“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.”
It’s amazing how quickly an opinion can be formed. All I knew about this woman was her name, and I was instantly on guard. I had an almost physical reaction to another woman’s name on Leo’s lips. And that told me more about my own feelings that I cared to admit, at least for the moment. I kept up the swinging, needing the rhythm.
“At first, she was just another girl, one of many. Melissa had just filtered into the group I was running with at the time, a friend of a friend, and as she began to be at the same places I was, an attraction happened. And other things happened. But as I got to know her, she seemed . . . hmm,” he paused for almost the first time in his story, seeming almost lost in thought. “Different. She was different from everyone else. She came to New York from a small town in Wisconsin, she wasn’t at all concerned with money and last names and who everyone was or might become one day. Anyway, we started dating, and then dating more seriously, and just like that, I was head over heels. I introduced her to my parents, stopped dating anyone else, and we became exclusive.” He paused to look at me carefully. “You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I asked.
“You’re about to swing us right off this porch,” he said, and I noticed for the first time how much air we were catching. My body had a very definite reaction to this Melissa. Dragging a foot, I slowed us down to a normal pace.
“Sorry about that. You and this Melissa—I mean, you and Melissa—exclusive. Go on.” I forced my foot to just barely graze the porch every so often.
He did. They dated for months, she met everyone he was close to, she was welcomed thoroughly into the family. A junior partner at an accounting firm, she was knowledgeable in many areas of finance, and could hold her own in most conversations. She could kill it at a cocktail party, he said, and he was proud to have her on his arm.
But as the economic recovery was still struggling, Leo began to voice some of his concerns over the practices that not only the Maxwells were employing, but the banking world in general. “She’d encourage me to speak up, share my ideas, but I began to notice that she’d always add in something about it not being the right time, or to maybe keep some of it to myself until the climate had shifted, things like that. She knew I was unhappy with things at work, yet when we’d talk it out, I’d always come away feeling more confused than I was before, unsure about my position and how vocal I should be.”
He suddenly looked into my eyes, intense and a bit haunted. “Have you ever gotten so totally thrown by someone, you have no idea how it could have happened?”
“Honestly? No.” I paused, chewing on my lip. “But that’s because I never let anyone get close enough.” Very dramatic gulp. “Until you.”