blue banner framed by the soft green fringe of the pine trees. “God, I love it here,” he said.

“Why did you ever want to leave?” I asked, with genuine curiosity. He seemed so happy, so comfortable.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it never seemed like enough.”

His mother picked us up downriver, and we strapped our bikes to the roof rack of the car. Evan offered me the front seat, but I shook my head and slid into the back. His mother turned around. “What did you think?”

“I loved it,” I said, and I meant it. We were silent for the rest of the ride home. I could see where Evan had inherited his tranquillity, the ease he could find in just about any setting. I imagined car rides from years before, his mother shuttling him to early morning practices, the two of them silently content in the other’s presence. The landscape out here had a way of shutting your mind off. We were all tired and happy, warm from the sun, hungry for dinner, and that was all that mattered.

The two weeks went quickly. His parents hosted a barbecue the night before we left. Nights there were cold, and by the time the burgers were sizzling on the grill, everyone had donned sweaters and sweatshirts. I borrowed an old crewneck emblazoned with Evan’s high school mascot. “Look at that,” his dad said, pointing at the sweatshirt with a pair of tongs when I approached the grill. “Julia, you could be a local. You fit right in.” Evan’s mother leaned over and said, “He means that as a compliment, hon.”

The next morning, on the bus that would take us back to the Vancouver airport, I waved good-bye to his parents through the window with a dull ache behind my eyes. How was it possible to be homesick for a place that I couldn’t call home, a place I’d only known for a handful of days? The previous two weeks had felt like an escape, different in aesthetic but not so different in essence from the way I’d felt in Paris. I realized, at that moment, that I had no idea what I wanted. There was so much out there. The bus shuddered and heaved into motion, and I blinked back a few tears. I was going to be okay. I had Evan, no matter what happened.

By senior year, my commitments had dwindled. Club sports, volunteering, writing for the magazine: the extracurriculars I had taken up with such diligent dedication as an underclassman were finally finished. I was working on my thesis, about Turner’s influence on Monet, and Monet’s London paintings. Other than that and a few seminars that met once a week, I took it easy—everyone did. Abby and I went out almost every night; someone was always throwing a party. The nights we didn’t, we smoked pot and ordered Chinese and watched bad TV. Things didn’t matter so much. The hurdles had been cleared, and we’d earned our break.

One night during the fall of senior year, I was sitting on the futon in our common room when Evan let himself in. He slept in my room almost every night.

“Hey,” I said, muting the TV. Then I looked up. “Hey. Whoa. What’s with the suit?”

He tugged at the cuff. It was short on him. “I borrowed it from one of the guys on the team.”

“Yeah, but why are you wearing it?”

“Oh. I went to a recruiting session. Didn’t I tell you?”

I had become vaguely aware of it a few weeks earlier—the flyers and e-mails from the finance and consulting recruiters. They made it easy, hosting happy hours and on-campus interviews, promising an automatic solution. I hadn’t pegged Evan for this path, and maybe that’s why it caught me so off guard. I thought I knew him too well to ever be surprised. That night, when he showed up in his borrowed suit, I didn’t say anything more. This phase would pass. I couldn’t imagine him actually going through with it.