The Futures

by Anna Pitoniak

  When I walked in, the bar looked just as I remembered—dark wood and leather and a soft glow from the chandeliers. I ordered a martini, and it slid down my throat, cold and bracing and wet. I ordered a second one. The bar was half full, a murmur of conversation and clinking ice cubes occasionally punctuated by the cocktail shaker. There was a beautiful foreign-looking couple at a table, the woman’s neck dripping with diamonds. Another young woman in a black dress, a few stools down, glancing nervously at the door. A mother and father and two little boys, the parents drinking their nightcaps while the boys munched on peanuts. It was comforting, being alone in a room with other people. A floating island where we’d all happened to seek refuge in this eerily quiet city.

  The door swung open, letting in the cold. A man in a dark coat and cream-colored scarf came in, peeled off his leather gloves, and ran a hand through his hair. He turned, and I felt a pulse of recognition ripple up my spine. I knew him from somewhere. He scanned the room, and his eyes landed on me.

  He recognized me, too. He smiled and strode over.

  “Hey—it’s Evan, right? Evan Peck?” He extended his hand.

  “Yeah. Hi.” I squinted. “God, I’m sorry, you’re so familiar…”

  “Hey, don’t sweat it. Adam McCard. We met a few times through Julia.”

  Of course. That grin, the too-strong aftershave.

  “Right. Good to see you, man.”

  “You, too. You’re in the city these days?”

  “Yup. Yeah, Julia and I live together.”

  “Oh, no shit. You two stay in town for the holiday?”

  “Just me. I couldn’t really get away from work.”

  “So you wind up here on Thanksgiving night. Hey, things could be worse.” He laughed, showing teeth like white coins. There was something different about him. The few times I’d met Adam in college, he’d always looked past me. Always scanning the room for something else. But that night his eyes were fixed directly on mine.

  “So where do you work?” he said.

  “I’m in finance. Spire Management—a hedge fund, actually.”

  “Wow. They’re huge. You liking it there?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Rough year to start a career in finance.”

  “We’ve been lucky. No layoffs, knock wood.”

  “Amen. What are you working on over there?”

  The bartender swooped over. “Another martini, sir?” I shook my head and asked for the check. When I turned back, Adam was still staring. “Oh, the usual stuff,” I said.

  “You know,” Adam said, lowering his voice, “I saw that Spire’s taking a big position on some lumber company up in Canada. Some really ballsy play. You work on that?”

  Part of me wanted to take credit for it, just to shut Adam up. Yes, I did, and what the hell have you done lately? But I was skittish about saying too much. The deal was public news, but it was habit by then, keeping it close to the chest, need-to-know. “Not really,” I said lightly. “But what about you? I’ve seen your articles. They’re good.”

  He stared for a beat longer. Then, suddenly, the old Adam was back. His gaze slackened and his eyes surfed across the room. “Thanks,” he said in an empty tone. “Glad you’re a fan. Hey, great running into you. I’d better go join my date.”

  The woman in the black dress at the bar lit up with a smile at Adam. “See you around,” Adam said to me. He slid on the stool next to the woman and pulled her in for a long kiss. She had transformed from her nervous self and was suddenly playful as a kitten, kissing his neck and snuggling against him. Adam snapped his fingers at the bartender. I drained the last of my martini and stood up to leave, feeling slightly sick.

  Chapter 12

  Julia

  The forecast called for snow—up to ten inches in the city, the first blizzard of the season. A few flakes were starting to fall when I went out for lunch that Friday afternoon in December, for a chicken-salad sandwich and a Diet Coke from the deli around the corner, where the cashier had finally started to greet me as a regular.

  Laurie had spent most of the day with her door shut. Was there something unusually tense in her mood, in her heavier footsteps and louder sighs? I didn’t notice it at the time. I was daydreaming about the weekend. Abby was throwing a holiday party on Saturday. I had Christmas shopping to do. For Adam, in particular. I’d saved a few hundred dollars during the previous months, bits and pieces from my paychecks. It was a good feeling, having money I had earned and could spend any way I wanted. It was the first time I could say that. I wouldn’t be able to impress Adam monetarily, but maybe I could impress him with a gift that proved just how well I knew him. Something small and perfect. More evidence that we were, in fact, meant to be together.

  “Julia,” Laurie said, startling me from a consideration of whether I could afford one of the first-edition Updikes I’d seen in the window at Argosy. “Come in and talk to me.”

  She shut the door and lowered herself into the chair behind her desk. This was bound to be something annoying. We weren’t just going to chitchat, that was for sure. I’d long since given up hope on that. Laurie only called me in to give dull, impersonal, demanding instructions. A new workflow procedure that needed enacting, a problem that needed fixing. I had forgotten to bring a pen and paper. Pay attention, I thought.

  “So Julia,” she said, sweeping the papers on her desk into a neat stack, squaring the edges. “We have to let you go.”

  I waited. I wasn’t even sure I’d heard her right.

  Laurie cleared her throat, her eyes still fixed on her desk. “The donation promised to us by the Fletchers has fallen through at the last minute. It’s been a difficult year, you obviously know that, and with market circumstances changing so rapidly, the Fletchers didn’t feel they could follow through on their initial commitment. And so without that, we have to cut costs. We’re letting others go, too. I’m afraid today will be your last day.”

  I blinked like a dumb animal. Say something, I thought. Don’t just sit here. But I couldn’t. My mouth was dry and hot and cottony. The room was too warm, the radiator groaning and clanking with steam. Laurie should open a window.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Laurie said. “Do you have any questions?”

  I tried to think of something, anything, to say. This might be my only chance. “How many others?” I managed.

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that. You’re the first person we’ve told.”

  She finally met my gaze. Didn’t she feel an ounce of pity for me, the person who had sat right outside her office for the past five months, answering her phone and making her coffee every goddamn morning? Didn’t she feel anything? I wanted her to explain it, to apologize, to lessen the blow somehow. To say something, anything. It’s not personal. We’re so sorry to do this. Why me? Why not somebody else? Questions? There were a hundred questions swirling through my mind, but I didn’t know how to articulate them. So when Laurie said, “Is that it? Do you have any other questions?” I just shook my head.

  “You’ll be paid through the end of the month. You can leave as soon as you’ve gathered your things. And we’d appreciate your discretion for the time being. Please don’t say anything to the others just yet.”

  The phone started ringing. “I should take this,” Laurie said, visibly relieved at the interruption. “Could you close the door on your way out?”

  I sat down at my desk. I heard the printer humming, the phone ringing in the lobby. The office was unchanged from a few minutes earlier, except for the silent bomb going off in my brain. A half-written e-mail floated on my computer screen. It was a summary of Laurie’s expenses for the month of November, for accounting. A rote, routine e-mail. Anyone could do this after I left. But why not just finish it? All I had to do was attach the statement and click Send. I was numb.

  It was as I started typing that it hit. My hands shook. I was aware of the smooth plastic keys against my fingertips, the too-loud clacking, the strange way the words emerged on
the screen, like someone else was writing them. The last e-mail I’d ever write from this desk. Finally it exploded, flooding my mouth with a sickly iron-tinged flavor. I had just lost my job. I was unemployed. Unemployed. I turned off the computer, gathered my things—an extra pair of shoes, a coffee mug, a spare sweater, that was it—and waited for the elevator. Unemployed. Unemployed. It ran through my head like blinding ticker tape.

  Outside, the snow was starting to thicken. Fat, lazy flakes drifted heavily through the air, coating the pavement in white. There was the sharp piney smell of Christmas trees for sale down the block. I tried calling Abby, but it went to voice mail. I tried my parents next, but they weren’t there. Then I called Adam. He picked up right away.

  “They fired me,” I said, my voice splitting in half, tears springing unbidden.

  I used to wonder, those months I lived in New York, about the women I saw crying in public. Usually they were on the phone, sobbing into the mouthpiece. It was always women. What was it? I wondered. What bad news were they delivering or receiving? It was so disturbing, one red crumpled face in a sea of blank expressions. Did they know something that the rest of us didn’t? Was this the first wave washing ashore with news of some global tragedy, something we’d all hear about in a matter of minutes? In this city, privacy was a luxury. You shared the sidewalks and subways with strangers, heard sirens through the windows, your neighbors through paper-thin plaster. What you did—what you had to do—was erect invisible walls to protect yourself. A stranger sobbing on the street, a dirty hand holding out a cup filled with change, an elbow digging into your back on a crowded train. The person in your bed whom you haven’t really talked to in months. Look forward, breathe in, shut your mouth, think about other places. Think about anything except what’s right in front of you. It’s a way of staying sane in an unreasonable place. But at that moment, I saw the downside of this careful indifference. Even in the cab I wasn’t alone, though I might as well have been. I hiccuped and cried, and the taxi driver kept his gaze straight ahead, the scratched plastic barrier between us.

  Adam gave me the name of a hotel bar in midtown, said that he was on his way. I stopped in the bathroom to clean myself up. I looked awful. I splashed cold water on my face, dropped Visine into my eyes, reapplied lipstick and mascara. I missed Evan suddenly. He’d seen me like this before, crumpled and exhausted and freaked out: Our fights in college, the moments of bad news, the disappointments, the long four years. He never cared how I looked. And he wouldn’t try to stop it; he wouldn’t tell me to snap out of it or calm down. He was quiet and steady, always ready with just the right thing to say. This vanity was stupid. It didn’t matter how I looked. And yet there I was, fixing my hair and makeup like someone about to embark on a blind date.

  Adam wasn’t there yet, so I found a seat at the bar with a view of the TV in the corner. The bartender came over, and I ordered a vodka soda with lime. The TV was tuned to CNN. A reporter in Kabul was describing a recent spate of fatalities. I knew I ought to feel lucky. I could have been born in war-torn Afghanistan, every day fearing for my life, and instead my biggest problem was losing a job I didn’t even like. I had no right to complain. This was my mother kicking in, her voice in my ear. Don’t be a brat, Julia. I finished my drink and waved to the bartender for another. I was glad that my parents hadn’t picked up the phone, actually. Their sympathy would be brief, and then they would immediately embark upon the project of Fixing My Life. But I wanted a few dark hours to dwell in my resentment. I wanted to get really, really drunk. I wanted Adam to fuck me and then hold me while I fell asleep. I didn’t want to go back to my shitty apartment on the Upper East Side, my shitty life.

  I realize now: that should have been another clue. I had just lost my job—I hated the sound of those words—but I didn’t want the encouragement of my parents. I didn’t want the genuine sympathy of Abby. Even though part of me wanted to call Evan, I didn’t, I couldn’t—I couldn’t go back to that old life. I didn’t want anything useful from the people who’d known me the longest. What I wanted was Adam. He offered me an escape. A new situation entirely. I couldn’t see it at the time, but Adam was always the easiest way out.

  When I was halfway through my second drink—where was he?—the CNN anchor switched to coverage of the Bernie Madoff scandal. Madoff had been arrested the day before. They interviewed one of his victims, a sad old man in Florida with eyes like a basset hound. I fiddled with my phone, wondering if I should call Adam. Abby had texted. Saw your call, what’s up? I had started typing out a reply when I heard my name.

  He ran over. He ran. That’s how much he cared. I dissolved. “Oh, Julia,” Adam said, kissing my forehead. “Babe, babe. It’s okay. I’m here.” He was the only one who understood. He put his arm around me and steered me toward a booth in the corner. I hadn’t wanted to cry in front of him like this, but maybe it didn’t matter. If Adam and I were going to be together, really together, I had to trust that he wouldn’t care about a few tears. He went to the bar and returned with whiskey for him and a vodka soda for me, with a wedge of lime floating on top. A little part of me wondered whether he’d finally remembered my drink order or whether the bartender had corrected his mistake.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. He held his glass up, clinking it against mine. “Or should we just leave it at ‘Fuck them, they’re idiots’?”

  He wanted me to laugh. I did, and he smiled.

  When I told him what happened, I found that a story emerged. A narrative with a satisfying arc. It was so obvious when I traced it from beginning to end: I was the victim. I didn’t deserve this. So what if I’d hated the job? That wasn’t the point. The point was that it was unfair. I had worked hard, never made a mistake. I’d been fucked over, and I was angry about it. I had every right to be angry. It had taken the firing for me to see that. I was angry at Laurie and the Fletchers and Evan and everyone who had been treating me like shit for the previous six months. The floodgates were opening.

  “So wait a second,” Adam said. “Laurie said that the Fletchers had to cancel their donation for financial reasons, right?”

  “Yeah. Apparently they’re having a bad year.” I thought of my father, on the phone with Henry Fletcher every day over Thanksgiving weekend. It made sense. The Fletchers were running out of money.

  “Did she say specifically that they were strapped for cash?”

  “I don’t really remember. It happened so fast.” He was staring at me. “Why? What is it?”

  “It doesn’t add up.” Adam pulled his phone out, typed something in, then handed it to me. “Look at this.”

  “What?”

  “It’s from today’s Journal. Just read the first paragraph.”

  ForeCloser, a company that tracks upcoming foreclosure auctions within a given geographic range, announced today that it has raised $20 million in Series B financing. The round was led by Fletcher Partners and included founding investor Henry Fletcher. ForeCloser will use the financing to aggressively increase the scope of its geographic coverage, which is currently limited to California, Washington and Oregon. In the announcement, the company outlined a goal of covering all 50 states by the end of 2009.

  I looked up at him.

  “Do you see what this means?” he said. “The Fletchers are fine. They have plenty of money. Maybe they withdrew their donation, but it wasn’t because they didn’t have the cash for it.”

  “So they still could have donated the—then what?”

  “I’m sorry, babe. It isn’t right.”

  Something turned. Darkened. “What the fuck, then? Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know, Jules. These people play by a different set of rules. Henry Fletcher isn’t thinking about what’s fair or not. Maybe when things were flush, he was happy to toss a little aside to make his wife happy. You know, give her a charity to play with. But now that the market’s bucking, he has to stay lean. You see what he’s doing, don’t you?”

  Adam finished
his drink, held up two fingers at the bartender. His eyes were hard, shining, in pursuit of something. I’d never seen them like that. Or at least that’s what I thought, in the moment. I had seen that gleam before. I knew what it meant. But I’d suppressed that memory with remarkable success.

  “I mean, look at this company he’s investing in. People want to snap up these foreclosures while they’re cheap, and Henry Fletcher is going to get rich by helping them do it faster. They’ll make money flipping these properties, and he’ll make money giving them access. These guys just drove the economy off a cliff, and now they’re trying to suck more money from the corpses. They’re actually profiting from all this. It’s more than unfair. They should go to jail, if you ask me.”

  The alcohol made everything swirl together. Evan always at work. Tossing aside the manila envelope, like it was nothing. The arrogance, the indifference. Why did no one ever care about right or wrong? Why did no one ever care about me? Adam slid a new drink in front of me.

  “It’s fucked up, right?” He held my hand tenderly. My mind was going fuzzy, the radio signal growing faint. “They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with these things. None of these guys should.”

  The spark had been lit. I’d succeeded at one thing, at least: getting really, really drunk. I was aware, in a detached way, of the rising pitch of my voice, of my frustration releasing in a continuous vent. Everything came spilling out. Adam kept signaling to the bartender, never letting my glass sit empty. What was I saying? I lost my train of thought. He mentioned Evan’s name. I shook my head. I hated Evan; I hated everything that Evan made me feel. Evan, who reminded me of everything that had gone wrong, of every disappointment.