Free Food for Millionaires (10 page)
I
T WAS THE FINAL WEEK OF JULY,
but still cool enough in the morning for Casey to wear her brown suit with Ella’s brown pumps. Casey rationalized to herself that she was amortizing the cost of the suit with each use—avoiding altogether the issue of the credit card minimum payment she couldn’t make. She was also calculating the odds of running into Jay. Four thousand employees worked at the Kearn Davis building on Fiftieth and Park. Jay and Ted worked on six at investment banking, and Casey would be interviewing on two with sales and trading.
From the lobby phone, she called Ted. His assistant told her that Ted wanted her to come up to six. In a huff, she marched into the empty elevator. Well, at least she was alone to hear the rumble in her stomach.
Casey was ravenous. That morning, Ella rushed off before finishing her breakfast, so Casey had eaten the discarded half of the toasted bagel with some butter. But eating that bit of bread had only made her hungrier. In the five weeks since she’d left her parents’ house, Casey had lost eleven pounds according to Ella’s bathroom scale. Her suit skirt spun around her waist, and for first time in her life, she was not happy about losing weight—it felt like a human rights violation to be this hungry all the time. And now that she couldn’t afford to buy cigarettes (she’d already smoked two of Mary Ellen’s packet and was rationing out the remainder for emergencies), her hunger was unbearable. The less she smoked, the more she wanted to eat, and food had never tasted better.
Every day, she went to the Mid-Manhattan Library to conduct her job search, and she couldn’t stop thinking about bread, spaghetti, and hamburgers. Each night before Ella got home, she cooked one of her three-for-a-dollar ramen noodles bought from Odd-Job (occasionally filching an egg from Ella’s refrigerator) with as much water as possible. The salty broth kept her going for a couple of hours. Sleeping when hungry was difficult. Once in a while, she broke her resolve not to take from Ella’s larder and ate anyway. One night, she consumed a whole jar of Bonne Maman strawberry jam with a teaspoon. When Ella ordered Chinese food, Casey never asked for anything, but she ate the free egg roll or hot-and-sour soup and fried noodles in the waxed paper bag that Ella never touched. When Ella prepared dinner for Ted, Casey pretended to have other engagements. But having nowhere else to go, since meeting anyone in the city required cash and carfare—even hooking up with a college friend for a beer and pizza meant fifty bucks—Casey walked to the Metropolitan Museum, where you paid what you wanted, on the nights it closed late or lingered in bookstores that were still open, and when it was time for bed, she walked back to Ella’s.
The sharp chime of the elevator pierced the hush of the sixth floor. Right away, Casey recognized the thick blue carpets and the dark wooden trim on the window jambs and door frames. The rest of the company was styled as a marble temple of finance. But investment banking on six resembled a private English men’s club—mahogany paneling, silver-leaf-framed black-and-white photographs of New York’s first skyscrapers, and buttoned leather wing chairs. The pert receptionist directed her toward Ted’s office—only shouting distance from the larger shared office where Jay worked as a junior analyst with nineteen other Ivy grads chained to their rolltop desks.
The door to Ted’s office was flung open. He was on the phone wearing a headset, his back facing her. While he was talking, his hand brushed across his black hair. Ted wore a French-cuffed shirt the color of a pale blue hydrangea, a darker blue woven silk necktie, navy silk braces, and gold love-knot cuff links that Ella had given him for Christmas.
Ted was aware that Casey was standing at his door. He could see her reflection on the glass covering the elongated engraving of the Brooklyn Bridge. Not bothering to turn around, he motioned for her to come in. Then he drew his pointer finger across his neck to indicate that the call was soon ending.
Casey kept a respectable distance from his desk. Only after he glanced at one of the pair of empty chairs did she sit. Ted liked obedience, and she would not deny him this pleasure.
Ted pressed a button, turning off his phone.
“So, you made it.” In her suit, she looked like anyone he’d gone to college or B school with. Her bruises had healed nicely, or she’d covered them up well. She wore lipstick—a shade between cinnamon and claret. He liked it. There was an expression the cannery boys used for girls with talent you didn’t marry: worth fucking for practice.
Casey ignored his once-over and asked him demurely, “Shall we go now?”
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Thanks, but I thought we should get to the interview.”
“It’s actually in fifteen minutes. I only said ten o’clock because I didn’t know if you were an on-time kind of person. Can’t have you making me look bad.” He smiled. His teeth were straight and even, but the lower half was stained lightly with nicotine.
“Thanks. Truly.”
“Want to look up your friend?”
She acted as though she didn’t understand.
Ted stuck out his left hand. “His office is just down the hall.”
“Hmm.” She nodded. There was a gorgeous color photograph of Ella tucked in a round silver frame. Her expression was wise and maternal, even though she couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty at the time. Beside it was a black picture frame and, beneath the glass, a white envelope with “Teddy” scrawled on it in thick pencil like the writing of a child. When Ted caught her looking at the mounted envelope from his father, he turned it away from her sight.
“Just say a quick hello.” Ted raised his left hand in a seemingly careless gesture. “Go on. I don’t mind.”
“I’m fine right here,” she said.
“You sure?” Ted asked. “We could surprise him. Or I could phone him and ask him to swing by my office. I can make people do that.”
“I bet you can.”
“You think I’m an asshole.”
“On occasion. Absolutely.”
Ted laughed out loud. It was the first time he liked her.
“Jay Currie is not here today. He’s down in Austin assisting with a roll-up.”
“I was told that you did not work with Jay.” It hurt to say his name. But on hearing that he wasn’t there, Casey was at once relieved and disappointed.
“I haven’t had the pleasure. Yet. But I did check him out.”
“I’m flattered by your interest,” Casey said, her voice even. “Are you done?”
“Funny. I’d never noticed him, and I’d been in that room dozens of times. Figures.”
Casey exhaled through her nostrils, then held out for his verdict.
“Standard-issue white guy who dates Asian girls. Everything pale, generic looking. Not much personality there. Hmm. Heard he’s some kind of stud due to some recent twin babe exploit.” Ted coughed, amused with himself. “I am a little disappointed in you, Casey. I had you figured for the alpha type.”
Casey looked at her watch and got up from her seat. “No, Ted. Ella likes the A types.”
“You mean type A.”
“No, I don’t.”
Ted laughed with pleasure. This was fun.
“Now, are you done?” she asked. His comments stung her, but she priced this mocking as payment for the favor. He was the sort of Korean guy who was angry about Korean girls dating white guys. She wanted to argue, however:
But it wasn’t as if you or your buddies were ever asking me out. Should I have just stayed home?
To a Ted, she was too tall, too plain, and too much of a talker. Her family had no money. He had made his view of her clear. He believed that her present circumstances were justly deserved.
Ted grinned at her angry face. She was kind of sexy when she half pouted like that. He felt a little sorry for her.
Determined to behave like a good sport, she smiled at him.
“Well, I guess I’ve had my fun,” he said.
“I am glad to be of service.”
“So, Casey, let’s dance,” he said, getting up from his chair, his voice still whimsical. “Though you must be somewhat disheartened at not seeing your Mr. Currie today, looking so spiffy in your new suit.” He stared at her suit jacket. “Aren’t you hot in that? What is that? Wool? It looks warm.”
“It doesn’t feel very warm. In here.”
Earlier that morning, she’d thought of Jay as she got dressed. In case she ran into him, she’d checked her makeup carefully on her way up to Ted’s. After seeing his mother at the sandwich shop the day before, she’d longed to call Jay. He was a jerk; that was established. But she missed him intensely. He’d already tried to get her number from Tina, but under Casey’s orders, Tina hadn’t yielded to his pleas. So Jay had no idea where she was. But he was better off, since she knew where he was, and it was she who had to restrain herself from contacting him, when restraint was the very thing she was weakest in.
Ted walked out of his office, and Casey followed behind. She wished she could talk to Jay. He would’ve found it amusing that she was applying for a sales assistant position—basically, office manager work with a secretary’s salary—because it was such a random thing for her to do. And Casey would’ve liked to joke with him. She missed laughing, and they’d always been good at laughing at themselves.
This was Casey’s first time on the trading floor. It vibrated with activity. Seeing all these men in their crisp white shirts with their neckties swaying with their bodies was oddly thrilling. In contrast, Ted looked ridiculous with his Tiffany cuff links and silk braces crisscrossing his back like an X, marking him as a target. Rows and rows of men were positioned opposite computer terminals, talking, shouting, standing, and sitting down—their faces intense and kinetic.
The trading floor was nothing like a classroom or a library, an exclusive clothing store, or even the back room of a dry-cleaning shop—places Casey natively understood. There was no space for quiet reflection or planning. Energy bounced off every surface: Lights flickered across screens, fingers dashed across phone keys and computer keyboards. Here and there she spotted a woman, but the vast majority of those who filled the football-stadium-size room with its concert-hall-height ceilings were men: white, Asian, and a few blacks—under forty and presentable. Everyone sat side by side in long, parallel rows—a white-collar assembly line with Aeron chairs. It was hard not to feel propelled by the swirl of masculine power, and for the first time, Casey wanted this job. Suddenly it no longer mattered that being a sales assistant lacked prestige, money, and purpose, since she was likely going to law school after this year. Before this moment, her thinking had been that if she got the job, she’d still look for another position, then quit this gig (the very idea of remaining in Ted’s debt and dominion had been offensive to her), but now she didn’t want to consider her next move, and the thought of even plotting the next step seemed absurd. She’d stay for a year, then law school.
Ted remained beside Casey near the elevator and scanned the floor for Walter Chin, his pal from HBS. Reflexively, he crossed his arms over his chest, hating the noise and locker-room feel of two. He made a point never to go down here unless he had to. Even the smells bothered him—the cloying scent of street cart coffee and the lingering aftershave of the traders, whose way of talking reminded him of the men at the cannery. The guys on the trading floor seldom wore jackets. Ted disdained the untucked shirttails, the stained neckties, and the cheap haircuts. Junior analysts could look like shit since they rarely had time to shower, but brokers and traders, the company’s front line, should look much better, Ted thought, as a man who cared a great deal about his appearance.
Ted wasn’t budging from his spot of carpet, and Casey wanted to know why. He was taking in the scenery, too, but his face revealed contempt more than wonder. In all the busyness of the second floor, no one took notice of them. At the sight of Ted’s profile, his square jaw tilted upward, his face so cleanly shaven, looking like a man who knocked down his fears on a daily basis, Casey felt humiliated having to wait for his move.
In life, it seemed that the ones who talked less, ate less, and slept less usually won. She’d picked up a factoid somewhere that said that sharks didn’t sleep. Did winners have fewer needs or did they have greater desires than the losers? Ted’s obvious advantage and ease in this room reminded her of what she’d once heard at a football game at school, that Harvard always won because Princeton thought they were too good to fight, and she thought, Yes, Harvard was winning again.
She needed this job, and no one understood that better than Ted. He predicted that eventually, with her qualifications, she could have gotten a far better position than sales assistant from one of the letters she’d sent out, but few companies hired a person based on sheer résumé, and it was nearly the end of July—a dead time for hiring. The girl had no cash left and no backup plans. The most hilarious thing about this girl was that she was too proud to use whatever connections she might have made. Her arrogance stunned him; he almost admired it. She was one of those Korean girls who thought she was as good as white and that the world was fair, and it tickled him to see her reduced to this position—to have to ask a member of the immigrant tribe for a patch of floor to sleep on and to ask another member to pull a favor on her behalf.
Where are all of your little white friends now?
he wanted to say to her. She was acting like a rich white girl, and Ted knew that life did not let you lie to yourself for very long. In that way, you had to admit, life was quite fair.
“Excited?” Ted faced her. “Or nervous?” He grinned.
“Let’s play ball,” she answered him. Ted Kim was sadistically illustrating that she’d only gone to Princeton, she was not
of
Princeton. As if she hadn’t figured this out yet. She had exactly four dollars in her pocket, and after this demoralizing experience, wearing someone else’s high heels, she’d walk thirty blocks to an apartment that wasn’t hers, either. An Ivy League degree wouldn’t get her on the subway, and she tried not to think of Virginia, who was in Bologna by now, taking a course or two for her master’s degree in art history and filling out her afternoons flirting with the rich clients at her uncle’s art gallery a brisk walk from the university.