Living with Unu reduced her expenses enormously, because she didn’t pay the rent or utilities, but she was always thinking about money, because she still had to pay for everything else. Casey had refused Sabine’s offer to pay for business school, and Sabine, not wishing to offend Casey, hadn’t pressed the issue. To pay for Stern, she’d borrowed almost forty thousand dollars from Citibank for tuition and living expenses. There were also credit card minimums to be made for her fifteen-thousand-plus consumer debts, as of late, nearly eight grand having already been paid down. She missed the guys—all of them seated around the table like grown-up boys, full of teasing and competition, and she also felt the loss of the Kearn Davis paychecks. On Saturdays and Sundays, she worked the hat counter at Sabine’s, but her earnings there were just enough to give her walking-around money for carfare and lunches.
Last night, she’d been unable to sleep because she was so worried about her growing deficit. How would she pay all her bills? Her education loans would double invariably because B school was two years. What kind of job would she have to get next summer? After graduation? Interviews for summer internships would start next month. She’d watched Unu sleep, envying his calm, even breathing, then gotten out of bed and pulled out nearly all of her credit cards from her red plastic wallet emblazoned with the picture of Lynda Carter in her stars-and-stripes Wonder Woman suit. She’d dropped the cards into a Ziploc bag and tucked the sealed bag in the freezer right below the ice-cube tray. This idea had come from a personal finance magazine she’d been flipping through at the gynecologist’s office. She’d decided to reserve a single Visa card in her main wallet for emergencies. Afterward, she’d returned to bed, feeling just a tiny bit less anxious.
As with other four-star restaurants Casey had been to—more free food courtesy of Kearn Davis—Kuriya had layers and layers of silent service people. The entrée dishes were cleared away swiftly, then the white-jacketed waiters pulled out silver tools from their breast pockets to sweep the crumbs of food off the linen tablecloth. Moments later, the waiters passed out menu cards listing desserts and after-dinner drinks. On the back, there were paragraph-long descriptions of cigars for sale. In lieu of dessert, most of the brokers ordered cognac or Sauternes. When the waiter asked Casey, she requested a pear eau-de-vie. This was Virginia’s grandmother’s drink, and Casey had always wanted to try it.
Walter, two seats away from her, had left the table earlier and now returned carrying a blue canvas golf bag filled with clubs. He propped the bag against Casey’s chair.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“For you, my dear,” Hugh said. He was sitting to her left.
“For me?” Casey said shyly, smiling. She wanted to look happy about the gift. “You guys. . . thank you so much. You’re the best.” Casey nodded. She was moved by their generosity.
The men aaaawwwed again. One of the sales traders called out, “Well, we figure you might want to whack some balls in business school.” He made a leering face.
With her right hand, Casey made an okay sign.
The gift was incredibly generous, but she felt terrible. What was the saying—Don’t buy a Rolls-Royce if you can’t afford the gas? She already had a very nice set of clubs from Jay, and she almost never played. It seemed like some sort of cosmic joke for her to have two sets of clubs, no club membership, and no time to play.
“And where did you get this amazing set of clubs?” she asked. Her eyes searched for tags, some telltale sign that they could be traded in for cash. “This is incredibly nice,” she said. “You guys. Wow. Thank you so much. Thank you.”
“I picked them out,” Hugh said. Excited, he plucked out the fanciest clubs and held them up for show like an auctioneer. He’d taken off his gray suit jacket, and his white shirtsleeves were rolled up, exposing the light tan on his forearms from a recent trip to Bali. The men at the table whistled at the clubs, as if the titanium-head, graphite-shaft woods were beautiful girls.
When everyone had a drink in his hand, Kevin Jennings, who could tell already that Casey’s replacement, Hector Breed, a Cornell grad from Louisiana, would not work out, raised his glass and cleared his throat. Casey picked up her cordial glass of pear brandy, the color of water with the viscosity of thin cough syrup.
“On behalf of the Asian sales desk, Kearn Davis, and these jokers”—he gestured with his glass toward the Japan sales team—“we congratulate you on your foolish and misguided decision to attend B school.” Everyone laughed. Kevin coughed again, his glass still raised. “And yet. . .” He smiled at Casey. “We look forward to your one day becoming a client. Do not forget us, Casey Han. Send us your trades.”