Darley bragged about Malcolm, about the blog he had made when he was just a kid, about his meteoric rise from analyst to managing director, about his work ethic and the year he was on the road so much he managed the hat trick of achieving secret status on all three major U.S. airlines. Then Malcolm talked about Emirates, about his market observations, about their long-anticipated IPO and how he thought it could unfold.
They were having so much fun they ended up ordering dinner and more wine and then even dessert and only stood to leave when the waitstaff began subtly flipping the chairs onto the tables in the back.
* * *
—
Unlike Darley, who came to be fascinated with planes because of her interest in the financial side of the industry, Malcolm had wanted to be a pilot when he was a little boy. He went to business school instead, but as soon as he had a little money, he started taking flying lessons. He would get up at the crack of dawn and catch a New Jersey Transit train to the general aviation airport in Linden, just five miles south of Newark Airport. He’d fly for an hour or two and then change into his suit and tie and join the commuters heading into the city, at his desk on Wall Street by eight forty-five.
There were days when Darley could resent Malcolm, could feel like she’d sacrificed her career for their family, left a big, interesting life to have babies, but then she remembered all Malcolm had sacrificed as well: a career flying the planes he studied, early mornings on the airstrip in New Jersey, the smell of carbon and jet fuel filling him with an excitement he could rarely feel for life on the ground.
* * *
—
That was good, right, love?” she asked as they walked home along the Promenade, their fingers interlaced.
“So good,” Malcolm answered. “It felt amazing just to have a real conversation with someone after being on eggshells for months.”
“What do you mean, eggshells?” Darley asked. Did he mean with her?
“It’s been so hard pretending everything is normal, keeping your family in the dark and not telling them I was fired.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Darley nodded and rolled her eyes.
“We need to come clean soon, though,” Malcolm pressed. “It’s been a long time.”
“I know, I know. I’m just dreading talking to them about money after everything with George.”
“I have to be honest with you, Darley, the more you try to keep my firing a secret, the more humiliated you’re making me feel about it,” Malcolm said quietly.
“Oh no.” Darley stopped and turned to him. “I’m not trying to make you feel humiliated! I’m just protecting you! You know how my parents are.”
“I mean, I do know how they are.” Malcolm dropped her hand. “They like that we met at business school, they like that I’m in banking, but Darley, we have two kids, I’ve spent every Christmas and Easter and birthday with them for a decade. I think they know me by now, and they’ll still accept me even if I’m briefly unemployed.”
“Oh, gosh, I know they will, of course.” Darley’s face crumpled. She hadn’t realized how much it had been hurting him, how with every day of this lie she was telling her husband, over and over, that he was only welcome to be a Stockton as long as his paychecks were flowing in.
Malcolm pulled Darley in for a hug, and she pressed her cheek against his crisp blue shirt. “Give your folks a chance, Dar. I think they might surprise you.”
* * *
That night, as Darley lay in bed next to Malcolm, listening to his even breathing, comforting as the sound of rain or a kitten’s purr, she tried to figure out why she wanted to keep Malcolm’s story such a secret. Why was she so worried he would be exiled from her world?
Darley had noticed something about people with money: they stuck together. Not because they were intrinsically shallow or materialistic or snobbish, though of course those things could very well be true, but it was because when they were together, they didn’t have to worry about the differences their money meant in their lives. They didn’t have to worry about inviting a friend to Bermuda for the weekend, they didn’t have to worry about flights to Montreal, they didn’t have to worry about car rentals and overpriced restaurants and jackets and ties at the clubs. Their friends could all keep up, they could all pay their way, there was no awkwardness about offering to cover shares or lend a tux or waiting until a paycheck cleared on a Friday. There was just a built-in assumption that if a trip, a party, an occasion seemed fun, their friends would be along for the ride, and they would know how to act when they got there.
The other thing, the thing that sucked to talk about, was the secret lurking worry that other people were using them. Using them for their weekend homes, their good alcohol, their big apartments, their parties, their internships, their closets, their, well, their money. Darley saw it all the time to varying degrees—guys who bought their girlfriends jewelry and laptops and paid for expensive vacations, only for them to realize the guys were essentially bribing their way into a relationship; guys who amassed crowds of hangers-on when they paid for bottle service or houses in the Hamptons. There was a difference between sharing your good fortune and being taken advantage of, and sometimes discerning the difference could break your heart. It was just easier, in some ways, to stay close to those who liked you but didn’t need your AmEx to have fun.
There was a clique of girls at her high school, a clique Darley occasionally joined for lunch when her own friends were out sick or traveling. They were called the Rice Girls because, everyone said laughingly, “They were all white and they stuck together.” Darley’s own group was exempt from such derision because Eleanor was Chinese, but deep down she knew it was the same thing—she hung out with a group of rich girls who all had nearly identical upbringings. They all had wealthy parents and grandparents, they all had maids and nannies, they all had tropical vacations and restaurant birthdays and closets full of skis and rackets, and, in Eleanor’s case, a three-thousand-dollar set of golf clubs.
Since the Stocktons were old money, they were more or less discreet with their filthy lucre. They flew coach unless the flight was really long, they drove their cars until the clanking noise became untenable, and they never, ever redecorated. But upon closer examination, the daily cost of life was eye-watering. The maintenance and taxes on the limestone on Pineapple, the maisonette on Orange, the country house on Spyglass, the memberships at the Casino, the Knickerbocker Club, and Jupiter Island, the kids’ Henry Street School tuition （kindergarten and first grade were fifty grand apiece）， and Berta’s salary all added up. Sometimes Darley wondered if her father even knew how much was flowing from the taps, or if his assistant wrote the checks and he signed them without bothering to take his eyes off his blueprints.
Whenever a bill or an expense surprised Darley—the closing costs when she bought her apartment, an assessment from the Jupiter club when a hurricane ripped off the deck—her father would shrug and say, “It’s a rounding error.” And it was true. He could make or lose more in one deal than any of them could realistically spend in five years, including years when they bought property. It was a life of great privilege and ease, and Darley was grateful. But she also knew it made it harder for her to make friends. There were only so many people to whom her world made sense.