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envisions them walking toward each other like gunslingers in the Old West, in a final battle for supremacy. When they came face-to-face, Jonathan would tell Komaroff that if he had only been less stingy at bonus time, things would never have come to this, but now there’s no turning back. He imagines Komaroff begging—offering him a twenty-million-dollar bonus just for staying for a few more years—and Jonathan laughing as he literally turns his back on the boss on his way out the door.
    Sometimes Jonathan even took the daydream to the trading floor of his self-imagined Caine Capital. Fifty thousand square feet of open space with helicopter views of New York City. Now a hundred traders occupy the X-shaped desk, with Jonathan still at its center.
    His home is different in this fantasy, too. It’s now the penthouse of some new construction overlooking Central Park that he’s undoubtedly purchased for a record-breaking sum, and, of course, he summers in that oceanfront mansion in East Hampton.
    It’s not lost on Jonathan that although he envisions his fantasy life with striking clarity, he never sees Natasha in these glimpses of his future. He doesn’t imagine that she’s divorced him, for he’s certainly upheld his part of their marital bargain by providing her the life of opulence she craves. And he doesn’t envision that he’s left her, either, as that would require alimony, and he’d rather not weaken this fantasy by depleting his net worth by half.
    No, for it to truly be a fantasy, Natasha must meet some type of sudden end. Preferably one that makes Jonathan seem even more heroic for having endured such suffering.

4
Eight Months Later/December
    A s soon as he gets out of his car, Jonathan hears the Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself” and he’s firmly back in 1990. He surveys the other vehicles in the East Carlisle High School parking lot. A lot of economy cars, most of them domestic, scattered among the SUVs and minivans.
    His Bentley looks very out of place, and Jonathan smiles.
    When the invitation to his twenty-fifth high-school reunion arrived in the mail two months ago, Jonathan could not envision any confluence of events that would have led him to attend. It had long been something of a point of pride that looking back had never held any interest.
    And yet here he is.
    â€œHey, you’re Johnny something, right?” says an obese man sitting on a bench in front of the high school, a plume of smoke around his face.
    Even with the man’s extra hundred pounds and bald head, Jonathan recognizes Pauley DiGiacomo. The smell of pot is also a trigger. Pauley was a first-class burnout in high school, although in East Carlisle, and apparently nowhere else on earth, the stoners were called ginkers. He’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with some type of writing on it that’s obscured by the gray hoodie he has half-zipped over it, which immediately makes Jonathan think that his decision to wear his Brioni suit was a mistake, even if he did forgo the tie.
    â€œI go by Jonathan nowadays. Jonathan Caine.”
    Jonathan extends his hand for a shake, like grown-ups do, but Pauley puts up his palm, inviting a high five. “Fuck yeah,” Pauley says, after Jonathan slaps his hand. Then apparently realizing that he’s being ungracious, Pauley says, “Hey, you want a hit?”
    Pauley pushes the joint that’s clutched between his stubby fingers toward Jonathan. The irony isn’t lost on Jonathan that he could have easily had this exact same conversation with Pauley DiGiacomo senior year.
    â€œNo, I’m good,” Jonathan says. “So what have you been doing with yourself, Pauley?”
    â€œYou know me, still kickin’ it with the drums.”
    Jonathan suddenly recalls that Pauley was in some type of band in high school, and now that he’s accessing that part of his memory, a pretty decent version of “In the Air