The Horologist Read online

  She was smiling in her sundress, looking great. Oliver stiffened. He examined her outfit and hair style. Her eyes shone with desire and optimism as he cracked his neck and spun out of the conversation, parading away while chanting the urgency of showering and other dull excuses.

  When he reached his car, Oliver tossed his bag in and plugged the ignition. Hundreds of horses roared with the turn. This was morphine to him. His pearl white Ferrari F40 throttled in place. Onlookers drooled.

  Oliver rolled out of the club as his mind began to wonder. He pitied the many who saw him in his car as some sort of prestigious individual, some sort of archetype of a person who they might look up to. He thought of the lonely bartender, the overworked schoolteacher, the stressed executive, the eager intern, the underpaid fireman, and then himself. He wondered if anyone was happy. Oliver then felt a magnificent burden heave onto his shoulders—something he never thought possible. Atlas took the world and thrust its weight onto Oliver’s back, and Oliver crouched over, with a knee beneath Olympus, wishing that everyone could see him, in a dream car, in a dream home, without a dream in his heart. He just wished that everyone could realize how unfulfilling life is without love.

  Heading home, Oliver’s stomach reminded him that he had yet to eat. He wheeled into the parking lot of an organic grocer. When the receipt was in his bag, Oliver was walking towards the escalator leading out when a mother and her three children cut him off. Initially, he was distraught at the inconvenience of being stuck behind this slow-moving caravan, but something so unlikely and so simple interrupted his grievance.

  The two young boys stepped onto the escalator first, followed by the mother with the shopping cart, and the little girl, about four, was last.

  Oliver inched forward to the moving stairwell when he heard a whimper. “Mommy!”

  The little girl was frozen with fear at the edge of the landing, scared that she might be sucked into the motor or get her toes clipped. The mother hadn’t yet noticed, and the girl began to sob.

  Oliver’s heart disintegrated.

  He shifted his groceries, knelt, and offered his hand. She took it so quickly, so harmlessly, so ignorant to anything beyond the idea that this stranger would help her, and they stepped on and descended together. The little girl stopped crying, but her eyes were teary when she looked up to Oliver and thanked him. It was the most sincere, genuine, caring thank you he had ever received. When they reached the lower landing, her mother was looking up at the scene. She thanked Oliver, and everyone went on their way.

  Oliver reached his car and flipped up his driver door with a smile. Children are the brightest souls in the world, and he had provided her a sense of security in her moment of vulnerability. This little girl, this source of light, reminded Oliver that there was still an ounce of love left in his bulletproof, metallic chest.

  Oliver lived on the Pacific coast. While he and Leo had built a supertanker of a company, he lived in a modest home for the size of his trust. The white-shuttered, deep-blue bungalow nuzzled against a paved stretch of waterfront. Despite its charm, the house was merely a place he lived—not a place he belonged. Oliver had been looking to belong for a long time.

  Downstairs in his bachelor pad, he stood over a drink cart and tossed two ice cubes into a glass, gripped a bottle and effused a double over rocks. Oliver mixed drinks with a heavy hand, preferring to coat his synapses well if he was bothering to do so at all. He ascended to the roof and a tropical dusk. He sipped slowly, pausing to luxuriate in the comforting burn of the liquor, then lay down in a hammock and slung his mind out over the ocean. Soon, he dozed, and in the dissident chambers of his mind, surrogate thoughts dripped in.

  Oliver rustled awake before dawn. He looked out over the ocean at the sun peeling over the horizon and saw something even brighter float by.

  Just off his roof, the butterfly waltzed in the wind. The ethereal spilled over as he thought he heard the eidolon speak to him. The butterfly had a recognizable voice . . . an infinite, dominant voice. It said, “In darker days, there lived a man who once thought as you do.”

  People say things get worse before they get better. But this was too much. The sapphire butterfly was a cloudy chimaera running amok in Oliver’s mind. Elements from his time with the horologist were now developing corresponding coordinates in his brain.

  Oliver had long ago chalked up the butterfly as a mental imprint, an illusion, an insane hallucination, but now he found himself calmly reassessing that idea. The flat circle of time was inverting in a spiraling inertia of lucidity, because he now knew . . . the butterfly was real.

  Oliver watched it hover. He watched its simplicity and the arduousness it endured fluttering along the coast. He listened as it spoke again.

  “Often a man is labeled as cold when he is only sad. Oliver, your chest is a frozen cavity because you still miss the one person who made you feel warm. You must again find your path. Do not stay as you are, in misery and remorse.”

  He thought of Isabella. He thought of her with him, her dimpled smile staring into his caring eyes. The butterfly drifted away like a hang glider above the triangular ocean spray. He warmed in the bliss. Isabella was back on his mind.

  THE STUNNER

  “CAN YOU IMAGINE if we’d stayed home?”

  Oliver and Leo were reminiscing on Ocean Avenue. The scene was transitioning from a casual setting to a throbbing nightclub when she walked by, and her pretenses were not unnoticed.

  She had hard Slavic lines to her face. She was exotic; objectively beautiful with a hint of danger. Leo watched her from their chaise. This stunning woman paraded around the lantern-lit patio looking like a mondaine. She didn’t notice Leo until she crossed in front of his table, but when she did, she wanted him to get a good look. At the bar, she turned around to face the crowd purposely and lithely. Her brazenness and audacity were alluring.

  When she made her way back, Leo wiped his chin, rose like a panther, and excused himself from the conversation.

  An interval passed as Oliver sat alone at their table. When the bill was paid for, he scanned the scene once more but still didn’t see his friend. Finally, their server explained that he had seen Leo on the way out with some “stunner” of a woman. Oliver supposed that this meant two things: that Leo and this woman had hit it off, and that she didn’t have any friends with similar looks.

  But that was that, whether Oliver liked it or not. He chuckled at the inanity in how men act around women. Every man for himself, he guessed.

  A bassinet of seasons brushed by, and Leo and Alessandra were engaged. It had been a year and a half since they met, and it was clearly going to work out.

  Tonight was their engagement dinner. The venue was chosen for its revered views and known to be a setup nearly impossible to secure, but Oliver had an “in” with the chef. The dinner guests were impressed at Oliver’s prowess; the move was a massive, plutocratic flex, and no one doubted it would be a momentous occasion.

  Champagne buckets lined the table along with prime cuts of meat and agreeable sides. The banquet was well along when Oliver, unfashionably late, entered to applause. He half waved, half self-destructed as he edged towards his seat wearing the plastic smile you show when you’re trying not to scream. As he moved around the table toward his seat, he noticed it was cluttered with top-shelf drinks ordered on top of his bill.

  All the guests seemed to have the glossy, droopy eyes of being drunk, but some had that extra layer of pupil dilation; at these debutante gatherings, half the attendees pregame with a variety of octagonal and circular pills proven to minimize paranoia in 98 percent of test patients. Take one or two with alcohol and it becomes a narcotic cocktail that overloads your dopaminergic pathway like the hollow thumping of riot guns in the street. The thing about drugs is: the bigger the town, and the richer the crowd, the stronger the sedative.

  Oliver reached his chair. He greeted his and Leo’s parents—who had flown over for the celebration—and then Alessandra and her family as we
ll. Again, Oliver eyed the length of the forty-top table to estimate the bill. These guests, these spendthrifts that he hardly knew and definitely didn’t like, were racking up a king’s ransom on his card. His card! The one with no spending limit. He must inform the sommelier or the hostess or the busboy to cut everyone off before his credit card went nuclear.

  But when the cocktail waitress came to him, he said nothing. He shook his head politely, flashed that plastic smile, and placed an order for a martini.

  Throughout the night, guests rose from the long table and came over to thank Oliver for hosting. They strained to say things that would arouse him, but he only scowled and tilted his martini and let the stuff burn his throat.

  The dinner progressed with Oliver deflecting transparent flattery. His only genuine responses were to his parents and Leo’s, while with everyone else he spoke in evasive measures meant to crush the commenter. With all the attention homed on Oliver, Alessandra, the stunner, the fiancée, particularly buxom on this night, let out a little gasp and gazed out to the restaurant as if she were renouncing her guests. She kept shooting Oliver furious looks, clasping the glass in her hand, threatening to reduce it to shards, needling and prickling him as if he were intentionally stealing the spotlight from her. Oliver had yet to figure out the facial expression that would let her know he was equally unpleased with the attention, so he redirected the focus by clinking a butter knife to his glass. Oliver stood and straightened his tie before speaking. “I’d like to thank you all for coming here tonight. I’ve known Leonardo like a brother, and now Alessandra like a sister.”

  He continued for a few minutes, then got stuck when he began to speak of the meaning of love. With blank, dry eyes, Oliver ended it with the look of someone who wanted to say more, but didn’t. Alessandra’s small, blood-red lips receded to a thin sliver across her face, and Oliver could sense the line of tension that would always be between them.

  The night concluded with Oliver, in a dignified state, staring out a window over nocturnal Santa Monica. Everyone was tipsy and laughing and enjoying themselves, but he turned his back on the guests to let them sizzle.

  Oliver leaned against the glass, and looked out into the world. He stood in a gulf of solitude, thinking onerously about the roads he hadn’t taken, the options that never were. He looked back at his loving parents and Leo and Alessandra, and everyone close to him, and winced. He returned his gaze to his reflection in the glass, and asked himself, “Who have I become?”

  Oliver then looked out beyond the window. The street below was full of whistling cars and cheerful people. Oliver envied them. It didn’t matter who. Them. He envied the depth of their pleasures.

  If you are intelligent or cynical, and especially if you are both, most of life is the same, and it takes a miracle just to feel alive. Oliver had felt anesthetized for a long time. He had reached the pinnacle of success, but for what? He didn’t feel like anything was better. His soul had been on a sharp decline since Isabella. He thought of her, in bed with him, ankles crossed, lounging in lace covered only by his T-shirt. Her smile.

  Oliver thought about how fake he’d become. His world was a game, a façade, and while he sometimes drew pleasure from it, he could feel real life flowing by. He had helped so many people throughout his illustrious come up, and now it was time to help himself. Again, Oliver found himself at a crossroad; he had to choose between that which he had become so accustomed to and something he had wanted a long time ago. A deeper existence.

  Oliver congratulated the couple, wished his parents goodnight, and pardoned himself home. When he arrived on his seafront boulevard, his heart was like a cloudy, cerulean oyster. He needed to reopen it and find the pearl. He needed to relearn how to love himself.

  It was the day after the newlyweds returned from their honeymoon. Oliver invited Leo for coffee on this balmy morning.

  The moguls were casual today as they rode electric bicycles along the beach. Their favorite coffee shop was between buzzy and deserted when they arrived, and conversation quickly became philosophical.

  “Think of the coffee bean, Leo. It is a product of life. The soil nourishes the plant. The plant produces the bean. The bean becomes coffee, and the coffee runs through me and flowers into an idea. It’s all a big circle, isn’t it?”

  Leo returned a long, wet slurp. His face had a look that said, “This is all very nice, Oliver, but what of it?”

  Oliver’s tone turned serious. “I have to tell you something, Leo.” He cleared his throat. “At the end of the week, I’m resigning from our company. You’re fully capable of managing it yourself, and I couldn’t ask for a better partner in business, or for a better friend. I hope you’re up for it, but I know I’m leaving things in good hands.”

  Leo nearly bit his cup. He began to set his coffee down, but at the last moment he reversed and took another sip. Leo choked on this one, so Oliver detailed his proposal of resignation. By the time the bottom of their cups revealed ceramic, they reached an agreement.

  “When the market hears about this, things might get shaky. You’ll have raiders and secondaries lined outside the office trying to buy our portfolio. Be professional. Be agreeable. But don’t waver. They’ll say it’s all business, and that they’re relieving you from a headache, but business is always personal, and don’t let anyone ever tell you different.”

  Leo questioned what was driving the decision. Oliver truthfully responded. Buried behind his tone was absoluteness. He was telling his oldest friend something he had never told anyone, something to be said in confidence, then never repeated.

  “Years of secret suffering have taught me self-control, Leo. There have been so may days when I’ve asked myself, Where this is all going?” He stopped and looked out into the day. “You know, when I was younger, I thought I’d figure out my purpose in life when I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then we went off on an adventure and I thought I’d discover it out there. Then I thought it’d come when we took the job with Moses . . . then when we started our company . . . but the answer hasn’t arrived. I’ve kept convincing myself that what I’m looking for is just over the horizon or around the corner, but it’s not; it’s within. There’s been a steady undercurrent of change in my life, and when I saw you and Alessandra and our families so happy, I realized that I was not. I’ve been quiet since then. I backed away from my convictions just so I could remember that kid who wanted to be a hero in this life . . . who wanted to inspire people and make the world a better place. I had to step back to see that I’ve grown numb and forgotten who I am.”

  “It’s her, Oliver, isn’t it? You’ve never really let her go. I’ve never seen you look as happy as you did back then.”

  Oliver’s eyes fell to the table.

  Leo spoke. “You know, I used to be jealous of you. I think that’s why I really left Barcelona—I envied what you had. Even after we met back up, I admired your pain, because at least you’d felt the sting of love. And now that I have, I can’t imagine life without it. I want you to be happy Oliver, so go and try to get that sting back, even if it means reopening a painful wound.”

  “It’s taken me so long to figure out who I am, Leo.”

  “Only because you have such a good understanding of who you are not, Oliver. And that is invaluable.”

  Oliver smiled like he had when they were young. “I feel like I’ve just been running away from the past, and it’s finally caught up with me on this side of the world. After I left Isabella, I thought the change in environment would help. But that’s been my recurring mistake: to hit eject. Now look at me. My path led me to this dreamland of a life, yet I find myself so upset. It’s like running away is exactly what doomed love depends on.”

  Oliver leaned back in his chair and pointed to the ocean. “You can be in the most picturesque place, but if you don’t have love within, you can’t love the world around you. It’s not about where you are or what you’re doing; it’s about who you’re with when you’re in those places doing those
things.”

  The chair of the board sat before a three-course breakfast in Beverley Hills. She was by herself, but not alone. Outside, her assistant was verifying the day’s schedule in a black sedan idling in place. On the chairwoman’s head sat a short patch of off-white hair. She had a giraffe neck and a pear-shaped body, and looked remarkably polished. Against explicit instruction, her breakfast was interrupted when her assistant rushed in to notify her that Oliver had tendered his resignation only ten minutes before. The rest of the board was calling for a meeting that night. The chairwoman accepted the adjustment to her calendar.

  The board meeting was swift and nonnegotiable. Oliver was firm with his decision and suppressed most of the questioning. The chairwoman expected this, knowing Oliver for his reputation of taciturnity and secretiveness. She spoke for the board as they navigated through the situation. The chairwoman was professional and understanding, and she reluctantly accepted his tender on one condition—that he see the company doctor to assess mental stability.

  When Oliver heard this arbitrary term, his eyes widened. “Fine.”

  Eager to rid himself of the nuisance, Oliver stopped in the doctor’s office the next morning. He expected it to be no more than a formality, but the doctor was far from passive, far from the pediatrician who spouts off thick, honeyed layers of babble to patients. This doctor behaved like a military sergeant with an inferiority complex. Oliver guessed that he either had an outstanding lawsuit for malpractice, or, more likely, that his third wife was cheating on him—though it was strange for him to be so infected with emotion when he was so displaced from love. The thing about marriage is that for ten people out of a hundred it’s a fairy tale. For forty, they work at it. And for the rest, it’s not practical. So people get divorced, and the first breakup really is tough. But after that, it’s more about economics than romance; it becomes transactional, a habit. So, why was the doctor so mad?