Circular Motion

DAYS OF 23 HOURS
AND 55 MINUTES

"There's always been something different about your generation."

An uplifting riff of sustained beeps in C major gains momentum over a wide-angle shot of a circuit vessel bursting like a chariot from the rising sun. The sun's rays collect around it like water pulled up by a leaping whale and then return to uniformity as the vessel breaks free. It tears through creaseless sky. Sky even bluer than sky-blue.

The voiceover says: "You're a generation of explorers, learners, and sharers."

A young woman on a scooter negotiates a hairpin turn in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter to discover a market with booths extending far as the eye can see. Docking pods disappear into night, as we cut to a bubbly rooftop toast in Zurich, backlit by firecrackers reflected off the shimmering Limmat while St. Peter rings in the New Year. Arrows trail ceremonial silk tails, chasing airplanes into the potable firmament; they tilt down and seize earth with a thunderous gong. "Your generation values the experience of just being present." A young person in designer sunglasses enjoys a compost beer in a convertible in Cuba.

It all dissolves, back into that trademarked hue. Title card:

CWC

Moving the World!

This was perfectly familiar to the viewer. But then someone new came on . . .

He said, "Where in the world am I?"

Victor Bickle wore a safari hat carefully positioned to thrust forward his distinctive ears. His nose was plastered with sunscreen.

"This West African capital," he said, "was connected to the circuit back in A.H. 880,000, and ever since, it has exported its cocoa to processors in Switzerland for sale at your local grocery. Did you know CWC's engineers invented special cargo pods for cocoa beans? Refrigerated and vacuum sealed, they not only economize chocolate production-keeping your wallet heavy-but also minimize the synthesis of free fatty acids-to keep your ass light!" Between his teeth he snapped a square of dark chocolate from a bar wrapped in gold foil. "Mmm. A wonder of modern science and technology that you can count on. Delivered by CWC. But can you guess from where? Where in the world am I?"

"Here!"

"What?" said Bickle, spitting out the Styrofoam chocolate.

"Not there. Stand here," ordered the director. "You've left the frame again."

I watched Bickle apologize. He was on a completely lime-green set in a studio outside London. Peeling the sunscreen sticker off his nose, he asked if he could get a break when it was a good time. The director closed his guide monitor and told everyone to take five.

I greeted him at the snack table with a pat on the back.

"That was great," I said. Bickle just shook his head.

I poured another cup of dark roast from a Starbucks box. It'd been a month since I left Alaska, and while I still didn't drink alcohol, I was learning to imbibe wholesale quantities of coffee (which had been prohibited by my father and unavailable in our home). Starbucks was my favorite. A television in the corner of the studio played the news on silent, talking about reports of day contraction worsening. The IERS had called for schools to adjust start times according to sunrise calendars each semester. Someone walked by and changed the channel.

"Question," I said. "Have you seen Miguel at the office this week?"

Bickle turned to me.

"To keep your ass light," he said. Then he frowned. "Does that sound right to you? Should the emphasis be on 'ass'? Like, ass light?"

"Maybe he's sick," I said.

"Please focus," said Bickle. This was our fourth commercial shoot. He had decided that the whole business of reading other people's scripts, rather than presenting his own analysis on camera as he had always done before, disagreed with him. He kept complaining to me about it. I didn't really know what to tell him. "I don't even understand this commercial," he said, shaking his head. "I'm getting all tripped up. Should the emphasis be on 'ass' or 'light'? Your ass light. Your ass light."

"Just say it like you mean it," I said. "How would you say it to me if we were talking?"

"We are talking," he said.

"Right."

We each waited for the other to talk.

"Like if I said, 'Professor Bickle, what does minimizing the synthesis of free fatty acids do?' What would you say?"

"I've no idea. My Ph.D. is in mechanical engineering."

"You're overthinking," I said. "With respect, I think you should just say the line. Don't worry about the delivery."

"Let CWC worry about deliveries, so you can get on-"

"What?"

He took a deep breath.

"Drink your coffee," I said. He drank his coffee. The television was now talking about a parasite wiping out genetically modified tomatoes. A petite Chilean girl from the makeup crew walked by. She told Bickle that he was positively glowing, and Bickle blushed, though it was hard to tell under all the makeup.

"Standby," called the director.

"Listen," I said. "This is your commercial. You're the man here."

"Okay," he said, "yes."

"Okay?"

"Okay," said Bickle.

"Okay then."

"I'm the master."

"Right," I said.

"I am the master. I am the master."

"Okay," I said. "Sure. Fine."

He returned to his place before the camera, nodding at his shoes, repeating, "ass light."

I topped off my coffee and walked to the edge of the set. Working with Bickle had not turned out quite how I'd expected. The Chilean makeup girl approached me with a Fiji water.

"Your boss is very insecure," she said.

"Yeah," I replied. "I guess he's going through a bit of an adjustment."

Bickle was, it turned out, the most insecure man I'd ever met. Perhaps I should have seen it in our first encounters, the flipside to his narcissism. But who could begrudge him a little self-consciousness in his new circumstances, being suddenly subjected to the perlustration of makeup crews, directors, and script coaches preparing him for an audience twenty times what he was used to.

I was going through an adjustment too, even if it had stopped feeling that way. Instead, to my pleasure, it felt like the world was finally adjusting to me. I loved my job. I was getting paid more per month than my father had ever made in a year. And crucially, I felt valuable to Bickle.

He and I never again discussed his departure from Columbia. I couldn't help wondering about the documents I'd uncovered, and I wondered if they had anything to do with the woman I'd seen crying in his office, but I made the prudent choice not to confront him about it. He was right; it wasn't my place. After that day, a trust developed between us. It was uneasy at first, but in the cracks of uneasiness, intimacy took root. I came to understand that from an assistant Bickle didn't need an administrative crutch so much as an emotional one. It made sense that in hiring me he'd prized loyalty and patience over technical expertise, for what he wanted was never advice, always validation. And I could give it. He got flustered. He blew up. Often. And like an overheated computer, he had to be reset, coaxed back to the camera, or back into a meeting, or even coaxed over the phone back into bed, by earnest, obliging, slightly-out-of-his-depth me.

Less and less out of my depth every day, though. After work, I would return to the Oxford Street Hilton, where I continued to stay in a room on the sixty-seventh floor. I'd begun to exercise, lifting small weights in a secluded corner of the Hilton gym, and to dress more deliberately. Waxed-cotton jackets with flowers inside and slim-fitting collarless Lacoste polos as the weather warmed. With money, scrolling social media became a way of shopping, and shopping became fun. I caught myself paying particular attention to my outfits on days when I might see Miguel.

Curiosity motivated my friendship with Miguel. I learned that he was gay, the sort of boy my father had taught me to loathe, and while I had my apprehensions around him, I told myself that if we could become friends, it would prove something. I stalked him on Scroller. There was a clip of him playing soccer in a muddy jersey. He kicked and whiffed at the same open shot over and over and shouted the same half of the same expletive before suddenly resetting mid-stride. Step; kick; whiff; "¡Chinga tu-!" The clip restarted at the moment of surrender.

When I had free time at the office, I chatted with colleagues by the coffee machine. This was around the corner from Miguel's desk, and I sometimes caught myself laughing louder than necessary and afterward, when I walked past Miguel's desk, feeling disappointed if he wasn't there. On his desktop, he kept styluses of varying thickness lined up in perfect parallel. One time I messed them up to see if he would notice. He must have,...