“So, Ted’s friend wants more action,” Kevin said to Walter, raising his eyebrows.
Hugh glanced at Casey, tickled by this. He stuck out his hand to introduce himself.
Casey murmured, “How do you do,” unable to look him in the eye.
“Very well, thank you,” Hugh answered, smiling broadly.
Walter jumped in. “Now you’ve got our dog all hot and bothered.”
Hugh said, “Please ignore the boys. They don’t get to see, much less talk to, attractive women often. You can see why.”
Casey smiled, sensing that this man was a pathological seducer. And he was only flirting with her. He wasn’t serious. She knew his kind. Hugh was a hound because he could be. In terms of looks and charm, he was in the majors, and, well, she played in the minors—a fact she’d accepted a long time ago. Men like him sought the Ellas of the world. Casey hadn’t grieved too much for this missed opportunity, since Hughs weren’t her type anyway, and she hoped this wasn’t just sour grapes talking.
Casey heard the footsteps first. The conference room doors had opened. A cavalcade of brokers and traders streamed by to get their complimentary grub. Walter got up, hitching his pants; he’d recently lost twenty pounds but hadn’t had a chance to replace any of his suit trousers. When Walter stood up, Hugh made the seagull sound again, then got up himself. All three sales guys—Kevin, Walter, and Hugh—were extremely tall, six three or four. Walter said, “Follow me.”
Heaping trays of Indian food were laid out on the long table. A large, happy crowd gathered in clusters, piling food onto their white Chinet plates. Men made jokes about one another’s love handles and spare tires—things women would never say to one another despite thinking them. Walter handed her a thick paper plate before taking his own. “Get what you like, but we gotta head back soon. Okay?” He spoke to her affectionately, as if she were a little kid.
The food made her mouth water. All around, people spooned food onto their plates, grabbing pieces of warm naan bread. There were pans of bread everywhere. The trays emptied gradually. The group dispersed.
Kevin and Hugh had already returned to the desk. Casey had managed to grab a cocktail-size Samosa and a scoop of biriyani but had hesitated to fill her plate during an interview. Walter’s plate was crammed with a taste of everything.
“Gosh. Girls eat so little,” Walter said with wonder in his voice.
“It happened so fast,” she remarked, her free hand resting at her side.
Walter swept his right arm to the ceiling, gesturing like a ringleader, and said, “It’s free food for millionaires.”
She wrinkled her brow, amused by his dramatic movement.
“In the International Equities Department—that is, Asia, Europe, and Japan sales—the group you’re interviewing for—”
Casey nodded okay.
“—whichever desk that sells a deal buys lunch for everyone in the department. We finished a deal last week—a big power plant outside of Bombay. So today we bought Indian. Get it? If Japan sales finishes a deal, then we get sushi.”
“Gotcha,” she said.
“The funny thing is that if you were a millionaire like some of these managing directors shaking down seven figures a year, you’d have known to push your way ahead and fill up your plate. Rich people can’t get enough of free stuff.” Walter shrugged. There was no reproach in his tone; in fact, there was a wistful admiration in his voice, as if he were beginning to understand how the world worked.
“So, this is the game, Casey. You have to take what’s offered.” He spoke like a mentor.
“If you say so,” Casey replied. But she didn’t know how she felt about money or free things. Her father always said there was no such thing as a free lunch.
It had been nearly impossible for her to accept Ella’s charity, and even though she loved the beautiful clothes that she couldn’t afford, she couldn’t imagine a life where she was working only for money just so she could get more stuff—because she sensed that somehow it wouldn’t sustain her for very long. Working hard for good grades had made sense because she loved learning itself—the acquisition of new ways of seeing things and possessing new facts—but the good grades hadn’t sustained her, and for her, school wasn’t meant to be forever.
Casey glanced at her plate again, recalling the posters of her elementary school lunchroom: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT. So, how much you ate indicated the quantity of your desire. Walter was also implying that how quickly you got your food revealed the likelihood of achieving your goals. She was in fact terribly hungry, but she’d pretended to be otherwise to be ladylike and had moved away from the table to be agreeable, and now she’d continue to be hungry.