The new middle-class poverty does not always look poor.
That is what makes it so awkward.
It wears a decent coat. It pays on time. It says, “No, no, I’m fine,” with the crisp little laugh of a person mentally moving money between invisible envelopes. It knows which direct debit lands first.
It can still pronounce quinoa, though it may now regard it as a hostile grain with metropolitan ambitions.
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