Chapter Eight Maya

Chapter Eight

Maya

October 2011, junior year

Professor DuPont’s behavioral economics 301 was the single most popular class at the university. So much so that to get in, we’d wait at 6:59 a.m. on class registration day, with the class queued up on TigerHub, pale and slick-palmed as our fingers hovered over the return key waiting for the second hand to reach the hour. It was rumored even the waitlist was filled within the first ten minutes.

Maybe I’d had enough bad luck sophomore year that by junior year, the universe decided to let me into the class. And that Friday, I sat in the second row next to Daisy Miller as Professor DuPont paced onstage in front of over four hundred students. After the Lawnparties incident, the rest of sophomore year had been uneventful as I studied alone, ate alone, lived alone…but the one good thing that came out of it was meeting Daisy. She’d sat next to me in a microeconomics class at the beginning of spring semester, and her bubbly personality ensured we’d been friends ever since.

I’d been worried Daisy and I would lose touch over the summer, but we somehow remained close—she’d send me updates about the boys in the Hamptons, and I’d keep her entertained with stories about living in San Jose with my sister and Aunt Ella, though it took some effort to omit the more concerning details. I admired Daisy’s sense of style, her spontaneity, and her ability to befriend anyone. To her, everything in life was a game.

McCosh Hall had a tall domed ceiling, diamond-paned windows, and a sloping wooden floor with hundreds of antique-style desks curving around the stage. Every seat was full, including the upper level, which, like opera house seating, jutted out over the lower rows. The way everyone’s eyes were fixed on Professor DuPont, nodding as pens scratched notebooks and fingers flew madly over keyboards, it was as if he were a pastor speaking to his congregation.

“?‘Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.’ Does anyone know who said that?”

A girl with thick glasses raised her hand. “Economist Daniel Kahneman,” she said.

Professor DuPont nodded. “That’s correct. The Israeli American psychologist and economist who won the 2002 Nobel Prize for his work, the father of behavioral economics, and my esteemed colleague.”

Professor DuPont rarely name-dropped, but he must have known he was somewhat of a campus celebrity. We’d all seen the pictures of him in Time magazine shaking hands with the president, the links circling the internet to his TED Talks and leadership conference appearances. He’d spent time on Wall Street after graduating from Princeton and less than a decade later, had become the most successful wealth manager on Forbes 40 under 40.

Yet despite his success, he had the laid-back ease of a man humbled by it all. He didn’t brag, he didn’t dress ostentatiously, and he kept his office hours open late.

I began sketching Professor DuPont as he lectured. Not only was he smart, but he was beautiful. It was as if Michelangelo’s David had put on a tailored suit.

Daisy sighed. She was wearing a tweed mini skirt and a cashmere sweater, her legs crossed daintily at the knee. She had stopped taking notes and was staring at him with a faraway look in her eyes.

“The world does not make sense. Humans are not rational decision makers—we are driven by our wants, our needs, our fears.” I swore for a moment he looked straight at me, and my heart beat faster. “I hope that in my class, you will question everything. Don’t take what is written in these textbooks as fact. Don’t take what I say as fact. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions…and then I’ll enjoy challenging them in class.” He grinned. “All right. Get out of here. I want you to think about this over the weekend and come to class next week with some specific examples of heuristics, those mental shortcuts we use to make decisions.”

—

I took the long way back to my dorm, enjoying the chilly fall air and the bright orange and red leaves drifting from the trees. Though it was my junior year, the thrill of being at an Ivy League school still hadn’t worn off. The Gothic buildings, the labyrinthian campus, the ivied brick and stone. Then there were the designer clothes, Barbour hunting jackets, and Longchamp bags draped over their shoulders. The quick pace of conversation. The summer homes in East Hampton and the winter cabins in the Swiss Alps, and, above all, how students grouped together by some invisible marker of status: sports team, boarding school, or eating club.

My mother would have loved it. She was able to forget that she was the only Asian person in a room and chat up the other moms at school, make the rounds at a block party and ignore the people who mistook her for the nanny.

But despite my mother’s public persona, she was very strict at home. I was jealous of my friends, whose mothers would shower them with hugs and gossip about boys, watch Friends with them, take them shopping at Victoria’s Secret, and teach them how to shave their legs.

My mother rejected displays of affection, which she felt were unnecessary, and preferred a no-nonsense approach to life: Ziplock bags were reused. Shoes were worn until the soles peeled. Tea, rice, and Tiger Balm never went bad.

Both of my parents were the first in their family to go to college, and my education mattered more to them than anything else. Sometimes I wondered if my mother saw me as a reflection of herself. A younger, more American version of her whose sole purpose was to live out her dreams, to achieve more than she’d been able to.

In high school, I pushed back. We’d argue when she’d criticize my tank tops, my laziness, my disrespectful tone. One night, when I was sixteen and had come home late from my boyfriend’s house, my mother and I got into our worst argument yet. She was yelling, pummeling me with words like promiscuous and hell and regret, when I’d responded with a burst of anger that surprised us both. Well, I don’t want to end up like you. Her palm collided with my cheek and shocked me into silence.

Ungrateful girl, she’d muttered as she walked away, the only words I knew in Cantonese. I’d turned away, fighting the urge to clutch my cheek, pretending her words didn’t hurt as they cut straight to my core.

And despite what she thought, I did listen.

It wasn’t until after she was gone that I realized my mother was human too. That she was far away from her family, her culture, her friends, and had sacrificed everything to give us the best chance she could.

When I went to Princeton, I remembered her favorite lesson to instill in us— education means choice, and choice means freedom. I wanted to make her proud.

That evening, I’d gotten off my shift at the restaurant an hour early and was lying on my stomach reading the faded copy of Interpreter of Maladies that had belonged to my mother when there was a knock at the door.

I answered, and Daisy strutted past me in a fringed flapper dress and heels, hair in two buns high on her head. With a grand display, she revealed a second flapper costume. “This is for you! Get dressed!”

I studied her flushed cheeks and smiling, yet slightly glazed expression. “Did you start without me?”

She grinned and revealed a bottle of Pinnacle whipped-cream-flavored vodka. “I may have gotten a head start.” She handed me a feather headband. “Come on, it’s Gatsby Night, the best night of the year!”

I ran my fingers over the sequins. I hadn’t gone out much since the embarrassing night at Cottage last year. A couple of times here and there, when my friend Ayana would invite me to dorm parties and Charter Fridays, but I was skilled in coming up with excuses not to go, and eventually she stopped asking.

Tonight, Daisy’s hopeful grin—and the fact that she’d thought to buy an extra costume just for me—filled me with a warm, fuzzy, hopeful feeling. What am I doing hiding in my room? I thought. This is a new year. This could be different.

At my desk, Daisy pushed over a stack of econ textbooks, set down two shot glasses, and filled them with vodka.

“One for you.” Daisy handed me a shot and raised the second in the air. “To a new year!”

I drank it and grimaced—more nail polish than cotton candy—but enjoyed the warm feeling of the alcohol as it slid into my stomach. “Okay, I’ll come out.”

“Yay!” She grinned. “I promise you won’t regret it.” After studying me for a moment, she set a bag of makeup and a straightening iron on my desk. “Now, let me do something about your hair.”

—

Thirty minutes later, we were stalking across campus, a broken umbrella shielding us from the rain. Daisy wove her arm through mine and leaned in close.

“Okay, so don’t freak out,” Daisy said, “but Gatsby Night is at Sterling Club, members and guests only.”

Despite my buzz, a new anxiety flickered across my chest. Sterling Club had a reputation for being exclusive: it was the eating club where only the most elite students partied, flirted, and shared secrets. The collective net worth of the members probably rivaled the GDP of most nations. And their list was so ironclad, most Princeton students never saw beyond the iron gate. My heart fluttered. “Daisy…thanks, but—”

Daisy looked at me. “Come on, Maya. Don’t you think it’s time you got over the Cottage thing? I get why you didn’t bicker last year, but it’ll be different now. You have me.”

“Bicker” was the process of selecting new members, mostly from the sophomore class. Daisy had tried to get me to bicker with her last year. Though I’d declined, I’d watched longingly from my window as Daisy and her friends filed out from the dorms to The Street and into the clubs where they’d remain bonded for life.

She’d told me about her whole bicker experience after she was accepted into Sterling. It’s mostly about impressing the members, Daisy explained, but sometimes they would rapid-fire questions at you, and get you to spill secrets they could use against you later. Her tone gave me a strange chill.

“It’s not too late for you to join,” Daisy said as we ascended a flight of stairs and passed under a large stone arch. “There are a few other juniors bickering…”

I sighed. “I don’t know…”

“—and if it’s about the money, then don’t worry about it, the club’s financial aid covers it.”

“Daisy—”

“Oh, come on, Maya.” She took my hand in hers. “You have to bicker Sterling. I’m a member. I’ll introduce you to everyone. It could completely change your life.” She gave my hand a squeeze.

When I didn’t answer, Daisy sighed. “You’re always talking about how you need to figure out a way to help your sister, get her into a better situation…this could be the way to do it.”

It was raining harder now, and we were getting wet despite the umbrella. I shook my head. “I don’t see how getting drunk every weekend would help my sister.”

“Look, we have one of the most powerful alumni networks in the world. They arrange interviews, housing in the city. Not only can they get you a six-figure job, they can also get you a place to stay for way under market value. This is the way the world works. You join Sterling, you make these connections, and you could give Naomi a different life.”

Daisy’s words spun in my head. I wanted more than anything to provide for my sister. She was living with our aunt Ella, who was kind but had been through a lot and could barely take care of her own family. After our mother died, we’d been left with nothing. And then somehow I’d gotten into one of the best schools in the world. It was my responsibility to make something of myself. For Naomi.

It was also my chance to have a real college experience, the one I’d missed out on so far.

I drew in a breath and turned to Daisy. “Let’s Gatsby.”

She grinned. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

—

My excitement grew as Daisy and I walked down the Street toward Sterling. We passed Ivy, where international students met old money and Eton prep boys went heli-skiing in Courchevel over the winter break. They were the one percent of the one percent: your Rockefellers, Kennedys, and Forbeses.

As we neared Cottage, I cringed, remembering being soaked in beer while everyone laughed. Here were the Southern boys who loved their hunting trips, the athletes, and the sophisticated girls with runners’ legs and pearl earrings. Their members seemed to have a pipeline straight into Wall Street.

Across the way was Tiger Inn, the laid-back one with Animal House–style ragers. Daisy told me they’d once spent so much money on beer, they’d had to survive on hot dogs for the rest of the semester.

Next came Cap & Gown: more diverse, good music, great food. Tower: for intellectuals and politics majors. Terrace: artists and activists. Charter: nice guys. And Cloister, which according to Daisy was for floaters, boaters, and one-night stands.

—

The next block was dark and empty, and as the music and laughter of the eating clubs faded into the distance, I grew increasingly nervous. A cold breeze brushed my collarbone, sending a shiver up my spine, and I pulled my jacket tighter to my chest.

Finally, there it was: Sterling Club.

The dark mansion towered over me, all gray brick and ivy, captivating and exquisite, music and party noise drifting from its glowing windows. Daisy looked back at me. “You ready?”

I nodded. I couldn’t believe I was doing this.

Daisy walked to the front of the line and showed her ID to a guard at the door. As the heavy door slowly unfolded, my heart beat faster. It felt as if some unseen force were pulling me in.

Daisy turned to me with a wicked grin. “Let’s get you into Sterling Club.”