Near + Far (6 page)

High school passed like high school. He never got that close to Casey again. She flitted from boyfriend to boyfriend, but by the time he was aware she'd left one, she'd already be with someone else. Once, for three days, it was Alf. Then they broke up, leaving him red-eyed and ragged.

Most of the kids watched the four of them, knew what they were doing (which instantly became cool, whether it was bowling or wearing baseball hats), but didn't socialize with them. It was as though the rest of the school provided a backdrop, scenery against which their stories played out.

He wasn't sure what most of the teachers thought of them, but Mr. Laskowski warned him at one point when he caught Glen trying a cigarette—some girls liked the taste, and it never hurt to have a touch of bad boy about you—in the school parking lot.

"Don't become like Lipton or Cho," he said. "They're just treading water, waiting to get through high school. Missing out on some of their best years. You can do better than that. You're a decent artist when you work at it."

Glen thought later, years later, that perhaps every high school had them. The boys and girls who ruled the school, whose favor or lack thereof could shape a lesser kid's personal existence. He thought, though, that usually everything after high school was uphill for them, that they would never achieve their glory days again.

But it wasn't so for the Peaches. Fred started a software company halfway through his time at Harvard that made him a millionaire by the day he graduated. Penelope's novel made the bestseller list, somehow expressing the zeitgeist in a way that had every young adult in America clutching a copy. Derek was rumored to have gone to work for a government think-tank.

Casey went to journalism school. Her lively, informal prose led her to television journalism, where her looks and personable delivery netted her an early morning show.

It surprised him that they hadn't kept up with the music. They'd been so
good
. But nothing of it, as though, ascending to college, they'd abandoned their adolescent passion.

Life overtook Glen. He forgot about them for the most part. He met a woman, Eloise, in grad school and married her. They had no children, but had successful careers.

He still drew sometimes, although only for himself; he never showed the pictures to anyone. Complex landscapes with machinery buried underneath, showing through like a skeleton, gears gleaming in the rent of a tree's bark, screws bolting a clump of grass to the sidewalk.

Periodically he remembered that music. He'd hear something on the radio, some new release, and he'd think that it reminded him of a song played in the echoing loft. They had moved effortlessly from one style to another, sometimes a hard driving metal beat that had acquired a gritty edge, an undertone of concrete and late night steel, then bubblegum as vacuous and sweet as cotton candy, singing it, half-laughing all the while.

When he ran into Casey, he knew her immediately, despite the decade and a half since he'd last seen her. He could tell she knew him from the way her eyes widened, even though she tried to play it off as though she didn't. He bought her a Frappuccino and they caught up.

As he might have expected, the four of
them
had stayed in touch with each other. Fred had been off in Tibet, she said, and added, "Studying some sort of transcendental stuff." Penelope had recently approached Casey about a film project.

"A chance to break into films." Casey's dimples were still deep enough to lose your heart in. "It's very kind of her, to give me that."

Something odd about her tone. Perhaps she and Penelope had had a falling out? Glen thought better of questioning it, not wanting to bring up a potentially upsetting topic.

"I bet the others would like to see you," she said. "Fred's got a box at the baseball stadium, and we're all going there next Saturday."

His wife would be out of town. There was no reason to say no.

At the game, deferential ushers showed them down a hallway to the luxury box. Again, a fridge full of beers, but this time wine and champagne as well, and harder stuff, all dispensed by a bartender with teeth as white as his apron.

No one seemed surprised by Glen's appearance after all this time. In fact, Fred said, "I was just wondering when we'd see you again."

Glen accepted a Heineken from the bartender and settled down to nurse it. The seats were covered with soft red velvet, clean and fresh. The rug underfoot was sculpted with deep swirls. Penelope and Derek were in a corner, arguing in low whispers. Penelope looked unhappy. Dark rings splayed themselves underneath her eyes.

The rest of them played "Whatever Happened To." Time had not dealt well with most of their classmates: several suicides, a public and inadvertent outing that destroyed a political career, multiple scandals (one involving a teacher).

"What about Alf?" Glen said.

A silence fell on the room like a curtain. Even Penelope and Derek glanced over from their argument.

"He jumped off a building," Fred said. "Isn't that right, Casey?"

Glen was uncertain whether or not to laugh. Fred's tone implied he should; Casey's angry face said he shouldn't.

"We don't talk about Alf," she said briefly.

After the game, they went back to Fred's loft, this time a place of exposed brick and floor-to-ceiling windows and stainless steel appliances and an enormous balcony somehow joined onto the side of the building. Casey followed him out onto it. She laid her hand over his. Her perfume hadn't changed after all these years.

He closed his eyes, inhaling. The sounds of the street floated up, cars and shouts, and distant rap music. He could feel her next to him. When he opened his eyes again, the light dazzled him.

"I've always liked you, you know that, don't you?" she said.

He flashed on moonlight and a grainy screen. "I have a wife," he blurted out.

"It's like high school again," she said. "Never the right time. Maybe someday we'll meet when the moment's ripe."

He wanted her, she wanted him, but thoughts of Eloise fettered him. "Give me something to remember," he said. "Something to fantasize about till then."

Years of longing pressed his mouth to hers.

When he woke the next morning, his lips felt bruised and raw. He stared into the mirror, wondering what to tell—if to tell—Eloise. He didn't want to leave her, he realized. He was done with fantasies, illusions. They had built a good life together, one that outweighed any castle in the air.

Something about Casey made him wary. He'd sensed it before, first in girls and then in women—ones who thought themselves in total control of the relationship. Sometimes arrogance, sometimes just a deep belief in the power of pussy. Casey thought she had him sewed up, and that set him on edge.

Making coffee, he glanced out the window. Rain. But he'd left his hat at Fred's loft. When he called, Fred said sure, come over and get it.

He took a cab, thinking about Casey, going over and over the memory of the kiss on the balcony, the way she had looked at him when he'd stammered goodnight. She burned in his mind. He felt himself fluttering too close. Eloise, think of Eloise, of the comfortable house and the deck they liked to sit out on and read to each other. Eloise understood him, and liked him more than he liked himself, truth be told. Was the same true of Casey? Was she amusing herself with another three-day wonder like Alf, or was she in it for the long haul?

He complimented Fred on the loft again. Fred was blue-striped bath-robed, barefoot, and sleepy-haired.

"The place is all right," Fred said with a twist of his lips. "The view is nice, anyway. Have you seen Casey's place?"

Embarrassment struck Glen. What was Fred implying?

"No," he said.

"Not yet, eh?" Fred said.

"What do you mean?"

Fred looked at him, surprised. "She wants you. You can tell that, certainly."

"Yes," he said. The wonder of it fluttered in his chest. He added, "But I'm married, I told her that."

"Ah, a touch of frustration to up the tension. Well played."

Glen had the sensation of treading water far out of his depth. "I don't ... "

Fred said, "Do you love your wife?"

"Beyond any question," Glen replied without hesitating.

"How sad." Fred shoved the hat towards Glen and gestured at the door.

Glen resisted. "What do you mean by that?"

"Things have a way of working out for Casey," Fred said.

Two weeks later, Eloise was hit by a car that jumped the curb when its gas pedal got stuck.

She had been on her way to the hardware store to get a washer to fix a leaky faucet. Glen's first thought upon hearing the news was ridiculous irritation, a petty infant whimper regarding who would take care of small house repairs now.

Then the news hit him.

The bottom dropped out of his world. Shattered. He could feel himself flying in all directions, out of control. Helpless to control the explosion that tore him apart.

Casey wasn't at the funeral, but Fred was.

"A real shame," he said.

Glen fumbled for the unthinkable. "Fred ... you said ... did Casey have something to do with this?"

Fred studied his face. That same old avidity, a greedy hummingbird sipping at Glen's emotions. "How could she have?"

"I don't know ... all of you four ... everything seems so golden for you," he said helplessly.

Fred grinned. "Oh, does it seem odd? Are you waking up, zombie boy? Or is this all just part of her overall game? I thought she had this one refined by now, but she's never been finished working on you. What's the appeal, I wonder? All that shaggy poetic charm, with your hipster beard and earnest look and outlet jeans?"

Other people in the funeral crowd were watching. Glen leaned into Fred and said, low and fierce as he could manage, "I don't know what you mean, but I will, I promise you that."

Fred laughed.

"What about the music?" Glen said.

He'd scored a hit, he could tell. Fred took in a breath, released it. Said, "I don't know what you mean." He wheeled and walked away.