Graham pulls a chair out for me, and I lower into it, waiting for him to sit in the seat beside me before tucking myself a little farther under the table. All of these habits, from sitting down for dinner to choosing the fork to wiping my mouth properly, have been engraved into my brain by this point. But it only comes out when I’m here, when Graham sits up straighter and smiles less and eats even though his father’s disappointment makes him lose his appetite. It’s important for people like them to maintain these arbitrary traditions, like where your fork and knife go on your plate when you’re finished eating. It perpetuates the division between us and them. Between those with and those without.

“Where’s Reed?” Graham asks when the seats across from us remain empty, the prodigal son and his inane other half apparently even later than we are.

No one acknowledges Graham’s question. Instead, Cheryl takes a sip of her martini, and her lipstick tags the edge of her glass like she is marking her territory. Her makeup, as usual, is subtle but expensive and it’s caked slightly around the crow’s feet that peek through the Botox. You’d only notice if you were looking for it, and I always was. “How was your flight?” Cheryl asks, finally breaking the silence.

“Smooth and easy,” Graham says, unfolding his napkin and gently placing it on his lap as I do the same. “Nick says hello,” he adds, referring to our pilot this morning. He is the son of one of Doug’s coworkers. Doug is the one who got him the pilot gig after he graduated from his flight training program. Usually, jobs working with this prestigious level of clientele take years to climb up the ladder toward. But not for a friend of the Walkers.

“Travel days are always exhausting, I find. Even for such a short flight,” I add. I’d heard Veronica say that unironically once after flying from New Jersey to their place in Southampton and I never forgot it. There couldn’t be anything less stressful than a private jet. We could not have been less troubled. But rich people see everything as a personal inconvenience.

“I feel the same way,” Cheryl expounds, like I’d just articulated something she’d been unable to put into words all these years. “Why don’t I see if I can get Marta or Louis up here tomorrow for a little massage? Lorraine!”

Lorraine marches in from the kitchen, moving faster than a woman her age probably should, an apron twisted around her middle and a salad bowl in each hand. She places one down at Doug’s seat first, then Cheryl’s as she offers to call into town tomorrow and schedule something for the morning.