“You don’t like the hat?” Casey frowned like a child.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You like it, then?”
“I’d like it more if you could afford to pay for it.”
Casey looked at the sandwiches. “Hungry?” she asked Sabine.
“No.”
“Okay.” Casey lit her cigarette. “Me neither.”
“Did you call for the applications?” Sabine asked. She left her desk and took a seat at the conference table. Her voice had mellowed a touch.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“My life isn’t so bad right now.” Casey wanted to keep it light. She liked Sabine. She was cool, and even though she was older than her mother, Sabine was young to her. In a way, she was a role model, mentor, what have you—someone Casey looked up to—but it could get to be a bit much. That’s why it was so tricky to accept anything from Sabine, because it was accompanied by a knotty string.
“You can’t stay a sales assistant at Kearn Davis. And you certainly do not want to end up like Judith.”
Casey looked up, her shoulders tightening. “What’s wrong with Judith?”
“Nothing.”
“Why did you say that, then?” Casey felt she should say something in Judith’s defense.
“Judith is a nice person. She is a great weekend manager. She is a loser. Think of all that money she inherited. And what does she do with it?”
“Uh, make you rich by buying stuff from you?” Casey raised her hands in annoyance. “She’s not hurting anybody.”
“Wrong.” Sabine put out her cigarette. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Casey picked up her wrapped sandwich and flipped it like a pancake. It made a small thud sound, so she did it again. And again. The stack of B school applications were on the card table she was using as a dining table back in her apartment. She’d already spoken to Ted briefly about B schools at one of Ella’s brunches, and he’d minced no words in telling her that she had no chance at Harvard or Stanford. “The only schools that mattered,” he’d said. “Maybe being female might help. Being Asian: no.”
Her GMAT scores were respectable, but from the viewpoint of a business school admissions office, her actual work experience was neither interesting nor challenging. She was up against the Jay types who’d busted ass for three years at a bulge bracket firm in the banking program, and even he’d been dinged by those schools that Ted valued. After all, it had been Isaac’s call after Jay was wait-listed that had gotten him another interview at Columbia, which then pushed his application over the hump to an acceptance. In two and a half years postgraduation, Casey had somehow put limits on her future. Law school was out of the picture—her dated acceptance letter was meaningless. The top two business schools were near impossible. But it was hardly a tragedy. Casey flipped the sandwich faster and faster.
“Cut it out.”
“Huh?” Casey stopped, suddenly aware of her movements. “Oh. Sorry.”
“So you like being poor?” Sabine rested her cigarette on her jasper ashtray.
“Love it.” Casey smiled. “It suits me. It’s familiar, comforting.” She adjusted her hat again, crinkling her eyes in false amusement.
“Ha, ha,” Sabine scoffed. Her phone buzzed, and she took the call. She raised her index finger to gesture that it would take only a moment. Business always came first.
Casey pushed the sandwich away from her. She hated looking at it. The sandwich was like everything else she ever bought on credit—it was uglier or less pleasurable when she possessed it, because the thing she’d bought reminded her that she was out of control, selfish, destructive, greedy. Despite all of Sabine’s good intentions, Casey had wanted to throw the sandwich at Sabine for asking her such a mean question. Does she fucking like being poor? No! she had wanted to scream. But how did a person become rich anyway? The methods seemed inscrutable to her.
It was no longer acceptable to her to be so broke, to have an apartment furnished by pieces picked up from street corners and the Salvation Army. Even Ikea was too expensive. Nevertheless, not having the cash in her wallet or bank account didn’t keep her from charging another round of drinks when she went out with the millinery girls or friends from school. Her debts fretted her, but there was one other thought that took chunks out of her well-being: If her parents or younger sister ever needed her support, she could not offer them carfare. There were no sons. She was the firstborn. In her current state, she was worthless to them, and there was no one to blame but herself. She’d had to turn down another of Virginia’s offers for her to visit her in Bologna because she was so tapped. No one in her family had ever gone to Italy. Bologna would always be there, she supposed.