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Chapter 13

William Carter Jr.

New York City, May 2015

William wasn’t a warm person, but at an early age he began to understand the need for good relationships or, at the very least, alliances. He first explored this back at boarding school, where he made two new friends in addition to Russell. Philip and Bradley Burke were twins. They were new to The Galston School and had come from Newport, Rhode Island, where they both were considered “gifted.” The school had recruited them from another Massachusetts boarding school, overriding its own policy to keep out transfers after grade eight. They had identical schedules to William Carter Jr., so without much ceremony, they fell into a lazy camaraderie.

With his first year behind him, William found himself less intimidated by a friendship with two wealthy boys, even though they were Black, but barely. William thought he glimpsed it sometimes in the curl of their hair, but their skin was so fair, almost yellow, their noses so sharp and angled, their lips so thin and stretched that if he didn’t know better, he wouldn’t think of them as Black at all.

William didn’t feel a connection to the brothers, not at first. But what was useful about their eventual friendship, which William was proud to retain to this day, was that William was able to bear witness to the Burkes’ incredible and vast amount of resources.

In many ways, boarding school was an incredible equalizer. Galston provided all the basic necessities one would need to live: clothing, housing, and meals. In this way, you couldn’t really tell what a student had by looking at them because they were all, in theory, supposed to look the same. William had learned to determine that other factors, ones that were invisible, indicated wealth, and the Burke brothers had them all. A black town car drove them to and from home visits to their parents. Their family had multiple homes all over the United States. Their parents didn’t even spend the full summer in Newport, even though summer was why most people wanted to live there. Despite not having the kind of athletic ability that meant that they would excel in gym class, the twins were graceful skiers and traveled every year to the west coast of Canada to indulge. They could also sail, a niche sport and a kind of useless life skill that was only advantageous at boarding school.

Years later, when William knew that he wanted a family, he used the Burke brothers as his template, having an urgent desire to mold his own children into something like those two paragons of wealth.

Asher began at Dalton in kindergarten. Before the admissions process, William and Jacqueline had made him practice saying his colors in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Asher had rehearsed his handshake as well as sitting still, and after the admissions evaluation was complete, he was taken on a rare outing with both parents for ice cream.

They each doted on him and congratulated themselves on a job well done. William and Jacqueline were excited because his acceptance into preschool put him in position to become a “lifer,” the term given to students who remained at a single school for the duration of their education. So, pending no major scandals or disciplinary disasters, he would graduate from Dalton in thirteen years.

Aside from that initial interview, Jacqueline and William didn’t make being at school with Asher a habit. At the beginning and end of each day, his Grenadian nanny would join the flock of Caribbean and Eastern European caretakers snaking down Ninety-First Street. Some parents, years later, ashamed of how little parenting they did, described the complete delegation of childcare to someone else as “having a little help,” but it was not something that the Carters felt any embarrassment about.

Asher would have mostly the same friends for his entire time at Dalton. William Carter Jr. had long abandoned the fable that an education was about learning. If his time at some of the best schools in America had taught him anything, it was who you knew, not what, that really made the difference in life outcomes. The wealthy conversed in a language known only to each other, one that he was determined Asher would be a native speaker in.

All Asher’s friends, except for Teddy, had A names that ended in an r , evidently a popular impulse for boys born in the year 1990. So Alistair, Alexander, Asher (and Teddy) became known as the Triple A’s and Teddy. Asher had never heard this directly, but this coincidence of names had pleased William, who found himself proud that his son’s name was seamlessly synced with generational New York nobility.

There was just one issue: all these boys were white. That wouldn’t have been a problem , per se, except when it was. William and Jacqueline had anticipated this scenario, of course. The Dalton school was 92 percent white. When they had toured the school along with many other families, it was noticeable that they were the only Black family present. This had become a frequent occurrence on the private school circuit as they searched for a place for Asher. Occasionally, a second Black family would be there or an Asian family, but always only one. The majority of the parents were white, a mix of WASP-y white and Jewish white. This was because Dalton was a nonreligious institution. In some ways, that did invite diversity because it meant education came without the added pressure of forced worship.

So the Carter family happily joined ranks with the school parents in hiring a severe island nanny to raise their firstborn child. Both adult Carters, neither of whom grew up with hired help, were unaware of the ubiquity of imprinting between children and their nannies. But, like his friends Alistair, Alexander, and Teddy, Asher developed a preference for fried plantains and, for years, would occasionally punctuate his sentences with “mon.” He was dedicated to soca, calypso, and reggae music. It was less strange to have Asher consider oil down to be his favorite comfort food, since most people would just assume it was a cultural predilection, but when Alexander, Alistair, or Teddy might request roti or callaloo soup, it was cause for confusion. For all the boys, this was eventually a habit that they grew out of. Blue-blooded children developing attachments to their working-class caretakers’ native foods was just another developmental stage, no big deal. Except to William Carter Jr., who was always running from his working-class past. He did not want his firstborn son carrying on with such a conspicuous fixation on an employee. He always tried to forget the way that it felt to observe his father fraternizing with his Galston classmates, making inside jokes with them and catering to their humor. It made him feel like his father was the joke, that a friendship between students and the school groundskeeper was so unlikely that the only thing it could be was funny.

William never discussed his rampant insecurities, not even with Jacqueline, who’d watched him grow his fortune. It was easier to simply dictate and demand and hope that no one questioned the origins of anything he said. For the most part, that’s what happened, until his seventieth birthday was approaching. Jacqueline had wanted very badly to take the lead with party planning and William had let her. By now, she knew him and his expectations, but he still wanted to check in and make sure that all was going smoothly, just in case.

Two months before his party, late one night after dinner, he knocked softly on the door to Jacqueline’s bathroom. She was sitting at her vanity in a champagne-colored silk caftan with a matching silk turban, applying copious amounts of La Mer moisturizer. When she turned to look at him, he entered. “Just want to give you an update that the Secret Service wants to do a sweep of Watcha so that they’re set for the Obamas and Clintons. I had someone send an email to the team,” he said.

“All right, that’s reasonable,” Jacqueline said evenly.

William lingered, locking eyes with her in the mirror.

“Yes? Is there something else?” she asked, returning the applicator to the tray in front of her and turning around to face him.

“Yes, actually. The security head shared that several of my former classmates have been contacted. The Burkes and Russell Johnson. Any idea what that’s about?” William said.

“That’s a bit strange, I guess. They are certainly on the guest list, but nothing unusual should be going on with them. Perhaps they are going to do a little performance for you or gathering some very embarrassing photos and someone is going to leak it,” she said, teasing him.

William didn’t return her smile. “Right,” he said gruffly. “Well, please just make sure that everything runs smoothly. We can’t afford any breaches or missteps. You know what’s been popping up lately? Kofi.”

Jacqueline’s face turned somber. “Has he? Why? I can’t imagine that anyone knows anything about Kofi. And trust me,” she said, shifting the conversation, “this party is going to be everything you’ve ever wanted.”

William walked over to pat her on the shoulder tenderly. He believed her.