Forty-Four #2
“Why were you at the gala?” Julian asked.
“I told you. Business.”
“Business with Chane?”
Clearly his father sensed the revulsion in Julian’s voice, because he said, “Business is business. It doesn’t matter who it’s
with.”
“Did you know I was going to be there?”
His father pinned him with a stare. For a long moment, he said nothing, while Julian withered in its coldness.
“I’m occupied right now, Julian,” he said at last. “This isn’t your concern. Arrangements have been made for you to stay in
Boston. Your time at Valeran is finished. Put the school out of your mind. And stop thinking about that girl. I can tell you’ve
been brooding over her.”
Julian knew when he was being dismissed. He would have to accept that his questions would not be answered, though there was
hardly anything new about that. With a nod, he turned and stepped back into the hallway, closing the door after him.
But he couldn’t put it out of his mind. His father was right. As if possessed, Julian sat down at his desk and pulled out
his laptop. He was typing her name into the search bar before he could stop himself, fingers dancing over the keys. There
was a moment of latency, during which Julian held his breath, and then the results populated.
The first hit was the New York Times article about her arrest. Julian clicked through and scrolled down to the picture—a school yearbook photo, showing Klaudia
in her Trinity uniform, curls pinned back neatly, smiling. He wondered what the photographer had done to get her to smile.
It couldn’t have been an easy task. She looked very young.
Julian clicked back and scrolled through the first page of search results to the second. There, he found a blog post from
a small, self-described “Democratic socialist” digital magazine, a euphemism that was necessary to avoid web censorship and
the piqued interest of the FBI. It was one of the rare pieces that dared to defend her, albeit obliquely.
Ms. Shimonova, all of fifteen years old at the time of her arrest, has committed the crime of being precisely what America
wanted her to be. A ruthless capitalist, unrepentant in her pursuit of material wealth and status. Now she will be punished
by the same government that encouraged her family’s immigration for this precise purpose. This is not hypocrisy—this is the
system working as intended. Because once she has been stripped of her personal freedom and civil liberties, Ms. Shimonova
will become a tool of the imperial core.
Accompanying the article was another photo, this one of Klaudia outside the Manhattan courthouse. Her expression was cool,
gaze guarded behind sunglasses, which the caption noted were Prada.
Julian stared at the photo until his eyes burned. Yet the feeling that welled within him was not quite guilt, not quite grief.
It was a low ache in the pit of his stomach. He had felt something similar once when he had locked eyes with Lola Spence in
ninth grade, transfixed by her fluttering lashes and lidded stare.
But that was a mere shadow of what he felt now. Now his longing burned through him and left him smoldering and diminished. He brushed his thumb over the photo, feeling the hum from his laptop screen, its faint pulse of electricity.
Stop. Stop. Julian slammed his laptop shut. Enough. He rose and stalked away from his desk, fingers rubbing his throbbing temples, as if he could kill the version of himself
that wanted her, as if he could banish the dark thing that shifted within him, which felt as essential as the beating of his
heart.
Despite his initial misgivings, Julian was actually relieved to hear the doorbell ring. It was a relief to have somewhere
else to focus his thoughts. He descended the stairs eagerly and joined his mother in the foyer, as their dinner guests crowded
through the door.
Landon came in first and he, too, was exactly as Julian remembered him. Untidy black hair, freckled face, dopey smile, left
eyelid drooping slightly. He clapped Julian into an embrace, hand tight on the back of his neck.
“Missed you,” he said, breath dampening his nape. “Don’t get yourself locked up again, okay?”
“Not planning on it,” Julian said.
Landon’s parents filed in behind him. Mr. Downing was a lurching giant of a man who had given Julian his first lacrosse stick.
Mrs. Downing was petite and always had an overwhelmed quality to her, even more so now. Her shoulders were drawn up around
her ears and her embrace was limp.
“Welcome home, kiddo,” Mr. Downing said. “Feel good to be free?”
“The food is definitely better on the outside.”
Mr. Downing guffawed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s see you put some weight back on, then, yeah? Fill out that lacrosse jersey?”
Julian nodded. Mr. Downing continued on into the dining room, arm around his wife, who was anxiously twisting her tennis bracelet
and hadn’t yet uttered a word.
The Cabots came in after them. Christabel Cabot: tall and leggy, artificially tanned but naturally blond, in a skimpy sundress.
She bounced up to Julian’s mother and hugged her, glossy pink lips moving in a flurry as she spoke and laughed. His mother
looked ebullient. She loved Christabel.
Julian leaned down and gave Mrs. Cabot a brief kiss on the cheek. She squeezed his hand. “We’re so glad you’re home,” she
said. “Your mother has been a wreck.”
Grief jolted through him. “I’m back now. For good.”
Mrs. Cabot squeezed his hand again and then released him to greet his mother. Now came the moment Julian had been both anticipating
and idly dreading. He turned to Christabel.
She had her arms crossed over her chest in a way that accentuated her cleavage. “Julian. You look good for an ex-con.”
“Nice to see you, too.”
She drew closer to him. “My father still hasn’t forgiven you for Turks and Caicos.”
He’d figured as much, and it explained Mr. Cabot’s pointed absence. “The case didn’t even go to trial. Nothing would’ve happened
to you.”
“Well, that wasn’t always obvious.”
Julian took a step toward her. Christabel was his first kiss, first crush, the perfect accessory for the life that had been
laid out for him. They had dated and broken up more times than he could count, always for the same arbitrary, petty reasons.
They were supposed to end up together, the expectation and obligation pressing down on them both. And so breaking up—in the public, dramatic fashion it always was—felt like a little rebellion, a perversely satisfying way to exasperate their families and elicit gossip from their classmates.
As Julian looked down at her, Christabel said, “I’m with Blake now, by the way.”
“Who?”
“Blake Phelps.”
Julian briefly racked his brain. Blake Phelps was one of their classmates at Exeter, a junior and the gawky coxswain of the
crew team. His claim to fame was a video of him tumbling overboard during the Newport Regatta.
Before he could reply to Christabel, his mother emerged to beckon them into the dining room. Their chef had been at work all
day and the table was piled with food. Upon seeing it, Julian’s stomach clenched. The obvious effort his mother had gone to,
coupled with her naked nervousness, overwhelmed him. She was trying—unmistakably, painfully. The least he could do in return
was play the role of the good son. Even if it meant shutting out everything else.
His mother sat him at the foot of the table. His father, in his usual place at the head, stared at Julian for a long moment.
The candle flames flickered, as if disturbed by an invisible wind. Then his father turned away and lapsed into conversation
with Mr. Downing.
Christabel sat down at his left, folding her napkin neatly in her lap and flashing an Exeter class ring. Right, Julian remembered hazily. Graduation had been last weekend. He should have been giving the valedictory speech, hosting the
after-party on Martha’s Vineyard. His gaze blurred. Julian reached for the bottle of wine.
The conversation flowed easily without him, carried mostly by the Cabots, his mother, and Mr. Downing. Mrs. Cabot tried to
entice his mother into joining the pickleball league at the country club. His mother demurred and picked at her food. From
this vantage point, Julian noticed how hollow her cheeks had become.
“What about you?” Between bites, Mr. Downing pointed his fork at Julian. “You’re getting back on the lacrosse field, right? You could go pro. Better than a political career!”
Nervous laughter fluttered around the table. Heat rose to Julian’s face. Truthfully, he was shit at lacrosse. He always had
been. His father had bought his place as team captain by donating a building.
That dark thing shifted in his chest. “I’d rather do my time in supermax, actually,” he replied icily.
His mother looked dismayed. But for some reason, it was Nadiya’s voice that echoed in his ears. Julian, shut the fuck up.
“I’ll play lacrosse with you, Mr. Downing,” Christabel spoke up sweetly, rescuing him. “Harvard has a women’s team. Maybe
they’ll let me try out in the fall!”
The chorus of laughter was sincere this time. Relieved, Julian lifted his wineglass, drained it, and then poured another.
When the conversation shifted away from him, under the table, Christabel slid her hand along his thigh.
By the time dessert was served, Julian was three glasses of wine deep and his head felt fuzzy. The alcohol formed a layer
of insulation between himself and the world, so his father’s sideways glances no longer cut and his mother’s quavering voice
no longer made him ache. Christabel’s hand remained on his thigh. He leaned into her touch.
Both Landon and Mrs. Downing had been remarkably quiet, but Mr. Downing was as exuberant as ever, launching into loud anecdote
after loud anecdote, spraying the table as he laughed. Julian’s temples throbbed. His mother’s fingers trembled as she reached
for the wine bottle.
He could no longer stand it. Any of it. Julian rose to his feet suddenly and, feeling himself sway, said, “Excuse me.”