The Exiles Read Free Page A

heavyweight. Ever since Frank Gehry completed the Guggenheim in Bilbao andSantiago Calatrava torqued his first skyscraper, architects had become rock stars again. They unabashedly lusted after the awe that Frank Lloyd Wright had inspired more than fifty years ago, and when that awe proved elusive they each settled for popular acclaim, instead. Nate’s father had been raised in Rhode Island, not far from here. Yet when he first hung out his shingle in the 1960s, he claimed Cleveland as his home base. From there (and later Chicago), he’d spent the last half century designing structures that were minimalist and industrial and dateless—though some critics argued otherwise—and functional. For a time he’d been well known for this. He’d spawned the short-lived neo-Bauhaus movement, erecting angular university libraries and stacked-box office buildings through which tens of thousands of anonymous businessmen continued to pass each day. But what had George built lately? Nate hadn’t seen much.
    Nate hadn’t, in truth, been looking. He worked hard to keep his eyes averted from the architecture scene, but with that one line, “You, of all people, will be impressed by the architecture,” George’s presence entered Nate’s new work life the way it entered all of his relationships, the same way that the senior Bedecker’s buildings were specifically designed to cast imposing shadows over their neighboring constructs. In contrast, Nate and Emily’s new house was small and compact and not showy at all. Any decent architect would dismiss it out of hand. It was
too real life.
It was
derivative.
It was
derivative of derivatives.
Nate loved it.
    It was in this new home that tonight, after Nate and Emily stepped over the threshold for the first time, Nate was going to talk to her about his history. He’d promised himself that he would finally open up to her about the way he checked his body for shakes every day. He’d talk to her about how, last week, he’d briefly felt his emotions grow irrationally out of control. Themovers had been in the apartment at the time, tossing his stereo components through the air. So Nate’s outburst might simply have been a rational response. Or it might have been a sign that he was sick.
Sick.
He liked the word’s implications of not merely physical ailment but psychological perversion as well. It felt like a joke. A laugh: that was something Nate could handle.
    Nate took the contract back from Emily and returned the papers and keys to the envelope. He opened his mouth to say something insignificant, anything, to Bob. “Hey,” he said, like a dimwit. “Okay.”
    “Ready to move in?” Emily said.
    Nate nodded and stood. He said to the lawyer, “Thanks so much. That was easy.”
    “It’s nothing,” said Bob. “Really, my pleasure. It’s my job. You need anything, just call. Not this weekend, of course,” he grinned, and Nate noticed a packed suitcase in the corner of the office. A canvas tennis bag with the racket handle poking out of a pocket was balanced atop the luggage. “It’s hell over Columbus Day around here, frankly a carnival. Tourists will be leaching out of the woodwork for the next three days. I’ll be back on Tuesday when the commotion dies down.”
    As they left the office, Nate tried to focus on only the simple tasks in their immediate future (get to the Jeep, strap Trevor into his car seat, drive to their house) rather than their intermediate future (reaching that house). He kept his eyes on the steady tread of his running-shoe-clad feet, fixating on the sneakers’ soles, on the spots where the tawny rubber splayed beneath his toes. He barely noticed his surroundings as Emily pried open the building’s front door and pushed the stroller ahead of her, as they walked outside, as he helped her carry Trevor and his Ollie down the stoop and strode another fifty feet to where they’d leftthe car. By the time Nate looked up and refocused, he saw with a dull thud that