Sparta (19 page)

He made his way across the concourse. The crowd surged toward him like a deep stream, dividing and shifting but fluid and steady, moving easily ahead. Young girls with pouty mouths and long legs in cutoffs and flip-flops, brisk middle-aged women in khaki pants and floppy sun hats, gray-haired men in short-sleeved shirts, young, skinny guys in torn jeans and T-shirts—where were they all going on a Sunday afternoon with such speed and purpose?

He had a sense of the world hurtling past him the way these crowds hurtled past, this endless stream. What else had he missed? What had happened without him? Was it important? Could he even reenter this world? He felt as though he were watching from outside, with no idea how to get in. And also: Why did he have to fit into this world? Why didn't all these people have to fit into his?

On the 6 line the subway car was nearly empty. Two Asian teenagers in jeans and sneakers stood talking to each other at the far end, a heavy black woman in a pink jogging suit sat reading a magazine, and a family of European tourists, slight and anxious, stood around a pole, the father holding a map of New York and frowning. The train rattled uptown to Seventy-seventh, where Conrad got off. He jogged up the dank stone staircase to the street, heading toward First Avenue.

The view was framed by the brownstones and the small city-stunned trees that lined the street. One house was entirely blocked off for construction, its five-story face covered with scaffolding. This was New York's endless cycle of renewal, this iteration at the hands of a billionaire. The whole building was being gutted. A two-story-high platform was staged over the sidewalk, creating an alarming metal tunnel for pedestrians. Conrad stepped off the sidewalk to go around it; going under it made him nervous. Ahead of him was an elderly man in a sweater. He was walking unbearably slowly, each step an agonizing osteoarthritic stutter.
Go on,
Conrad thought.
Go the fuck on.
Conrad made a wider detour, skirting him as well as the scaffolding, walking out into the middle of the street. He just wanted to get on with things, get on with them.

Farther east the white-brick apartment buildings of First and Second avenues rose in tiers against the sky. The futurist dream of 1950s architecture, it hadn't aged well. The white walls were stained and grimy, discoloration spreading stealthily across the bricks in continent-size patches. The stepped terraces were all empty and untended. No one, it turned out, actually wanted to sit outside on gritty furniture on a narrow, low-ceilinged, windy, noisy, sooty platform.

He thought of these buildings, how they must have been when they were new, in the postwar dream of rising wealth and plenty. People had come flooding here after the war; they'd come from around the world. America was the success story then, rich, powerful, generous. Everyone wanted their children to grow up American. All of Europe had tried to get in: the country had had to change the immigration policy because so many people wanted to become American. This was the land of plenty, with its spotless white towers rising toward the sky.

Now the white bricks were dull, and the rows of bare, small windows looked mean. The neighborhood was anything but trendy, full of frugal young singles, impecunious families, and the elderly. First Avenue was bustling, even on a Sunday afternoon. This was a residential community: a supermarket, a drugstore, an Italian restaurant. On the corner of Claire's building was a bank.

The crowds were polyglot, though mostly white. The younger people were walking fast, with that rapid, commanding New York pace. An old woman headed toward Conrad, her thin hair ruffed up in a white crown. She was leaning heavily on a cane, though she had not given in to age: she was wearing bright lipstick and big sunglasses, a sleek jacket and pants. She met Conrad's gaze boldly, shuffling quickly along, ignoring the faster traffic that flowed around her, doing her best to keep up. It was all she could do, he thought: wear lipstick and bright clothes, try to keep up. All aging offered was that slow, unfair struggle. You could never win, you could only show your spirit as age won. He wondered what would happen to his mother if his father died. He couldn't imagine her like this woman. Old. He couldn't imagine his parents as anything but what they were now, forceful, healthy, in the middle of their lives.

Caught by the woman's challenging stare, he nodded at her.
Go for it,
he thought.

A tall young blond woman in yoga pants and a stretchy T-shirt moved past her, twisting to avoid collision, her eyes fixed straight ahead, as though the old woman were invisible. A fine electronic cord snaked up to her ear and she was talking earnestly into the air.

“I told her that,” she said loudly. “I told her that.” She nodded. “I told her I did not respect her position. Like she knows what a position is.” She ignored Conrad, ignored the people around her, looking ahead as though she were alone.

When had everyone,
everyone
on the street, started talking on cell phones? And they said anything, the most private and personal stuff, loudly, in front of strangers. It was insulting, really, a declaration that no one around you had any significance. In the military, you took other people seriously. You weren't allowed to walk and talk on a cell phone. He imagined talking on a cell phone and walking past a superior officer: he'd be fucking torn apart.

Claire's building fronted on the avenue. The narrow foyer was separated from the lobby by a locked glass door. Conrad found Claire's name on a long row of dingy white placards and pushed the buzzer. A voice crackled shrilly over the intercom:
Conrad?
He shouted yes and was buzzed into the low-ceilinged lobby. It was empty: a scuffed black-tiled floor, dull gold ceiling, dim mirrored walls with marbled veins. Along one wall was a shelf full of leafy green plants, probably fake.

The elevator was slow and uncertain, finally lurching to a stop on twelve, where Conrad got off. The long hallway was wallpapered in a dim reddish print and carpeted in bright synthetic blue. The trapped air was stale and cloying. Claire's door was halfway down the hall. Conrad raised his hand to press the fat mirrored button to ring the bell, but before he touched it, the door opened.

There was Claire, standing in the doorway, waiting for him, and he felt something in himself lift. Her head was slightly tilted, a tentative smile on her face. The smile pierced him, its hesitancy. Was this how he made her feel?

“Hi,” he said, now awkward.

“Come in,” Claire said, stepping back.

She led him inside and shut the door. She turned to face him. Her eyes were steady under the straight dark brows. Her hair was still thick and glossy, shorter now; it brushed her shoulders. She was barefoot. Her dress was short and loose, pink, with some kind of wide peasant embroidery around the neck. Beneath it was her narrow body, the long torso, the tiny swelling of her belly. The dress was sleeveless, showing the shallow indentations on her upper arms. He wanted to take her arm in his hand.

She didn't seem to be wearing a bra. The dress was low-necked, the skirt wide and full: she was unbelievably available. He thought of putting his hand on her thigh and sliding it up her leg. He felt his breath shorten. He hadn't been this close to a girl in months. Years?

“Conrad,” she said.

She gave him that serious, gentle look, head tilted on her long neck, her collarbones fanning beautifully out from her throat. She opened her arms, and he stepped into her body, folding himself around it. He felt her against him, her ribs arching outward, hard and neat, like a little curving ladder; the thrumming beat of her heart, fast and steady like a bird's; the small, high breasts, which he knew, knew how they felt beneath his hand and under his fingers. She pressed against him, and this gave him a sudden massive hard-on, how could it not, and also he felt, inexplicably, the threat of tears filling his eyes, and that was crippling, and he gripped her too hard and she pulled away.

He'd gone too fast,
fuck,
but he didn't exactly have any control over himself. He tried to hold on to her, keep her in his arms, partly because he wanted so badly to hold her and partly because he didn't want her to see the shameful aspect of his eyes, tears, or the eagerness of his cock. But she put her hand on his chest, pushing him off.

“Con,” she said, stepping away. “Please.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sorry.” He stood back, blinking. “Sorry.” He didn't say,
I can't help it.
He brushed at his eyes.

A door opened and another girl appeared, thin and blond, in black yoga pants and a purple tank top. Claire and Conrad both turned to look at her.

“Hi,” the girl said to Conrad. “Sarah Gibson, Claire's roommate.”

“Hi,” Conrad said. “I'm Conrad Farrell.”

“I know you are.” She came over and put out her hand and smiled. She was one of those perfect New York girls, long, straight, thick blond hair, full pink cheeks and narrow eyes; confident and energetic.

Claire had told him about her: Sarah was a smart southern girl who worked for a local TV channel. She drove around the city in a van with a dish receiver on top and stood with a microphone in front of disaster scenes, speaking crisply and looking serious. Apparently the cameraman spent a lot of driving time smoking pot, so the shots were not always steady. But Sarah was headed for bigger things.

“I'm glad to meet you,” she said. “I'm glad you're back.” She smiled. “I know Claire is.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don't mind me,” she said, turning away and waving her hand. “I'm just getting something to drink. I'm going to leave you alone.” She slid past them toward the kitchen. “I know you have a lot to talk about.”

When she'd gotten her drink and gone back to her room, Conrad leaned close to Claire and said, “What did you tell her about me?” and Claire said, “You don't want to know,” and they both laughed, as though they were back at college again, lovers and friends, conspirators.

Claire had written to him about both her roommates. The apartment had two bedrooms. The larger one was shared by Sarah and the third roommate, Gretchen, who worked either at the Museum of the American Indian or the Morgan, Conrad couldn't remember which. A small, distinguished museum. Gretchen had a boyfriend in Brooklyn, where she spent most of her time. Sarah was out a lot, too. Claire liked them, and she didn't mind having the smallest room, since she had it to herself.

Claire and Conrad took beers from the fridge and went to sit in the living room. Big plate-glass windows looked out on another white-brick apartment building. Beyond the buildings, on the left, was a choppy brown rectangle, a glimpse of the river. The long curtains had wide black-and-white stripes. A boxy white sectional sofa stood with its back to the window, flanked by dark armchairs. The room was cluttered, but in a quiet, girl-messy way: kicked-off shoes on the rug, magazines open on the big square coffee table. An empty glass or two, flattened pillows on the chairs.

Conrad and Claire sat at opposite ends of the sofa, facing each other.

“So,” Claire said. “How is it, being back?”

She had tucked her legs up beneath her and was leaning an elbow against the arm of the sofa. It was strange to be with her, and to know that she was so distant. He had no right to touch her. He knew that, but it was strange. He'd never been with her like this before, without the right to touch her. Not since he'd first met her.

“Okay, I guess,” he said.

“You look kind of … uneasy. Or something.”

He shrugged.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Okay.” She smiled. “Then I'll tell you some classmate news.” She stretched her legs out in front of her, settling in. Her back was against the arm of the sofa, her bare feet stretching out onto the cushions. She now seemed more comfortable, and something inside Conrad began to loosen, seeing her like that, relaxed and easy. “I heard from Lizzie. She's in Sedona, working as a hiking guide for a big resort hotel.”

“Cool,” Conrad said.

“Well, yeah, but Lizzie?” Claire wrinkled her nose. “She never even wanted to go for a walk, let alone a hike. Remember? She wanted to drive down the hall to the shower. Now she's ready for the Himalayas.”

“Maybe she takes the guests on virtual hikes,” Conrad said. “Maybe she just drives them around in a van.”

Claire shook her head. “No. She's seriously different now. She sends these photographs, like
Sunrise over the Mesa
or
The Soul of the Saguaro
.” She shrugged. “Who knew, right? She's suddenly Eco-Queen. I think there's a guy involved. I think she's living with a woodsman.”

“Maybe there's an alien involved.”

“She might have been body-snatched,” said Claire, nodding. “She might
be
an alien.”

“What about Baynor?” Conrad asked. “You heard from him?”

“He's working for his dad, making boats in Maine.”

“Not possible,” Conrad said, grinning. “Didn't he say that's the one thing he would never, ever do?”

“We have it on tape,” Claire said, laughing. “Remember that time? We all said what we were going to do?”

Junior year, late one night, they had passed around a microphone and declared plans for the future. Conrad had said he was either going to be a wilderness guide or teach public policy law, like his father. He hadn't yet said the word “Marine” out loud. Claire had wanted to be an archaeologist.

“How's archaeology?” he asked.

“There's still time,” she said, grinning. “I may do it. And you're a wilderness guide already, aren't you?”

Conrad laughed. “So, does he like it, Baynor?”

“I guess.” Claire shrugged. “He's there.”

“What about Gordon?”

“Go-Go's on Wall Street. Lehman Brothers or somewhere. I see him sometimes. Pinstripe suits. He wears those shirts with white collars and the rest of them striped?”