Games

Emerging Markets #5

“Dad, you were saying you’d spoken to Paulson,” James says, smoothing over the rupture fast. “What were his thoughts on the

Fed tapering?”

“You know Hank,” George chuckles. “Thinks government shouldn’t have gotten involved to this extent, but once involved, they

need to see it through . . .” Leaving her behind, the conversation moves on, guided deftly by James. George loves to talk,

and James knows how to encourage his father to dominate a conversation. Lili watches the bubbles in her champagne fizz, distantly

tracking to the discussion on who’s up next for Fed chair. The party grows in pitch as more alcohol pours and bankers laugh.

She’s dressed in red, the woman with him: Kara. A fitted, elegant dress that hugs her figure perfectly but is entirely appropriate.

Intelligent large eyes, lustrous brown hair that she shakes back over her shoulder, deep brown skin, a beautiful full mouth.

She says something about inflation risks, a playful smirk; everyone laughs—even Michael fucking laughs.

Lili grips her drink so tight her knuckles strain.

“What do you think, Miss Marwan?”

It’s Aleksandr, interrupting George. Staring at her with unsettling stillness.

“Excuse me?”

“Greene thinks the last administration read The General Theory too many times.”

Lili snorts. She’s not doing this.

Aleksandr’s eyes snap. “You disagree?”

“This country is much more enamored with Friedman than Keynes,” she mutters. “We scream red scare at any real government intervention

that benefits anyone except the rich.”

George chuckles. “Smart girl, isn’t she, Petrov?”

Aleksandr ignores him. “I assume you think Friedman’s the devil.”

“I think he’s responsible for degrading the comity of humanity and mortgaging our future, yes.”

“Ah, right.” Aleksandr nods, taking a drink of his cognac, a condescending twist in his lips. “The blame levied on previous

generations, consequences borne by future, blameless ones. An old song.”

He’s baiting her. She knows he is, but she doesn’t care; she’ll show him how little she cares, she’ll set fire to his precious

little altar of capitalism. “Friedman convinced Washington to stop caring about people and hand big business limitless power,”

she snaps. “It’s how we ended up with men like you.”

“Is it the government’s responsibility to worry about people?” Aleksandr asks.

“Caring about people,” she corrects, “is not a negative.”

“Respect is more important than care.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Have you not actually read your Friedman, Miss Marwan?” he asks, unkind smile. It hurts, how he doesn’t say her name. His

disdain—cold amusement, devoid of any usual affection—enrages her. “His fundamental value isn’t to do good unto others, it’s

to not force them to do good.”

Lili scoffs. “That’s bullshit—”

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” James mutters, throwing back the rest of his champagne.

“—and it’s just a weak excuse to let free-market libertarianism run rampant. As a country, we’re still in thrall to the ideas of a few old white men.”

“I see,” Aleksandr says. “If we had it your way, we’d have bombed out the University of Chicago in the seventies. Clean break.”

“Well, you know what they say,” she bites back. “The trolley problem isn’t just a thought experiment.”

“So, let’s kill the intellectuals, before they say anything contentious? That sounds familiar.”

She hates it—how he pushes her statements to distortion, make them sound fucking ridiculous. “Friedman unleashed profit monomania,”

Lili grits out. “He convinced you all that corporations only have a responsibility to shareholders.”

“Yes?”

“That’s immoral!” she exclaims. “Letting corporations run wild while government steps back!”

“Your argument is entirely unclear. Corporations or state, which is responsible for the common good?”

“You can’t just extricate them—we need government to actually be a government, but that doesn’t, like, absolve corporations of social responsibility!”

“Our government spent nearly seven trillion last year, yet we continue to demand CEOs fix the world as a side project. Is

it because they’re the only leaders we have who’ve actually accomplished anything?”

Her eyes widen. “That’s some of the most arrogant, self-aggrandizing—”

“Now, Lili,” George cuts in, stern. “That’s rather—”

“Do not interrupt her,” Aleksandr snarls, glaring at him.

The air changes, then. A shift in posture among the group. Confusion narrows in people’s stares, a reexamination of her—and

him, the two of them—but Lili brushes right past it.

“You realize corporations have always been creatures of the state?” she asks. “Relaxed taxation, the government’s intentional

laissez-faire approach—corporations are completely the product of state intervention.”

“That logic is shaky, but I’ll allow it, for argument’s sake.”

He’ll fucking allow it? “Limited liability is a privilege granted by the state,” Lili snaps. “It’d never arise in a truly free market.”

“I am not an anarchist, Miss Marwan,” he replies, glancing at the others—at Kara—with a knowing look of cruel amusement.

“No, just a capitalist deep-throating for the sake of next week’s stock price.”

“Lili!” It’s Meredith, aghast.

But Aleksandr gives a harsh laugh. “If you cared to actually research, you’d know we’re committed to long-term growth, not

easy, short-term returns.”

“Yes, that you’re funding with Saudi blood money.”

“Don’t be so reductive.”

“Don’t be such a capitalist pig!”

“I’m getting a stronger drink,” James mutters.

“No, you’re staying,” Lili snaps, grabbing his arm. Aleksandr’s gaze drops—tight, angry—on her grasp on James. “We need to

hear out Petrov’s pitch for the Cato Institute.”

“That’s a little on the nose,” Aleksandr replies. “But I suppose youth lacks nuance.”

“And I suppose old age hardens you to a sense of shared humanity.”

“Bleeding-heart liberals,” Aleksandr says, a dismissive aside to Kara. Lili’s blood scorches.

“It’s not bleeding heart to care about other people, it’s social justice!”

“Your social justice comes at an unacceptable cost to my personal liberty.”

Lili could slap him. “You’re all libertarians until the markets turn down, then you go running to Washington for help,” she

hisses.

“I’d say Washington comes running to us.”

“What an effective system.”

“We’re freer than we’ve ever been in human history.”

“If you’re a white man with money.”

“If you’re possessed of a modicum of competence.”

“I’ve told you this before, it’s a stacked game! Not everyone starts from the same starting line, you can’t speak about freedom

without acknowledging inequality.”

“What a champagne socialist,” Aleksandr mutters, taking another drink.

Lili thinks she sees red.

Before she can react, James jumps in. “Dad, what were you saying about Monday’s IPO?”

“Ah, one for the books,” George says, easily absorbing the attention fast. “App kids with Andreessen babysitters, I didn’t

think they’d make it out the gate—” The buzz of conversation and opinions smooths over the agitation of their argument, the

others quickly participating. Variance in APAC venture trends, explosion in late-stage round volume.

Beside her, Aleksandr takes a drink. There’s harsh tightness in his jaw. His hand flexes around his glass; she hates that

she ever let him touch her.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Lili mutters under her breath, more to herself than him.

Except he catches it.

The air shifts with the rustle of his suit, the scent of his cologne, as he leans in closer.

“Can you say that again, sweetheart?” His voice washes over her shoulders, makes her skin tighten. There’s no affection in

the endearment. “I didn’t hear you.”

That’s it.

That’s fucking it.

Lili grabs his wrist—doesn’t care what this looks like—and drags him away.

The party is loud behind them, as she yanks him down the hall. They pass staff she knows, people she’d usually greet, but

she’s seething. Her frustrated rage—cracking into something deeper she will not let hurt—makes her skin crawl with how much

she wants to scream at him. She follows familiar turns, until she pulls him into James’s old bedroom, sounds of the fundraiser

distant.

“Know your way around the place, do you?”

“Shut up,” Lili snaps, slamming the door. “I am not a champagne socialist, you absolute fucking asshole!”

“No? You seem at home on Park Avenue,” Aleksandr replies, cruel with derision.

“Jamie is my friend.”

“And what a friendship it seems.” He sets his drink down on the dresser with a thud. “It’s a bit rich, isn’t it? Stringing along Greene’s golden child while calling for the fall of capitalism?”

“I am not stringing him along, for fuck’s sake!”

“Does lying make you feel better about it?”

“Lying? Lying? You’re the liar—you said you weren’t coming back until Sunday.”

“I did not lie, I got back early—”

“Right, early. So you could come to this bastion of charity?”

“Worried I’d see how close you are with Greene’s pup?”

“Why do you care?” she yells.

“You said you weren’t fucking anyone else.”

Idiot. She’s an idiot, because the sight of that woman, Kara, beside him—bright smile, intelligent eyes—made deep parts of

her chest ache. “Well, right. Maybe I lied, just like you.”

Aleksandr takes a sharp step closer to her; Lili does not give an inch. “I do not lie,” he repeats, cold anger taut with furious

restraint. “And I was very clear, cheating is an absolute red line for me—if you fuck other people, this is over—”

“I’m not fucking James!” she yells. “I’m here because his girlfriend can’t be! I haven’t so much as kissed anyone else since

you and I met, aside from Amina on my birthday—which doesn’t fucking count, she’s my best friend—and even if I had, you’d

have no right talking to me like this, when you walked in here with that woman, like I’m some sort of idiot!”

Aleksandr frowns. “What?”

“Don’t insult me by playing dumb—Kara, the one even Michael seems to like!”

Unexpectedly, Aleksandr laughs. Lili flinches.

“You know what? No,” she mutters, making to move around him for the door. “I’m not doing this.”

He grabs her wrist, pulling her back. “I did not bring Kara. Her fiancé was right across the room.”

Lili frowns. “What?”