Page 304 - A Little Life: A Novel

your face, and you’re standing outside; you can see a streetlight behind
you.”
“Right,” he says. This has happened to him a few times before, and he

always finds it unsettling. “I know exactly the one you mean; it’s from
‘Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days’—the third series.”
“That’s right,” says Caleb, and smiles at him. “Are you and Marion
close?”
“Not so much anymore,” he says, and as always, it hurts him to admit it.
“But we were college roommates—I’ve known him for years.”
“It’s a great series,” Caleb says, and they talk about JB’s other work, and

Richard, whose work Caleb also knows, and Asian Henry Young; and about
the paucity of decent Japanese restaurants in London; and about Caleb’s
sister, who lives in Monaco with her second husband and their huge brood
of children; and about Caleb’s parents, who died, after long illnesses, when
he was in his thirties; and about the house in Bridgehampton that Caleb’s
law school classmate is letting him use this summer while he’s in L.A. And

then there is enough talk of Rosen Pritchard, and the financial mess that
Rothko has been left in by the departing CEO to convince him that Caleb is
looking not just for a friend but potentially for representation as well, and
he starts thinking about who at the firm should be responsible for the
company. He thinks: I should give this to Evelyn, who is one of the young
partners the firm nearly lost the previous year to, in fact, a fashion house,
where she would have been their in-house counsel. Evelyn would be good

for this account—she is smart and she is interested in the industry, and it
would be a good match.
He is thinking this when Caleb abruptly asks, “Are you single?” And
then, laughing, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Sorry,” he says, startled, but smiling back. “I am, yes. But—I was just
having this very conversation with my friend.”

“And what did your friend say?”
“He said—” he begins, but then stops, embarrassed, and confused by the
sudden shift of topic, of tone. “Nothing,” he says, and Caleb smiles, almost
as if he has actually recounted the conversation, but doesn’t press him. He
thinks then how he will make this evening into a story to tell Willem,
especially this most recent exchange. You win, Willem, he’ll say to him, and
if Willem tries to bring up the subject again, he decides he’ll let him, and

that this time, he won’t evade his questions.