The Futures

by Anna Pitoniak

  The next morning, she was still asleep when I left for work.

  * * *

  August arrived, and the city grew quiet. Our neighborhood was a ghost town on weekends. It had become a way of marking time, the Hampton Jitney pulling up on Sunday evenings, the seep of sunburned passengers back to the crosshatch of numbered streets. Everyone who could afford to had fled for the beach.

  Work was quiet, too. I checked everything two or three times, guarding myself against boneheaded mistakes. The bosses accepted the work I was doing with a clipped thank-you. I tried to see this as a positive—the models and decks must have been good enough to make it across their desks without comment—but I felt a crackling undercurrent of worry. The sluggish market, rumors about layoffs. There were still long stretches of hours, sometimes days, when I didn’t have much to do. Maybe it had been rash to jump at this job. Maybe I should have thought more about trying to play hockey after college—in Europe or the minors. My life at that moment would have been totally different.

  Until one Friday night in early August, when my luck changed.

  It was early evening. The higher-ups had left around lunchtime to beat the beach traffic. The other analysts were already at McGuigan’s. I was getting ready to leave when my phone rang.

  “Could you stop by?” Michael Casey asked in a flat, untelling tone.

  When I arrived, he looked up from a stack of papers and gestured me inside. I hadn’t been in there since the interview back in March. His office was bare of decoration except for a few pictures of him and a younger blond woman who had to be his wife, the two of them smiling against Caribbean sunsets and snowy ski hills. She looked a bit like Julia, though not as pretty. No kids, I noticed. Michael was unsmiling. “So, Evan. How have things been? What are you working on?”

  “Good. Great. Things have been great. I’ve, um, been working on a few projects for Steve. He’s had me run some models for the macro group. And, uh…”

  Michael nodded briskly. “Fine. And are you liking it? Is the work engaging?”

  “Well, um, yeah, I would say it is.” Shit. This was exactly what I’d feared, coming across as some inarticulate hick with nothing to say. “It’s been really interesting, learning about these new markets, and—”

  “All right. It’s okay, Evan. Relax. We don’t have to skirt around this. I know what it’s like, your first month on the job. It’s boring. You can admit that, okay?”

  I laughed. I hoped it sounded confident, not nervous. “I guess.”

  “I was impressed with you in our interview, Evan. I was. I admire your ambition. It’s not easy to get yourself out of a small town. Trust me, I know. What I want to know is what you’re looking to get out of this. Don’t get me wrong. Some people just want to do their two years, go to business school. They’ll do fine for themselves. Dip their toe in, then do the next thing. For some people, that’s just fine.”

  Michael leaned back in his chair, his evening stubble catching in the light.

  “You know, I grew up in South Dakota, on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Where I came from, people never left. You understand what I’m talking about.”

  I sat up a little straighter. “I do.”

  “People like us, we actually have an advantage. We remember where we came from. We work that much harder. Now, Spire gets its pick of who to hire. The best and the brightest. But it’s not often I have the chance to hire someone like you. Someone who reminds me a little of myself.”

  A few blocks away, my coworkers were already drinking and laughing, off duty for the night. I felt a buzz and pop of adrenaline near the point where my spine met my brain. Just like at the beginning of a game, right before the puck drops.

  “Evan. I think you’re smart. I think you’ve got huge potential. My question is, what are you looking for? Do you want to try for something bigger?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  The tone shifted. Faster, more relentless. I was trying to keep up.

  “I’ll tell you, first of all, there are no sure things. We always have to bear that in mind. Nothing is certain. But this is the closest thing to certainty that I’ve ever seen in this world. So. What’s the most important thing you learned about hedge funds when you decided you wanted to work here?”

  “How to—how to exploit inefficiencies in the market?”

  “That’s one thing. And some people may agree with you that it’s the most important thing, but that’s not the answer. The most important thing you need to know is the art of timing. Being first. Knowing when to get in and when to get out. Knowing the inefficiencies does you no good if you screw up the timing.”

  “Right. Timing. I see.”

  “And what does the right timing allow you to do? What’s the primary rule of arbitrage?”

  “Buy low, sell high?”

  “Exactly. If you can get it cheap and find a market for it at a higher price, then that’s all there is. Simple, right? And if you can time it perfectly, then you’re golden. So what’s the cheapest thing you can buy right now in this country?”

  “Well, um…”

  “You read the news. You see what’s happening with the housing market. We’re right on the edge of a complete collapse.”

  “Housing? So buying up cheap housing? And then find—”

  “No. Right track, though. Break it down into components, make it liquid. What do you need to build houses? What’s in demand when the market is booming? I’m talking physical resources. Something you can count and measure and ship.”

  “Lumber?”

  “You would think this would be a terrible time to bet on lumber, with the housing market cratering, right?”

  “Right.”

  “No one is going to touch it. No one with an ounce of sense. People go looking for an ark in a flood. Who goes looking for more water? So what does that mean, Evan?”

  “It’s cheap.”

  “Dirt cheap. And that’s where we come in.”

  “You guys celebrating something?” Maria asked as she brought over another round, later that same night. We were at McGuigan’s, at our usual booth in the corner. Maria, our regular bartender, was just a few years older than we were. “The weekend,” Roger said loudly. “Why don’t you join us for a round, gorgeous?” Maria smiled with cool tolerance while she stacked our empty glasses. Roger had been leering at her for weeks. “That one’s mine, fellas. I call dibs,” he said when she was barely out of earshot.

  I felt my phone buzz with yet another text from Julia. I was supposed to meet her at a party downtown, and my time was up. I went to the bar to pay for my drinks. Roger often laid down his card at the end of the night, picking up the tab like he was some big shot, but I didn’t like the feeling that I owed him something.

  “Leaving already?” Maria said. She counted out my change, but I waved it away.

  “Yeah. A party downtown. I’m already late.” I wondered why I didn’t mention anything about Julia—that I was meeting my girlfriend at the party, that my girlfriend was the one pestering me to get going. I hadn’t yet found a way to work Julia into any of my conversations with Maria. I wasn’t sure I needed to, or wanted to.

  “Have fun, Evan,” she said. “See you next week, right?”

  I called her name from across the room. Julia was out on the balcony, staring at the Brooklyn skyline with that same vacant look I’d noticed her slipping into on occasion.

  There was a pulse of relief across her face when she saw me, and then her expression clouded back into annoyance. Maybe it would have been better to make up some lie about work and skip the party entirely. But she had insisted I come along. “Jake Fletcher is having a party for the opening ceremonies tonight,” she said that morning, calling after me as I was about to leave. “We have to go. Remember? It’s his parents’ foundation I’m working for, after all.”

  The television in the corner showed a massive stadium filled with flag-bearing marchers. I squinted and moved closer through the packed living room. I
thought of Michael’s abrupt departure a few hours earlier, and it finally made sense.

  A ding had sounded from Michael’s BlackBerry as we were talking. He glanced at the screen and stood up sharply. “I have to go,” he said. “I’ve got a flight to catch. I had one of our researchers pull this material together”—he indicated a blue binder on the desk—“and I want you to get up to speed. We’ll convene when I’m back.” He started down the hallway, and I had to jog to keep up. Before Michael stepped into the elevator, I asked where he was going.

  He looked up from his phone, brow furrowed. Then he smiled. “China.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s great. For business, or—” but the doors slid closed.

  I’d forgotten about the Olympics until then, but the scene on the TV explained it. He and his wife were probably reclined in their first-class seats at that moment, en route to Beijing. I still hadn’t quite absorbed it—Michael, the legendary and fearsome Michael, had just handpicked me for this big new project. At the party, I tried to pull Julia aside to tell her the news. But she kept shaking herself free of my grasp. She knew everybody there: friends from Boston, from prep school, from college. Most of the time she remembered to introduce me—“Oh, do you know my boyfriend, Evan? Evan, this is so-and-so”—and I’d nod and they’d continue talking. Anyway, I suspected that I had served my purpose the moment I’d walked through the door. I’d proved to Julia that I was a loyal boyfriend who would answer her call, and Julia had proved the same thing to her friends. A lot of them worked in finance, like me, but it didn’t give us anything to talk about. Everyone worked in finance.

  As the party ended, I climbed into the cab while she was saying good-bye to someone on the sidewalk. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them we were almost home. Julia was at the other side of the backseat, legs crossed, staring out the window. I felt a jolt at that moment. Annoyed with how the night had gone, with this sour distance between us, that stupid party. Things were about to change for the better, beginning right then.

  “Leave it off,” I said, when Julia went to turn on the lights in our apartment. I kicked the door closed and pushed her up against the wall. She tasted like sweet white wine, and that made me even harder, knowing that she was drunk. She snaked her fingers through my hair. She was yanking loose my tie, unbuttoning my shirt, unbuckling my belt. I hitched up her dress and we had sex against the living room wall, her legs wrapped around me. “Oh, God, Evan,” she said, her fingertips digging into my scalp, our bodies slamming into the wall. “Oh, my God.”

  We collapsed on the bed afterward. We hadn’t had sex like that in a long time. Later, I realized that I never told Julia what happened at work. It was the whole reason I’d been trying to get her attention, but when I finally had it, I’d completely forgotten about it.

  The blue binder from Michael was waiting right where I’d left it the night before. I’d woken up without an alarm that morning, showered, and gone straight to the office. While I was waiting for my computer to warm up, I pulled out my cell phone and flipped it open and shut, considering whether to call Arthur. Maybe I was making too big a deal about our fight. But it wasn’t even 10:00 a.m., and Arthur liked to sleep late. I put the phone back in my pocket and opened the binder.

  It contained a massive sheaf of information about the state of the North American lumber markets: quarterly reports, stock trends, charts and graphs of historical data, analyst predictions for the coming years. The recommendation was unanimously bleak. The rest of 2008 into 2009 and 2010 and beyond was terrible. In our conversation the night before, Michael had hinted about a new source of demand, but what new source of demand? I couldn’t see it. My optimism started to evaporate. Suddenly someone was paying attention to my work. This might be the thing that exposed me as a fraud once and for all.

  Roger sauntered in later. “Whatcha working on there, Peck?” he drawled.

  “Just something for Michael,” I said. The last thing Michael had told me was to keep quiet about this new assignment, for the time being. Roger stared for a beat before he sat down. He made a point, later that day, of not inviting me to lunch. He didn’t say good-bye that night, either. But I didn’t care. I was going to have bigger problems than Roger if I didn’t figure this out fast.

  It was only at the very end of the day, when the office had emptied again, that I finally saw it. The page was headlined BRITISH COLUMBIA PRODUCERS—PACIFIC WESTCORP. The number I’d been focusing on was “Growth Forecast 2009.” It was a useful indicator, and for the most part that number had been negative, often double-digit negative. Flat at the very best. But Pacific WestCorp was predicting 200 percent growth for the next fiscal year.

  Two hundred percent growth. I reached for a highlighter.

  There was a line in fine print that broke out the predicted revenue for 2009 in terms of North American versus international markets. Nearly all of next year’s revenue for Pacific WestCorp was predicted to come from international markets. And below that was an analyst’s note: Pacific WestCorp predicts exports to China in FY 2009 will increase tenfold, to $500 million CAD.

  I sighed in relief, letting the yellow highlighter bleed through the paper. But a series of questions sprang to life in the back of my mind, like popcorn popping in the microwave. Why weren’t these predictions making news all over the Street? Why wasn’t everyone lining up behind this company? If this held true, it would be the easiest decision anyone ever had to make—Pacific WestCorp was going to make a fortune. But the answers sprang up, too, like echoes to the popping questions. Investors were often skittish about exports to China. It was a risky game, and the taxes and tariffs and unpredictable barriers to entry were enough to dissuade most people. There were far saner ways to make money. The Chinese didn’t always play by the same rules as we did, and that was a dangerous proposition when hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake.

  “China,” Michael had said with a smile, just before the elevator door closed.

  * * *

  As the market sunk deeper, the numbers that had been hovering in the back of my mind started to loop obsessively: my student loans and my share of the rent on one side, the comforting and hefty regularity of my paychecks on the other. I couldn’t admit my worry aloud. No one at work talked much about the crisis as it escalated. It was too big to put words to; too abstract, too unknown, but mostly too frightening.

  But, finally, on the morning of Monday, September 15, our CEO, David Kleinman, summoned the entire office to the fortieth-floor boardroom before the markets opened. Lehman was about to go under, and Merrill was on the edge. What Michael had been talking about was finally here, the water lapping at our doorstep.

  Roger hummed the death march as we walked up the fire stairs. “A hundred bucks says at least ten people go home today,” he said.

  “Jesus, Roger, don’t say that.”

  “Is that a bet?”

  “Hell, no. If I’m fired, I’m gonna need all the money I can get.”

  “You’re not getting fired, teacher’s pet.”

  We continued trudging. I’d been wondering when Roger was going to say something. There was no way he hadn’t noticed my increased tempo, the early mornings and late nights and busy weekends, all of it because of the budding WestCorp deal. But he’d kept his mouth shut over the previous month, concealing what was almost certainly jealousy.

  Kleinman walked into the boardroom. “Everyone here?” he asked. His bald pate shone under the lights. Michael, to his right, nodded at him. “Good,” Kleinman continued. “The reason I’ve called you here this morning—well, you know the reason. It’s a shitstorm out there, and today’s only going to get worse. Now, let me make this clear from the start. Spire is healthy and profitable, and we are well equipped to weather this. No one is being let go. I repeat, no one is being let go. Not today, not for the foreseeable future.”

  He paused. “You can all relax, you know. Christ. Loosen up, people.”

  Someone laughed, then another person. Someon
e started clapping.

  “See, that’s what I want.” Kleinman smiled. “We’re smarter and faster and better than the other guys. I’m not saying this isn’t serious—you all know people who will lose their jobs, people whose companies might even go under. But if you keep doing what you’re doing, you can sleep at night knowing that your future at Spire is secure.

  “So. That begs the question: Why am I taking up your very valuable time? Right now there’s a helicopter sitting on the roof of this building that will take me to Teterboro, where I’m getting on a plane to DC. I’m joining the government advisory team until we get through this crisis. I got the call early this morning, and I wasn’t given much time to decide. But it was clear to me what I had to do.”

  Kleinman glanced around the silent room for reactions.

  “This means that for the next few weeks or the next few months, or however long this takes to settle down, I’m handing over the reins to Michael Casey. Michael will lead you through this just as well as I could myself. And we didn’t get to where we are today by caving under pressure. So don’t fuck this up.” Another small wave of laughter, and he smiled again. “I’ll see you all on the other side.”

  Kleinman stood up. The rest of the executives followed suit, nodding at him crisply, ready to do battle. He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, his secretary chasing him with a pen and one last piece of paper to sign. Everyone started to file out. Only Michael remained seated. Running his hands over the finely grained wood of the table, and smiling to himself.

  Chapter 4

  Julia