That evening, Casey was wasted, which had the effect of making her sleepy and patient, but she had listened carefully to John’s family story. And though she’d always thought this thin, freckled boy who lived on the floor above hers during freshman year—the boy who’d gotten into Groton instead of Andover, the one with the handsome roommate whose attention both Casey and Virginia had failed to enlist—was a phony and not terribly interesting, she’d ended up feeling a little sorry for him. He genuinely seemed to believe that he had no choice in life but to follow his brothers’ bitter-sounding path. It was nonsense to think that he of all people had no choices in life, but having spent the evening with him, Casey was beginning to understand that what mattered was not what you could do, but what you believed you could do.
But in her Elmhurst apartment building, there had been Sonny Villa, her neighbor. When Sonny finally got his trucker’s license, his parents threw him a party because they were going to be rich if Sonny became a Teamsters truck driver. During dessert, as he cut up pieces of a Fudgie the Whale cake from Carvel, Sonny took long sips of Michelob, wiping away the foam from his dark mustache. He swore to everyone there, his lovely black eyes glittering with liquor, that he’d own an eighteen-wheeler by the time he was twenty-five. At such a bold pronouncement, the guests gathered their breath like children before the candles of a birthday cake. Within a year, Sonny got addicted to speed, which he’d started using to stay awake for his late night drives. After two accidents, he lost his job and got a post working security at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This was what Casey wanted to know: When life didn’t go your way, was it because it wasn’t meant to or because you didn’t have the faith, or was it that you couldn’t make it so by the labors required of you? On Van Kleeck Street, the stories mostly had the same crap endings, and whenever Casey was feeling particularly low, she feared her own conclusion might inevitably be a shitty one.
The high walls of Sabine’s bedroom were papered with a chinoiserie pattern—hand-painted hummingbirds and rare flowers on a silvery peach background. With the bedroom lights turned down low and the shades drawn, Sabine looked like a beautiful bird herself, perched on her bed wearing a quilted silk bed jacket, propped up on three square European pillows.
“Helloooooo, darling.” When Sabine said “darling,” the “r” disappeared, and it had the effect of a forties Hollywood film voice rather than the mispronunciation of an immigrant. “Come here, baby girl, and sit by me.”
Casey kissed her hello on both cheeks and sat on the armchair near the standing lamp.
“No,” Sabine whined, touching her right temple. “Come sit on the bed. There’s lots of room here. Come snuggle with me.” She drew Casey in with her sinewy arm.
“I brought you your package,” Casey said quietly with her boss holding her close.
“Oh yes.” Sabine took it from her and cast it aside by the bed cushions.
“Are you okay?” Casey asked. Close up, Sabine looked exhausted—fine lines fanning around her eyes.
Sabine stared hard at her. “I just have a headache. But you look miserable.”
“No, I’m good. Really.” Casey tried to sound upbeat. “I just got a summer job at Kearn Davis.” She wouldn’t take this well, Casey surmised. Sabine had been after her all spring about working for her as a management trainee this summer—just the two of them in an informal program—but Casey had been evading the issue by saying she needed new kinds of business experiences. “For investment banking.”
“You used to work there. What’s the big deal?” Sabine sat up as though she were getting ready to fight. She took her arm off Casey’s shoulder and crossed her arms against her chest.
“I’m not going back as a sales assistant. This is different. I even got turned down for its undergraduate program when I was at Princeton. You can’t imagine what the other finance majors at Stern would do for this.” Casey couldn’t mention how she got the interview.
Sabine closed her eyes dramatically and did her yoga breathing. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” she said finally.
Casey stared at the package that she had carried from the store. How could she explain her desire to flee from the very person who had helped her so much? It seemed so ungrateful, even foolish.
“I was going to take you to Paris, Milan, and Hong Kong this summer if you had come to work with me. Don’t you have a little friend in Italy? The one you’re always writing to?”