New York City
“Bonjour, Ethan,” Juliette says. It is a pleasant September afternoon and she has arrived at the Jamba Juice on Houston and Mercer, where he had texted her to meet him. “This is a little out of our way, no?”
“I first met Zoe there,” he says, nodding across the street to a corner. “Almost exactly two years ago.”
“Ah,” says Juliette. She busses Ethan on both cheeks, noticing that his face is closely shaved, his hair cut, his shirt fresh. It is as if he’s going on a date. Or perhaps he is just a man intent on his own rehabilitation—he is carrying a gym bag. It’s as if Juliette’s proposal to engage Ethan as Alex’s financial adviser has snapped him out of his depression.
Inside they order flatbreads, Juliette to be amenable, and they sit to discuss Alex, still at work on Sergei’s mural five thousand miles away. “He is very happy you’ve decided to help,” Juliette says, putting away the documents Ethan had brought for her to send to Alex—papers he must sign to cede Ethan control of the rubles Sergei has deposited for him in a Sevastopol bank.
“He’s always been bad with money, with planning for his future.”
And what about your future? she wishes to say. Sergei will not wait forever for you to take up his job offer. But it is not her place to be the shopkeeper with Ethan. “Yes, artists are impractical,” she says. “But what you do, isn’t it also a work of art?” Ethan frowns and she corrects her overstatement. “At the least it is magic.”
“No, just a bit of timing,” Ethan replies. “Maximizing an exchange of rubles.”
“Surely it is more than this,” Juliette says.
“Not really.”
Now Juliette frowns. “But I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
When later they rise to leave, with Juliette disposing of her flatbread, she sees that Ethan is standing straighter than he normally does. He is looking more in control of himself and this eases her concern about Alex’s rubles. “You are going to a gym now?” she asks, seeing him holding the duffel from which he’d removed the banking documents. The bag has a large Nike swoosh.
“Oh, this?” he says of the duffel. Then he unzips it and shows her the metal urn inside.
Juliette takes a breath. “Is that . . . ?” she says.
“Zoe,” Ethan says. “I’ve been taking her back to all of our spots. Here. Washington Square. Battery Park. I’ve even shown her some new places. I don’t think she’d ever been to Liberty Island before.”
“That’s . . . very romantic.”
“I was a homebody. But Zoe always liked going out. I hate thinking of her cooped up. Now we’re going on a trip. Florida.”
Juliette smiles tightly. She is thinking of how to tell Alex that his friend has gone just a little mad.