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He had in fact gone to the office, ignoring Willemβs texts, and had sat there at his computer, staring without seeing the file before him and wondering yet again why he had joined Ratstar. The worst thing was that the answer was so obvious that he didnβt even need to ask it: he had joined Ratstar to impress his parents. His last year of architecture school, Malcolm had had a choiceβhe could have chosen to work with two classmates, Jason Kim and Sonal Mars, who were starting their own firm with money from Sonalβs grandparents, or he could have joined Ratstar. βYouβve got to be kidding me,β Jason had said when Malcolm had told him of his decision. βYou realize what your life is going to be like as an associate at a place like that, donβt you?β βItβs a great firm,β heβd said, staunchly, sounding like his mother, and Jason had rolled his eyes. βI mean, itβs a great name to have on my rΓ©sumΓ©.β But even as he said it, he knew (and, worse, feared Jason knew as well) what he really meant: it was a great name for his parents to say at cocktail parties. And, indeed, his parents liked to say it. βTwo kids,β Malcolm had overheard his father say to someone at a dinner party celebrating one of Malcolmβs motherβs clients. βMy daughterβs an editor at FSG, and my son works for Ratstar Architects.β The woman had made an approving sound, and Malcolm, who had actually been trying to find a way to tell his father he wanted to quit, had felt something in him wilt. At such times, he envied his friends for the exact things he had once pitied them for: the fact that no one had any expectations for them, the ordinariness of their families (or their very lack of them), the way they navigated their lives by only their own ambitions.
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