Emerging Markets #4
She could have left. Instead, she stayed.
She put her shirt back on, and they’d started talking.
They didn’t stop talking, even after they had both fully sobered up.
It had been freezing—end of January, middle of the night—but they went to go get pizza from the shop on 111th, before walking city blocks.
His mother had died in the fall, cancer.
They’d found out just as he’d gone off to college in Boston, and it had been fast. By the time he’d figured out his transfer back to the city for Columbia in the spring, she’d passed.
Lili didn’t talk about her parents, as a rule; how did talking about it do anything but relive it? But she told Jamie a little
bit more than she’d told anyone else, that night: how they died, how she’d found out. Down into the Upper West Side, they
kept walking as they talked, skirting the edges of the park, through Bryant Park and the Flower District; they made it all
the way downtown, markets in Chinatown starting to open, stopping at the water. She could see her breath in the cold air,
and the sky was lightening in the morning.
When Monday class came around, she saved him a seat. His responding grin was the brightest she had seen yet. He’d been one
of her closest friends ever since. When she introduced him to Jackie, and then Amina, she felt such acute, deep comfort—people
that were hers—steady ground beneath her, that she could actually breathe, a little.
It still stuns her. Having found friends who felt like some faint, possible echo of family: Jamie, Jackie, Amina. Even if
they didn’t necessarily feel the same way—she doesn’t know, it’s a difficult topic to broach—that closeness, more than she’d
ever known growing up in Mill Valley, was a gift; it sometimes feels like a trick. One she tries not to burn out too fast,
to lean on too hard, to trust too much of her weight against.
“Come on,” Lili says now, grasping his hand with a smile. “Let’s get drinks.”
Pulling him after her, Lili weaves through the crowd. People break into warm greetings when they recognize James, associates
of his father, friends of his stepmother, parents of his old Dalton classmates, but Lili is determined to get them to the
bar.
“Two Negronis, please,” she asks the bartender.
“Up,” James adds. Standing behind her, he settles his hands on her shoulders. “Very up.”
“That’s the spirit,” Lili says, patting his hand.
“One hour. One hour, and then we’re going home, and watching The Big Short.”
She snorts. “I still don’t get how that’s your comfort movie. Should we do a lap—”
“Lili, dear!” Across the room, she hears a voice—Meredith, Jamie’s stepmother—call her name. “James!”
“Fuck leaving early,” James breathes suddenly. “This is my Super Bowl.”
“What?” Confused, Lili turns, taking a sip of her fresh Negroni. She looks for his stepmother’s blond hair in the crowd of
too-white smiles, third wives, and age gaps, when a familiar face snags in her periphery.
It’s like hearing her favorite song at a party she thought she would hate: the sight of Aleksandr across the room.
Taller than most, broad shoulders, sweep of his hair that looks like it’s still slightly damp from a shower. Familiar, he’s
wearing a black shirt under his black suit; first few buttons undone, that hollow at the base of his neck visible, where she
knows his cologne and the scent of his warm skin mingles. Comfortable posture, his dark eyes look over the crowd, following
Meredith’s gaze; it’s unfair, how handsome he is—edging into beautiful, honestly, and before she can help it, Lili starts
to smile, just as he catches sight of her.
An immediate—stupid—bloom of something like lightness rises in her chest—surprise, she thinks, maybe some excitement; easier to explain than
this dangerous joy—but as soon as it starts, it stutters.
He said he’d be back on Sunday.
He said he’d be back on Sunday, but instead he’s here—in New York, at a party—standing with Jamie’s family—with a woman at
his side—that tall brunette from his office, exceptionally pretty, maybe thirty at most, who has a high, mischievous laugh
as she makes some aside to Michael and the Greenes, all looking like they know one another well.
Instead of smiling, Lili frowns. Aleksandr’s gaze narrows at the same time, slipping down; not looking her up and down, but
glaring at Jamie’s arm, settled around her waist. His jaw tightens.
Lili lifts her chin. “Come on,” she says, not relenting under Aleksandr’s stare. “Let’s socialize.”
James throws back the last of his drink. “I suppose the fastest way out is through.”
Flashing on a bright smile, she lets him lead them to his family and their guests.
“Lili!” Meredith exclaims. “It’s been so long, we’ve missed you.”
“It’s wonderful to see you, too,” James interjects, as Meredith kisses Lili’s cheeks.
“I saw you last week, darling,” Meredith says, patting his arm; their relationship has always been cordial, if veering on
aggressively neutral on his part, and determinedly optimistic on hers. “Now, Lili, how are you? Tell us everything.”
“Still slaving away in academia?” George—his father—asks.
“Working on my thesis, yes,” she replies, trying to focus on the lingering scent of Meredith’s perfume—languid, powdery notes
of Chanel No. 5—trying to push away the pounding in her ears, ignoring the familiar presence that comes to stand beside her.
“You’re studying the Amish?” George asks.
“Protestants.”
“Ah, of course, of course. Andrew, this was the girl I was telling you about,” George says to an unfamiliar man in the group.
“Lili Marwan. Brilliant mind, bright young thing.”
“Andrew does remarkable work in ESG integration at BlackRiver,” Meredith offers. “We thought you could start exploring post-graduation
options.”
“Lili’s very interested in integration with BlackRiver,” James says. Lili elbows him hard, provoking a muffled grunt.
“Of course, I’d much rather see you at Goldman,” George adds, “but BlackRiver does some good work.”
“What a glowing endorsement,” Andrew acknowledges, grinning. “A pleasure,” he says to Lili.
“And the other enemies in our midst,” George continues. “Michael Vasiliev, keeps their whole firm running, and Kara Taylor—one
day we’ll lure you out of that building, Taylor, mark my words—”
“Likely in a coffin,” the woman—Kara, who’d been standing beside Aleksandr at the office that night, sharp heels and a wink,
who Lili didn’t think twice about, and she could laugh at herself for being such an idiot—replies, glowing red lipstick spreading
into a stunning smile. Even her voice is beautiful.
“—and last, Petrov, my most cherished rival,” George says. Lili does not let herself look at the tall man—the liar—standing beside her. “How’re the latest earnings looking?”
“It’s a strong market at the moment.”
And his voice, his voice, his voice—
Lili finishes the last of her drink.
George chuckles. “At Goldman, we like to say our performance is driven by our fundamentals.”
“Well, you might come close to our halfway watermark soon,” Michael comments, crisp French cuffs as he rotates his drink,
amber liquid, square ice cube. Lili zeroes in on the motion, focusing on the repetitive slide of ice against glass, trying
to hold it together, attempting to beat back this rash of heat rising up her throat: anger, frustration, stupidity, because she was so stupid. “Rising tides truly seem to lift all boats.”
George frowns. “I’d say our influence extends beyond the ticker. I understand that’s not the case for newer firms like BlackRiver.”
“We are unfortunately committed to overperformance,” Kara replies. Lili would think it funny—light enough for conversation,
sharp enough to be incisive—if she didn’t smile at Aleksandr as she said it.
“Strange how BlackRiver didn’t have any alumni up for the Treasury job last January, no?” George says. “I was just speaking
to Paulson—”
“Andrew,” Meredith interjects, settling a hand on her husband’s arm, deftly navigating in between the rising shoptalk. “As
I was telling you, Lili’s in grad school at Columbia, working on her master’s. Economics, extraordinarily intelligent. We’d
love if you could speak about your work, its opportunities.”
“Do you have an interest in sustainable investing?” Andrew asks Lili. He has the type of warmly handsome face you want to
trust.
“I have an interest in sustainable economics.”
“As should we all,” he replies. “Petrov believes it’s—”
“Don’t you think it’s problematic to justify ESG on the basis of profit?” Lili interrupts.
Confusion furrows his brow, taken aback. “We are money managers, at the end of the day,” he concedes.
“Sometimes it seems your industry lets money manage it, rather than the other way around.” She knows she should back off;
she can sense Meredith’s slightly disarmed air, George’s amusement, Andrew’s confusion at her unwarranted behavior that seems
directed at him.
“Well,” Andrew says, slowly, “our hope is that if we can incentivize our clients to invest in a manner that benefits both them and the planet, we can build a long-term engine of reciprocal benefit.”
“If your firm truly cared about the planet, you’d consider challenging the growth-at-all-costs mindset.”
“We can’t all be saints, Miss Marwan.”
It’s Aleksandr, standing beside her: the low run of his voice, the scent of him. Before she can help it, she’s turned to look
at him—to look up at him, because he’s stupidly taller than her, the sheer misogyny of his height. Cold, those intelligent,
dark eyes, and she can almost taste how his hair, just brushing against the collar of his shirt, is still slightly wet—a shower
fresh off a plane, perhaps, at the loft where she’s been, where he’s pressed her against the marble, wet skin, coaxed her
to come through tears—or maybe, a shower somewhere else, with someone else—and her fingers twitch around her empty glass; she wants to slap him and she wants to cry, because she knew
this had an expiration date on it, but she didn’t think it would expire like this—
Lili looks away. From a passing server, she grabs a fresh glass of champagne.