Free Food for Millionaires

by Min Jin Lee

  When she came out of her shower, Jay was in bed reading Wallace Stevens. He read poetry when he was unhappy. Casey smiled at him, feeling sorry for both of them. She was sad, too. In the taxi, she had said the truest thing she felt inside. She was so sorry—about not having introduced him earlier, about her father pushing him, about all those people witnessing him being shoved around, about everything—her family’s disgrace at a dear friend’s important day. On top of shame, there was always remorse.

  “I’m going upstairs. For a cigarette,” she said.

  “You’re wearing your bathrobe, honey.” He laughed. “And jammies.”

  “You’re right!” She pretended to be shocked. He’d used a child’s word for her nightgown. There was something boyish about Jay—even when he was being manly and responsible. This quality had made her love him, but she saw that it had also been this naive pluck of his that had convinced him it was okay to approach her father without warning when the same tactic had been a failure with her mother. Jay was convinced that he was impossible to reject as long as he was well intentioned and had a sunny manner. In a way, it was lovely, and in a way, it was stupid.

  Casey turned to go.

  “And it’s late,” he said, not wanting her to leave.

  “No one will be on the roof,” she replied, her voice gentle, thoughtful. “The robe will be fine. It’s Saturday night. No one will be upstairs. And besides, I don’t feel like putting on clothes.” They were talking about what she was wearing. What did it matter?

  “I don’t feel loved,” Jay said. He stared at her hard.

  “What?” She made a face. “What are you talking about? Of course I love you.”

  “Then stay here,” he said, and she knew he wanted to make love. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t feel sexy or even agreeable. The idea of his hands on her body made her feel awkward.

  “It won’t be but a few minutes, Jay. I really need a cigarette.”

  “Baby, I can give you something to smoke.” He wiggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx and laughed nervously. The innuendo had been a risk.

  To be polite, she laughed along. But the suggestion had felt repulsive, though she wasn’t a girl who disliked fellatio. Sometimes it could be very erotic to her.

  “Darling,” she said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

  Jay laughed at this. Everything was going to be okay. “Fine, then. You know where I’ll be. You addict.”

  The roof was empty. Casey sat on a bench, damp with the evening dew. She quickly smoked a cigarette, then lit another. Then one after that. Her long white T-shirt nightgown and terry robe were decent, if a bit frumpy. Most nights Casey wore pretty things to bed, but tonight she’d put on her least appealing gown. The cigarettes perked her up. In the morning, she’d phone Ella to apologize. After her fourth cigarette, she lit another. She heard the door. Jay stood there, wearing his Lawrenceville sweatshirt over his T-shirt and boxers.

  “You were worried about me wearing jammies?”

  “What’s going on, Casey?” His voice was stern.

  She was confused by his tone.

  “Why didn’t you come downstairs? I was waiting.”

  She raised her lit cigarette as the obvious explanation.

  “How many?”

  “Four? Five? Dunno.”

  “Come to bed.”

  Casey couldn’t look at him. There was no picture, was there?

  “Casey, I’m tired. Come on.” He moved closer to her.

  “I can’t marry you.”

  “What?” Jay said. “What?”

  Her mouth was open. Casey had surprised herself. She blew smoke out of her nostrils. “I don’t think we should get married.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Are you telling me that you don’t want to marry me?”

  She crossed her legs, her Dr. Scholl’s dangling from her sole. The chipped polish on her toenails made her feel shabby.

  “Say it, Casey. I need for you to say it.”

  Her lips felt cold.

  “Say it, goddammit. Tell me you don’t want to marry me.” His voice quavered.

  She couldn’t look at him.

  “I can’t see the picture, Jay. I’ve been looking for a picture in my head. Every morning I get these pictures, and I can’t see a picture of us—” She started crying, because then she knew. For sure. The picture had never come because it wasn’t supposed to happen. Like she wasn’t supposed to go to law school, either. And she had never told Jay about the pictures because she realized he would never have believed her. It was nuts.

  “What are you talking about? I love you. You and I are incredible together. I love you more than anything, Casey Han. You crazy girl, I can’t imagine living without you. You know how sorry I am about that time—”

  “I don’t actually care about that. That’s not why—” She didn’t want to talk about those girls again. And she did believe him. He wouldn’t do that again. What was more troubling was how much of a pleaser he was, how unrealistic he was in his beliefs, and how he had never really understood what it was like to be her. It wasn’t that a white person couldn’t comprehend what it was like to be in her skin, but Jay, in his unyielding American optimism, refused to see that she came from a culture where good intentions and clear talk wouldn’t cover all wounds. It didn’t work that way with her parents, anyway. They were brokenhearted Koreans—that wasn’t Jay’s fault, but how was he supposed to understand their kind of anguish? Their sadness seemed ancient to her. But, thinking about what she’d just said, she felt terrified at the prospect of not being with him anymore. She would miss him so much. It had been hell to be without him. But it also seemed wrong to hold on to him just because she was afraid of the pain of loss. It made her feel weaker than she was to even think like this. Casey had compromised on sex, her goals, her morality, but somewhere she had set a boundary that she didn’t want to compromise on love. But was she being extreme? Was no love better than a love without enough understanding? Earlier that evening when Jay had marched toward her father, she’d felt she didn’t know him anymore, even though she could have predicted that he would do such a fruitless thing.

  Casey stooped over to gather the cigarette stubs she’d been saving to throw away. There were no garbage cans on the roof, and she hated littering. She counted seven stubs. They couldn’t have all been hers. Casey got up from the bench. She couldn’t look his way.

  “You’re making a mistake. This is irreversible, Casey. I won’t take you back.” Jay looked at her dark eyes. He raised his voice. “Do you get that? You can’t just leave me. I won’t forgive this. I won’t forgive you leaving me. I fucking will never forgive this.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said as quietly as possible. But there had been no picture—somehow the irrational made more sense to her than his very reasonable threat.

  BOOK II

  Plans

  1 COMPASS

  THERE WAS NO OTHER CHOICE—Casey had to get a weekend job, and it was just easier for her to return to Sabine’s. So Monday through Friday, she continued on as a sales assistant at Kearn Davis. But to keep up with the increases in her Battery Park studio apartment rent, her mounting clothing purchases, and the humiliating cost of a social life in Manhattan, Casey found herself behind the counter on Thursday evenings and all day Saturday and Sunday, selling hats and hair accessories. Next month in January, she’d turn twenty-five. She was holding the same part-time job she’d had when she was eighteen. This stasis was not lost on her.

  As of this month, she’d worked at Kearn Davis for two and a half years; her boss, Kevin Jennings—the relentless doubter—couldn’t say a peep if she decided to quit. She’d served her time. But where would she go? Columbia Law had refused to let her defer admission again. Not that she could see herself as a lawyer anyway. Hugh and Walter from her desk were encouraging her to become a broker, but Casey couldn’t imagine that, either. Sometimes she considered business school. Sabine was lobbying for that one. Her parents ha
d given up on her, or she had given them up.

  Nevertheless, the world had pushed forward. Tina was starting her first year at USC medical school; Virginia was finishing her master’s thesis on Sandro Botticelli while making love to as many dark-haired painters in Bologna as she had time for; Ella was eight months pregnant and put on bed rest from preeclampsia; and Delia, her closest female friend at Kearn Davis, had switched to the Events Planning Department after working as a sales assistant for nine years. As for Jay, they hadn’t spoken since she’d moved out eighteen months ago.

  Since then, Casey had been living in an L-shaped studio apartment at the bottom of Manhattan, took advanced millinery classes at FIT on Tuesday nights, owed twelve thousand dollars in credit card debt, and worked two jobs. In the spring, she’d briefly dated a chatty portfolio manager seated beside her at a benefit table bought by Kearn Davis, and after they had a few dinners together, she realized that he was another Jay Currie—confident, moderate in his views, and amiable. It scared her that she had a type, because she could predict the ending. She disappeared on him thereafter, and he did not seem to mind. He was attractive, young, and rich; naturally, there were fish elsewhere. The only private concession she’d made to the future was taking the GMATs—a prerequisite for B schools.

  It was the first week of December and Casey’s third Saturday back at the store, and although most of her friends there had moved on, her old boss, Judith Hast, the weekend accessories manager, was still working there.

  Sabine’s was a small department store—approximately thirty thousand square feet—with only two floors for women’s clothing and a basement devoted to cosmetics and hosiery. The interior had been recently redesigned by the Japanese architect Yuka Mori. The unadorned walls were painted superwhite with a lacquer-smooth finish, and the floors were built out of restored plank wood from France and Italy. The contrast of the silky walls with the rough-hewn wood flooring had been remarked upon by noted architecture critics. The clothes for sale were displayed not much differently from the exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It was an intimidating space for even the most self-possessed of New York shoppers.

  What made Sabine’s singular for the fashionable women of New York was that Sabine Jun Gottesman was uncanny at discovering and nurturing brilliant designers who later remained loyal to her, because, unlike most department stores, she paid them on time. Sabine was also intimate with many fashion magazine editors, and her generosity with their favorite charities was renowned.

  The store today was filled with anxious holiday shoppers with their lists, but there were no hat customers. In general, most women did not wear hats anymore for decorative purposes. They neither wanted the attention nor would ever yield to any wish for such things, claiming they could not pull it off. If the average woman bought a hat, it was for practical reasons (a shield against the cold or sun), and if there was a fanciful purpose, she was private about it. Hats and accessories were not easy sales, and though Casey had been given the option of working shoes or sportswear—with their higher-volume business and fat commissions—she’d chosen this counter because it offered her a curious sense of accomplishment. For Casey had a knack for timing—being able to intuit precisely when it was all right to approach a woman trying on a hat and when not to. Also, for women accompanied by men, it was fair to say that only the very secure husbands or boyfriends approved of hats for their wives or girlfriends. Men were drawn to women in hats but were skittish about their partners looking different from the others in the crowd. Today, it was unlikely that holiday shoppers would buy hats for themselves. Casey would peddle French hairpins or plush flower brooches for her commissions.

  On Judith Hast’s suggestion, Casey was rearranging the displays, and she picked up a brown fedora. She removed the hat she was wearing—a small-brimmed green beaver-felt fedora trimmed with a green grosgrain band and a vintage orange-colored feather from Paris—and she modeled the brown fedora for Judith.

  “Oh-la-la,” Judith said. Her accent was impressive.

  “Merci,” Casey replied, then returned the hat to its pedestal.

  Judith returned to cataloging the spring inventory. She was a reserved forty-seven-year-old divorced heiress, a single mother to a teenage daughter named Liesel, and she worked three days a week at Sabine’s for the thirty-three percent employee discount. She’d grown up in West Hartford, wearing clothes appropriate for the country club, gone to Trinity College, and dropped out in her junior year to marry the handsome graduating senior who ended up leaving her for her best friend’s older sister. After her divorce, Judith took her inheritance and moved to New York with her then infant daughter and stopped putting blond highlights in her hair. She lived in a sprawling Upper West Side apartment with Liesel and often invited Casey for dinners.

  “Do not let me buy that hat.” Casey tried to sound severe with herself.

  “If you don’t, you’ll just obsess about it. Do you want me to put it aside for you?” Judith considered Casey’s worried expression thoughtfully.

  “No. But thank you.” Casey tilted the hat forward on the display to show off its brim. It was like Judith to tell her to yield to the temptation. She was a generous person, but also a wealthy person. Three hundred dollars for a hat would not affect her in the least. Even with the discount or even if the designer gave it to her at cost (sometimes milliners gave Casey things to wear to the store), she could not afford that hat. Just that morning, she’d considered asking Sabine for an advance to help her get through the week but decided against it for fear of bringing on another lecture. Not to mention that Casey already owned a beautiful brown fedora trimmed with a wide blue ribbon. She owned easily fifty hats—twenty of her own, many she’d worn only once. No one would dispute that her consumption patterns were excessive. But sometimes Casey wanted to argue that a person like Judith owned at least two hundred hats. Judith could afford it and Casey couldn’t, yet it didn’t mean that Casey had any less desire to do so. Her heart was full of frivolous and lofty wishes.

  Lately, she’d been losing sleep over her debts. Her rent was twelve hundred a month, her utilities a hundred and fifty, food and transportation four hundred dollars, and her entertainment (movies, drinks, and going out to dinners with friends, taxis at night) seven hundred dollars, and just meeting her credit card minimums took anywhere from four hundred to a thousand a month. Ever since she and Jay broke up, Casey had really been on her own. She didn’t know how to balance her budget, nor could she keep herself from buying the new pretty skirt. Twelve thousand dollars’ worth of dinners out, flowers ordered, boxes of French chocolates, gym memberships, a pair of pearl earrings from Mikimoto, clothes and shoes, tuition for her hat classes. The only people who knew about her debts were Hugh (because you could tell him anything and he didn’t judge) and Sabine, who’d prized it out of her; but even they had no idea how bad it was. Life cost so much money. The craziest thing was that though her debts terrorized her, the desire for more—to eat at the restaurant recommended by the Times, to order the second glass of wine at dinner, to give costly wedding or shower presents, to see the Ring Cycle at the Met, to order an orchid for Ella when she got pregnant—only grew stronger.

  “When are you taking lunch?” Judith asked, putting down her pen.

  “In a few minutes,” Casey replied. She hoped Judith wouldn’t ask her any more questions.

  “You want to eat with me? Stacy from jewelry can cover us. They have way too many people for today. Anyway, I brought food.” Judith often brought large homemade salads that her housekeeper made for her in a blue Tupperware bowl, along with her own shallot dressing, made without sugar, and packets of rice cakes. Judith did not eat dairy, sugar, or meat.

  “Can’t, sweetie. But thank you.” Casey left it at that.

  “Are you eating with Sabine?” Judith’s voice squeaked a little.

  Casey nodded, continuing to arrange the thousand-dollar Tibetan fur hats from light- to dark-colored crowns. Sabine had
worked Saturdays from the time she’d opened her first storefront nearly three decades ago. Ever since Casey had returned to work, Sabine wanted her to take meal breaks in her office whenever she was there—Saturdays and even Thursday nights if Sabine was working late. Nevertheless, Sabine was a bizarre stickler about two things: taking turns buying sandwiches and never letting any of her favorite employees take extra time for lunch or breaks, especially if the meals were with Sabine herself. On these issues of fairness, she was pathologically fastidious and immovable. It was Casey’s turn to pick up the sandwiches and drinks, but she had no cash to speak of. Casey wanted to phone the credit card company to see if there was enough credit left for their lunch, but she didn’t want Judith to know.

  “Sabine is so great,” Judith said, trying to conceal her disappointment.

  “Uh-huh.” Casey knew Judith was feeling unwanted. She hated this about women friendships. Someone always felt left out.

  In Judith’s ten years as a weekend manager, Sabine had never once asked her to eat in her office. They had a perfectly friendly and collegial relationship, but it didn’t go further than that. Sabine had her favorites—the prize ponies, in a way—fast, intelligent, stylish, and brilliant at sales. Young. They were always young. Judith rubbed her arms as though she were cold.

  “Tomorrow? Please?” Casey asked. “I’ll bring a salad, too.” She looked up, wondering if she had any vegetables in the house. “Or a can of tuna. I think I have peanut butter. Maybe canned corn. I think I have some of that.” She laughed at herself.