Diversification #3
“Wouldn’t you say you’re missing some . . . I don’t know, historical facts?” Varsha suggests.
Elijah makes a dismissive noise. “What is history but propaganda, really, at the end of the day?”
“Ah, well—see, that’s—”
As the conversation shifts away from them, Lili runs her hand over Aleksandr’s shoulder. He glances at her, a faint smile,
and around her waist, his arm tightens, pulling her into his lap. Lili lets out a quick breath, balancing her drink, but she
settles against his chest, arm slung around his shoulders.
“Hey,” she says, looking up at him in the dark, the roar of noise. The linen of his shirt is soft against the bare skin of
her arms. “Elijah bulldozed into the conversation?”
“He had opinions about your roommate’s parents buying property,” Aleksandr concedes.
Lili rolls her eyes. “Yeah, he’s decided faux-Marxism is his personality this month.”
“And I thought I had it bad with you,” Aleksandr replies.
“At least I have some respect for history. These things we call facts.”
“I didn’t know those were optional.”
“Get deep enough into Bushwick, and anything’s possible.”
“Your friends are—interesting,” he says.
Lili grimaces. “Elijah is not my friend. He just thinks Amina’s hot, he’s been waiting to shoot his shot since college.”
“Isn’t Amina the one whose studio this is?” Aleksandr asks, frowning. “And who’s dating Greene’s kid?”
“Yeah, but I think Elijah would argue that monogamy is a capitalist construct, intended to entrap us within structures of exploitative labor. And something about lizard overlords.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Aleksandr mutters.
“—and you—you said you work in finance, right?” Elijah says, gesturing at Aleksandr, louder voice interrupting. Lili feels
a flare of annoyance.
“Yes,” Aleksandr replies, adjusting Lili in his lap so she settles more comfortably into his arms.
“Well, how can you defend it, then?”
“ISIS?”
“No, no—the current liberal order,” Elijah says. “Democracies as fronts for Halliburton, the expansion of Gates’s neocolonialism?”
A shift in the couch, as Amina and James drop down beside them. “Elijah, we’ve received complaints, and I’m here to beg you:
Can you just—not?” Amina asks. Bass pounds as the music switches tempo; a shriek in the crowd sounds like Jackie as the song changes.
“It’s a party!” James adds. “Celebrate me, laud me—hell, drag me, but don’t terrorize my guests.”
“It’s all capitalism!” Elijah exclaims. “All the way down! We need wholesale revolution, none of this democratic socialist
bullshit—anything besides utter rejection of profits is murder!”
“How so?” Aleksandr asks, taking a drink of his whiskey. Lili catches the scent: smokiness, hint of peat.
“Profit and ethics are fundamentally opposing motives,” Elijah asserts. “An honest dollar has never been made without breaking
someone’s back.”
“And here I thought prostitution was the world’s oldest profession,” Aleksandr says.
Beside them, James snorts so hard Lili startles, her drink sloshing in her Solo cup.
“To profit, you need to exploit,” Elijah continues. “That’s nonnegotiable, and people like you”—he points at Aleksandr—“you’re
exploiting us all.”
“God, you’re so much fun,” James muses, leaning back against the couch.
“What? I’m right! You know, all our issues, these societal concerns, the plagues of our time, they’re planned by financiers
and politicians, people like him—”
“Elijah, back off,” Lili snaps.
He holds both his hands up, as if in surrender. “Fine, fine! But sleeping with the enemy, Lili? Really? The communist cause
deserves much better—”
“Elijah, you go to Equinox,” Amina interjects. “You’re not a communist.”
“Our bodies need to be primed—healthy!—for the class struggle—”
“You’re suspiciously quiet,” Lili murmurs to Aleksandr, as Amina and James start tag-teaming to attack the hypocrisy of Elijah’s
sneaker collection: “StockX does not qualify as thrifting, Jesus,” she overhears James say.
“I don’t think I have much to gain from destroying some child’s worldview,” Aleksandr replies dryly.
“To be clear,” she says, “I can still criticize your free-market capitalism. It’s bullshit. Elijah’s views are just also bullshit.”
“Just as well. I’ve only really got tolerance for one feral socialist in my life.”
“He isn’t a socialist,” Lili asserts. “He’s a poser. When I told him Trotsky was murdered with an ice axe, he thought I was
joking—ah, sorry—” Yawning, she tries to bury her face against his shirt, stifling it.
The corner of his mouth tugs into the hint of a smirk. At her waist, his fingers brush against her bare skin, exposed by her
tiny black tube top.
“Tired?” he murmurs. Lili glances out the huge windows, foggy glass. It’s near midnight, and the party has grown darker and
dirtier. The floors thrum with the amount of people dancing, faces she doesn’t recognize, sweat and cigarette smoke.
“Want to walk home?” she asks.
Aleksandr frowns. “Of course, I’ll walk you home—”
“No, not to my place. I meant, like, over the bridge, back to Tribeca.”
The smile that breaks over his face—surprise; then warmth, that relaxes in his gaze—she wants to make him look like that every
day.
“Well, that went better than I thought,” she exhales, relieved, when they’re out on the street after saying goodbye to her
friends. The rush of night air cools the sheen of sweat on her body. She feels residual excitement, unexpected contentment
at the way the night had gone, the way it’d felt comfortable to have him at her side. “Thanks for coming.”
“Did you have significant concerns?” Aleksandr asks, amused.
“No, but my friends can be a lot,” she concedes, taking his hand. “You held your own,” she teases.
“My pleasure. I was glad to meet them. Are you sure you’re not cold?”
“No, no,” Lili says, waving a hand. “It’s gorgeous out, I’m fine.”
Dark storefronts, busy bars, her neighborhood streets. Passing a realtor’s office on Bedford, closed for the night, Aleksandr
snorts, catching sight of the real estate listings, lit up with glowing fluorescence. “Do people really pay this much to live
in Brooklyn?” he asks, glancing over the properties skeptically.
Lili knocks him with her shoulder. “Don’t be pretentious,” she warns.
“This neighborhood wasn’t like this when I first moved to the city,” he says. “These prices are comparable to Manhattan.”
“Yeah, well—gentrification,” Lili says, gesturing at a bar they pass: twenty-dollar experimental cocktails, plum velvet booths,
terra-cotta blush walls. “I don’t really have a leg to stand on, I’m technically—I mean, definitely—part of it. But it’s a
serious problem. Like, look at all those new developments by the water. Most of them are just fueled by real estate funds,
changing the neighborhood, perpetuating a broken system.”
“Greene’s kid had some interesting ideas, working within a broken system.”
“Jamie told you about his fund idea?”
Aleksandr nods. “It has good thinking behind it. Some funds out west are doing similar work, I know some managing partners.
Venture capital is a small community, connections are helpful.”
Lili is taken aback. “You offered to make introductions for him?”
Aleksandr shrugs. “Yes. He’s young, but he’ll be fine. He has enthusiasm, a known last name. The valley doesn’t really have
an aversion to youth, especially if you’re a rich white kid.”
“True enough anywhere.”
“What about you?” he asks. “Have you started looking for jobs after you graduate? Since we know finance is off the table for
you.” He grins.
“Oh.” Lili bites her lip. “I actually—I just got offered a job with the farm, while I was upstate. Like, full-time, salaried,
all that, after I graduate. Working on their—I mean, our—expansion and strategic ops.”
His eyebrows raise. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I haven’t actually told anyone yet. I don’t know if I’m going to take it, honestly.”
“Why not? Is the pay not tenable?”
“No, it’s fairly good, surprisingly. We’re a profitable business, we have real funding. It’d be comparable to corporate ops
starting salaries, with benefits. Definitely better than what I’d make trying to work my way up at, like, a UN agency.”
“And do you want to take it?”
Lili glances at him, trying to catch a hint of judgment or derision; but his gaze is clear, interested. “I think there’s a
lot to be said for grassroots work as, like, an engine of economic empowerment and security,” she says carefully. “In Marin,
too, I did some of this type of stuff—gardening upkeep, local food—with my foster parents. People in the Bay Area are intense
about food supply, food security, that sort of thing. It’s important work.”
“So, why the hesitancy, then?”
She lets out an exhale. “It feels almost too good to be true? The chance to do work I enjoy, making solid money. I didn’t
even think it was an option with the farm. Also, this sounds so stupid, but—is it impressive enough? And is it going to set
me up right, in life? Like, I can almost hear my adviser: An economics master’s, and for what? I can’t just afford to do whatever I want after I graduate, like Amina can—I’m not saying that’s her fault, we need more
artists, we should all be artists—but I’m responsible for how my life turns out. So, what if I make the wrong choice? I don’t
know! I don’t know.” She flashes a smile, getting uncomfortable. “It’s fine, I’ve got some time to decide—oh, wait!” she says,
grasping his arm. “Let’s stop here for a second.”
It’s one of her favorite walks: into Manhattan, over the Williamsburg Bridge. The stretch of water with the gleam and glass
and glow of downtown, One World Trade looming.
“I love this view,” she says, pulling Aleksandr towards the railing.
“Do you usually take this walk into the city?” he asks.
Over her shoulders, she feels the settle of fabric: his jacket, that he’s draped over her now that she’s still. She considers
protesting, but it’s warm from his body.