The Futures(83)

“What about you?” he said after we stopped and sat on a bench. “Are you going to stay?”

“Here? I don’t know.”

“How is it, living at home?”

“You know what my mom’s like.”

He held up his hands. “I plead the Fifth.”

“It’s fine, actually. It’s not so bad. They pretty much leave me alone. I guess I need to figure out what I actually want to do next. You know. Where I want to go.”

“Why not here? I know one reason for you to stay.”

The trees made a rushing sound when the night breeze blew through them, a sound like rain falling. The park was empty except for the two of us. I pulled my sweater tighter around me. I slid my feet free of my sandals and felt the cold, spongy grass between my toes. I used to play tennis in this park. The past, my past, was everywhere in this town. When I turned back to Rob, he was looking at me. He’d stated it as a fact, and he was right. He was one reason for me to stay.

I shrugged. “I’m not in any hurry. Just taking it one day at a time.”

“Do you want to come back to Cambridge tonight?”

“Not till the third date, buddy,” I said with a laugh.

“No, not like that. My roommates are having people over. A party.”

“It’s kind of late.”

“It’s, like, ten o’clock, grandma.”

“Well, I told my parents I’d walk the dog before bed.”

He offered a hand to help me up. “So living at home does have its downside.”

“Free food, though. Unlimited laundry.”

When we got back, his house was dark. I had parked at the bottom of the driveway, borrowing the Volvo for the night, and Rob’s old green Jeep was parked in front of it. It was the same junky car he’d driven in high school. On winter weekends in boarding school, we’d sometimes drive out to the beach on the North Shore. I’d dared him to go swimming once, on a frozen and windy January day, and before I could tell him I was kidding he had stripped to his boxers and run into the steel-gray Atlantic. Rob gave me a thumbs-up, his chest chapping red in the wind, then ducked beneath a crashing wave. We were alone, the only people on the beach. A moment passed. Another moment. Rob didn’t emerge back up. Five seconds, at least. Ten seconds. That was way too long. Just as I started sprinting for the water, he popped back up, grinning like a jack-in-the-box. “You’re insane!” I shouted over the roar of the wind. He’d done it just to get a rise out of me. To be able to say, later, that I’d been so worried about him I’d almost gone in myself. He was covered in goose bumps, lips turning blue, but he laughed the whole way back. Rob was like that.

I didn’t know what we were doing. Rob took my hands and pulled me toward him. I kept my gaze fixed to his shoulder.

“How about next week?” he was saying.

“What about it?”

“We should hang out again. Lunch?”

“Okay.” Thinking. Lunch was innocuous enough.

“Tuesday work for you?”

“Well, I’ll have to check my calendar. I’m a busy woman.”

“Good. Tuesday it is.” He tugged me in and kissed me on the cheek before letting go. As I drove away, he waved good-bye from the bottom of the driveway, and I watched him shrinking into the night in the rearview mirror.

Elizabeth had been calling in her spare moments to tell me about New York, doing her best to distract me. She was always rushing, always late to something.

“What about this weekend?” she said. It was Monday, the day before I was going to meet Rob for lunch. “My roommate’s going to be gone. I already cleared it with her. You can stay in her room.”

“I don’t know, Lizzie.”

“You know I live in Chinatown, right? It’s really far from the Upper East Side. You won’t run into him. You’re going to have to set foot in New York at some point.”

“Yeah, it’s just that—”

“Donald is throwing a party this weekend. In his loft. It’s going to be amazing. Jules, come on. You need to get out of that house. Shake it up a little.”

Rob was waiting for me when I arrived the next day. The Thai restaurant he’d picked was cool and dark inside, a bamboo fan spinning lazily on the ceiling. The restaurant was empty at the lunch hour, most people coming for takeout.

“It’s not fancy,” Rob said, drinking his beer. “But I like it.”

“So how much longer are you working at the lab?”

“The end of July, I think. It’s sort of arbitrary. It’s not like I’m really leaving. I’m staying in the same apartment next year.”

“You didn’t want to take time off before school?”

“I did. I took this year.” He reached across the table to try my noodles. “Hey, we’re going out to the Cape this weekend. One of my buddies rented a place for the summer. You should come.”

“You and your roommates? A bunch of dudes?”

“The girls are coming, too. It’s going to be awesome. It’s right on the beach.”

I took a small sip of beer. Elizabeth, urging me to New York. Rob, inviting me to the Cape. I knew this point would come eventually, my hibernation forced to an end. The weekend on the Cape would be fun. I could picture it: the burgers sizzling on the grill, the Frisbee floating back and forth. But I also had the feeling that if I were to do it—to go with Rob for the weekend, to be with him again—the previous four years really would vanish without a trace. Every way in which I thought I’d changed would be wiped out by the easy backslide into his arms. It was tempting, to so cleanly erase the messiness of the past. Adam, Evan, all the mistakes I’d made. The man was going to be a brain surgeon. Our life together could be a good one.