“I’ll make room,” Jess protested, but just then the doorbell rang and they heard Jonathan’s voice, and Richard’s welcoming him, happier than he’d been all afternoon. Of course, Jonathan was just the sort Richard loved: technical and bright and poised to conquer worlds.
Emily ran down to him. Boxes and magazines, even Rabbi Zylberfenig was forgotten. Jonathan was like the cavalry coming over the hill. You couldn’t help racing to meet him. Richard grinned. The little girls giggled, and Heidi grew girlish herself, laughing when he told her to send students his way.
“We’ll lose a generation of academics if everyone goes to work for you at ISIS,” she said.
Everyone laughed at Jonathan’s response: “Well, that’s okay.”
Even Jess, who liked him least, felt Jonathan’s extraordinary pull. You wanted to please him, or at least stand back and watch. What was it about him? His sheer energy. His masculinity. He was such a guy: square-shouldered, forthright. He had served in the Marines before college, and there was something military about him still, his hair cropped short, his feet-apart, stand-and-deliver attitude even in conversation. He had the devil in him too, a take-no-prisoners smile. He adored Emily, and when they were together his good looks were touched by humility, his blue eyes softened. When he took her hand, his thumb stroked hers yearningly.
At the barbecue where they’d met, his first words to Emily had been, “I have a huge crush on you.”
She’d burst out laughing. Surrounded by men at work, she was used to unspoken admiration, passive aggression, sometimes inappropriate advances. Not this mix of audacity and humor.
He’d added, “I like your company too.”
“Was that a pun, or did you mean Veritech?”
He’d shaken his head. “I’ve never made a pun in my life!”
“Not even unintentionally?”
“I guess that was my first. I was talking about Veritech.”
“What do you like about it?”
“Your new indexing system, your partners, your client list. You guys are so cool. You’re ubiquitous.” He said the word with reverence. “You’re doing everything I want to do.”
After an hour, which felt like three, and a snack of Goldfish crackers in the kitchen with the kids, she and Jonathan made their escape. For a moment in the driveway, Jonathan’s Datsun wouldn’t start, and Emily began to fret, and Jonathan laughed at her, and when the old car started at last, he drew her toward him and kissed her while the engine idled.
“Just wait,” said Jonathan as they drove off. By which he meant, “Wait ’til we get to my place. Wait ’til I have you all alone. Wait ’til this old wreck becomes a yellow Lamborghini.” Unlike Emily, Jonathan had no trouble envisioning the toys he’d buy, and the fun he’d have. He knew precisely the canary yellow of his future car, its huge motor and bulbous lights, its doors like wings.
In the meantime, the engine sounded hoarse, and traffic slowed down on the pike. When they finally got to Cambridge, there wasn’t time to stop at Jonathan’s apartment before dinner with their friends Orion and Molly.
“Let’s cancel,” Jonathan said.
“We can’t just stand them up.”
“Why not? I want to,” Jonathan protested, his expression frank and boyish, softening his words. “I see Orion every day.”
“But I don’t,” said Emily. “And we never see Molly.”
“Nobody does,” Jonathan said. Molly was an intern at Beth Israel Deaconess.
“Then this is a rare opportunity.” Emily was not above teasing him a little. “Not to be missed.”
After looping several times through one-way streets, they parked far from the restaurant, and ended up rushing through Harvard Square on foot. Emily always forgot how cold it got. Her shearling jacket wasn’t nearly warm enough, and she was shivering, while Jonathan didn’t need a coat, only a sweater, and he gave Emily his knit hat, a gesture both chivalrous and clumsy, as he pulled it down too hard, covering her eyes.
They met Orion and Molly on Brattle Street, and when the four of them entered Casablanca, the sudden warmth fogged Emily’s glasses. As she took them off and wiped them, she saw Molly do the same, and the two smiled in solidarity, acquaintances searching for something in common. Orion was the one Emily knew well. He had been Emily’s childhood friend when, for several summers, they attended CTY, the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins. At eleven, twelve, and thirteen, they took courses in physics and advanced geometry along with other children selected nationwide. Emily had studied Greek, and Orion took astronomy. Renaissance children, they lived in dorms with other earnest middle-schoolers blowing through problem sets, practicing violin, gathering several times a week for camp games designated by their counselors as “mandatory fun.”
At CTY, Orion had been Emily’s first sweetheart, the first boy she walked with hand in hand; and one summer night, her first kiss. They had been standing close, studying each other, a small blond Orion and a slightly taller Emily, each wondering what the other was thinking, and each afraid to ask. They both held still. The moment was delicious, almost unbearable. Emily knew she had to do something. She took off her glasses and held them open at her side. His lips touched hers. So this is kissing, she thought. She couldn’t taste anything. It wasn’t that kind of kiss. It was the kind that hung in the air, beautiful and abstract, like a theorem to contemplate. The moment afterward was lovely, much sweeter than the kiss itself. They could breathe again.
They corresponded during the school year, mailing handwritten letters—Orion’s scrawled on notebook paper, Emily’s printed on blue stationery patterned with white clouds. She must have written three letters to his one, and she remembered pointing this out on the phone. She’d been tearful, and he’d grown quiet, and finally he told her that his parents were splitting up. Then she understood, and the understanding was pure Emily—unselfish insight. She realized that corresponding was too much for him, and pining for each other was a little much as well. “Maybe we should stop,” she whispered. “We’re only thirteen.”
By high school, their romance was well behind them, and in college they settled into occasional e-mail exchanges. He went to graduate school at MIT, and one summer when Emily came east to see her father, Orion introduced her to Jonathan. So she had Orion to thank for that. Orion who was now so tall—much taller than she. He was lanky, broad-shouldered, long-limbed, and although Molly had dressed up in a black wool dress and high-heeled black boots, Orion wore jeans and a sweater with holes at the elbows. Molly was short and round-faced; she had an eager look about her, while Orion always had a faraway look in his gray eyes, as though he’d rather be fishing. He wore his hair long in a ponytail thick as a horse’s mane. He had something of the wild horse about him.
“Did you break your finger?” Emily asked Orion as they sat down, women on one side, men on the other.
He glanced down at the splint on his left hand. “Oh, I did that playing Ultimate.”
“You still play Frisbee?”
“Of course.”
“He’s in a league,” said Molly.
“I still remember your father’s poem about watching you,” said Emily.
“She’s read all Dad’s poetry,” Orion told Molly.
“Boy trumps dog …,” Emily quoted.
“God. Stop!” Orion laughed. “You don’t have to recite them.”
“I happen to like his work,” Emily protested, as Jonathan’s ankle rubbed her shin, his leg pressing against hers underneath the table.
They ordered elaborate salads with smoked duck, and pizzas with caramelized figs, small rich entrées. There was a wine list, but none of them knew what to make of it, until Jonathan decided on champagne so they could toast Veritech. He didn’t know which kind to get, so he ordered the most expensive bottle listed.
“Very good,” the waiter said with a half smile, and Jonathan laughed a little, after the waiter had gone. He had missed the waiter’s smirk, and thought him silly. Softly lit, decorated with
murals of scenes from the movie Casablanca, the restaurant was just a bit precious for Jonathan. On one wall, a sad-eyed Humphrey Bogart watched over them, and tears glistened in Ingrid Bergman’s eyes.
“One hundred twenty-two dollars a share,” Jonathan boasted to Orion. “As of today—right, Emily?”
She nodded, ducking her head, a little embarrassed that she knew Veritech’s price the day after Thanksgiving.
“That’s amazing,” said Molly, and she looked at Orion as if to say, Really? And could that happen to us too, with ISIS? Orion played with the ragged edge of his sleeve.
“The shares split last week,” Jonathan told them, because he knew Emily wouldn’t boast.
“That’s just sick,” Orion said.
Indeed. If Emily could sell just a fraction of her stock, she would be beyond wealthy. Of course, if was the operative word. The lockup held until June. The price couldn’t rise forever, but when would it fall? How would she pick the right time to sell? A delicate question. She and Alex and Milton avoided the subject. They knew intellectually that they had to sell some stock in the summer, but selling felt like cannibalizing their own offspring. Jonathan was about to discover this, but he didn’t understand the feeling yet. It was hard to see over the edge of an IPO.
“Is this all right?” The waiter presented Jonathan with the champagne.
“I should hope so,” said Jonathan cheerfully. As the waiter poured him a glass, he added, “Pour for everyone.” Then came his toast: “To Veritech, and to the future.”
“To infinity and beyond,” Orion said.
“Hell, yeah.”
“But let’s get our products working,” Orion murmured.
“Orion, here, is still doing research,” Jonathan explained to Emily and Molly. “We’re building, and he’s busy breaking code.”
“I broke Lockbox,” Orion confessed.
“How?” Emily blurted out. Lockbox was supposed to be unbreakable, the code impervious. Thousands, millions of Internet shoppers depended on Lockbox to safeguard their transactions. If Lockbox broke—even in the safety of the office—that would be a major setback. A breakdown wouldn’t necessarily derail the ISIS IPO, but it might delay it, and a delay these days, even for a few months, was like derailment.
“Better to know now, right?” Orion said.
“It’s the new version, 2.0, not the one we’ve shipped,” Jonathan reassured Emily and Molly. “The original Lockbox that everyone is using out there is totally fine.”
“What did you do?” Emily asked Orion.
She felt Jonathan tense. He pulled his legs away from hers under the table.
“The new code is buggy,” Orion said.
But Jonathan contradicted. “It was ready until you broke it.”
“If it was breakable,” said Orion, “then obviously it wasn’t ready.”
“There’s testing code and there’s fucking with it.”
“There’s solid work and wishful thinking,” Orion said. “You can’t tell clients you’ve got stuff ready when you know it isn’t ready.”
“I tell them what we will have ready, if everybody does his job,” said Jonathan.
“I’m talking about reality,” said Orion, “not some myth of magical security solutions—”
“Oh, come on, you guys,” Emily interrupted.
“Yeah, really,” Molly said.
Emily chided, “This is the same debate we have all the time between programmers and marketing. Do you think you’re so unusual? We broke something just a couple of weeks ago, and now it’s crippled.”
“Broke what?” Curiosity trumped aggression. “You’re building something new. What are you building?”
“It’s not public yet,” Emily replied.
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Yes, you can,” Jonathan wheedled.
“Well, I won’t.”
“We have ways of making you talk,” he teased.
“She’ll never tell you.” Orion spoke lightly, but his words suggested his greater knowledge of Emily, and their older friendship—and once again he angered Jonathan.
“I’m tired of your predictions,” Jonathan said quietly.
“You don’t have to listen,” Orion pointed out. “Usually you don’t.”
Jonathan was toying with his half-filled champagne flute. The glass looked so delicate in his hand that Emily reached across the table and placed it safely next to hers.
“You didn’t have to fight with him,” Emily told Jonathan in the car.
“He started it,” said Jonathan.
“What difference does it make? You should know better.”
They drove up Mass. Ave. with its multicultural holiday lights: shooting stars and stylized dancers. “He’s irresponsible,” Jonathan declared.
“Why? Because he disagrees with you sometimes?”
“You wouldn’t defend him like that if he worked for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, I know you.”
“Well, I don’t attack my friends in restaurants.”
“I didn’t attack him.”
“I thought you were going to break his glass and stab him with it.”
“Hire him at Veritech,” said Jonathan. “Seriously. We’ll pack him up in Bubble Wrap and ship him. We don’t want him.”
“But you might need him.”
“For what? Talking about our products?” Jonathan was indignant again. “Next thing I know, Green Knight comes up with a security system just like ours.”
He amazed her. He was all energy, and all competition. She was driven to succeed, but her idea of success was focused, pure, and self-defined. Jonathan’s idea was annihilating his rivals. Even now, he wove through traffic, muscling his way into one lane and then another, shaving seconds off the drive to Somerville.
“We’re very different,” she said.
He smiled. “No, we’re not. You just like to pretend we are.”
“Why would I pretend?”
“Because you’re a girl.”
“What do you mean I’m ‘a girl’? I talk like a girl? I throw like a girl?”
“Yeah. Exactly. You throw like a girl.”
“Take it back.”
“No.”
“Take it back.” She tickled him under his arm, and the car swerved. “Sorry! I’m sorry!”
“You could wait for a red light,” he pointed out, but waiting was difficult.
When they got to his apartment, Jonathan left the lights off. His roommates, Jake and Aldwin, were away for the long weekend, leaving their bikes in the living room, a shadowy obstacle course Jonathan didn’t bother navigating.
“Now take it back,” said Emily, even as he took her in his arms.
He pressed against her in the entryway. “No,” he said. “You want to win as much as I do.”
“It’s not a race.”
“You know it is. It’s a race to patent first, and ship first, and file first. You and Veritech are already winning, so you pretend you don’t compete.”
“If I do race at times,” she said, “I’m not part of some demolition derby, trying to win at all costs.”
She was so beautiful, lecturing in the dark. He unbuttoned her coat and slipped her sweater off. He stroked her slender arms, and lifted her silk camisole, even as she scolded. Her moralizing was sweet, irresistible as words whispered in a foreign language. Her voice caught as he kissed her neck, and his hands traveled down, caressing her breasts, spanning her waist.
“The question is what sort of race you want to run,” she said, “and what sort of standards you set for yourself.”
He liked the way she tried to finish her thought, even as he took her nipple in his mouth. When he knelt before her, and he pulled off her skirt, and rolled down her thick winter tights, she couldn’t talk at all, but sighed as his tongue, hard and wet, pressed into her. She was warm, and she wanted him—her fingers dug into his shoulders. He’d behaved badly at dinner
, but she was hungry anyway.
“You’re no different from me,” he whispered.
Yes, I am, she thought, even then, even at the edge of pleasure. Didn’t she believe in him? Of course she did. She wanted to. She longed for him. She ached for him, and when they lay down together on his unmade bed, she wrapped her legs around him. If she laughed at his impatience, she was impatient too.
Later, much later, when they’d had almost enough, he lay on his side, looking at her with his head resting on his arm. He was a direct lover, but he could be tender too.
She turned toward him, and they lay so close that when she spoke, her breath was the same as his. “Here’s the difference between us,” she said. “I trust my friends.”
“Not true! You don’t even trust me.”
Emily knew he was thinking about Veritech. “That’s something else.”
“Why?”
She hesitated, and then she said, “Because other people are involved.”
“Other people?” he scoffed, and he was right. Where were those other people now? What did they matter? She and Jonathan were a world unto themselves. When he touched her and stroked her face, all the longing of the past weeks eased. Or did it? Even as they kissed, she missed the kiss before, and the one before that. How strange the way every moment contained and at the same time hollowed out the last. She thought she should be satisfied, but she wasn’t. Why? Because she could not dissolve herself. She wanted to forget herself with him, and give herself to him. No you don’t, she told herself. You don’t want to give yourself to any man. But she did. She wanted to belong to him—an antique notion, silvery as Ingrid Bergman’s fine features, sad as Bogart’s gravel voice.
She embraced him, pressed against him, but even as she throbbed again, Emily’s cooler self, observing her entanglement, looked down upon her limbs and his. Her reasonable soul broke in, interrupting at the worst possible, or rather, the best possible, moment to ask: Who is this man? And who are you? Do you love him? Does he love you? And how can you tell? What proof do you have? Only kisses melting into air. Touch forgotten in an instant. Don’t you have some better evidence than that?