Free Losing Charlotte by Heather Clay

the backyard of Jebbie’s country house, skated it until Toby had legendarily sailed over its side doing a twisty move and sprained both of his wrists. They had competed for top Atari scores and traded in cards and candy and comics and tapes and the occasional Playboy —trafficked in all the usual areas of boy commerce, worn Stan Smiths with their uniforms to school. Jeb had been there, that fifth-grade year, was the eleven-year-old equivalent of a friend to Toby, just as Bruce had been—and he had been there at the Colony Club, thus weaving himself and Toby and Charlotte together in Bruce’s mind whenever he thought of that night.
    He’d felt old, and changed, and uncomfortably reminded, when he’d recognized Jeb right away. They had exchanged hellos, reaching around the backs of their dinner partners to slap hands andshake; after dinner was finished and most of the guests were on the dance floor pretending to boogie to the stale band, they were able to draw their chairs together. They rested their elbows among flung napkins, plates of partly eaten cake, flickering votives, loose petals turning to parchment. Jeb was drinking Scotch out of a champagne flute. The bar had run out of highballs.
    “What’s keeping you busy these days, Bruce Tavert? Keeping you going?” Jeb’s eyes, shadowed within the fleshy contours of his face, scanned the ballroom. Bruce noticed sweat along his hairline.
    “Um,” Bruce said, trying not to laugh at the way the question was phrased, the bleary-retiree formulation of it. “Man, I wouldn’t want to bore you.” But, to avoid ending the conversation before it had started, he had gone ahead and bored, with a description of his job, the fact that his offices were moving downtown, hoping to shore up more interesting business, start managing funds for design companies, artists, SoHo types.
    “Rich ones,” Jeb said. His expression didn’t change.
    “Mm,” Bruce said. He had pushed for the office move, partly because he hated describing himself as a money manager. It sounded narrow and … expected, somehow, though he couldn’t think who would be expecting it. Still, the idea of working in loft space, which he pictured as perpetually washed in ethereal white-blue light, and of afternoon meetings over cappuccinos and protein smoothies, with people other than representatives from state teachers’ associations and suits from utility companies (an area he specialized in particularly) felt like hope, like absolution. He was restless, to tell the truth. On good days, he managed to be glad of this restlessness. At least it meant that he was alive. On bad days, he wondered how, at thirty-one, life had come to feel so circumscribed so quickly, consisting as it largely did of bed, shower, subway, office, conferences at the Midtown Hilton, trips to the second-floor vending machine. He didn’t say this, though he considered trying to.
    “Check out that waitress,” Jeb said. “I’d fuck her.”
    Bruce brushed at a flake of pastry that was clinging to his tux pants. From the onion tart, he thought. He said: “Oh.”
    Jeb drained the rest of the Scotch from his glass. He looked at Bruce. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m pretty pissed. Did I offend you?”
    “No. That’s okay. You didn’t.”
    “I’m an asshole. I can tell I offended you.”
    “She is pretty,” Bruce offered stupidly, though he hadn’t really looked. “So how are you, Jeb? What’s going on with you?”
    Jeb grinned into his empty glass. “Shit, Tavert, how long has it been since we’ve seen each other?”
    “Well, not since around the time you guys moved away. Maybe sixteen years, something like that. We were kids.”
    “Yeah. Well I guarantee you I’ve been a loaf since then. I guarantee you that.”
    “Well—” Bruce realized he had no response. What would do, a reflexive I’ll bet you haven’t? I’ll bet you’re just being hard on yourself? Anything that came to mind sounded trivial and false. And yet, he