EIGHTEEN
Darley
Darley knew she was an orange. Growing up, her group of friends amused themselves by deciding who was the “Charlotte,” the “Samantha,” or the “Carrie” (nobody was Miranda). They decided who was the “Blanche,” the “Dorothy,” or the “Rose.” But Darley had a different game she privately played with her siblings, where they were the fruits of their neighborhood. Cord was the pineapple, obviously. He was joyful bordering on goofy, he was thrilled to be the center of attention, he made every gathering more festive. Georgiana, meanwhile, was the cranberry. She was the baby of the family, she was bright and beautiful, but she was not entirely sweet. That left Darley to be the orange—boring, dependable, always around, rarely celebrated. Also, she knew, protected by a thick layer of rind, only truly accessible to those willing to put in the time to peel it away.
Darley had awakened midlife to the knowledge that she was entirely impotent, and she blamed it entirely on that blue-blooded twit Chuck Vanderbeer. If Chuck Vanderbeer hadn’t leaked to CNBC and gotten Malcolm fired, then Malcolm would still have his job, and they would still be able to afford their co-op fees, and Darley would never have to face the realization that she had given up her fortune, given up her career, and no longer had any agency in her own life. But no, that little idiot had gone and forced a reckoning, and she had half a mind to go burn down his house. When Malcolm told her that he hadn’t gotten the private equity job, she tried to act like it didn’t matter. She told him she couldn’t have moved to Texas. She told him it was better for the kids to stay at the Henry Street School. She told him he had nothing at all to worry about. For the first time in their marriage, she was lying to him.
It made her mad all over again that her parents had given the limestone on Pineapple to Cord. Sure, Cord and Sasha were expecting a baby, but what if they only had one? She had two. (Not three. Never three.) She wanted so badly to raise her children in her childhood home. Why hadn’t anyone ever asked her if she wanted to live there? She wanted to feed them scrambled eggs in the kitchen breakfast nook, she wanted to read them bedtime stories in the mahogany four-poster bed, she wanted to host the class potluck in the parlor with the Capodimonte porcelain chandelier, she wanted to see Poppy walking down the stairs to meet her date for her deb ball. She loved that home, and she knew, thanks to the hideous gender reveal party, that Sasha didn’t. Why did she take a home she didn’t even like? Why did she hide Georgiana’s breakdown? To Darley it was unfathomable. Georgiana was a child. She was an innocent, a shy kid who hid behind tennis and schoolwork and her parents. She’d been seduced, she’d fallen in love, she’d suffered a terrible loss, and when she reached out for help, when she confessed to her brother’s wife, she was met with silence. It killed Darley that Georgiana hadn’t confided in her when she asked about the crash. It killed her that Sasha buried the secret while pretending to be her friend.
If she could go back in time, she would do so many things differently. She would have had Malcolm sign the prenup. She would have told her parents she wanted the house. She would have watched her sister more closely. And she would have made herself keep working when she got pregnant with Hatcher. She would have thrown up every morning in the trash can at the Canal Street subway station. She would have carried her cooler of breast milk past the bullpen of associates mooing like cows. She would be deep into a career, she would have her own income, and she would hold all the cards, no longer entirely at the mercy of a racist, nepotistic system blackballing her husband for a foolish boy’s mistake.
Darley was awake after midnight, lying on the sofa in the living room scrolling endlessly on her phone, when an email from Cy Habib popped up on her screen. Darley scrambled into a seated position and swiped it open.
Darley,
I found your email in the Henry Street School directory. I hope you don’t mind me writing out of the blue. It was lovely talking to you at the auction. It’s not often I meet people as smitten with SR22 avionics as I am. Any chance you and your husband are free for a drink next week?
Cy
Darley had, of course, Googled Cy after the auction. She had studied his LinkedIn profile, the mentions of him in The Wall Street Journal, the photos of him smiling at a charity gala at Lincoln Center. She contemplated waiting until the morning, but instead she quickly, impulsively replied.
Cy,
How wonderful to hear from you. We’d love to meet up next week. Just let me know where and when.
Darley
The next morning Darley dropped off Poppy and Hatcher with her parents at Orange Street. Malcolm had driven to Princeton to go to church with his parents, and Darley had foolishly signed on to chair the Henry Street School Holiday Book and Toy Fair and had to attend the first of about seven hundred meetings.
At half past noon, Darley jogged over to her parents’ to pick up the kids, and her mother fairly shoved them out the door before waving her off. They had agreed to babysit with even less enthusiasm than usual, and it made Darley wish all over again that the Kims lived in the neighborhood.
Poppy and Hatcher each wore a giant backpack with a water bottle tucked in a mesh outer pocket, keychains with stuffed animals and beaded lanyards dangling from the zippers. They moved along the street like little bouncing turtles, homes on their backs, Hatcher dragging his feet so that yet another pair of shoes would be scuffed across the toes.
“Did you have fun?” Darley asked Poppy as they galumphed the three blocks home.
“It was the worst day of my life,” Poppy said.
“Why?” Darley laughed.
“Glammy doesn’t know how to turn on the TV and for snack they only had olives and machine cherries.”
“Maraschino,” Darley corrected. Her parents had fed the kids from the bar cart. “What did you play with?”
“Glammy let us watch YouTube on her phone so she and Gramps could have an argument.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“Auntie George.”
“Oh,” Darley sighed. Her parents really needed to watch what they said in front of Poppy and Hatcher. The kids had turned into expert eavesdroppers, and they gossiped with the fervor of middle schoolers.
“Auntie George wants to give away all her money and Gramps says over his dead body. Is Gramps almost one hundred?”
“No, honey, Gramps is sixty-nine,” murmured Darley. What had her parents been talking about? When she got home, she called her father’s cell phone.
“Daddy, Poppy told me Georgiana is trying to give away her money.”
“Hold on a moment,” he said, and she heard her father walk down the hall and close a door. “Georgiana has gotten this idea in her head that having financial advantages is somehow an abomination and that the only way to move forward is for her to give it all away like some kind of millennial communist saint. This is why I didn’t want to send her to Brown.”
“She wants to give her whole trust away? When? And to who?”
“As soon as possible. She went and made an appointment with Bill Wallis behind our backs. She’s planning to set up a foundation.”
“Dad, you know she’s having a mental health crisis, right? This is all related to that married guy. You can’t let her do this.” Darley was pacing the hall and possibly yelling.
“The problem is, it’s beyond my control. She’s over twenty-five and I’m not a trustee. Your mother is. Talk to her.”
“Mom won’t talk to me! I tried to tell her Georgiana needed therapy and she said, ‘What happened with that friend of Georgiana’s is her business,’ as though I’m a complete stranger!”
Darley hung up the phone and felt adrenaline coursing through her body. Georgiana was barely an adult. She had no idea what money even meant. She’d never worried about it, she’d never been without. But who knew what the future might hold? What if she fell in love with an artist? What if she one day had a child with disabilities? What if Georgiana needed some medical treatment herself? What if there was a nuclear war and she needed to escape to another country? What if her husband was fired? What if, what if, what if? There were countless things that could go awry, and money was the best way to shore yourself up against tragedy. Darley couldn’t stand by and watch her baby sister throw it all away.
She called Georgiana but it went to voice mail, so she sent her a text: George, please call me. I’m v worried about you. I know you’re having a hard time, but this is a huge mistake.
She then texted Cord: Georgiana went to Bill Wallis to take all her money out of her trust. Did you know about this?
Cord replied: What? No. But Dad was being a nightmare at work yesterday and tried to pump the brakes on the new Vinegar Hill acquisition because “we are going to be poor” so that tracks.
Darley texted, I’m coming over and when Cord wrote back, I’m tied up right now, she didn’t see it—she was already on the way.
The Pineapple Street house was swarming with people when Darley arrived, kids in tow. She sent Poppy and Hatcher into the backyard and found her brother in the parlor talking to a woman wearing big wire-rimmed glasses and holding a tablet.
“Hey, Cord,” she said uncertainly. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Darley, hi.” Cord looked embarrassed, which was maybe a first for him. “I’m just getting an estimate. We’ll be done in about half an hour.”
“An estimate on what?”
“We’re going to have all the furniture and art and stuff taken out and put into storage. We have to make room for the baby.”
“The baby?” Darley asked in disbelief. “The baby that’s going to be the size of a loaf of bread needs you to move out the mahogany organ clock? The baby needs you to put Geegee’s Napoleon the third hall chair in storage?”
“I’m just going to check in with my team upstairs.” The woman in glasses excused herself awkwardly and scurried out of the room.
“Yeah, Darley,” Cord scowled at her. “Sasha doesn’t need to live in a Stockton family museum.”
“It’s not a museum, Cord. It’s a home.” Darley sat down on the sofa, then remembering the rash, stood up and moved to the velvet chaise.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Cord said and sat down next to her. “Sasha is so unhappy here. She says she feels like we exclude her from the family, like she isn’t comfortable around us. And so I thought that maybe if I took all the stuff out of Pineapple Street she could make it her own.”
“But she pretty much told us all she hates the house. That was really vicious.”
“And you and Georgiana called her a gold digger. That’s not vicious?”
Darley winced. “That was bad. I’m really sorry.”
“You should probably say that to her.” Cord rubbed his eyes, looking tired.
“Aren’t you mad she didn’t tell us about George, though? She kept that whole thing a secret.”
“Yeah, I’m really mad.” Cord washed the nap of the velvet back and forth with a sweep of his hand.
Darley sighed. “Where is Sasha, anyway? Is she working?”
“No, she’s with her parents for a few days. Her dad is in the hospital.”
“Her dad is in the hospital?” Darley asked, shocked.
“Yeah, he had blood clots in his lungs, but he’s going to be okay.”
“Jesus Christ, Cord, you need to tell me these things!” Darley jumped to her feet, as though she could run somewhere to help.
“But you were so angry at each other. I figured—”
“So what? We’re still her family!” Darley interrupted, and she meant it. She had made a mistake and Sasha had made a mistake, but she loved her, and Sasha loved her brother, and it was within her power to make it right. With that, she scooped up her phone and placed an order with a Rhode Island florist that was so extravagant that her credit card company had to call her and make sure it wasn’t fraudulent.
