“Why would you take me to those places?” Casey didn’t want to talk about Virginia with Sabine. She was jealous of her friends.
“And why do you give me such a hard time?”
“What? Sabine? It’s Saturday night, and I took a subway and a crosstown bus to bring you a package. Which you haven’t even opened.”
Sabine massaged her temples with her index fingers. “Don’t raise your voice at me, little girl. I haven’t seen you in two weeks. Where have you been?”
“I go to school full-time, and I was at work.” Casey’s steam was building. “You haven’t come in on Saturdays for the past two weeks, and you don’t work on Sundays when I do! And when I was working this past Thursday night, you were in a meeting so I didn’t bother you.” She loaded all her pronouns with as much shrill emphasis as possible. She couldn’t believe she was reporting her schedule to her. Her own parents never knew what she was doing, and they no longer even asked. Lately, she spoke to her mother maybe once every six weeks.
Sabine picked up the FedEx box with both hands gingerly and made a show of trying to open it. She had trouble with the tab string, and Casey pulled it for her.
“Here.” Casey handed her the open box.
Sabine pulled out the sample of the long-sleeved T-shirt. “This is going to be our store-brand shirt.” It was a simple, long-sleeved shirt of very fine jersey cotton. “I’m getting four colors done. It’s going to be the most expensive T-shirt in America.”
Casey nodded. Sabine didn’t look as though she had a headache anymore.
“Why don’t you come down for dinner?” Casey said, not wanting to fight anymore. She hated arguing more than anything, and it never made her feel any better afterward. “Isaac looks like he’s lost downstairs.”
“You told me that Kearn Davis didn’t interview at NYU business school.” Sabine gazed at Casey; her eyes looked hard and brilliant, like onyx.
Casey blinked. Sabine had a scary memory.
“They don’t interview at NYU. My friend Hugh helped me set it up.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in asking for those back-scratching favors. Isn’t that why you never asked Isaac for a letter of recommendation for Columbia? If you had gone there, then you wouldn’t have had to ask Hugh. You’d rather have a stranger do a favor for you than a friend.”
“Hugh is a friend.”
“And I’m not?”
Casey sighed and dropped her head into her hands.
“Life is filled with many complicated tasks, and no one, Casey, no one can do things alone. It’s very slow going if you choose that path.”
“You did things by yourself.” Casey was shouting now.
“You couldn’t be more wrong. No one person helped me,” Sabine said, more convinced than ever that the girl was too proud. “Many, many, many people helped me. The bookkeeper who gave me a discount on filing my first returns, the diner owner who let me have free breakfasts when I couldn’t pay, manufacturers who gave me credit when I had no right to expect it—so many, many people helped me.” Sabine was screaming. “I can’t even begin to remember all their names. Why do you think I help people who are having a hard time? It all goes around, little girl. That’s the whole point of it, goddammit! Why must you be so stubborn?” Sabine’s black pupils disappeared into the darker pools of her irises, filling quickly with tears.
“And why do you act as if poor people shouldn’t have any choices? Must I always take what’s offered? Must I always be grateful?” Casey brushed the hair away from her face. Her voice was trembling. “Listen, Sabine. I need to try this thing. I need to know if I can make it as an investment banker, make real money, pay back my school loans. I need to see if I can do it on my own. On my terms. And I didn’t know that Columbia would make a big difference. All right? I didn’t know how the world worked. I was full of shit. You were right. Good for you. For fuck’s sake, I’m twenty-six years old, and I don’t have it all figured out. I’m not like you.”
Sabine pulled back and grew calmer. Her expression was metallic, as though something had gone steely inside her when Casey talked about the poor not having choices.
“I told you that I’d pay for your tuition,” Sabine said. “No strings. You didn’t even have to pay me back. And it isn’t like I’m making you come and work for me afterwards. It’s not like the army, you know, I’m not sending you off to war.”