The Butterfly Manifesto

The week of orientation at the University of Chicago was hectic, but that might have been a good thing for me as it kept me occupied. I made it a point to wake up early enough to eat breakfast at Hitchcock Hall, which meant that I needed enough time to get ready in the morning. I showered and dressed, sticking to my usual skirts and sweaters capped off with a long coat. Since I didn’t need to wear that much makeup on a daily basis I could be out the door quickly. Having a driver made traveling a breeze, and I was often among the first students in the dining hall despite the commute.

On a given morning I would camp in the dining area with the New York Times I brought from home while I sipped my coffee. Eventually girls I recognized from Hitchcock would come down for breakfast, and we would form a table together. It was really an eclectic group, and somehow I expected UChicago students to be all of the same mold. I was surprised to find that there was a wide variety of backgrounds; there were economics students like me, but also a lot of arts and science students and everyone seemed to be from a different place. I wasn’t good at approaching people, but once again I was fortunate that pretty, well-dressed girls didn’t have to wait long for others to gravitate toward them.

There was a lot to do that first week such as class registration, placement test waivers, and adviser meetings. I nailed down my schedule early; my placement scores from May were high, and as a result I was able to skip many of the intro-level courses. I still had the core curriculum to work through, targeted toward economics and a bit of political science. I followed my House-mates from event to event, and when we weren’t at freshman activities or attending faculty addresses I hovered around the Hitchcock lounge or the dorms. I usually stayed on campus until the late evenings before I would quietly send for my driver and duck out.

The weekend was devoted to taking care of Butterfly Capital business which had been put off until I could meet in person. The sales of the first dozen or so domain names had gone through quite well; there were no public offerings, merely quiet bids to already-established companies who threw down cash to snatch up shopping.com or casino.com. My net worth had risen threefold with these sales alone, with more incoming. Thorne and the rest of the Northern Trust associates working with me seemed disappointed that I was putting my growing liquid capital into safe markets, utilities, and bonds. I think they expected the types of daring shorts I had made to get my money in the first place, but to their surprise I was simply storing it away.

Classes started the following Monday. The Hitchcock girls were shocked that I could regularly throw myself together so early in the morning. No one knew exactly where I appeared from since no one saw me around the dorms. I always waved it off and poured another coffee. I had a three-course schedule for the fall quarter, and it was a far cry from my high school classes. Though we met every day, it was unlike any class either I or Matthew had had in our respective timelines.

I was expecting large lectures, but not discussion sections. I was used to classes where I could coast, finish my work succinctly, and zone out while the teacher droned on. Here, there was no such thing. When I argued that consumer confidence was a lagging indicator, a sophomore in a faded hoodie immediately cut me off, citing three different case studies from the 1980s that proved me wrong. I wouldn’t get an A for showing up; I would earn an A because I needed to learn how to counter-punch.

It felt like I was put through the wringer for my first week of classes, but oddly enough I relished it. The material was engaging for once, and I finally felt like I could actually challenge myself. I had a little bit of a leg up on the other students, but I was not effortlessly excelling as I had for the last eight years. If I received a positive mark, I knew that I had earned it. I also appreciated when my economics classmates challenged my assertions on the markets, even if they were completely wrong.

I would spend the afternoons either studying in the library or the lounge, and would meet for dinner with Hitchcock every evening. Occasionally I ended up in someone’s dorm room or got talked into pulling out a guitar to play a song or two. Promptly at nine every night, I would sneak away to the car to be driven home. I could have stayed longer, but I felt guilty if I stayed out too late and made my driver wait. It wasn’t long before I was nicknamed the Cinderella of Hitchcock Hall, since no one knew where I disappeared so suddenly every night.

I suppose I was avoiding returning to my luxurious apartment until I had to. It was amazingly comfortable, and I loved the fact that if I left a towel on the bathroom floor it magically returned to the rack dried and folded every day. It just felt a bit too quiet; I had gotten used to the noise of my family’s house again, and I felt very lonely at night. I wished that I could bring my new girlfriends here after dinner (or perhaps a boy), but I knew that my wealth would probably isolate me even more, not to mention it would diminish my growing mystique amongst the house-mates.

One thing that had been on my mind since arriving was connecting with Catherine, who had had a two-week head start acclimating to Chicago. We talked on the phone every so often, but both of us were so busy with our new schedules that we didn’t have a chance to meet up in person. In his timeline, Matthew didn’t move to Chicago until his early thirties, whereas Catherine established herself there after she graduated from DePaul, giving her nearly a decade to explore the city before Matthew did. This time around, I was looking forward to discovering Chicago alongside her.

I wanted to start us off the way she and Matthew did, for sheer sentimentality. Their first date was in a hole-in-the-wall Italian place called Antonio's just south of the Loop, which had the best pizza in the city. It became an annual tradition to eat there, so I wanted this restaurant to have the same significance for the two of us. It would be my first foray out into the city outside of the UChicago bubble and my apartment, so I wanted to make it special.

I told Linda I wanted to make reservations at this specific restaurant, which perplexed her. She offered up several higher-end alternatives, as this location ruffled some feathers with my security. Apparently it was in a sketchier part of downtown and not as gentrified as I remembered it being in the 2020s. I was firm with my choice, though Linda suggested reserving the restaurant as a concession to the security concerns.

“I don’t think they reserve tables at Antonio's,” I replied.

“No, Ms. Brown,” Linda explained, “the restaurant is quite small; we could reserve the entire space for a few hours. I could arrange it quite easily and Robert would feel much more comfortable with security arrangements.”

My eyes bulged for a moment. Beyond the luxury apartment and a few shopping trips to Neiman Marcus, I didn’t live extravagantly. It was jarring that I suddenly had the ability to block off an entire restaurant. I acquiesced; it would be nice for the two of us to have privacy, since I remembered Antonio's being pretty cramped. It was part of the charm.