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Prologue
Madi
Harvard wants me. Yale accepted me. Even my alma mater, Princeton, says they’ll have me back for graduate studies. I should be wrenching my shoulder to pat myself on the back.
I don’t know why I can’t get excited about any of it.
“You’re telling me you’re not sure you’re going to accept one of these offers?” Aubrey, my best friend, picks up the letter I just opened from Harvard and rattles it underneath my nose. We’re in the kitchen at my mom’s Jersey apartment where we pretty much grew up together. Latchkey apartment kids are as tight as family.
“I should,” I groan. “I know I should want this, but I just… don’t. I’m burnt out. I’m done with believing the lie that if I just keep my head down and study hard, I’ll eventually fit in with the one percent.”
“I think the minute you got that degree from Princeton, you became the one percent.”
I spread my hands around my mom’s small apartment, the one I had to move back into after I graduated last week. “Yep, living the dream, baby.”
“This must be another scholarship offer.” Aubrey tears open another envelope.
I glance at the envelope. “No, that’s Brayden’s.” My stomach tightens on behalf of my younger half-brother. He wasn’t able to attend a prep school like I did, which means he didn’t get into any Ivy League. He was accepted to NYU, but their financial aid package sucks, so he’s hoping for this scholarship.
“Oops. Well, it’s open now. Should we look?” Aubrey unfolds the letter without waiting for my reply. “Oh, damn.”
“What is it?” I snatch it from her to scan.
He didn’t get it. This was his last hope.
“Fuck.” I throw the letter down. I hate this. I hate that I had opportunities Brayden didn’t. I hate that he thinks he’s not as smart or not as capable as I am.
“Are you calling Brayden?” Aubrey asks when I whip out my cell phone.
“No. I’m calling my mom. I don’t want her to be disappointed in front of Brayden. He doesn’t need that added to his disappointment.”
My mom is an English teacher at the prep school I attended, and she’s teaching right now so I leave a message. “Hi, Mom. Brayden didn’t get the scholarship. I just wanted to give you a heads’ up so you can downplay it when he finds out. And…don’t worry. We will figure out a way for Brayden to go.” I glance at Aubrey as I realize I have the solution. “Give me a week. I’ll get his tuition figured out.”
When I end the call, Aubrey raises her brows. “How are you going to come up with that kind of money in a week?”
I square my shoulders. “I figure I need to make about ten thousand a month to cover his expenses. That’s doable.”
“How?”
“I’ll get a job.”
“No duh, Captain Obvious. I meant what sort of job? You have a sociology degree. I thought you wanted to be a social worker.”
“I still can be, once Brayden’s graduated.” I gnaw my lip. “Right now the only job that will pay me enough will be on…” I pause to prepare for Aubrey’s reaction. And also because I feel a bit queasy just saying it. “Wall Street.”
I fully expect her to pluck a brown banana from the fruit basket and lob it at me, but Aubrey props a hip against the kitchen island and nods slowly. “You could definitely get some kind of a job on Wall Street with your degree and contacts.”
“Would you still be my friend?”
She flashes a grin. “Actually, I’m all for it. I can definitely see this working out.” Her brown eyes sparkle with that wicked intensity that tells me she has another wild idea. Like the time she convinced me to dress up and go nightclubbing with fake IDs at age thirteen. Or ditch prep school to take a Greyhound to D.C. to protest the newly-elected president.
My brow furrows, trying to decipher the direction she’s headed with this. Aubrey is not the type to advise me to go climb a Wall Street ladder. I mean, this is the girl who dragged me to Occupy Wall Street protests way back in middle school. She wears t-shirts that say Eat the Rich and dreams of owning a tiny house in Vermont.
She’s my non-Ivy League friend who has a nose ring, paints murals, and works in a coffee shop as she finishes her degree in Women’s Studies at City College.
“Really?”
“Yes! Listen. This could be perfect. You should do this. You can quietly use it as your sociology research. Just think of the insight you could gather on the one percent. Or the book you could write! You’re exactly the kind of person who could topple empires. Exact true social change.”
