To her right, Caitlin Green’s husband—yet another pale, skinny man, with slitted brown eyes and black hair sticking up in messy, greasy spears—was feverishly explaining the object of some foundation he worked for or with or maybe had started himself (she knew she’d heard about it from Lil but couldn’t recall the specifics). He wore an oversized sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over his head, though the loft was quite warm. “There are all these kids who inherit money, you see,” he said now to the people assembled around him. Then he caught her eye and smiled. “Trust funds, stocks, property, huge companies, whatever. And they don’t know what to do with it. They don’t come from a culture of philanthropy. Their parents are these conservative fucks. So they inherit these portfolios with all these completely felonious investments: De Beers, Nike, McDonald’s, the Gap, Marriott. We show them how they can take that money and reinvest it in environmentally conscious, nonracist companies with safe and fair business practices. But mostly we show them how to responsibly give it all away.”
“Why should they give it all away?” asked a small woman with streaky blonde bangs and penciled-in brows, who Sadie realized was Taylor—the groupie who’d caught the bouquet at Lil’s wedding. “It’s their money,” said Taylor defensively, as though the man were threatening to take away her own fortune. “I don’t get it.”
“Why should they keep it?” asked Caitlin Green’s husband, as Sadie struggled to think of his name. “So they can buy yachts and Gucci bags? So they can widen the gap between the rich and the poor that’s destroying this country? Why not start a foundation? Or do something cool with it?”
“Are there really that many people inheriting millions of dollars?” asked Taylor.
“More than you’d think. I bet you know tons of people who have independent incomes, but you just don’t realize it, because they don’t flaunt it. Half the artists in Williamsburg—more than half—have trust funds. Painting is expensive. The studio space. The supplies.”
“Really?” asked Taylor. “Like who? Who has a trust fund? People here? Like Lil?”
“Like her.” He jerked his thumb at Sadie, who froze, her mouth automatically forming a polite smile. “She works in publishing, right, but the interest from her trust really pays the rent. No one can actually live on an editorial assistant’s salary. Anyone who works in publishing for more than a year has an independent income.”
Sadie’s face went hot. She tucked her hair behind her ears and tried to avoid the gaze of the small crowd that was now appraising her, scrutinizing her person for signs of immense wealth. Seeing the look on Sadie’s face, he grinned. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m the same as you. You just gotta start giving it away.”
“If I gave it away,” said Sadie tightly, “I’d have nothing to live on.”
Lil, she thought. What is wrong with her? Why had she ever told her—how did Lil get such things out of a person?—that the interest from her trust “really paid the rent.” Meaning, of course, that her salary was tiny and were it not for her small trust, she would have had to either move back home (which was not a possibility) or find a different sort of job (working at her dad’s hedge fund? My God) or simply never spend any money at all on anything but rent and food, which was impossible, as Lil knew all too well, for without certain strategic checks from Lil’s father and Tuck’s mother, Sadie knew, she and Tuck would have long been out of this loft. But that sort of help, presumably, wasn’t worth mentioning to Caitlin’s husband. No, of course not. What Lil, surely, didn’t realize—because why would Sadie tell her the banal details?—was that in Sadie’s first year, as an assistant, she’d made just $300 per week, after taxes. The rent on her little, unremarkable apartment was $750/month—more than half her salary—and it was one of the cheapest things she could find at the time (though Emily had lucked into that place in Williamsburg for $550, abandoned by a boyfriend, but she had no kitchen sink and the landlord had almost killed her).
Caitlin’s husband had departed, thankfully, and been replaced by a troupe of sideburned men in black, chunky glasses discussing a new restaurant on Clinton Street. “The menu is market-driven,” said one. Market-driven, she thought, is an economic term. Sighing heavily, she wiggled her toes in her sandals, and pulled a cigarette from a bowl on Lil’s little end table, and lit it with a kitchen match. She only smoked in desperate social situations, which this seemed to be turning into. Without Tal, she felt strangely lost, and she’d been waiting for Beth for quite some time now. The band was testing their amps or whatever, which meant it had to be getting late. “Check, check,” echoed through the room, followed by a long squawk. The guests, as one, put their hands to their ears and folded their heads into their necks, like turtles. Time to go, thought Sadie, and began picking her way to the back of the loft, where she found Beth half crushed against the bedroom door, a panicked expression wrinkling her round face.
“My bags are in there,” she whispered.
Sadie looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Is the door locked?” she asked.
Beth shook her head and pointed at the door. “Listen,” she said, and Sadie held her ear to the door, feeling, really, a bit ridiculous.
“I don’t hear anything,” she said.
“They must have just stopped,” Beth said, shrugging. “There are people in there. Arguing.”
“Are you serious?” asked Sadie, rolling her eyes. Sadie herself never brought a bag to parties, in part to avoid situations like these. She carried money and a MetroCard in the pocket of her dress. On the train over she’d read a manuscript, which she’d stowed on the bookshelf above the couch. “Let’s just go in.” She was beginning to feel queasy with drink—and, she supposed, cigarette—and almost desperate for food. Perhaps, she thought, they should go somewhere closer than Bean. That Thai place on Metropolitan. Or the old red sauce joint over on Devoe.
But Beth gave her a pleading look. “I feel weird.”
“Okay,” sighed Sadie, dropping her cigarette into a beer can. “I’ll go in. Is it your black bag? With the scalloped edge?”
Beth nodded. “And two shopping bags. One from Daffy’s. One from, um, Barneys.” Sadie raised her eyebrows.
“Barneys? What did you get at Barney’s?”
Beth flushed. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll tell you after. Something for the wedding.”
The wedding? thought Sadie. They’ve been engaged for like five minutes.
“All right,” she told Beth, in a more gentle tone. “I’ll be right back.”