When they arrived at the dance hall, they spilled out of the bus and into the grand foyer. Georgiana suddenly felt like they were crashing a wedding, seeing the big groups of families, teenagers in suits, and middle-aged women in ruched satin dresses. A man in a starched white shirt led them to a banquet table in the center of the hall, and a swarm of waiters set about pouring them vodka and delivering massive platters of pickles and smoked fish, pancakes dotted with piles of chilled pink roe, sliced beef, and blintzes stuffed with cheese. Sebastian and his friends skipped the food and set about drinking with single-minded dedication, but Georgiana knew she’d end up a sloppy mess if she weren’t careful, so she made herself a plate of blintzes and pickles.
There must have been three hundred people in the hall, eating and drinking and mostly ignoring the two women in Jessica Rabbit cocktail gowns standing on stage and singing a duet to Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb.” As the evening progressed, more and more performers came onto the stage and groups made their way to the dance floor. The guys, now fully drunk, took selfies with the towers of empty vodka bottles stacked atop their table. Lena and Kristin wanted to dance, so Georgiana followed them out to the floor, happy she’d skipped the fur coat as she joined the sweaty crowd. It was like a bat mitzvah on steroids, like being onstage for the Super Bowl halftime show. The fact that every other partygoer was Russian and lived an hour from their part of New York set them free to dance like maniacs, to let sweat pour down their temples, to feel their careful makeup washing away.
Georgiana had to pee and left the dance floor to find a restroom, climbing a marble staircase to a beautiful lounge filled with puffy chairs and gilded mirrors. She used a paper hand towel to blot her face, and she fixed her makeup in the powder room vanity. She had long ago abandoned her hat and had her big Chanel sunglasses pushed up like a hairband. Her feet ached and she was dying of thirst, so instead of returning to the dance floor she followed the maze of carpeted halls back to the banquet table, where she saw Curtis sitting alone at the end. Slightly buzzed and feeling friendly, Georgiana grabbed her water and pulled out the chair beside him.
“Hey Curtis, having fun?” she said, smiling.
“Not particularly, no.” He frowned, glancing at her briefly before looking off over her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“The fact that you have to ask that means that it’s not worth discussing,” he said.
“What?” Georgiana asked, completely confused. Why was he being so rude to her?
“Do you not see how fucked up this whole thing is? I can’t believe I’m here.”
“How fucked up a birthday party is? No, I guess I don’t see it,” Georgiana replied, annoyed.
“You think it’s cool that a bunch of rich white kids who met at private school are dressed in costumes to ridicule an immigrant group in their own neighborhood? That seems fine to you?”
“It’s Oligarch Chic. It’s making fun of rich people. And Russians are white,” Georgiana said with a frown.
“As I said, the fact that you had to ask meant it wasn’t worth me discussing it with you. Nice sunglasses.” Curtis turned away from her and picked up his phone.
“Fuck you, Curtis. You don’t know me.”
“Of course I know you. You’re a rich real estate brat living off your trust fund, only dimly aware that an entire world exists outside the coddled one percent.”
“Oh, so you live in Zuccotti Park? You went to the School of Hard Knocks? Didn’t you go to Princeton?”
“Oh, so you don’t live off a trust fund?”
“I work for a not-for-profit providing health care for developing countries,” Georgiana said icily.
“And who pays your rent?”
“I own.”
“And your rich parents bought that apartment.”
“My grandparents left me money, not that it’s your business.”
“And how did they make that money?”
“Well, some of it they inherited—”
“So your family got rich off being rich.”
“No, my grandfather worked hard.”
“And what did he do?”
“Real estate investment.”
“Gentrification.” Curtis nodded smugly, as though this had proved his point.
“You are an ass.”
“I probably am. But at least I am self-aware enough to know it. Have fun ridiculing people who didn’t come over on the Mayflower.” And with that Curtis shoved back his chair and stalked out of the banquet hall. Georgiana’s cheeks were aflame, and to her horror she felt a tear rolling down to the corner of her mouth. She wiped it quickly and picked up a random glass from the table and filled it with vodka before taking a gulp. What a prick.
That night, as the party bus rumbled along the Belt, Georgiana looked around her. Of course her friends were lucky, of course they had completely unfair advantages, but she knew them and they were good people. Lena and Kristin would lie down in the street for her. They voted Democratic, they gave to Planned Parenthood, they had museum memberships. Their families sat on boards, they paid for tables at benefits, they tipped generously. Her own parents had even paid for both of Berta’s kids to go to college. Curtis McCoy was a pompous hypocrite. But their conversation still left Georgiana shaken, and in the morning when she woke, stinking of pickles and booze, she couldn’t tell how much of her hangover was physical and how much was left over from Curtis’s casual cruelty.
* * *
—
She couldn’t manage to shake the mood. All day Sunday she walked around in a state, feeling like she had just been delivered some terrible news, like her apartment had burned down or they had discovered avocados caused cancer. It was stupid, honestly. A billionaire jerk whose family sold bombs to the government called her a bad person. It was laughable, really.
Georgiana walked over to Pineapple Street that evening and dropped her mother’s silk dress off at the dry cleaner. The rule was that she could borrow whatever she wanted as long as she returned it clean, but Georgiana had discovered a loophole: the dry cleaner had her mother’s credit card on file and delivered to her door, so as long as she dropped the clothes off with them, it was as good as done.
Cord and Sasha were hosting family dinner at the limestone, and Georgiana momentarily thought about stopping at the wine store to pick up a bottle, but she knew her mother would bring plenty for everyone. She still had a key to the house, so she let herself in and took off her shoes by the door.
“Cord! Darley! I’m here!” she called, wandering into the kitchen. Sasha was spinning in circles, pulling a roasted chicken from the oven, sprinkling slivered almonds on a salad, emptying a pot of steaming rice into a bowl. Her mother was stationed over her Le Creuset, guarding what looked to be a leg of lamb and a ragout while Darley carefully placed fish sticks on the foiled sheet in the toaster. It was hot and busy, and Georgiana could sense the discord like an invisible force field that repelled her instantly back out of the kitchen and down the hall toward her father in the parlor. Malcolm was hiding in there as well, Poppy and Hatcher fighting over who got to be the dog in a game of Monopoly.
“Hi Daddy, hi Malcolm, hi guys.” Georgiana kissed everyone hello and flopped down on the floor next to her niece and nephew. She half-heartedly listened to her father try to teach them the rules of the game, and as she played with the fringe on the Oriental rug she let Curtis’s words run through her head: So your family got rich off being rich. Of course, it was true. Her father couldn’t be faulted for it, though. He wasn’t lazy, he wasn’t selfish; he was a real estate investor, and he helped make places for people to work and live. What was he going to do? Let old buildings go to seed? It was his job to move the city forward. He cared about his partners, he worried about them when the market turned, he worked until late at night, he was up early every morning. It was personal for him; he knew that it was within his power to make the city more beautiful, and he left his mark. It was easy to say that money was the root of all evil, but so many of the things money could buy provided dignity, health, and knowledge.