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•••
I WAS NEVERone to parade my relationships around at work, but I took particular care to keep my relationship with Collin Case quiet at the office. He was officially a client of the agency, and I knew that the optics wouldn’t be great for me, professionally speaking. I was a senior business development director at one of the biggest advertising agencies in New York, where most of the men pretended to be Don Draper and Roger Sterling, tossing back bourbon in their offices when the clock struck five, taking prospectives and currents out to Gramercy Tavern, where they could all act like they were more attractive than they were due to the generous low lighting. As for the women I worked with, they largely resented me for ascending to a senior role relatively quickly, at least compared to their own moderate trajectories. I knew they all thought it was because of how beautiful I was, and while I’m under no delusion that didn’t factor in as an element of my success, I’m also excellent at my job because of my skillful play of the corporate game.
Yet another difference between her and me—and an important one. I devoured all of those bullshit businesswomen bibles by the likes of Sheryl Sandberg, Ivanka Trump and Dr.Lois P. Frankel, applying their strategies with a deft hand so I could use them to my advantage. I also read all the strategy books aimed at the C-suite, written for men in power, so I was aware of what was going on in their feeble minds. Unlike her, I could actually apply myself in a multitude of ways. I could succeed in businessandin dating. I earned a salary. I had benefits. I had an expense account. I enjoyed my work, commanding the room, closing deals, counting my money that I had earned.
As if she ever had a real job. She could never.
Soon enough, I knew exactly how and when to lean in, always just enough, but never crossing any perceived boundaries that would label me a bitch or ballbuster by the male powers that be. In truth, I found it all rather entertaining and supremely rewarding when I would unlock another achievement at work, whether it was in the form of a promotion or an opportunity to collaborate on a challenging pitch.
I learned the rules so I could win.
I always knew what men wanted to hear, the setting never mattered, and specifically in business, the playbook was so abundantly clear. Sexism goes in and out of vogue depending on the year or damning article making the rounds in the press, but the deep-seated sentiments never change. So Miss Jessica McCabe could speak ill of me in her cube all she liked, languishing for years on end in an entry-level position, but it was hardly my fault she didn’t get her head in the game so she could snag an actual office with a door that shuts. Address the bags under your eyes and seek out a reliable silhouette to flatter your wide-set hips,Jessica, and just watch what career wonders could unfold for you. Didn’t her mother teach her anything? Looking good is perpetually a transferable skill.
See, it’s not really about ifyoupersonally subscribe to these “girl boss” ideologies when they’ve already permeated their way into the corporate psyche. It’s your responsibility as a member of the capitalistic workforce to acknowledge the game, learn it backward and forward and then manipulate the rules in your favor. Remember: It’s not personal. It’s business.
And while I’m loath to give her any credit for my success at anything, I’m certain I could attribute my natural aptitude for all things manipulation to Mother.
Her influence was largely a curse, but once in a while a blessing.Safe to say that I wouldn’t be where I was, or who I was, without her. It’s like she gave me a map that only I knew how to read, and I’d have to force myself to go in the opposite direction of nearly every path she took. A lifelong challenge.
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I MOSTLY ENJOYEDCollin Case’s company. As much as I could enjoy a man who believed that boat shoes and colorful polos under a quarter-zip sweater were the height of men’s weekend fashion. He adored listening to me talk, and I had plenty of entertaining things to say. Whatever he said to me was typically bookended between lovely compliments about my appearance or my sparkling personality. I could get used to such a winning relationship dynamic. Coupled with the constant extravagance of running around town with his drivers and helicopters and multiple homes, it was a no-brainer to set my sights on marriage.
Getting Collin Case towantto marry me would be simple given how smitten he was, but with his elevated stature in society, I knew he would not be the sole decision-maker. Even so, I believed my forged identity would still fly with Collin in my crosshairs. I had conjured up a solid backstory for myself as Beatrice.
But please, call me Bea.
A working woman in New York, the perfect balance of prestigious and plausible. I couldn’t quite risk flaunting an Ivy League degree without considerable risk of being found out as a fraud, which was unfortunate, as that type of connection would have all but sealed the deal.
The Case men were Harvard men, along with his mother at Radcliffe, but the family tree often branched out to Yale, Princeton and Brown over the years. Never Cornell. Please. And Iknewthat thesepeople all ran in the same social circles, no matter the institute of higher learning, and would begin to ask me very specific questions. What year did I graduate, did I know so-and-so professor, what house did I live in, what family do I come from and so on and so forth. Even if I copped to being on scholarship over legacy, an embarrassment in their eyes, the due diligence would inevitably be done. It’s who they were. We’re talking about grown adults who still started conversations with strangers about where they went to school, so I had to play my cards accordingly.
I told Collin that I grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina—a charming and well-to-do port city by Southern standards—and attended Duke, just like my father. I shared that I was an only child my parents had later in life. Bob and Alice’s little miracle, both dead now, but everything I did was all to make them proud of me, even in death. I tacked on a couple tears at the back end of this yarn to really hammer things home.
It was always key to mention to anyone that my faux family were deceased when the opportunity presented itself because it tends to shut people right up, cutting short any further probing into the reality of my checkered past. Sure, the story I concocted was a little folksy, but that was the point, as it was historically well received and unassuming. Collin even got a real kick out of the very slight Southern lilt I cultivated as part of the persona. I just needed his family to get on board, then I could be this woman for the remainder of my life.
As if I could tell anyone the truth about where I really came from. I don’t come from anywhere. Only from her. Mother dragged me all over the country, forcing me to take part in her sordid schemes and dark dreams, and I could never figure out what she was looking for until I finally realized she wasn’t looking for anything. She was just addicted to the shake-up for the sake of the thrill.
So I avoided thrills as best I could as an adult. For my own good.
Making Collin the perfect fit.
If I had to hitch my wagon to some mediocre man with a lukewarm personality for the rest of my life, just to get some well-deserved repose, why not aspire to the 1 percent? For someone like me, the only way was by association. The Cases didn’t work for their empire; that’s called inherited wealth and, for all intents and purposes, it makes one infallible. I worked my entire life to meet someone like Collin Case. I was ripe and ready.
So yes, I thought I could handle a historic family of WASPs who never had to really work a day in their goddamned lives, because, frankly, I deserved it.
It could all end with Collin.
One last round for all the money on the table.
CHAPTER
2
WHEN COLLIN WANTEDto introduce me to his friends, I wasn’t worried about my reception at all. He had talked about them often and with true affection. They all grew up together, since filthy rich families tend to socialize with others in the same tax bracket. Even the friends he claimed to have made at college “in the Boston area” were already familiar to him throughout the years because he was a Case. His social circle likely never experienced much variation at all until I got into the mix, and I knew Collin was excited by that so I was ready to shine. It couldn’t be hard. Men adored me almost without fail so I was sure his friends would fall in line, too, especially since I had looked into their own wives and girlfriends via their social media, objectively none of whom came even close to my startling level of beauty. A bunch of sixes and sevens, and frankly, that’s being generous.
It would be so easy to win over the guys, but I didn’t know what toexpect when Collin told me about his “best friend.” First of all, it’s very alarming when adults identify other adults as “best friends,” a term that ought to be a relic from junior high. Second of all, Collin’s best friend was a woman.
Gale Wallace-Leicester.
