After an hour, which felt like three, and a snack of Goldfish crackers in the kitchen with the kids, she and Jonathan made their escape. For a moment in the driveway, Jonathan’s Datsun wouldn’t start, and Emily began to fret, and Jonathan laughed at her, and when the old car started at last, he drew her toward him and kissed her while the engine idled.
“Just wait,” said Jonathan as they drove off. By which he meant, “Wait ’til we get to my place. Wait ’til I have you all alone. Wait ’til this old wreck becomes a yellow Lamborghini.” Unlike Emily, Jonathan had no trouble envisioning the toys he’d buy, and the fun he’d have. He knew precisely the canary yellow of his future car, its huge motor and bulbous lights, its doors like wings.
In the meantime, the engine sounded hoarse, and traffic slowed down on the pike. When they finally got to Cambridge, there wasn’t time to stop at Jonathan’s apartment before dinner with their friends Orion and Molly.
“Let’s cancel,” Jonathan said.
“We can’t just stand them up.”
“Why not? I want to,” Jonathan protested, his expression frank and boyish, softening his words. “I see Orion every day.”
“But I don’t,” said Emily. “And we never see Molly.”
“Nobody does,” Jonathan said. Molly was an intern at Beth Israel Deaconess.
“Then this is a rare opportunity.” Emily was not above teasing him a little. “Not to be missed.”
After looping several times through one-way streets, they parked far from the restaurant, and ended up rushing through Harvard Square on foot. Emily always forgot how cold it got. Her shearling jacket wasn’t nearly warm enough, and she was shivering, while Jonathan didn’t need a coat, only a sweater, and he gave Emily his knit hat, a gesture both chivalrous and clumsy, as he pulled it down too hard, covering her eyes.
They met Orion and Molly on Brattle Street, and when the four of them entered Casablanca, the sudden warmth fogged Emily’s glasses. As she took them off and wiped them, she saw Molly do the same, and the two smiled in solidarity, acquaintances searching for something in common. Orion was the one Emily knew well. He had been Emily’s childhood friend when, for several summers, they attended CTY, the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins. At eleven, twelve, and thirteen, they took courses in physics and advanced geometry along with other children selected nationwide. Emily had studied Greek, and Orion took astronomy. Renaissance children, they lived in dorms with other earnest middle-schoolers blowing through problem sets, practicing violin, gathering several times a week for camp games designated by their counselors as “mandatory fun.”
At CTY, Orion had been Emily’s first sweetheart, the first boy she walked with hand in hand; and one summer night, her first kiss. They had been standing close, studying each other, a small blond Orion and a slightly taller Emily, each wondering what the other was thinking, and each afraid to ask. They both held still. The moment was delicious, almost unbearable. Emily knew she had to do something. She took off her glasses and held them open at her side. His lips touched hers. So this is kissing, she thought. She couldn’t taste anything. It wasn’t that kind of kiss. It was the kind that hung in the air, beautiful and abstract, like a theorem to contemplate. The moment afterward was lovely, much sweeter than the kiss itself. They could breathe again.
They corresponded during the school year, mailing handwritten letters—Orion’s scrawled on notebook paper, Emily’s printed on blue stationery patterned with white clouds. She must have written three letters to his one, and she remembered pointing this out on the phone. She’d been tearful, and he’d grown quiet, and finally he told her that his parents were splitting up. Then she understood, and the understanding was pure Emily—unselfish insight. She realized that corresponding was too much for him, and pining for each other was a little much as well. “Maybe we should stop,” she whispered. “We’re only thirteen.”
By high school, their romance was well behind them, and in college they settled into occasional e-mail exchanges. He went to graduate school at MIT, and one summer when Emily came east to see her father, Orion introduced her to Jonathan. So she had Orion to thank for that. Orion who was now so tall—much taller than she. He was lanky, broad-shouldered, long-limbed, and although Molly had dressed up in a black wool dress and high- heeled black boots, Orion wore jeans and a sweater with holes at the elbows. Molly was short and round-faced; she had an eager look about her, while Orion always had a faraway look in his gray eyes, as though he’d rather be fishing. He wore his hair long in a ponytail thick as a horse’s mane. He had something of the wild horse about him.
“Did you break your finger?” Emily asked Orion as they sat down, women on one side, men on the other.
He glanced down at the splint on his left hand. “Oh, I did that playing Ultimate.”
“You still play Frisbee?”
“Of course.”
“He’s in a league,” said Molly.
“I still remember your father’s poem about watching you,” said Emily.
“She’s read all Dad’s poetry,” Orion told Molly.
“God. Stop!” Orion laughed. “You don’t have to
“I happen to like his work,” Emily protested, as Jonathan’s ankle rubbed her shin, his leg pressing against hers underneath the table.
They ordered elaborate salads with smoked duck, and pizzas with caramelized figs, small rich entrées. There was a wine list, but none of them knew what to make of it, until Jonathan decided on champagne so they could toast Veritech. He didn’t know which kind to get, so he ordered the most expensive bottle listed.
“Very good,” the waiter said with a half smile, and Jonathan laughed a little, after the waiter had gone. He had missed the waiter’s smirk, and thought him silly. Softly lit, decorated with murals of scenes from the movie
“One hundred twenty-two dollars a share,” Jonathan boasted to Orion. “As of today—right, Emily?”
She nodded, ducking her head, a little embarrassed that she knew Veritech’s price the day after Thanksgiving.
“That’s amazing,” said Molly, and she looked at Orion as if to say, Really? And could that happen to us too, with ISIS? Orion played with the ragged edge of his sleeve.
“The shares split last week,” Jonathan told them, because he knew Emily wouldn’t boast.
“That’s just sick,” Orion said.
Indeed. If Emily could sell just a fraction of her stock, she would be beyond wealthy. Of course,
“Is this all right?” The waiter presented Jonathan with the champagne.
“I should hope so,” said Jonathan cheerfully. As the waiter poured him a glass, he added, “Pour for everyone.” Then came his toast: “To Veritech, and to the future.”
“To infinity and beyond,” Orion said.
“Hell, yeah.”
“But let’s get our products working,” Orion murmured.
“Orion, here, is still doing research,” Jonathan explained to Emily and Molly. “We’re building, and he’s busy breaking code.”
“I broke Lockbox,” Orion confessed.
“How?” Emily blurted out. Lockbox was supposed to be unbreakable, the code impervious. Thousands, millions of Internet shoppers depended on Lockbox to safeguard their transactions. If Lockbox broke—even in the safety of the office—that would be a major setback. A breakdown wouldn’t necessarily derail the ISIS IPO, but it might delay it, and a delay these days, even for a few months, was like derailment.
“Better to know now, right?” Orion said.
