Old Hooker

It is 2000 in August. There is a business networking event at the office collaborative that her company rents from. Her boss asks her to attend.

She dreaded the thought of mixing in the halls and kitchen area with business grads and inventors, and investors.

All the best minds in Boston, maybe in all of the states, maybe in the world. MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, USC / the pedigrees and ivy combos go on and on.

Some she already knows well and likes — but this is an open mixer, so a lot of unknowns will be on hand. She wouldn’t mind if a friend were with her — but no one was available, and she has to be mindful of what she drinks — so she can’t try and soften the edge.

Everyone there is a rich kid. Or rich adult. All wealthy and pedigreed and confident.

The clarity in their eyes, multiple languages on their lips. Vocabulary and society and money and tennis courts and golf clubs and charity functions and family African safaris and trips to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos and China and Japan.

She has lived in Key West for six months, hitched from Orlando to New Orleans, and, driven in a battered van through Mexico for around two months time, gone through England, Scotland and Wales for a month. And bummed around Alaska for two weeks.

That is the extent of her worldly travels. She is 29. She has an off-and-on older boyfriend, a dog, a cat, a car, a car payment, and two credit cards, and her wardrobe is almost enviable.