Now and Yesterday (51 page)

Spring was turning into summer, and Peter wondered what the season would bring. Would he go to Fire Island this year? He hadn't yet rented a house, but there were openings he knew about. Would Will want to go, or would they by then be creating their own summer style in a different place—Provincetown? Upstate New York? Some lake in the Berkshires that Harold had never heard of? Travel plans made via text or Facebook or some other medium that Harold never knew? Something primal was indeed asserting itself that day in the park, even if it were cloaked in the innocent possibility of ball games and picnics and strolls across the lawn.

Peter squeezed Will's hand.

“I have grieved for Harold so long,” he said slowly, his voice suddenly shaky. “This service made me realize what a high-functioning widow I've been, all these years. In a way, I think I was afraid to love someone again, because that would destroy him. So I went on achieving, and grieving, and being very proud that I was carrying on.”

“You did the best you could,” said Will. He saw how serious Peter was.

“But Harold died a long time ago, didn't he?” said Peter, his face contorting as tears came.

“Yes, he did.”

“And now is the time for something else, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

Will gave Peter a peck on the cheek, and Peter's words gave way to soft tears. Peter brushed Will's lips with his, but they both knew that it wasn't the time for that kind of embrace. That would come soon.

For a few minutes longer they sat on the bleachers, as Peter recomposed himself and they clucked over the drably formal outfits the musicians wore, and then they walked to the R train, arm in arm.

“A
nd as Peter says, it will be business as usual,” said Laura. She punctuated the sentence with a practiced executive smile that no one in the room could have mistaken as heartfelt. Still, she was doing her best as a corporate officer to project confidence; and the point of meeting was, beyond logistics, to rekindle confidence in all the factors required for the success of the McCaw project other than the one once deemed most important: Peter.

Sitting around the conference table in Laura's office, besides her and Peter, were McCaw, Sunil, and Tyler. The latter two said little, though Tyler's new title of creative director conferred new clout that he'd be expected to start exercising immediately. Now that the group had acknowledged Peter's bow out, they all had to affirm that they wanted it to work, that they were sure it would work, and that until now the results had been splendid. The unspoken assumption was that, anyway, they had no choice, since the project was so far along.

“Business as usual,” reiterated Laura. “Except, of course, that Tyler is your man now.” She smiled at Tyler briefly, and in doing so looked at him for probably longer than she had ever done before. Laura was pouring on the charm aggressively, and had dressed for the task in another of her power lady outfits—this one, a blue pinstriped skirt suit that shouted “Alexis Carrington.”

Where does she get these things?
thought Peter. He was doodling discreetly in a notebook, as the meeting progressed. There were really no notes to take in a meeting like this.

Funny,
he thought. The phoniness of Laura's warmth reflected exactly the kind of robotic state of mind that the designers of the office complex had sought to counter, a few years before, when they transformed the agency's floors in that building from cubicle farms into “an inspiring hive of nontraditional work spaces clustered around a multistory atrium in which creative connections can take place serendipitously.” Laura's office and the rest of the executive suite, on the top floor of the complex, though, had ironically been left out of the hive. Her office was the standard fuck-you glass corner, with generically expensive furnishings like those to be found in every four-minute-old glass tower in new business centers from Berlin to Shanghai. Yet the place did seem to suit Laura's style, which Tyler once called “Executive Medusa Realness.” And compared with the agency's other “environments,” Peter knew, Laura's office was indeed the correct one for a sober occasion like this, where the participants should probably not be enveloped in overstuffed bean bags or trying to balance on giant koosh balls.

“The good news is that Peter's most critical input is already part of the process,” said Laura. “And these guys are running with it.” Tyler smiled modestly. In addition to the new title he'd received, he was now making a lot more money, some of which had been earmarked for Peter.

“We value our clients, we honor our contracts,” added Laura. “But the point is, we're only thinking about what's best for you.”

Afterward, there was a cordial send-off by Laura, and a brief, gentlemanly good-bye among Peter, McCaw, Tyler, and Sunil, at the elevator.

“Just keep me posted on the date for the next review,” said McCaw, making it a point to address Tyler.

“I will,” said Tyler, shaking McCaw's hand firmly with his own kind of Boy Executive Realness.

“I know you believe in this one a lot,” said McCaw, to Peter.

“He's the rising star here,” said Peter. “For me, that's one of the discoveries of this project. I know it's going to work for you both.”

“You're gonna be so proud of me, boss,” said Tyler, after McCaw and Sunil had gone.

“I'm already proud of you, Ty.”

“We're gonna kill.”

“I have no doubt.”

And it felt to Peter like the drama of the entire McCaw encounter had unfolded correctly. Tyler deserved the title and the money. He was unmistakably a rising young star and was poised to lead the McCaw project to success. It was good that his ascension hadn't been blocked, even a minute, the way such young-star ascensions can sometimes be, by their so-called superiors. Gladly, Peter had suggested the financial arrangement to Laura—giving up a bit of his own McCaw take and adding it to Tyler's. The happiness of their young star and his success in the mission would only increase the value of Peter's financial stake in the company, anyway.

The meeting had been routine, but the real drama had taken place in the days leading up to it. After deciding to step down, which he did on the day of Jonathan's service, Peter did what he considered to be the manly thing and called McCaw. The conversation, via videoconference, was brief and friendly. Peter said he couldn't continue for creative reasons and was handing the project over to Tyler. After an expression of disappointment, McCaw accepted the news with the kind of old-fashioned WASP coolness that Peter had expected.

McCaw only pushed back a little, at the end of the call.

“Nothing I can do to change your mind?” he said.

“Henderson,” said Peter, “I want to be honest with you. Part of me just doesn't believe in what you're doing, and my faking it would be a bad idea. This business is like acting. The audience can detect the slightest funny business. Tyler . . . knows better how to give everything to the project. I thought I could do it, but I can't. Simple as that.”

“I appreciate the honesty, Peter.”

“Well, thanks for understanding.”

“Let's stay in touch.”

Whatever that means.

“Sure.”

Then Peter went up to Laura's office and told her. As he expected, she went ballistic.

“That's totally irresponsible!” she shrieked.

“Don't tell me what's responsible,” said Peter. “I've brought millions in billings to this company. I've done my best to make this project work, and it's totally secure, because of me. Now I need you to do your part.”

They went back and forth on it for half an hour, then Laura came to accept the situation. She had no choice, really. Grumbling, she even suggested they lie to McCaw and concoct some explanation around a personal or medical issue—which Peter found unconscionable and also reminded him that Laura didn't really understand the nature of the work itself. Which is why he had called McCaw first.

“Honey, if you ask me, it stinks,” said Laura. “Seamless confidence is the only way to go, with a client.”

“I know it is, Laura,” said Peter. “But here we are. We can repair the confidence.”

“Clients don't like it when questions like this are hanging in the air. You know that. If this kind of thing happens, what else can happen? That's the way they think.”

“I agree. So I recommend we emphasize our creative ethic and the best practices way we do business. And you know very well that McCaw is happy with everything we've delivered so far.”

“It still stinks. I hate it.”

“What you hate, Laura, is not being able to control the client's thoughts. But in this case, I've controlled him, so you can fucking relax. We'll get through it.”

She shook her head disgustedly.

“I know we'll get through
this,
Peter,” she spat. “It's the next job I'm worried about—the next client, and
their
confidence. Word gets out. You should be thinking about that, too.”

“I
am
thinking about it, Laura. I'm also thinking about integrity.”

They were getting nowhere. Anyway, there was a plan on the table and the next step was to talk with Tyler. Peter looked around Laura's office and was suddenly hit by the thundering banality of it, as a “cultural sign.”

“I keep forgetting that places like this still exist around here,” he said.

“Well, they do,” said Laura, testily.

Peter was still giggling over her ire a few minutes later, in his own office, as he texted Will.

It's over. I just pulled out of McCaw. You busy later?

 

When you drive through some parts of upstate New York at night, down a winding, tree-lined country road, illuminated only by the headlights of your car, you can feel like you're coursing through a tunnel, ever farther into a leafy vortex that keeps regenerating itself hypnotically before you, moment to moment; and even if you're driving slowly, you can begin to feel like you're fast-forwarding not just down a country road, but past some illusion of the here-and-now, into an ethereum composed of every moment and all the leaves in God's imagination.

The route that Peter and Will chose to take up to Hudson that weekend was an alternate one. Since they were forced to get a late start, on Friday after work, they'd decided the smaller roads would be less congested and make for a nicer drive.

Peter was behind the wheel, and in the moments of silence between them, once they were north of suburban lights and structures, he found himself thinking again how pretty these roads looked at night, and how gently the darkness opened in front of the car, even as it closed up instantly and inexorably behind it. In the rearview mirror was nothing, which was surely a lot to think about, while in front of the windshield was always more than the brain could even process. All those billions of leaves, and all the billions of billowing, three-dimensional bunches they made, in the direct beams of the headlights and in light reflecting from leaves and filtering through them, and in their shadows—all of which, simple physics said, were in shades of green! An almost infinite number of shades of green—all passing by too quickly to see! Wouldn't an elephant, walking along this road, be able to remember the position of each leaf, each bunch of leaves, each color green and pattern of shade and shadow—all of them!—mile after mile? Elephants could do that, people said, though they always made it sound stupidly as if this was some useless capacity for registering meaningless nothing. Whereas Peter always thought how absolutely content elephants must be, remembering minute details of all the leafy paths they have ever trod, and perhaps seeing magnificent patterns emerge in a composite retrospect huger than anything humans could even imagine—which might eclipse the memories we form for smaller-scale things, like the sound of a Chopin étude or the sight of a Poussin landscape.

He and Will had been determined to leave on Friday so they could spend the night at the house, get up early, and have the whole day to plan the things they had to plan, now that the house was Will's. The bequest had been among others that were revealed when Jonathan's will was read, earlier that week, in a meeting they both attended at the lawyer's office. Aldebar and Jonathan's brother were each given $100,000, while the bulk of the estate went to the new foundation; and though everyone was surprised about Will's bequest, they were also delighted, especially Peter, who saw it as an extension of Jonathan's talent for providing and sheltering.

“For reasons well known to my executor and attorney, and knowing that my brother and my dear friend Peter are secure in their own residences, I leave my house in Hudson, New York, to my great friend William. . . .” And the will went on to explain that Jonathan hoped Will would occupy the place and find the security there in which to blossom. By that morning, too, Will had told Peter how kind Jonathan had been to him in other ways—like getting him bartending gigs as a way of helping him earn money, especially after Will told him he wanted to ease out of rent-boying.

The drive was all headlights and dark hills, infinity....

“So much to figure out,” said Will, suddenly, after staring out the car window for minutes.

“I know,” said Peter.

“Are you going to live there with me?”

“At the house? Are you asking me to?”

They hadn't discussed the matter until then.

“At least we wouldn't have to move the paintings,” said Will. Jonathan had left Peter the remaining Frankels, the ones that didn't go to Christie's, the Eliot manuscript, and both the Cycladic head and the little beach rock that looked like it.

“Well, I
have
thought about moving upstate one day, as you know. . . .”

“Yes, I did know, dear.”

“So . . . you're gonna live there
and
continue at the magazine?”

“Yeah, of course. I don't see why we shouldn't live in Brooklyn Heights during the week and come up here on the weekends. Starting when I return from Argentina. Then we'll have the place for when one or both of us want to pull out of the city for good.”

“Oh, is that what you're thinking?”

“Luz has already started to look for a roommate.”

“Poor Luz!”

“She'll be fine. She'll be making good money next year.”

“What about the whole studio thing? Have you thought about that? That
wing?
”

“As a matter of fact, I have. I thought it would be great to let Aldebar use it for the Foundation. Whaddya think? They need a place. And some of the filmmakers can come there for a residency. Unless you think that's too busy and public.”

“No, I like it. It's your house.”

“I was kinda thinking of it as
our
house,” said Will. He went back to staring out the window. “Aldebar told me he's been wanting to get out of town, too. He really liked being up in Hudson. I gather he's looking for a place to buy.”

“It's so interesting,” said Peter as the landscape slipped by. “There's so much in plain sight that we just don't see, or can't see, and maybe even don't need to see. It balances all the stuff we do see, like dark matter does—allows the stuff we see to
be
the world, to
think itself
the world. You know what I mean? Aldebar and Jonathan—those final arrangements: unseen, yet reality. And it also makes possible another reality, the one I was living in, in which people don't pull each other's plugs. You know? Why did McCaw think he should set me up? What's in back of that?”