My dad, with all his military training and knowledge of how to kill people in a hundred different ways, is a kind man. My stepmother and stepbrother, good people with good hearts.
And then there’s me.
I never felt as nice as the rest of my family. It wasn’t until I started here at Kerrington that I realized it’s not that I’m not as nice, I just see people more clearly. I spy their twisted motives and ill intentions. The entitled brats here only honed that sense, only deepened my conviction that, by and large, people look out for themselves. If they’re gonna suck, I’m gonna manipulate them to my own ends. Thus . . . my choice of profession.
“I’m made for this job,” I tell her.
“So am I,” she fires back, her voice defensive. “My advisor says survival of the fittest, but I don’t think about life in terms of Darwin.”
“You mean science? Facts? Truth?”
“No, I mean in terms of the last man . . . person . . . standing . . . in terms of having to eliminate everyone else so that you come out on top. A food chain culture that thrives on atavism.”
That sounds like life to me, but I let her keep talking.
“I think less Darwin, more . . .” her eyes search the room as if the answer might be painted on the laundromat’s Pepto-pink walls “. . . Maslow.”
“Maslow?” I ask. “Two completely different schools of thought.”
“Yes, but both predictive of human behavior.” She leans toward me, warming to the subject. “Darwin used evolution, our most base biology, and Maslow used psychology, but both sought to understand why humans do what they do and how we end up with the best of the best.”
“And you think Maslow has it right?” I ask skeptically. “Convince me.”
She quirks her lips at my continued nod to Professor Albright.
“I think Maslow is at least another way to approach it. Darwin’s approach considers us no better than animals.”
“We are animals.”
“We are human,” she asserts pointedly. “We’re higher functioning, not only intellectually, but emotionally. Darwin assumes evolutionary competition leads to survival. Maslow believes that survival is a need, and if that need is met, we have the emotional margin for compassion and cooperation to meet the needs of others too. With Darwin, there is a last man standing. With Maslow, we could all be left standing.”
She tucks her hair behind an ear again, sliding her eyes away. “Guess this is why my advisor thinks I don’t have that killer instinct.”
“Maybe you’re the killer with a heart.” I lift her chin with one finger. “Maybe you’ll take all that caring shit and use it to win clients over. Leave the heartless, ruthless stuff to people like me.”
When she glances up, her dark eyes, fringed by thick lashes, snare me with the sincerity, the earnestness there. Still holding her chin, I stroke the powder-fine texture of her jaw. Confusion wrinkles her expression for a second before she pulls away from my touch.