Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins (read any book .TXT) 📕

that she could recall the months-old exchange, but it confirmed what her mother warned her about: safekeeping painful secrets would turn her inside out.

“Look,” Ethan continued. “I know you’re under a lot of stress, so I’m going to let this outburst slide.”

Amara scoffed at the nerve of him.

“Don’t forget we have that party at the Plaza this evening.”

“Oh, shit. That’s tonight?”

“Yes, tonight. You still have the whole day to prepare. Cocktail hour isn’t until seven p.m., and it’s not even ten a.m. yet. You can decompress for the day but not too long. You’ve got people to ingratiate yourself with. Remember, it’s black-tie, so we have to dress accordingly.”

“How could I not? It’s the usual Upper East Side soiree.”

“Ah, but it’s not.” He blended a protein drink and raised the glass to her. “You, my dear, are the guest of honor. Unofficially, but still. Everybody will be talking about you, and you should make an impression.”

“Who’s all gonna be there?”

“The usual. No one’s gonna be there who you don’t know. I made sure of it. Had a look at the guest list. You know how to socialize. And I’ll be right there with you.” She leaned in for a kiss, and he kissed her forehead.

“You have morning breath. Now eat.”

Ethan walked past her humming an upbeat jingle, and she expected to hear her front doorknob twist, but he ran her shower instead. The thought of joining him vanished as soon as it came to her. Him telling her she had morning breath had turned her off from trying to have a quickie. Now that he was out of the way, she could finish her egg and get her mind right for tonight.

She had it down to a science, how much time one should spend mingling with one person before moving on to another conversation. The most precarious topic to discuss amongst wealthy people was money—how much someone needed for their philanthropic organization, how much a ticket costs to attend a charity ball, how much someone makes. At the same time, to occupy this particular milieu was to taciturnly commit to a veil of secrecy about how money was made, circulated, and maintained, so that if they achieved anything great, they could purposely attribute it to hard work and discipline, a foolish and undying loyalty to the meritocracy myth.

But Amara needed money for her campaign. There was not enough goodwill she could accrue from Manhattanites that could surpass the weight of the green. She made enough money to take care of herself but not enough to shift anything in her favor, and she didn’t trust a single one of those people. No matter how much they smiled in her face or placed a hand on the small of her back, she was still their shining example of the meritocratic myth, and if she thought about it too long, she’d lose focus. Though she didn’t want to admit it, the Daily Beast article knocked her off her game, making her feel as though she had already lost control of a moving train.

She wore a Badgley Mischka gown that she borrowed from Rent the Runway, and Ethan dressed in a Giorgio Armani suit. While Ethan scrolled through his phone in the car on the way there, Amara stared out the window. Then she absentmindedly grabbed Ethan’s hand, and he took it out of habit without looking up from his phone, leaving her more and more dissatisfied.

No matter how many times she’d traveled this route for work or play, she was also fascinated at how quickly the exteriors of apartment buildings changed, signaling a different world into which one was about to enter. Once one headed into the street intersections between Madison Avenue and East Sixtieth Street, everything looked so polished that Amara would joke to herself that you could be fined for looking too hard at any building. The border between the Upper East Side and Midtown was where everyone wanted to be, though their reputations were quite stodgy. This was the New York most shown in television and movies, the New York where most transplants wanted to live and shop. She could not care less about it. Manhattan as a whole kept changing the longer she stayed, and she thought it best not to get attached to one neighborhood. But with that intention came a sense of loss, then melancholy that without one place to call home, she would always be swept away by some current. And then she did think of her former home. And of Laila again. But she could not think for long because the doorman opened her car door and held out his hand for her.

The party took place in the Oak Room. Its grape-laden chandelier, high ceilings, and Flemish oak walls were a nod to European castles. The grandeur of the centerpieces and the ice buckets full of Krug Champagne made Amara feel grateful to be in such high company. But as soon as she saw the host and hostess—Robert and Jillian Epelbaum—standing at a high-top cocktail table near the center of the room, she snapped out of her trance and straightened her back. This was the point in the night when Ethan was usually the most affectionate, his arm draped around Amara’s waist as he planted a kiss near her left earlobe before they entered the foyer. Once they crossed into that area, such tenderness would be socially unacceptable. The couple nodded and mouthed Hello to a who’s who of people—lobbyists, politicians, and political donors—and they passed by quickly, which was to Amara’s relief because she had forgotten half of their names and how she knew them. Once Amara and Ethan were approaching the hosts’ cocktail table, Robert and Jillian skillfully ended their conversation with a pair of other guests and shifted their bodies away from them to indicate that their attention was elsewhere.

“Ah! Amara.” Robert shook Amara’s right hand and kissed her on both cheeks before shaking Ethan’s hand. Jill switched sides with Robert,