Chapter 3
Danny knocks on the doorframe of Julian’s office—the door is open—and leans his head inside.
Julian is typing at his standing desk. Beside his monitor, there is a wedding photo of Gigi in her gown; a pile of self-helpy leadership books; a miniature replica of the Diana statue at the Met.
When Julian sees Danny, he smiles, types a few words with an air of finality, then says, “Walk and talk?”
They get coffees from their usual place across the street. The first time they tried it, Julian said, “This is okay, but it’s not great.” It’s still okay but not great. Danny has at this point had somewhere upward of a hundred of their okay-but-not-great coffees.
“High Line?” Danny says.
Cups in hand, they climb the steps to the old elevated railroad tracks and begin their slow meander.
A meander is the only tenable pace on the High Line.
They are surrounded by earnest tourists; pollinator-friendly plants; sculptures from salvaged materials; retrofuturist solar-punk apartment buildings.
“I know that this is your party,” Danny says. “But before you go, I wanted to say something. Two things.”
“Yeah?”
“The first is thank you. For being there.”
“That’s what we do,” Julian says. “You know I love you, right?”
“I know,” Danny says. “The second thing is that I think we should sell.”
“You do?”
“I do. Maybe not right away. I want to leave it with someone we trust. But I’m ready for something else. I think I’m just tired of seeing the world through this lens, if that makes sense.”
“Constantly viewing human relationships by their quantifiable metrics?” Julian says. “Fair.”
“I also feel like we’ve done what we wanted to do. Seems like we could do something bigger next time.”
“Bigger like what?”
“I mean, I have this idea. It’s an AI green-tech thing. I thought of it during the flooding. But tell me your news.”
“I get the sense you already knew my news,” Julian says.
“My news is that I want to sell. And Gigi and I are going to the UK. She got into a PhD program. She’s burned-out with the creator stuff, and I want to make this happen for her.
So we’ll be gone for four years, and then after that—who knows.
So I’m probably not the person with whom you want to launch a new start-up. ”
“That’s so stupid,” Danny says. “This is all the more reason.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. We’ll get to hang out all the time. You know, over the internet.”
“Time zones are tricky.”
“I’ve always wanted to be an early riser,” Danny says. “Think about it.”
“Yeah,” Julian says. “I will.”
In front of them, an elderly woman with a tiny dog pauses on a bridge with a view of the river. She takes out her phone to get a picture. Apologetically, she says, “I do live here. I just love it.”
They keep walking. A battalion of pigeons settles under a bench where two children messily eat granola bars.
“I met my mom yesterday,” Danny says. He tells Julian the whole story—about Georgia, about Cal, about TJ and Phillip and the great connected labyrinth of it all.
“Dr. Swann?” Julian says. “Seriously?” He considers. “I can actually kind of see it. I always liked her.”
“You’re taking this remarkably well.”
“So what if they’re getting divorced? I just want them to be happy.”
“Yeah?” Danny says. Then: “I feel guilty my dad wasn’t happier.”
“Do you know he wasn’t?”
“I assume he wasn’t. He was so afraid of everything.
He kept my mom away from me because he was afraid I’d leave, too.
I miss him so much, but also, how do you forgive something like that?
It scares the shit out of me to think that I’d treat Eve the way either of my parents treated each other.
I don’t want to demand certainty from her. ”
“Man,” Julian says. “Sometimes I think that’s all growing up is.
Just figuring out how much you want to be like your parents.
And you know what? My dad never would’ve moved to Cambridge for my mom.
But maybe I don’t want to be like him. I also don’t really want to be the kind of dad who calls his son the first pancake. ”
“The first pancake?”
“More of a practice round,” Julian says.
“We’re both first pancakes,” Danny says.
“Desperate to prove ourselves.”
“Anxious people pleasers.”
“A breakfast classic,” Julian says. “One of the all-time greats.”
“A son?” Danny says.
“Something to consider. On the distant horizon.”
“God, that child will be tall.”
“And he’ll resent me for fuckups of my very own invention,” Julian says.
“It’d be a shame to run out of fuckups,” Danny says. “I like to think I’ll keep fucking up my whole life long.”