Earnings Season #9
the old books, she keeps coming across old favorites or abhorred titles from school lists, and she thinks: Of course, Aleksandr would like Clausewitz, and Does he like Wiesel? and I don’t actually know what he’d think about Arendt.
Waking up on Tuesday, Kerr’s next round of edits, formalized feedback from their meeting last week, awaits in her inbox. The
email contains strong praise and constructive feedback, but it is Aleksandr’s text—(8:36 a.m.) How are you?—that makes her chest swell with near-uncomfortable warmth.
That danger of hope, the fragility of yearning: what she might want to be possible.
He’s away in London: earnings call, headlines, interviews on the pre-market morning shows. After breakfast, Lili gnaws on
a hangnail as she watches on her phone, listening to the calm, assured way he speaks to the latest results, fielding off-the-cuff
questions with ease and a hint of humor: assets under management climbing ever closer to ten trillion, active international
and domestic flows in every asset category, organic growth far outstripping commitments to the street. Capitalism running
unchecked—metrics of success that don’t speak to any lives saved, or communities supported, or species preserved—and she should
hate it, but all she can think about is that someone, probably Michael, made him button his shirt all the way up.
“Jesus Christ,” Amina mutters, spying the video feed over Lili’s shoulder while finishing brewing a fresh batch of coffee.
“Stop mooning over him and just invite his ass up here.”
“He’s in London,” Lili snaps, gesturing at her phone, not looking away from its small screen propped against the salt and
pepper shakers. “I can go a few days without getting laid.”
Amina snorts. “Yeah, because that’s what’s stopping you.”
“Lili has a crush,” Jackie quips, pouring coffee.
Lili feels her cheeks flame. “Don’t be stupid, it’s not like that—I just . . .”
“Yes?” Amina prompts, shaking the oat milk container. “You just?”
Lili scowls, heading out to the yard. Her friends laugh with fondness, shouting apologies after her.
It scares her—oh, how it scares her: wanting him in her life.
She keeps herself in check, though.
She limits herself to simple moments: texts good morning, texts good night.
He asks her about her day, she wants to know about his.
There are other things she wants, too.
The door clicks closed behind her. It muffles the sounds of her friends, playing cards after dinner. Falling back against
the bed, Lili taps through her phone. Her thumb hovers over the screen for a moment before she presses call.
As the dial tone rings, she hears the shriek of laughter from downstairs. Outside her open window, the night sky, lingering pale of sunset draining to dark over the treetops, the sounds of the forest, nocturnal build of frogs and cicadas—
“Hello, Lili.”
“Hi,” she says, startled.
On the other end, Aleksandr laughs. Lili frowns. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I like hearing your voice.”
“Where are you?” she asks, pushing away the heat his response inspires that is decidedly not just sexual.
“Home,” he says. There’s the sound of footsteps, softened by carpet, on his end. The close of a door, distant drift of music,
foreign words, like Dassin or Aznavour. “Heading to a work dinner soon.”
“Hmm,” she says. Her fingers start to toy with the edge of her jeans.
“Is that disapproval I hear in your voice?”
No, she thinks. It’s not.
“When do you have to leave for dinner?” she asks.
“I have a few minutes.”
“Hmm,” she repeats, playing with the button of her jeans.
“Yes, Lili?” Light, teasing.
“Yes, Aleksandr?” she quips back, not liking the weight of the question on her.
He laughs, again. She bites her lip at the sound, trying not to smile.
“What would you like?” he asks, lower, as if he already knows what she wants.
And his voice means something to her. Beyond the ideas of phone sex, the number of days she hasn’t come, the knowledge that
he hasn’t kissed her yet this week.
“I’m excited to see you,” she finally says, simply. She lets her hand fall back onto the comforter.
A pause, and then he replies: “Me, too.” A different warmth, a little quieter, more reserved. “What time does your train get
in on Thursday?”
“Around noon. It’s Jamie’s birthday this weekend, he has to head back to work early, so we’re going to surprise him with dinner
at his place. Should be free around nine.”
“Send me the address. I’ll pick you up afterwards.”
Lili frowns. “No, I can take the subway, honestly. It’ll be quicker.”
“Send me the address, and I’ll pick you up at nine,” Aleksandr repeats, calm, as if she hasn’t spoken.
“That’s not—” The usual instinct to protest, to say she’ll do what she wants—but what does she want? She wants to see him,
and Lili wonders—a new sprout of a thought—if her sense of independence, freedom, identity can be found only in resisting
help, in letting no one take care of her. If the inverse might offer strength, too.
“Alright,” Lili concedes, albeit grudgingly.
“Good. I’ve got to go, Michael’s waiting downstairs.”
“Wouldn’t want to keep him waiting,” she teases. “I’d say have a good dinner, but . . .”
Aleksandr laughs again, the echo clear in the familiar open space of the loft.
“Goodbye, Lili,” he says. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye,” she replies, smiling. The call beeps closed, and she’s alone again.
Lili sits up in bed, crossing her legs. She looks out the dormer window, the darkening sky. An owl hoots, off in the trees.
Evening birdsong. Downstairs, her friends are loudly arguing; probably Amina pretending, predictably, that she’s not cheating
at cards.
The sound of his laugh lingers, warm in her chest. She feels safe.
Lili glances at her phone. Swipes it open again, tapping through her contacts.
She chews her lip.
Jane Remnick.
After a beat of hesitation, she presses call.
She lifts the phone to her ear. It rings once, twice, three—
“Hello?” It’s a man’s voice, gruff; she’s startled, before recognizing it’s Robert.
“Oh, hi!” Lili exclaims, suddenly nervous. “Hi, Robert—it’s Lili. How are you?”
“Lili?”
“Yes, Lili—Lili Marwan?” she volunteers.
“No, no, I know who you are.” He laughs. “I almost didn’t recognize your voice, how are you?”
“Good, yeah.” She nods, although he can’t see her.
She starts fiddling with the blanket edges.
“Are you okay, everything okay?” It feels immediate, and destabilizing, to be faced with the reality of them: her foster parents, people she’s known for years, yet felt—feels—such a lack of closeness to.
Like ships that inhabited the same port, passing by each other in the night, constantly.
Especially Robert. Fostering children was Jane’s project, not so much his.
He was a neutral, mildly benevolent presence through her childhood and teenage years: working late, reading nonfiction in his armchair, woodworking in his shed, taking up little airtime in the house.
He’d served in the army, worked for the forest service now.
Growing up, Lili had heard him mix up the names of more temporarily fostered kids.
But he’d also built her a bookshelf, gorgeous red oak, completely unbidden and making no mention of it until it was done, when they’d realized how much she liked to read as a little kid.
“Yes, you know—keeping on, keeping on,” he responds. “School good, job good?”
“Yep!”
“That’s good—Jane? Jane, it’s Lili—she just called, I picked up—”
A distant woman’s voice, then the sound of the phone changing hands.
“Lili?”
It’s a more complicated feeling, hearing her foster mother’s voice.
“Hey, Jane,” Lili replies, shakily smiling a little. “Sorry, I saw your text a couple days ago, but it’s been crazy with work.”
An excuse, but also a habit to grasp at some protective distance. With Jane, there’s always the sense that she did choose
Lili—made the decision to foster her long-term—but just didn’t choose her enough; let her go really fucking easily. That constant
question—was she just not enough, or maybe too much, to be worth officially adopting? “Thought I’d return the call. What’s
up?”
“Oh, you’ve just been on my mind a little—June, no, don’t play with that—sorry, the kids,” Jane says. She sounds tired, but warm; just enough presence to make you want more, Lili remembers. “I was
clearing out old boxes, thought of you. I found a few photographs I’ll send your way, actually. Some of your baby photos,
they were in our foster files. You might already have copies, though—”
“No, please,” Lili hastily urges. “Send them.”
“Alright, no problem. Could you shoot me your address again?”
“Sure.”
“You’re not at the dorms anymore, are you?”
Lili shakes her head. “No, grad students don’t really live on campus.” She refrains from reminding Jane that she hasn’t lived
in the dorms since freshman year. Once she moved to New York, she stayed—never spent summers in California, never visited;
a real offer from Jane and Robert was never really extended to her—so she had to find housing, a tiny one-bedroom walk-up
in Morningside Heights with Jackie, before they moved into their Williamsburg place senior year. She supposes it’s not the
most important information.
“You graduate in the spring?”
“December, actually. Maybe. My adviser thinks it’d be a good idea.”
“Political science, was it?”
“Um, no—economics, remember?”
“Right, yes. And you’re enjoying it?” On the other end, she hears motion, like Jane is multitasking, setting a table. It’s
around dinnertime, she guesses. They always ate early.
“I am.” Lili nods, biting her nail. “How are things in your world? How’s the garden—”
“I’m coming, I’m coming, just a minute—Lili, listen,” Jane says, “I know it didn’t work out this summer, to have you visit. I’ve been thinking, though, let’s talk
in the fall, maybe winter? It’d be better, things will be much calmer around here. It’ll be just us in the house, empty nesters.”
“What?” Lili frowns, confused. Their little yellow house is never empty. Jane is usually fostering at least four children