The Futures(92)

She propped herself up on one elbow, rested her hand on my chest. Her palm covered my heart. “It’s time.”

Maria stood up and padded into the bathroom. I heard the sound of the bath running. Her cat was atop the refrigerator, purring loudly in her sleep. I got dressed and hovered outside the bathroom door, my hand almost touching the doorknob. I could smell the candle she liked to burn while she was in the bath. And then I stopped. I withdrew my hand. I let myself out, looking around the apartment one last time to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

Arthur was passing through the city the following weekend. He had been accepted to all the top law schools in the country—no surprise there—and was making up his mind about where to go. He was in town to visit NYU and Columbia before swinging up to see Harvard and Yale, and he was staying with me for the night.

“This is weirdly good,” Arthur said. “I had no idea you knew how to cook.”

“I’m learning.” Enchiladas, nothing special. It was Friday night, a week since I’d last seen Maria. I thought about her, but only occasionally. She had been right. Arthur and I sat on the futon, plates balanced on our knees. “So you’re really up for spending another three years in New Haven?”

“There are worse things. I don’t think it would be anything like undergrad. It would probably feel like a totally different place. Different people. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“You going to be ready to go in a minute?” he asked. Arthur’s phone kept buzzing. A friend from college was throwing a party that night in her Williamsburg apartment. Really more Arthur’s friend than my friend. He had a lot of people to see during his short visit to the city. “What’s the best way to get there?”

“The six to the L, I think.”

When we got to the party, I recognized a few people from school. I asked one guy what he’d been up to since graduation, and he cocked his head. “Same thing as before, man,” he said, taking a long draw from his beer. His tone was odd, almost offended. And then I fuzzily recalled: it was this guy. I’d talked to him at a party not so different from this one, several months earlier. Back when I was still at Spire and still with Julia. “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Shit. Sorry. I knew that. I have a bad memory.”

My memory was fine. But memory was beside the point when I wasn’t even noticing things in the first place. The thing that kept me going through the months at Spire—it was the same thing that had kept me alive through playoffs and postseason intensity in the past. An adrenalized tunnel vision, everything else dropping away into background noise. And maybe that was okay in short bursts, but there was a danger when it went on for too long. For months at a time. It was like a hole in my brain. There was an entire section missing.

A little later, I felt a hand on my elbow. I turned around and saw Abby.

“Evan,” she said after we hugged. “Wow. It’s so nice to see you.”

“Been a while, huh? How are things?”

I didn’t really have to ask. Her happiness was obvious.

“Well, I’m in the home stretch.”

“School’s almost done for the year?”

“Praise the Lord.” She laughed.

People came in and out, rearranging our corner of the room. Abby and I didn’t get to talk for much longer. I caught her eye a few times and started to move toward her, but then someone else would get in the way. Her gaze said the same thing—we were both thinking about the one thing missing from this night. The hip-hop on the stereo, the keg in the bathtub, the Solo cups scattered across the kitchen counters. It was almost like college. Almost, but not quite.

“Hey,” Arthur said, coming over. “Ready to go? I’ve got an early train.”

I glanced back over at Abby, stuck in conversation with some close talker. I took a deep breath. I wanted to interrupt. This merited interruption, didn’t it? A chance for news of the person I had spent four years of my life with and hadn’t heard from in months? But Arthur was already holding the door open, waiting for me.

We took the subway back to the Upper East Side. “Pizza?” Arthur pointed at the neon sign of the slice joint on Lexington. It was just like old times. Two pepperoni for me, one cheese for him.

“Was it weird?” he said on the walk back to the apartment. “Seeing Abby?”

“Kind of.”

“You don’t talk about her much, you know.”

“Who? Julia?”

“No, the Mona Lisa. Yes, dummy. Julia. The girl you used to live with?”

I shrugged. “What is there to say?”

“Well, you don’t have to be so stoic. You can admit that you’re upset. Or mad or whatever. You don’t have to pretend like nothing happened. It’s kind of strange.”

“I’m not. I’m just…” I shrugged again. “I’ve learned to live with it.”

We walked for a while. By silent agreement we sat down on the stoop outside my building, finishing our pizza. I felt a click, the temperature rising a notch. “Why?” I said. “Did you want to say something about Julia? Do you have something you need to say?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on. You’re not tempted to say ‘I told you so’? That you could have seen this coming all along?”