say. Know thine enemy. You live in a gilded-era mansion in Lenox Hill, custom-built by your great-grandfather on your mother’s side. A ten-thousand-square-foot house, in Manhattan. I’m not hating on you for being rich, I’m just saying…when you pretend you’re like me, it comes off as patronizing.”
“My father sold all of our artwork and furniture after the news came out about our CFO defrauding the company,” he blurts out. “I was twelve years old and suddenly the bottom fell out of our life. My mother sold all of her jewelry and replaced it with fakes, to keep up appearances. She cried all the time, and my parents, who were the most devoted couple in the world before that, got in screaming fights. Our house was so empty it echoed. We slept on mattresses on the floor while my father sneaked in thrift store furniture piece by piece. We ate dinner at a picnic table with mismatched chairs. We couldn’t invite friends over, because then they’d find out, and we’d be socially ostracized. All this because a man my father trusted ripped off the company that had our name on it. My father was determined to pay back every last cent to our investors, and it nearly bankrupted us.”
I stare at him, open mouthed. That’s such a different experience than what happened when my mother got sick. Our friends and neighbors and church congregation rallied around her, holding fundraisers, leaving baskets full of vegetables from their gardens on our doorstep.
“The papers trashed us. They humiliated us. Kids at school made fun of me because of the lies they read about us, and I started getting in fights all the time.”
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur.
He lets out a tortured breath. “When my parents died two years later, Alice was eighteen. She was meant to go to Oxford, but instead she stayed home and she took care of me and worked at Hudson’s. She used her salary to pay the mortgage that my father had to take out on the house, and our credit card bills and utilities. She’d sneak home food from our gourmet department whenever she could, and we converted my mother’s flower garden to a vegetable garden. I know what it is to be genuinely hungry and worry where your next meal is coming from.”
His eyes burn with remembered pain. “My uncle paid for me to stay in private school, back when we still sort of got along. Back when he didn’t see me as a threat, I guess. Henry came to the house a few days a week for free, cleaning and doing repairs and cooking dinner and supervising my homework, and he had another job for a family across town, to pay his bills. All our share of the profit from the company went towards paying off our debt. I worked at Hudson’s too, as a stock boy, full time in the summer and part time during the school year. I pretended I was doing it to learn the ropes from the ground up, but I used the money to pay for my private school uniforms and lunches.”
My heart squeezes in sympathy. It was hard when my mother got sick, but we didn’t have the added stress of living a lie every single day.
“Nobody knew.” His voice is heavy with emotion. “That was the whole point. My father was never one to ask for charity, and he didn’t believe in airing our dirty laundry. Anyway, it’s all in the past. When I turned twenty, I took the helm at Hudson’s and forced a bunch of innovations down the board’s throat. We were faltering at that point. I got three of the board members on my side, and they let me revamp our internet presence and bring in new, more contemporary lines of clothing and furniture. By the time I was twenty-five, I’d turned things around to the point where I was finally able to pay off the last of the money that was embezzled. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone hungry, but you don’t forget it, ever.”
He turns away, rubbing his forehead with his hand. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
I put my hand on his arm and squeeze it gently. “I’d never repeat a word of it. Ever. I hope you know that. If I fail on my to-do list and you fire me, I won’t repeat it. If I walk into your office and find you doing Sloane on your desk, I won’t repeat