She turned on her heels. “Come on, tonight’s the last night we’ll all be together for a long time.”
With a genuine smile forming on my lips, I shifted my eyes to find our friends. Jamie was lounging in a booth on the other side of the VIP section. The neon lights from the disco ball above the dance floor flickered all around him as he took a large gulp of his scotch, maybe trying to wash down the bad taste of the last foreclosure he had to make that put someone on the street.
Emmy was filming him with a video camera, probably wishing she could film the two of them together. When we were younger, she had aspirations of going to Hollywood and being an actress. She settled on home movie production for the time being and brought her video camera everywhere. Her parents held her trust fund over her head to keep her in New York. Soon though, when she turned thirty, she would have complete ownership and then, we were sure, she’d be gone.
Logan was in a deep discussion over in the corner of the bar, about what was anyone’s guess—he never discussed his job or his life. Although a good friend, I knew very little about him. He was the quiet, secretive one.
A lot like me.
But his reasons for remaining quiet were different from mine—mine were internal, the way I felt about myself and this world of ours. His were more external. He’d grown up in two very different worlds and I think he struggled with which one he belonged in.
Danny made me laugh. He was dancing with some guy I’d never seen before. Throwing his hands around like a rapper, more than likely mourning the loss of his freedom. Always the happy-go-lucky one in the group, he’d recently joined the ranks of the employed, sitting beside his father and learning the ropes of the gaming industry that had made his great-great-grandfather billions. Of all of us he had held out the longest. Went on sabbatical after grad school to find himself but when he came back he found himself all right, right beside his tycoon father being groomed to run the family-owned business.
These people gathered here tonight were like my family. We grew up together, went to the same parties, to the same schools, and once upon a time we all hated the life that having money brought. Those days were long over. We’d tried our best to hold on to them, but life took over and crushed those ideals. We had all decided further education was the quickest and easiest way to avoid the family binds that awaited us. Me, it wasn’t the business I was avoiding. I just didn’t care what path I took and where it led. But none of it had mattered because when we graduated, whether it was with an MBA, law degree, or other certification, the family calling was inevitable.
Lily Monroe, textile heiress, was learning the apparel business that had been started by her great-grandfather. She loved to shop, knew clothing well, what fashions worked and what didn’t. She would make a great figurehead for the House of Monroe someday, but running the company didn’t interest her. Her goals were all short-term. She had become the true socialite of the group and hated working more than any of us. Her passion was ballet and what she wanted more than anything was to be a ballerina. But a knee injury in her freshman year at Julliard changed all that, and as time passed, Lily’s dream had too. I prayed Lily would never have to take over the family business like I had, and so did she.
Logan McPherson was the grandson of a hedge fund manager and philanthropist worth an estimated twenty billion dollars. His grandfather was one of the wealthiest men in the city, but Logan never seemed to care and he never discussed money. He was an attorney who spent most of his time in Boston. I knew he was licensed in both states but wasn’t sure if he was practicing in either. No one knew much about his work.
Emmy Lane, publishing heiress, refused to learn what it would take to run a long list of publications owned by her family and because of her resistance, her parents were not on board with her plan to relocate to LA. She hadn’t gotten the big break she was waiting for but she still continued to audition for parts here in the city. Swan Publishing might have been her family legacy but her passion was acting and she still hoped someday she would be a star.