His mother picked us up downriver, and we strapped our bikes to the roof rack of the car. Evan offered me the front seat, but I shook my head and slid into the back. His mother turned around. “What did you think?”
“I loved it,” I said, and I meant it. We were silent for the rest of the ride home. I could see where Evan had inherited his tranquillity, the ease he could find in just about any setting. I imagined car rides from years before, his mother shuttling him to early morning practices, the two of them silently content in the other’s presence. The landscape out here had a way of shutting your mind off. We were all tired and happy, warm from the sun, hungry for dinner, and that was all that mattered.
The two weeks went quickly. His parents hosted a barbecue the night before we left. Nights there were cold, and by the time the burgers were sizzling on the grill, everyone had donned sweaters and sweatshirts. I borrowed an old crewneck emblazoned with Evan’s high school mascot. “Look at that,” his dad said, pointing at the sweatshirt with a pair of tongs when I approached the grill. “Julia, you could be a local. You fit right in.” Evan’s mother leaned over and said, “He means that as a compliment, hon.”
The next morning, on the bus that would take us back to the Vancouver airport, I waved good-bye to his parents through the window with a dull ache behind my eyes. How was it possible to be homesick for a place that I couldn’t call home, a place I’d only known for a handful of days? The previous two weeks had felt like an escape, different in aesthetic but not so different in essence from the way I’d felt in Paris. I realized, at that moment, that I had no idea what I wanted. There was so much out there. The bus shuddered and heaved into motion, and I blinked back a few tears. I was going to be okay. I had Evan, no matter what happened.
By senior year, my commitments had dwindled. Club sports, volunteering, writing for the magazine: the extracurriculars I had taken up with such diligent dedication as an underclassman were finally finished. I was working on my thesis, about Turner’s influence on Monet, and Monet’s London paintings. Other than that and a few seminars that met once a week, I took it easy—everyone did. Abby and I went out almost every night; someone was always throwing a party. The nights we didn’t, we smoked pot and ordered Chinese and watched bad TV. Things didn’t matter so much. The hurdles had been cleared, and we’d earned our break.
One night during the fall of senior year, I was sitting on the futon in our common room when Evan let himself in. He slept in my room almost every night.
“Hey,” I said, muting the TV. Then I looked up. “Hey. Whoa. What’s with the suit?”
He tugged at the cuff. It was short on him. “I borrowed it from one of the guys on the team.”
“Yeah, but why are you wearing it?”
“Oh. I went to a recruiting session. Didn’t I tell you?”
I had become vaguely aware of it a few weeks earlier—the flyers and e-mails from the finance and consulting recruiters. They made it easy, hosting happy hours and on-campus interviews, promising an automatic solution. I hadn’t pegged Evan for this path, and maybe that’s why it caught me so off guard. I thought I knew him too well to ever be surprised. That night, when he showed up in his borrowed suit, I didn’t say anything more. This phase would pass. I couldn’t imagine him actually going through with it.
But a month later, he told me he’d gotten called back for several interviews. We had just had sex, and we were spooned together in bed. He mentioned it in the same tone he might remark about the weather, but beneath that was evidence of a certain pride. Validation at being selected to interview. The thrill of success, even if it wasn’t permanent yet.
“That’s, um, great.” I hoped I sounded normal.
“Jules, I’m really excited. I think this might be what I’m meant to do.”
“When’s the interview?”
“And you know the best part?” He hadn’t heard my question, or didn’t care. “A job like this could get me the visa I’d need to stay after graduation. Wouldn’t that be great? To know that I could stay and not have to worry about it?”
In January, he had an interview with Spire Management, the famous hedge fund in New York. Even I had heard of Spire. Evan kept insisting it was a long shot, it was too competitive. People killed for jobs at Spire. But he got the offer in March. Suddenly he had an answer to that question everyone was asking: What are you doing next? Evan, working in finance in New York City. I don’t know what I’d imagined for him, exactly, but it wasn’t this. Evan, who was so old-fashioned in his decency, who was so patient and kind. Maybe he’d be a teacher, or a hockey coach in some small town. Or he’d start a company, or he’d go to grad school—but this? It almost gave me whiplash, but I seemed to be alone in this reaction. Evan was happy. Our friends were happy for him. I was the only one who struggled to adjust to this new idea of him.
“Julia,” Abby said a few days later. We were sitting around watching reruns of reality TV. “You know what? We should throw a party. For Evan. Tonight.”