The Futures(26)

*

I took the subway home that night, after Adam and I said good-bye. The man sitting next to me on the uptown train was flipping through a copy of that morning’s Observer, scanning each page for a few seconds before moving on. Until he stopped and pulled the paper a little closer. Adam’s byline. The man read Adam’s article slowly, nodding to himself. The train reached Grand Central. The man stayed in his seat, eyes glued to the page. It wasn’t until the car had emptied and refilled that he looked up and jumped to his feet, elbowing his way out before the doors closed, sprinting to catch the late train back to Rye or Greenwich.

I’d wanted to lean over and tell him: I know Adam McCard. More than that: he’s my friend. He’d liked me, once upon a time. He told me I was special. That night was the very first time, that year in New York, that I felt like I knew something that the people around me didn’t. That I felt like I had a reason to be there. I sat back in my seat, flooded with a warm feeling of satisfaction.

He called me again the next week and the week after. October dawned chilly and clean. The whole planet was tilting on its axis in a new direction, a better direction.

The New York I’d been living in went from dull sepia to vibrant color. As Adam and I spent more time together, I felt a distant pity for Evan, for the narrow constraints of his world. In Chinatown Adam and I ate strange, spicy food in fluorescent-lit dives. We drank wine at sidewalk tables in SoHo. We went to gallery openings, to readings, to jazz shows in West Village basements. Adam took me to secret bookstores; he lent me his favorite novels. He was so confident, so comfortable. He wasn’t running around in search of an identity, the way so many of my classmates were. He already knew who he was, and that was intoxicating. Adam would sometimes slip his arm through mine as we walked, or place a hand on my shoulder as he stood behind me at the museum, or brush a stray leaf from the sleeve of my jacket when we sat in the park. Women looked at him with envy. I craved the intimacy, every little touch. I so badly wanted more.

One night, at a French bistro in the West Village, the remains of steak frites on the table between us, he asked me the exact question I’d avoided asking myself.

“So what does Evan think of us spending all this time together?”

I toyed with my napkin. “He doesn’t mind. He’s working on this deal all the time, anyway.”

He sipped his wine, watching me. He must have realized the truth, that I hadn’t said a word about this to Evan. Adam always knew how to read me.

Evan was still a factor in this equation, much as I wished otherwise. We kept up the charade at our weekly dinners, when he talked in a monologue about work. He’d seemed tired lately, worn down by the demands of the deal. For some reason, Michael wouldn’t staff anyone else on it. It was Evan and Evan alone. “But,” he said in early October, his voice straining with a forced optimism, “it’s really starting to come together. Michael had me run a model this week. The numbers are dynamite. You wouldn’t believe how huge the upside is.”

Evan’s hours only grew more extreme as the fall progressed, and our date nights became rarer and rarer, until eventually I was left with the life of a single woman. The turning point came when I started taking advantage of this instead of resenting it. It was a new stage in our relationship, that was all; a phase where I could be more independent than ever before. A weight had lifted from my shoulders. I was free. There was a different kind of sadness in my life now, but it was a sweeter kind of sadness, easier to bear, because I had never accepted that falling for Adam was in fact such a hopeless mistake.

“What did you do?” Abby squinted at me. “Did you change something? Your hair?”

I shook my head. Nothing had happened between Adam and me, but still, I didn’t know what to say about it. Even Abby’s sympathy only went so far. For the time being, I kept my mouth shut.

It was a Saturday night in October, and we were at her apartment in Harlem, a run-down and homey old railroad setup she shared with a friend. Her super had turned on the radiators early, so Abby kept the windows open to let out the heat. She used the gas burner on her stove to light the end of a joint. We smoked it sitting cross-legged on the living room floor while we waited for our Chinese food.

“Don’t you miss this?” she said, exhaling. “It’s almost like we’re back in school.”

“You never told me who you’ve been getting this from.”

“Why? Are you in the market for some? Evan need something to take the edge off?”

“It just seems so real. Buying weed from a real drug dealer.”

“A drug dealer!” She yelped in laughter, collapsing to the floor. “You sound like Mister Rogers. No. No. Actually, I just got it from another teacher.”

“That is terrible.”

“Where the hell is our food?” She stood up and wandered into the kitchen, opening and shutting all the cabinets. “I’m starving.”

The end of the joint smoldered like a jewel. I slipped a bobby pin from my hair to hold the burned nub. “You’re done?” I asked Abby. She waved, and I pulled the last of it into my lungs. It was pungent and stronger than what we had smoked in college.

“How were your parents?” I said. They had visited her the week before. Abby wandered back in, eating Froot Loops from the box. “You know dinner’s going to be here in, like, five minutes.”