I had related New Year’s Eves with Cal long before we’d had relations. From first watching him, to then touching him, Cal had brought an excitement to the holiday I hadn’t expected. I’d found celebrations prior to him to be a string of letdowns. It’s the buildup that spites a looked-forward-to-night, the romanticism of a person’s mind making reality reach for something unattainable. I had learned early in life that the hopes of others were rarely reasonable to me, yet there were times in my youth when I would grab for the brass ring, an exercise of infinite futility. While I could not deny I had carved out a way to do well for myself as of late, I didn’t forget that moments of happiness were borrowed and easily taken back, a belief my brother didn’t seem to share with me.

“If I have to hear you hum that goddamn song one more time, Igor,” I groaned, draining the glass of hooch I had been nursing as my pre-party to the evening’s festivities. Since the Democratic National Convention in July, my lovestruck brother had “Happy Days Are Here Again” in a constant rotation on his lips. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s campaign song seemed to resonate with Igor. It was as if he sincerely believed it was the truth.

“What do you have against positivity,” Igor chided. “You didn’t want to believe me when I said things were going to be awful and now you don’t want to acknowledge that they’re going to be great. You’re a complicated fella, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” I stated. “Since when do you blindly trust politicians? You used to be more hip. Is it Millie? Does she influence you so much, Ig?”

He rolled his eyes. “First of all, if she did it wouldn’t be a negative thing. When you’re in love, the woman influences you in ways you could not imagine.”

I felt as though I may throw up.

“Second, the country can’t keep crashing and FDR is going to be the one to pull the breaks, save us from the wreckage. Happy days will be here again. Just wait and see, Vik.”

“You were right a couple of years ago,” I relented. It wasn’t as though it would be bad if the economy picked up, but I had my own disparate concerns to contend with.

Igor wasn’t the only person feeling hopeful. It hadn’t been a surprise Roosevelt had decimated Herbert Hoover in the election a couple of weeks before. The nation was done with the prostrate President and showed him that in a landslide. It was all anyone could talk about, the country keeping its fingers crossed that FDR’s New Deal would pull them out of the Depression they continued to sink into.