“Aha. Julia. Of course. You’re the genius art critic. I love your stuff.” Someone called his name, and he stood up. The issue was about to close, and the editors would work well into the morning hours. Before he walked away, Adam put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Julia. Let’s grab coffee this week. Get to know each other. Sound good?”
A few months later, in the spring, I arrived at the magazine offices one night, ready to go over an article with Viv. But I was told she was sick, at home in bed. We still had a few days before the issue closed, so I put my laptop back in my bag. Adam spotted me just as I was about to leave. We had been having coffee every week. I’d admitted to Abby that I was developing a little crush on him, but it was innocent. It was nothing compared to what I felt for Evan, obviously.
“Julia. Leaving already?”
“Yeah. Viv’s out sick.”
“I have half an hour until my next meeting. Why don’t we give Viv a pass on this one? I’ll edit it for you.”
My hands were shaking as I pulled out my laptop and opened the file. This was a terrible development. I had written this piece quickly, to meet Viv’s deadline, and it was full of holes. Viv was exacting, finding the flaws in my work with merciless rigor, but she actually made me feel okay about that. It was never going to be right the first time; I knew that by now. I was fine with Viv seeing a rough draft of my work, but not Adam. I liked Adam, I liked spending time with Adam, but I wasn’t ready for him to see an unedited version of my thoughts. This was going to be a disaster.
“Let’s see,” he said, squinting as he read. A few minutes later, he looked up from the laptop. “This is great.”
“Really?” I thought he was joking, but then he nodded. “Wait, really? Do you think so? I know I need a better opening, and—”
“No, it’s great. Yeah, the lede could be punchier, but once you’ve nailed that I think you’re basically done.” He leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head. “So. What should we do for the next twenty-four minutes?”
I laughed, closing my computer. “Did you turn in your thesis? Or theses, I guess?” Adam was a double major in English and history. He’d spent the previous year writing about the Weimar Republic for the history department and working on a novel to fulfill the requirements for his writing concentration in English. His novel was also about the Weimar Republic. I’m not sure the English and history departments were, respectively, aware of this.
“I handed in history last week. And I’ll hand in the novel next week.”
“And that’s it, right? You’re done? I’m so jealous.”
“Don’t be. You’re the lucky one. Two years left until shit gets real.”
I rolled my eyes. He knew my complaints. Adam often took the train into the city on weekends, forgoing campus parties for the more glamorous options of New York, where he’d grown up. I was envious. Did he not get how constricted, how stifling this life felt? Class, study, party, Evan. Over and over and over.
He smiled. “You know I’d take you with me if I could. Start our own magazine or something.”
“Ha. I’d just be deadweight.”
“No way. I’m going to miss you, Jules.”
“Shucks.”
“I mean it.” He nudged my foot with his. “I really like you. You’re special.”
That was the thing about Adam. You believed everything he said. He said that he was going to be a writer after he graduated. I never imagined that he wouldn’t succeed. He would go to New York after graduation and find a job at the New Yorker or Harper’s or the Paris Review. In a few years he would have published his novel, and his picture would be gracing the cover of the arts section in the Times. There was no question about it. Adam would succeed at whatever he chose to do.
*
I took the subway home that night, after Adam and I said good-bye. The man sitting next to me on the uptown train was flipping through a copy of that morning’s Observer, scanning each page for a few seconds before moving on. Until he stopped and pulled the paper a little closer. Adam’s byline. The man read Adam’s article slowly, nodding to himself. The train reached Grand Central. The man stayed in his seat, eyes glued to the page. It wasn’t until the car had emptied and refilled that he looked up and jumped to his feet, elbowing his way out before the doors closed, sprinting to catch the late train back to Rye or Greenwich.
I’d wanted to lean over and tell him: I know Adam McCard. More than that: he’s my friend. He’d liked me, once upon a time. He told me I was special. That night was the very first time, that year in New York, that I felt like I knew something that the people around me didn’t. That I felt like I had a reason to be there. I sat back in my seat, flooded with a warm feeling of satisfaction.