“Everything was preset. Parties, trips, vacations around the world. There was a circuit I was on—we all traveled together, pledged the same clubs and fraternities together. And the girls—wow, they were everywhere. I was a dick back then. Girls and women all wanted a piece, and I was only too glad to give them one. My friends were all exactly like me: just going through the motions, enjoying the extremely easy lifestyle until we could get on with the business of real life. And the definition of ‘real life’ to us? Of the guys I went to high school and college with, there are at least three congressmen, four CEOs, an ambassador, and one host of a very important political talk show on CNN.”
I threw back the last of my drink. My head was starting to spin. “Okay, so life of a young rich boy, I got it. When did you get off the train? Where did you deviate?”
“Funny you should mention that,” he said with a rueful look.
As he went on, the picture of charmed life began to have a slightly darker underbelly. After Leo graduated from Yale he went to work for his father, going into banking as he simultaneously pursued his MBA.
“I was learning a little bit of everything, trying to find my place within the system. Each generation of my family tries it all, works in almost all sectors of our business, before finding their particular niche. I bounced around longer than most. It wasn’t that I didn’t have an appreciation for what my family had built. But nothing was ringing any bells for me. Nothing was interesting beyond the paycheck. What I was interested in was partying, enjoying the good life that, frankly, I hadn’t earned. But try telling that to a twenty-three-year-old.”
I kicked back on the swing, the movement soothing as I listened to Leo’s story—the parties, the women, the coke. I can’t say I was ready to pronounce him a poor little rich boy, but it certainly seemed there was a pressure that came with the extreme wealth he’d been born into. He did bounce around within his family’s company, although it was clear when your last name was Maxwell it wasn’t a hard forty-hour work week, like some. Forty hours, pfft. My mother worked fifty to sixty my entire life, and that was a hard fifty to sixty.
“Remember the financial crisis a few years back? All those mortgage loans, all those foreclosures, all those people who lost their homes because they couldn’t afford their balloon payments?”
“I sure do. My mother almost lost this house,” I replied, and I watched as he winced. “She’d been dating a mortgage guy who talked her into refinancing. And not thinking that the loan would surely outlast the relationship, she was completely surprised when the payments increased—something about an adjustable rate?”
“Yep, tons of people got suckered into new loans called ARMs: adjustable rate mortgages.”
“We were lucky. We knew the president of the local bank and were able to get her moved back into her original loan, but she lost a ton of her savings to do so.” I stopped swinging. “Was your family involved in that kind of banking?”
“My family is involved in all kinds of banking. My family is banking.” He looked stricken.
“So, yes then.”
“Yes. Of course yes. Did you know there are probably less than twenty people in the world who can actually explain the clusterfuck that happened, how many arms and legs that entire mess had, and the effect it had on literally everything? The statistics of it, the advanced mathematical theories that need to be employed to truly understand what happened, and how truly fucked up it was, are staggering.”
“I don’t need to understand the math to know it was fucked up. My mother was considering moving into the diner. I get it.” I started to swing again, my foot angrily kicking at the porch, keeping up the pace.
“I started to think twice about the family business, how thoroughly linked it all was, and what it stood for. And around that time, as I was beginning to question my place within the company, I met Melissa.”