Emerging Markets #3
else, we’re fully on the same page. I haven’t even gone through my Saturn return, he’s probably already past his second.”
Jackie rolls her eyes. “You resort to astrology when you’re lacking actual substance.”
Lili glares at her. “Astrology is substance—”
“Ignore her!” Amina entreats, winding her arms around Lili’s waist. “Ignore her, Li. This is good, it really is. Tell her,
Walsh.” She hits Jackie’s knee. “Tell her.”
“I’m teasing,” Jackie relents, snuggling against them, kicking her feet onto the coffee table. “You’re allowed to have fun,
and I’m happy to reap the extended benefits.”
Lili raises an eyebrow. “Extended benefits?”
“Dude, I have never—never—had fresh bagels that good, and I have lived in this city my entire life. Just think, he could probably get us into Zero
Bond—”
Lili snorts. “You can get into Zero Bond, Jackie. Besides, that’s not really his scene.”
Her roommate smirks. “You know his scene?”
“Oh, my God—”
“Alright, alright,” Amina says, clapping her hands together. “Tell us, what’s his apartment like?”
“It’s an apartment.”
She snorts. “He’s filthy rich.”
“Hosseini, you’re rich.”
Amina shakes her head. “Not like that, I’m not.”
“Let’s burn it down.”
“I’ll block the exits, you find the matches,” James replies, looking over the party.
It’s ostensibly a fundraiser, held in the opulent Park Avenue gloom of Jamie’s childhood home, redolent with secret laughs,
moneyed smiles, the soft hiss of champagne. Harp music—sedate, sly—winks under the throng of well-dressed, well-regarded bankers
and their wives, their lawyers, their politicians, their children. On the walls, dark paintings of naval battles contrast
with the Francis Bacon nude over the fireplace; chandeliers drip crystal, flower arrangements bloom large as coffins. Balancing
platters of drinks, waitstaff negotiate their way through the crowd of Herrera and Packham dresses, bespoke suits, Mayflower last names. Not for the first time, Lili wonders how James emerged from his childhood relatively unscathed.
“What exactly is your stepmom raising money for?” she asks, torn between distaste and skeptical amusement. Tax breaks masquerading
as philanthropy; there’s enough money here to fix most problems, if only they’d actually try. It’s a familiar feeling, this
sense of hovering on the margins, an outsider looking in. Not just in relation to the wealth lacing the room—but with most
people in general. But she comes for Jamie. She girds herself to perform.
“Children? Land mine victims, I think . . . no, wait—child soldiers who were also the victims of land mines?”
“Stop before you dig a hole you can’t crawl out of,” Lili advises, trying to adjust the floor-length hem of her borrowed black
dress so the aggressive slit settles more conservatively; Amina has several inches of height on her.
“Ami was really going to wear that?” James asks, wistful.
“Eyes up here,” she grumbles.
It’s Friday evening, and she’s here as a favor. Amina’s parents were unexpectedly in town from Europe, and Amina had retreated
into her usual terse anxiety at the prospect of time with them. Could you go with Jamie tonight to the fundraiser? she’d implored Lili that morning. I have a dress and everything. Please—I promised he wouldn’t have to go alone.
Lili had said yes, because they always tried to make sure James never went to these family functions alone, however much he
reassured them he was fine—It’s been almost four years since she died, I’m not an invalid, he’d snapped once—and because she was finally free for the foreseeable future: her revision submitted to Kerr that morning,
their check-in meeting that afternoon. As she’d left his office, buzzing from too much coffee and good discussion, she’d felt
something like satisfaction—pride—growing.
She’d done it: revised her thesis, and did a fucking good job, too.
On the train back from Columbia to Tribeca, her phone kept buzzing with texts from her friends. She stifled a smile, reading
their congratulations and plans for tonight’s celebrations. She kept checking her other messages, too; wanting to see a text
from him, without being willing to send one first. Sunday, she told herself as she got back to the loft. He’s back on Sunday. In the master bathroom, she unzipped the borrowed garment bag with Amina’s dress. A small bag of her own toiletries perched
on the marble counter.
It had been easier to focus if she just stayed at the loft. Over the course of the week, the dining table became littered
with her draft revisions, her open books, empty coffee mugs. She’d savored the rigor of hours of uninterrupted, strenuous
writing, with minimal human interaction save for conversation with Louis when she went out for air, and a flustered exchange
with housekeeping, reassuring them that she did not need the fridge restocked or rooms cleaned, she was just staying a few
days.
Looking up, hours later, it’d be dark outside. Traffic thick on Broadway, restaurants bustling—and she could keep working,
or take a bath, or nestle into the couch and read. Freedom, loose on her skin, a relaxing fit, even borrowed.
Every so often, a sharp spike of anxiety reared, reminding her how delicate this was.
This is temporary, she’d think. All of this. Enjoy it while it lasts.
“Do you think you have to trade your soul to get this far in finance?” she asks James now, glancing over the party; trying to push away how she’s benefited from wealth of this scale, in a different form, this week. “How many deals with the devil are we looking at here?”
“I mean, I technically work in finance,” he counters, tugging at his collar in discomfort. His tie is too tight.
Lili sighs, reaching up to loosen the knot. “You’re the boss’s son and perhaps the least-motivated analyst Goldman has ever
seen,” she corrects, adjusting the fit so he can breathe better. “I don’t think nepotism counts as working.”
“I’ve been thinking about going rogue,” he confesses, grinning.
“You mean moving to LA and fucking off?”
“Hush. No, I’ve been talking to some seed-stage funds focused on underrepresented founders. Women, people of color. Thinking
about using my trust fund, getting involved as a LP. I mean, depends on who’d want to partner with me. My charm does have
some limits.”
She frowns, taken aback. “Jamie, that actually sounds good.”
“Don’t act so surprised.” He grins again, chucking her under her chin. “I might get offended. I contain both brains and beauty,
it’s almost unfair for the rest of you—Jesus, hide me, my brother just walked in.”
Lili scoffs as he ducks behind her. “Yes, I’m the perfect height to hide behind.”
“You scare William.”
She grins. “I do?”
“Yeah, ever since you eviscerated him for spying on you and Amina skinny-dipping last summer. You accused him of sexualizing
female joy, I don’t think he’d heard that many polysyllabic words since the SATs.”
“Oh, I remember that!” Lili nods fondly. “Great day.”
“On bad days you scare me, too.”
“Think I could scare your dad and stepmom into letting us leave early?”
He sighs. “They love you, you know this. They always ask about you.”
“Sure. Tokenism at its finest. Plus, better no money than new money.”
James winces. “I’d say they mean well, but they don’t.”
She looks up at him. He looks miserable. No matter how much he reassures them, she knows: Being here only reminds him of his
mother.
James barreled into her life in the spring semester of freshman year, dropping into the lecture hall seat she’d been saving
for Jackie. That’s taken, she’d hissed. And your friend is late, he’d grinned. I’m Jamie, just transferred. Great to meet you. She thought she had his number immediately: tall, hot, overprivileged white boy; she was skeptical of him, he was shamelessly
flirtatious with her; smarter than expected, despite the athlete friends, the obnoxious old Harvard sweater, the clear wealth.
When she heard him shout her name across the packed bar crowd at 1020, she thought she also knew exactly how the night would
go, and it almost did: leaving together fast, making out in his dorm room, lips tasting of gin, her hands tight in his hair,
his smile against her teeth, his grip on her hips, until he’d pulled her shirt off, knocking over his lamp as he threw it
aside, sending all his nightstand clutter flying: stacked books, ragged receipts, coins, his half-empty beer bottle spilling
over a fancy, thick cardstock invitation. A black-and-white photograph of a pretty woman: huge, beautiful grin; familiar blond
hair; in loving memory of—
Fuck, he’d muttered, trying to grab everything fast. Sorry—
Is that your mom? Lili asked, suddenly very sober.
Sorry, I don’t—I don’t really want to do this, he’d said. I don’t mean to be an asshole, but can you—
They always do these in black and white, she observed, staring at the invitation, ignoring his clear cue to leave. It always felt worse to me. Did she die recently?
He hesitated, wary. Yeah, he said, after a few moments. A couple months ago. Although his expression was carefully blank, she caught the hard swallow of his throat.
Are you going to go to the memorial?
He snorted. I’m not sure you’re supposed to ask that. Aren’t you all meant to treat me like I’m glass? His tone was very bitter; it was familiar.
I didn’t go to my parents’ memorial, she said, sitting back down on his bed. I mean, I wasn’t really given the choice, I was little—but I don’t know if I would have gone, if I could have.
He stared at her hard; uneasy, reevaluating. He looked very young.