Two words, thought Walker Eliot, bounding briskly from his apartment. Cashmere socks. Peter Morgan had imparted this valedictory wisdom at the close of one of their first meetings, and Walker was finding the advice sounder than ever as the days grew colder. Cashmere did not wick away moisture in the manner of wool, and in the uncertain heat of the fading summer, he had more than once felt damp doubt in his shoes. But as the air turned crisp, his doubts evaporated and his feet reveled in their luxury. In the socks’ warm embrace he felt the world’s appreciation, an almost erotic thrill of recognition. Others did too, partners, probably, and Walker felt a silent kinship with them. He had entered into the fraternity of the wealthy, been vouchsafed its secret stimulation, the succor of objects. He was loved.
Cashmere socks never would have occurred to Walker a year ago, or even six months. When he’d anticipated the young-associate phase of his life, he’d imagined himself monastic and intense, reaping the harvest of earlier achievements, laying away a bounty for winters to come. Now, when he had more money than he’d ever thought he’d need, he was finding needs he’d never thought he’d have. He was learning that there was a whole industry devoted to creating needs for people like him. And it was powerful. It was hard to resist. You can have me, the voices said. They emanated from shopwindows, from fine topcoats and shirts of varied hue. We’re meant for each other, the cell phones implored. The digital cameras, the GPS watches, the baubles and gadgets. You deserve me. This is who you are.
You can have me. Ryan Grady heard the chorus too. Not from objects; his basic nature was too stolid to be molded by the blandishments of commerce. Ryan heard the voices of people. In a way this made it more natural, but only in a way, for the people were not speaking. Still Ryan heard them, a synesthetic murmur from bared shoulders and angled eyes. Walking down the street, standing in the subway’s jostled crowd, he heard them and wondered: How much? How much would it take? One hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand? Not onetime figures but annual income: How much would I have to make to get that woman to go out with me?
Everyone was available in principle, Ryan realized; it was just a matter of haggling over price, of demonstrating sufficient buying power. And power was what it came down to. You didn’t, if you played your cards right, even have to do the actual spending. The proven ability to do so was enough, the promise that one day you might. Not right now, not immediately; there’s no need to rush these things. But eventually, when the time was right, when things had grown clearer. In that sense, Ryan thought, money and love were much alike.
Ryan was accumulating money, but he was willing to wait on love. More, he was avoiding it. Love led to marriage, and when marriage entered Ryan’s mind it came with the same fear and reverence that accompanied his visions of the grave. For what was the point of all his strivings, if not to make himself appealing to women? To give that up, to forsake life’s purpose, was surely a kind of death. Certainly, to do so prematurely could only be understood as suicide, or at best grave misfortune. That so many men married before reaching the peak of their attractiveness—something Ryan estimated would happen to him in his mid-thirties if he kept his hair—was astonishing. They weren’t idiots, not all of them; they were, Ryan decided, simply unlucky. Waylaid by love, struck down as by a sudden injury, taken out of the game.
Ryan steeled himself against the possibility. He performed mental exercises designed to prevent the formation of crippling attachment. Chiefly these consisted of imagining every attractive woman he saw naked, an attempt to preserve emotional flexibility in the same way that daily calisthenics ward off the snapped tendon. It was like stretching, but somewhat more enjoyable, and Ryan likely would have done it even if
not convinced of its utility as an anti-love exercise. But not with the same fervor, not with the same dedication. It was an enduring project he had set himself, a life’s work, and it demanded all his effort.
He walked out of the Farragut North metro stop, silently calculating. Two-fifty, he thought, nodding appreciatively. Three hundred. Out of his range right now, but years passed swiftly; annual raises incremented each other. He’d seen the partners’ wives. Five hundred for that one; she’s probably a model. He followed a woman in expensive clothes around the corner, straining for a glimpse of her face. Five hundred there too, but for the wrong reasons; she’s probably a partner herself. An elegantly dressed man passed in the other direction; his eyes swiveled.
He’s totally checking her out, Ryan thought, amazed. That’s sick. She’s got to be like thirty-five.
Harold Fineman heard one voice in his head, insistent and repeating. It was his own voice, and it was directed not at him but at the surrounding crowds. Not all of us are going to make it. Who’s it going to be? He shot a sidelong glance at the man to his left on the sidewalk, his substantial bulk draped in a double-breasted suit. You’re not healthy, Harold’s interior voice pronounced. You don’t work out four times a week, an hour of squash, an hour on the StairMaster. Who’s going to get colon cancer? Harold thought. Who’s going to drop dead of a heart attack? Between the two of us, is there really any doubt? It’s you, tubby. You’ll die instead of me; you’ll die so I may live.
Life was a competition, and in any competition there were bound to be losers. In law school, his professors had told him so: “Look to your left, look to your right. One of you won’t be here for graduation.” Those were the old days. Times had changed; the dictum meant nothing to law school students now, inspiring more hilarity than fear. Instead its significance had followed Harold into middle age. Look to your left, look to your right. One of us won’t make it to sixty. Harold was at an age where he heard the whispers of mortality, the actuarial scythe passing close. The classmates whose wedding announcements had graced the pages of the Times were now cropping up in the obituaries.
Harold’s own family history, truth be told, was less than spotless. There was the grandfather who’d dropped in his tracks at forty-eight; there was his father, who’d shuffled and wheezed out of the world before
Harold’s college graduation. The Fineman men were not known for longevity. But had any of them graduated from Columbia Law School, been Kent scholars, joined prestigious firms? Were any of them called partner by men with names like Morgan? How many had even gone to college? Rising above his origins was something Harold had always done.
Hard work and ferocity had brought him this far, and he saw no reason to change a winning strategy. Things had gotten more difficult, admittedly, more competitive. But that was how life worked, as the weak were winnowed away. High school, college, law school, partnership: always a stronger field, always the same need to be at the top. Okay, Harold said to himself, answering his own voice. As he neared the firm he raised his chin and squared his shoulders. Okay, he said again. Bring it on.
Katja Phillips heard only the even flow of her breath, felt only the percussive shocks of her feet on the cement of Key Bridge. Running was the only thing that calmed her nowadays, the steady pounding of her stride eating up the miles, the rhythm of her exhalations. Keep your head up, she thought. Keep moving. One foot in front of the other. If you’re fast enough, nothing will stop you, nothing will mark you. If you’re fast enough, nothing can hurt you.
Others competed; others desired. Katja just performed. There was isolation in that creed, but also safety. It was true, she thought, what her coaches had told her. In the end, other people were incidental. In the end, you were running only against yourself.