The Futures(100)

I left a message for her friend, one of the associate directors at an art gallery in Chelsea. She returned my call an hour later, while I was trying to focus on the crossword puzzle and not stare at my phone too obsessively. Sara’s friend seemed impressed by the Fletcher Foundation on my résumé—“They do really important work. I’m a big admirer of their president, Laurie Silver” (who knew?)—and five minutes later, I was hired. “You can start on Monday?” she asked, and I said yes. “Great. I have your e-mail from Sara. I’ll send you all the details.”

We hung up. I was gratified by how quickly it had happened, but my reaction was more tempered than it had been when Laurie had hired me a year ago. This wasn’t going to be the only answer. The internship didn’t pay much, and I’d have to find another part-time job, or maybe two, to make a livable wage. The gallery didn’t offer health insurance. I’d have to work nights and weekends on occasion. But interns sometimes turned into full-time employees. It was hard work, a fast-paced and demanding job, but if I liked it and could prove myself, there was room to move up. And if I didn’t, if it wasn’t for me, then I could leave with no hard feelings.

It was another beautiful June day. A blue, cloudless sky. I’d e-mail Sara to thank her. I’d tell Elizabeth the good news, and Abby, and my parents—but later. I wanted to be alone with it for a while. I wanted to let the idea sink in. It was past noon when I left the apartment. I bought an ice cream cone for lunch. Eventually I found myself walking through the western edge of Central Park, looping around the edge of the reservoir, down toward the Great Lawn. I lay down on the grass, pulling out the book I’d brought along. I read for a while, then closed my eyes against the brightness. Friday afternoon sounds. People talking into their cell phones as they walked home. A girl reading aloud a magazine quiz to her friend. A couple debating what to have for dinner. I dozed off, and when I woke up the sun had moved toward the Upper West Side. My watch said it was close to 4:00 p.m. As I brushed the blades of grass from my shorts, I found that I had crossed into the eastern half of the park. Past the invisible midline that I’d always been careful not to violate. When I started walking again, I was walking east. I let my feet lead me without focusing on the destination.

They had taken down the scaffolding at the corner of 3rd Avenue. The approach to our block looked different, bare and vulnerable. But our building was the same—the glass door tattooed with handprints, a FedEx slip taped at eye level. I sat down on a stoop on the other side of the street, facing our old entrance. I didn’t really have a plan. I just wanted to look, for a while, at the place I used to call home.

The foot traffic on the street thickened as the hour passed, people coming home from work, their arms laden with dry cleaning or groceries or gym bags. I wondered if Evan was on the train right then, riding back from Westchester. I had talked to Abby on Skype that week. She and Jake had moved on to Morocco, her tan deepening. She asked me whether I had been in touch with Evan. “No,” I said. “I will, eventually. I’m just waiting for the right time.”

“What do you mean? Just do it, Jules. It’s not going to get any easier. Rip the Band-Aid off.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t think he wants to hear from me.”

“Do you want to see him? Do you miss him?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Kind of. I do.”

“Then call him! It’s not that complicated. I’m telling you, I saw him, and he’s okay. Jules, he’s fine. Better, in fact. He hated his old job. You know that.”

The afternoon was slipping into evening. Evan was probably going to be home soon. Maybe Abby didn’t know the full truth of why I was so nervous about calling him, but I could see she had a point, no matter what. It wasn’t going to get easier. If I wanted to see him, if I wanted a chance to stand before him and let him look at me, let myself look at him, I just had to do it. I had to live with whatever the consequences might be.

The light changed on 3rd Avenue. A stream of pedestrians crossed the intersection. Some turned up the avenue, and some turned down. As the crowd thinned, I saw him emerge, like an image sliding into focus. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the old baseball hat he’d often worn in college. He held a bag of groceries in one hand. I remembered the morning he’d returned from Las Vegas, the eeriness of seeing him down the block. How unfamiliar he had seemed, contorted by his situation into a person I didn’t recognize. I sat on the stoop, perfectly still, and watched Evan walk down the block toward our old apartment—toward his apartment. He still lived there, I reminded myself. I saw what Abby meant. He seemed okay. Happy, even. It was evident, something in the way he slung the grocery bag from one hand to the next with an easy gesture, digging for his keys in his pocket. Evan had a new life, a life he managed to rebuild without me. This was nothing like the morning he’d returned from Las Vegas. The Evan I was watching was the Evan I had always known. The person I had fallen in love with years ago.

He was standing outside the door. He dug deeper into his pocket and wrinkled his brow. Set down his grocery bag and swung his backpack from his shoulders. He unzipped the front pocket, and after a moment of blind groping, he pulled out his keys. He slung his backpack over his shoulder again, and picked up his grocery bag. He must have learned how to cook. I found myself overwhelmed with so much curiosity that I almost shouted his name. There was so much I wanted to know. What he was going to have for dinner that night. What his new job was like. How his day had been. Whether he ever thought about me. Every tiny, mundane detail of his life, every glittering grain of sand that made up the person he had become.