Page 72 of Maid For Each Other

I was the opposite.

We’d had money and expensive things my entire life.

I mean, my parents made me work for things I’d wanted when I was growing up, to teach me about priorities, and I’d always witnessed their generosity to others.

And I was grateful for that.

But when you grew up in a house where your father had an entire garage full of expensive sports cars, you weren’t really impressed by expensive sports cars anymore.

I’m not even sure I realized that level of privilege until I met Roman.

Through a glitch in the system, I ended up with Roman as a college roommate, even though I’d signed up to have a dorm room to myself. I didn’t mind because Roman was cool as shit and I had a blast with him, but he didn’t play it casual like everyone else always had.

He didn’t act like having money was normal, and he kind of acted like it was disgusting.

Somehow in a nonjudgmental way.

He’d been considering joining the Peace Corps when I met him, and he was super into social issues. He opened my eyes to so many things and kind of completely changed my way of looking at the world.

By the end of my sophomore year, I wanted to quit school and join the Peace Corps myself.

But then Roman said something important to me.

You can do more good with money than without it, he’d said.Why would you leave this life and join the Peace Corps, where you could help a few people, when you could graduate and get a job at Hathaway and make millions of dollars that you could give away?

We talked about it a lot, and by the time I was a senior, we’d formulated a plan.

He loved number-crunching and had intended on finding a job in finance or accounting with a nonprofit.

I loved business. I loved the challenge of finding new and exciting ways to grow a company and make more money. I wanted to work for Hathaway and move up in the ranks.

We found a way to merge our interests.

My career goals remained unchanged, but my plan for what I was doing with my money had changed.

On the surface, I operated like everyone else in my family. I used my income to buy and maintain two great apartments, nice cars, and great clothes.

And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like nice things.

But instead of investing all my excess income to become richer, I invested so I had more to give away. My family didn’t know (Nana Marian would fucking disown me), my friends didn’t know; it was only Roman and me working our asses off to distribute funds to those who needed them via our anonymous and extremely confidential partnership.

It was complicated and more time-consuming than either of us had imagined, but we also saw it as a priority. This was probably the tea that Abi had wanted and I was unwilling to share—especially not at this juncture of our efforts.

“Please, take my car, Abi,” I said, gazing at her face, scrunched in worry. “I want you to.”

“Okay, maybe I will,” she said, and I could tell she didn’t know if she was actually going to do it or not. “I promise to be super careful if I do.”

“I know,” I said. “Have a good night at work, Mariano.”

“You too, Powell.”

23

Conversations with Friends

Abi

I didn’t expect him to text me through my entire shift.

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