And Sam might even have felt some of that pride if HT hadn’t referenced his steering clear of higher-risk opportunities. Unlike so many of his colleagues, Sam had never attempted to shift to the buy side—to a private equity firm or hedge fund—where the analysts lived and died by their recommendations but had the opportunity to accumulate real money. He hadn’t even attempted a lateral move within the firm to a faster-growing sector like tech or telecom, wary of their rapidly changing competitive landscapes. Utilities may be regulated and slow-growing, as Sam liked to say to his clients, but they were also predictable and paid dividends.
But if HT’s mention of these unpursued opportunities stung, it stung nothing like Sam’s realization that he had never referenced them in any of his interviews with Vitek. If they were in that file, they must have come from Annie, presumably as examples of her husband’s lack of ambition or grit.
Sam shook his head.
“Some of what you’ve said may be true,” he admitted finally. “But I think Annie and I have another act ahead of us.”
“Oh,” replied HT. “I didn’t say it was Annie’s third act. We’re fairly certain that she’s still in her second.”
Sam slammed the door of his new car. Or rather, he tried to slam it. But the door, like the motor, had been engineered to operate smoothly and quietly. So when he tugged the door shut, it advanced, paused, and closed itself with an unobtrusive click.
“Fuck you,” said Sam to the door.
He pushed the ignition and the car stirred to life with the slightest tremble. As if in harmony, the phone in Sam’s pocket began to vibrate with an incoming call—presumably from Annie or the office. Ignoring it, Sam initiated the GPS.
Where would you like to go? it asked.
“Two hundred and ten East Eighty-Fifth Street.”
Proceed to the highlighted route. Take a right onto Local Access Road, then continue eight miles to the expressway entrance.
At Vitek’s exit, Sam came to a stop despite the fact there was no oncoming traffic. The GPS calculated that he would arrive back at the apartment at 7:34, in plenty of time for dinner. But Sam felt a sudden desire to turn left and follow the access road all the way to Orient Point—in order to visit that little house by the sea, the one that his parents had rented before his father quit his job, uprooted the family, and dragged them all out west.
Someone behind Sam honked.
Without signaling, Sam turned right and headed toward the city as it began to rain.
The access road, which ran parallel to the expressway, was lined with telephone poles that may or may not have been carrying telephone calls anymore. At one time, this road had presumably been the main artery extending from the city to the tip of the peninsula, but the expressway had turned it into a secondary route spotted with secondary businesses. Case in point, Sam was passing a motor lodge from the 1950s with a parking area that was three times bigger than it now needed to be.
Up ahead Sam saw another remnant of the access road’s heyday: a bar advertising itself as The Glass Half Full, complete with an oversize neon sign of a tipped martini that loomed over an old-school phone booth at the side of the road. As Sam drove by, he noticed that at the bottom of the martini glass was a neon olive that was no longer lit.
Sam pulled over onto the shoulder. After letting two cars pass, he did a three-point turn and headed back.
The GPS chimed to indicate its recalculation of the route home.
Take a left onto Maple Street, then proceed one-eighth of a mile and take a left onto Church Street.
Instead, Sam took a left into the parking lot of The Glass Half Full. It was also three times larger than it needed to be, accommodating a handful of pickup trucks and older American sedans. Sam got out of his car and walked quickly toward the door as the rain began to fall in earnest.
Inside, the ambience was defined by back-lit beer signs hanging on the walls and billiard balls clacking somewhere out of sight. On Sam’s right was a row of booths being used by parties of two or three while on his left was a bar lined with men in work clothes sitting on stools. A few of the men turned and looked in a manner suggesting they were used to recognizing whoever came into the bar. When they saw it was Sam, they went back to their beers.
After letting his eyes adjust, Sam walked farther into the bar in search of a quiet place to sit. But as he proceeded, he was surprised to discover HT sitting in the fourth booth talking to a brunette. Sam didn’t imagine The Glass Half Full was HT’s sort of place. Maybe he’d just found that having a drink right after work was additive to his experience. Sam took a step toward him with every intention of making a wry remark to this effect, and that was when he realized that the brunette in the booth was Annie.
Sam stopped in confusion. He and Annie were planning to talk about their “options” over dinner later that night. Had she driven out to get a reading from HT on Sam’s impressions in advance? But even as he was asking himself this question, Sam realized that resting on the table between two glasses of red wine were HT’s and Annie’s fingers interlinked.
Looking up, HT let go of Annie’s hand.
“Sam!” he said in his upbeat way. “What perfect timing! We were just talking about you.”
HT slid out of the booth and stood in order to shake Sam’s hand.
Which was just as well, since it made it so much easier for Sam to punch him in the face. Sam had never hit another person. So with all the sharpness of a brand-new experience, he could feel the bone in HT’s nose breaking and he could see HT’s head snapping back as he slumped into the booth.
There was a rap on the glass.
“Hey! You okay in there, buddy?”
Sam looked out the passenger side window to find someone peering into the car. It was an ill-shaven man in his late fifties holding a newspaper over his head to fend off the rain. Sam lowered the window.
“You okay?” the man asked again.
“Yeah,” said Sam. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
“All righty,” the man said before limping toward the bar.
Sam sat for a minute watching the windshield wipers sweep back and forth, his spirits lifted by the punch he hadn’t thrown. Then he followed the stranger inside.
The Glass Half Full was almost as he had imagined it. Though there was a pool table in the back, there were no balls in play; and though there was a bar on the left and booths on the right, there were also a few tables for four in between; and though there were, in fact, a number of men in work clothes seated on the stools, none of them bothered to look up when Sam came through the door.
Sam sat at the near corner of the bar, a few stools away from the man who had rapped on his window. A Motown song was playing on the jukebox in the corner, something by the Temptations or the Four Tops. Sam could never remember which was which.