“What’s going on?” Darley asked.
“Oh, it’s Caddy Appreciation Day, so they’re doing an awards ceremony.”
“Caddy Appreciation Day?”
“Yeah, they invite all the caddies to join them for lunch and give out funny prizes.”
“Oh.” Understanding washed over Darley. One by one the Black men at each table got up to receive awards, shaking hands with the man in yellow before returning to their seats. They weren’t members of the club at all. They worked there. The club was just as white as her own.
* * *
When Malcolm got home from the airport it was almost lunchtime. He walked into the apartment, dropped his laptop on the counter, and poured himself three fingers of Tanqueray without uttering a word.
“Hey, love.” Darley came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle. His button-down shirt was creased, and he smelled slightly of sweat after two nights on planes. Malcolm didn’t say anything, and Darley pressed her face against his back, felt him swallow and shudder slightly. “What happened?”
“Some absolute bullshit is what happened,” Malcolm replied quietly. He put his glass in the sink and let Darley lead him into the living room to talk.
* * *
—
Thirty-six hours earlier Malcolm had flown to Rio to make the final board presentation to Azul, a Brazilian airline based outside of S?o Paulo. The presentation would be followed by a signing with American Airlines, whereby they would purchase 10 percent of Azul, giving them a stronger foothold in South America. When Malcolm arrived at JFK and reviewed his flight itinerary he sighed. The plane was a 767-300ER, an old model with narrow flatbeds, no seat-back TV, and, worst of all, no wi-fi. It was annoying that the route he’d flown dozens of times in the past year had the worst planes. He said hello to the check-in agent, who asked after Darley and the kids. The flight attendant working the business-class cabin gave his shoulder a little squeeze hello. Malcolm spent so much time at JFK he basically considered the flight attendants, lounge attendants, and gate agents his colleagues.
As the plane lined up on runway 31L, Malcolm listened to the twin engines spooling up, and in spite of himself, he felt his heart skip happily, even after all this time. He took a final glance at his in-box, then at the wallpaper on his phone—Darley and the kids at the U.S. Open—and powered it off for the flight. But when he landed ten hours later and turned his phone back on, his whole world changed.
Malcolm had called it from day one that Chuck Vanderbeer would be a disaster; he just hadn’t realized that the self-proclaimed Rock Star of Deutsche Bank Aviation Group would also pull him down as he crashed and burned. Chuck worked side by side with Malcolm, Brice, and their team putting together deals, pitching mergers between international airlines, privy to the most sensitive financial information about these companies and their futures. He then, unknown to anyone in his professional life, spent his nights drinking at the bar at Papillon in Midtown and bragging to bored young women about the deals he was landing. Unfortunately, the woman who seemed utterly fascinated by the Rock Star’s tales of banking derring-do happened to be a financial reporter for CNBC and produced a story about the likely investment by American Airlines in Azul. As soon as the story hit cable news, Azul killed the deal and left Deutsche Bank holding the bag.
Malcolm had more than three hundred emails, a dozen frantic voicemails, and sixty-five text messages, mostly from Brice. He staggered down the jetway in Rio, scrolling through message after message. The deal he had worked on for nearly a year was dead. The American Airlines management team hadn’t even bothered boarding their connecting flight from Miami. Any chance Malcolm had at damage control was long gone. Both Chuck and Malcolm were fired, Chuck for leaking the story and Malcolm for standing too close to the little fool.
* * *
—
But you didn’t do anything wrong!” Darley cried indignantly. “Chuck was the leak! You had nothing to do with it!”
“I was unreachable,” Malcolm said with a grimace. “When the news broke, I was in the air with no wi-fi. The entire deal was crumbling and I was lying on a flatbed eating warm mixed nuts.”
“This is completely unfair,” Darley vented. “What about Brice? Is Brice being fired?”
“No, Brice is fine. While I was offline, Brice was on the ground managing the narrative. He protected himself.”
“Why? He was on the same team! He knew Chuck even before you did!”
“Brice has more friends in the organization than I do. He has the banking pedigree.” Malcolm kicked the leg of the chair.
“Brice should have fought for you too!”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“That little shit. They are both little shits,” Darley spat.
“I just can’t believe they all let me take the fall.” Malcolm shook his head.
“It’s their loss, Malcolm. We’ll be okay. You’ll make some calls and set up some interviews. You’ll be working again in no time.”
“Maybe.” Malcolm looked broken, like a dishonored gladiator in defeat.
“They’re idiots for letting you go.” Darley curled up in Malcolm’s lap and buried her face in his neck. It made her so upset that she wasn’t able to protect him. That the Brices of the world had scores of family friends to vouch for them and Malcolm didn’t have anyone. Sure, her father was connected in the real estate world, and if you wanted to throw a Moroccan-themed dinner for fifty at a moment’s notice her mother had the hookup for a caterer and a florist, but that wasn’t going to do Malcolm any good.
The whole thing reminded Darley of the time her high school friend Allen Yang applied to be a member of the Fiftieth Club. He had the sponsors, he had the letters, he certainly had the money, and when he went in for the faux-casual interview to drink scotch with the membership committee in the club lounge, he felt like he’d nailed it. Then his application was denied. Darley knew it was racism. There was no possible other reason. But nobody had explicitly said it, so Allen had to let it ride. How much of Malcolm’s ousting was because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and how much was because he wasn’t an old boy with a last name like Dimon, Moynihan, or Sloan? Nobody said, “We’re firing you because you don’t have a white dad to stick up for you,” but to Darley it was clear as day.
* * *
—
Malcolm spent the next few weeks inviting old business school friends to lunch, reaching out to colleagues from his early investment banking days, and taking meetings with anyone who’d see him. While Chuck Vanderbeer quickly failed up, his private equity father securing him an analyst position at Apollo, it was evident Malcolm’s name had been dragged in the dirt. As far as banking was concerned, Malcolm was radioactive. His friends and acquaintances would order their steak, always rare, and before even taking their first sip of iced tea asked, “What the hell happened with that Azul deal?” Everyone knew, and somehow they thought it was his fault. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t done anything wrong; he was tainted and was unceremoniously thrown out of the Masters of the Universe club.
When headhunters started calling, Darley was optimistic. “See, doll? Lots of people want you.”