was restless. If another popped loose, it might reveal I was uncertain about the professional path I’d so deliberately put myself on, about all the things I told myself I wanted. I think now it’s why I guarded myself so carefully, why I still wasn’t ready to let him in. He was like a wind that threatened to unsettle everything.
A day or two later, Barack asked if I could give him a ride to a barbecue for summer associates, which was happening that weekend at a senior partner’s home in one of the wealthy lakefront suburbs north of the city. The weather, as I remember it, was clear that day, the lake sparkling at the edge of a well-tended lawn. A caterer served food as music blared over stereo speakers and people remarked on the tasteful grandeur of the house. The whole milieu was a portrait of affluence and ease, a less-than-subtle reminder of the payoff that came when you committed yourself wholeheartedly to the grind. Barack, I knew, wrestled with what he wanted to do with his life, which direction his career would take. He had an uneasy relationship with wealth. Like me, he’d never had it, and he didn’t aspire to it, either. He wanted to be effective far more than he wanted to be rich but was still trying to figure out how.
We walked through the party not quite like a couple but still mostly together, drifting between clusters of colleagues, drinking beer and lemonade, eating hamburgers and potato salad from plastic plates. We’d get separated and then find each other again. It all felt natural. He was quietly flirty with me and I was flirty back. Some of the men started playing pickup basketball, and I watched as Barack moseyed on over to the court in his flip-flops to join. He had an easy rapport with everyone at the firm. He addressed all the secretaries by name and got along with everyone—from the older, stuffier lawyers to the ambitious young bucks who were now playing basketball. He’s a good person, I thought to myself, watching him pass the ball to another lawyer.
Having sat through scores of high school and college games, I recognized a good player when I saw one, and Barack quickly passed the test. He played an athletic, artful form of basketball, his lanky body moving quickly, showing power I hadn’t before noticed. He was swift and graceful, even in his Hawaiian footwear. I stood there pretending to listen to what somebody’s perfectly nice wife was saying to me, but my eyes stayed fixed on Barack. I was struck for the first time by the spectacle of him—this strange mix-of-everything man.
As we drove back to the city in the early evening, I felt a new ache, some freshly planted seed of longing. It was July. Barack would be leaving sometime in August, disappearing into law school and whatever else life held for him there. Nothing had changed outwardly—we were kidding around, as we always did, gossiping about who’d said what at the barbecue—but there was a certain kind of heat climbing my spine. I was acutely aware of his body in the small space of my car—his elbow resting on the console, his knee within reach of my hand. As we followed the southward curve of Lake Shore Drive, passing bicyclists and runners on the pedestrian pathways, I was arguing silently with myself. Was there a way to do this unseriously? How badly could it hurt my job? I had no clarity about anything—about what was proper, about who would find out and whether that mattered—but it hit me that I was done waiting for clarity.
He was living in Hyde Park, subletting an apartment from a friend. By the time we pulled into the neighborhood, the tension lay thick in the air between us, like something inevitable or predestined was finally about to happen. Or was I imagining it? Maybe I’d shut him down too many times. Maybe he’d given up and now just saw me as a good, stalwart friend—a girl with an air-conditioned Saab who’d drive him around when he needed it.
I halted the car in front of his building, my mind still in blurry overdrive. We let an awkward beat pass, each waiting for the other to initiate a good-bye. Barack cocked his head at me.
“Should we get some ice cream?” he said.
This is when I knew the game was on,