Zoey drifted through work that day, editing on autopilot as she replayed snippets of her conversation with Henry. Finally, she took out her phone and began scrolling. On her ride into the city she had jotted down a few notes, and now she retyped them into her laptop, sorting and sequencing as she went.
This was what Zoey did. As an editor, she had developed the habit of sifting through the threads and fragments of narratives, like an archaeologist with a collection of unearthed bones, looking to see how it all fit together. Spelling, grammar, punctuation—all that could wait till later. What she looked for first was the big picture. What was the writer saying?
She looked at her notes.
Most people, when they earn more, simply spend more.
Everyone thinks they know about it, but hardly anyone does it.
Pay yourself first.
Some say it’s the most powerful force in the universe.
Ten dollars a day can change your life.
Keep your first hour’s worth of each day’s pay.
And then there was that comment from the day before, the one that sounded like it came from a financial Zen master:
If you can afford that latte, you can afford this photograph.
She still had no idea what he meant by that one. Or by her “latte factor.”
Her latte factor?
Walking home from the L train at the end of the day, she stopped in again at Helena’s Coffee to see if she could get a moment with Henry, to ask him about that. But he was gone. He’d left at three that afternoon, the young guy behind the counter told her.
“Of course,” said Zoey. After all, he’d been there at seven in the morning. “I guess his shift is long over.”
“His shift?” The kid laughed. “Henry doesn’t do shifts.”
Doesn’t do shifts? “So, when does he typically leave?” Zoey asked.
“Whenever he wants,” said the kid, and he shrugged. “Usually around three, but could be later. Or earlier.”
Whenever he wants? What kind of job was that?
She was still turning it all over in her mind when she unlocked the front door to her building, stepped into the vestibule, pushed the intercom button labeled JEFFREY GARBER, and announced, “Pizza in fifteen!”
Zoey’s upstairs neighbor Jeffrey worked as a freelance developer of social media apps. He also did some tech support to pay the bills: search engine optimization, Facebook advertising, things like that. Social media apps, though, that was where he planned to strike it rich. He’d offered to cut Zoey in on several deals over the years, each one of which he was positive was going to be the next Instagram. Zoey had consistently declined.
So far, none of them had been the next Instagram.
Jeffrey was a nice enough guy, and she liked him, but she found she could take only so much of his cynical outlook. He had what seemed to Zoey a knee-jerk hostile reaction to “rich people,” no matter who they were, and was especially suspicious of large, successful corporations. Like the one where she worked, for instance. (Although she had to wonder: If one of his apps struck market gold, wouldn’t he become one of those big successful corporations?) Still, they were good friends, and they’d developed a routine of sharing dinner once a week, alternating who did the buying.
Tonight was Zoey’s night. A large classic pizza with everything on it, from Luigi’s. The best in Brooklyn: only a phone call away. (And no dirty dishes!)
This was one trait—one of the few, honestly—that Zoey and Jeffrey had in common. Jeffrey didn’t cook. Neither did Zoey, other than toasted bagels and the occasional overdone omelet. Her mom had never cared much about cooking, and Zoey’s family had put a good deal more mileage on the freezer and microwave than on the fridge or stove. Zoey’s grandmother baked; her mother had rebelled. “Bake? I can’t even make frosting!” she would say.
As they ate, Zoey told Jeffrey about her conversation with the eccentric barista.
There was something about Henry that made Zoey feel good being around him, something almost magnetic. Like charisma, but that wasn’t quite it. She couldn’t put her finger on it, much as she couldn’t put her finger on what it was about that photograph that drew her so strongly.
Jeffrey listened to her narrative of the day’s events without a word.
When she finished her share of the pizza, she wiped off her fingers and pulled out her laptop. At work that day, she’d taken the time to reproduce the chart Henry had drawn for her, with her theoretical $25 daily savings adding up to nearly $6,800 in the first year, and then that astronomical figure at the end of forty years.
She brought up the chart on her screen and showed it to Jeffrey.
“And look at this,” she said. “After forty years, when I’m sixty-seven and eligible for full retirement? It’s over three million dollars, Jeffrey!”
Her friend made an elaborate show of wiping off each finger, then sat back, licking them clean, and looked at her.
“Seriously?” he said. “Zoey, give me a break. Ten percent? How? Where are you gonna earn 10 percent? Interest rates like that are a relic of the past.
“Besides, the whole system is rigged, Zoe, you know that. The more you try to save, the more the government takes.”
What had Henry said about setting aside a portion of your paycheck before it was taxed? Zoey either hadn’t retained it or hadn’t fully understood it in the first place.
“And then there’s inflation. You know how much a million bucks will be worth in forty years? Ha. You’ll be lucky to afford a slot in an old folks’ home. And 401(k)s—they load those things up with so many rules and regs and restrictions, and it’s all stacked against you. Anyway,” he added, “who knows how long you’ll be at that job? And when you leave, what happens to your retirement plan then?
“And, no offense, Zoe, but how exactly would he know? The guy’s, what, in his sixties? Seventies? And he’s still working as a barista?”
Zoey didn’t have an answer for that.
After Jeffrey thanked her for the pizza and tromped back up the stairs to his apartment, Zoey spent the next forty-five minutes washing her hair, cleaning out her already mostly empty fridge, and scrubbing her rarely used stove top. It wasn’t until she stopped and collapsed into her overstuffed TV chair that it occurred to her what the frenzy of cleaning was all about.
She was trying to scrub away the echoes of her friend’s skeptical comments.
She had been excited about that chart of Henry’s she’d managed to complete, and intrigued—even inspired—by his whole “everyone was put here for a reason” speech. She had to admit, the things he’d said had sparked a glint of pure bright hope somewhere inside her.
Jeffrey had shot all that down.
Interest rates like that are a relic of the past.
She picked up her phone, scrolled through her Favorites, and thumbed “Mom.” After four or five rings, the line picked up.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart. Is everything okay?” Her mom sounded beat.
“Everything’s fine, Mom—hey, I should ask you the same. You sound really tired.”
“Oh, it’s that nasty flu,” her mother replied. “First it knocked your father down for a while, then I guess it decided it likes me better.” She let out a sigh, but when she spoke again Zoey could hear the smile in her voice. “Just having you on the phone, I already feel better. So how are things with you, sweetheart? Everything okay at work?”
“Fine, Mom. Listen, can I ask you a question? Dad had a 401(k) at his job, right? Do you have any idea what sort of returns it earned? And what happened to it when he moved to his new job?”
“Oh, Zee,” her mother said, “I really couldn’t say. Your father looks after all that. You’re not thinking of taking that other job, are you?”
Zoey heard the alert tone of a second call coming through. She glanced at her phone’s screen. Jessica. “I don’t know yet, Mom—listen, I’m so sorry, I have to go.”
“Be happy with what you have, sweetheart. The grass doesn’t get any greener—”
“I know, Mom—listen, I’ll call you tomorrow, I have to get this—love you!”
Zoey ended the call with her mom, but just as she was about to click over to pick up Jessica’s call, she hesitated. For some reason she didn’t feel like having that particular conversation right now. She let it go to voice mail.
Once she saw the new voice mail alert, she put the phone to her ear again and played the message.
“Hey, Zoe. We’re on for Friday, right? Drinks are on me this week! See ya there!—oh, and hey. Did you have The Talk yet with your boss, about leaving the magazine?”
Zoey clicked off the message and set the phone down. “Nope,” she said to her empty apartment. “Not yet.”
Zoey thought once more (for the hundredth time that week) about that agency job offer. The high-stakes, high-pay, high-pressure job offer. She took a deep breath and let it out again.
Jessica lived in the fast lane, that was for sure. If Jeffrey’s strategy was to go for the big break, the zillion-dollar deal, Jessica’s was to crank the dial all the way up and plain outwork everyone else. Jessica wasn’t bothering to climb the ladder to the top. She was skipping the ladder altogether and blasting to the top.