Read Diary of a Working Girl Online
Authors: Daniella Brodsky
Diary of a Working Girl (12 page)
Now, before I divulge the scene on the trading floor, I need to tell you what Tom later tells me, when we get to know each other a little better, that these guys sit here all day long staring at computer screens and listening to these thingies called “squawk boxes,”
and their lives are all about gambling and taking risks. So they get all antsy sitting there, with all that pent-up excitement and energy, and when women—who are even more rare here than elsewhere in this fantastical place—walk down the aisles, there is much attention to be garnered.
It is loud in here. There are stock quotes running along black LCD screens. There must be millions of computers—and each one is fitted with its very own man. “This is one of the largest trading floors on Wall Street,” teacher Tom says. “There are millions of dollars worth of computers in here. And here’s where it gets interesting—there are strict rules about the investment side and the trading side sharing information. That is to say, they cannot. They say there are ‘firewalls’ between both sides. So picture a wall that neither side can cross.”
This sounds so mysterious and Gorden Gecko–esque and
Boiler
Room
all in one, I can barely contain my excitement. Espionage, intrigue—so fucking sexy. All the guys here are dressed really casually, and next to Tom, they seem so . . . young, I guess is the word.
As we’re walking out, and Tom is winding down the tour and heading me to the cafeteria for lunch, he asks, “Well, what do you think?”
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And for the first time I make my slip. It comes out before I even process it. And this is probably because I feel like I have just had sex for about two hours. I am flushed, having trouble breathing, and not really on planet earth yet.
“There are so many men!” As soon as it’s out, I cup my hand over my mouth, afraid I look like an ass. Perhaps I have blown my cover.
But Tom, as I’m learning is his style, takes everything in stride.
“Yeah. That’s what they all say,” he says. “After a while you won’t even notice them anymore.”
Sure. Right.
“So,” he resumes his mock-professional tone here. “This is the cafeteria.”
Men. Men. Men.
“And more men,” he says, and my breath catches in my throat, and then eases once again as he raises his eyebrows to suggest a joke. “And you take a box,” he instructs, handing me a flattened cardboard box. “And this is the salad bar,” he grabs a bowl and passes one in my direction to see if I would like a salad.
I accept.
“And this is the lettuce. And this is the tomato, and these are the carrots, and this is the celery, and this is the green pepper,” he introduces each one to me as we make our way down the line.
As I pile on bits from the different bowls, I find it funny that someone as important as Tom does something as trivial as eat lunch.
“And I skip the dressing, because I’m trying to eat right,” he says. I consider following his lead, but practicality has never really been my forte, so I opt for extra Italian and shrug my shoulders as he shakes his head and clucks his tongue in dramatic disapproval.
He adds a hot pretzel to his box and we head to the register.
“Allow me,” he says, as the cashier weighs the salads and tallies up the total.
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“You know,” I say, “if you’re trying to stay in shape, a hot pretzel is probably the worst thing you can eat.”
“Why’s that?” he asks.
“Carbs, carbs, carbs—they are the enemy,” I inform him. “So can I have a little piece?” I ask, never one known to possess the strength to resist a simple carbohydrate.
He shakes his head, no.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Well, I don’t want to be responsible for you eating a micro-scopic pretzel bite, so you can come back in two weeks and blame an extra ounce on me.”
“I would never.” I am Betty Boop, lashes working overtime.
“Oh, I’ve heard that one before,” he says, still holding the pretzel out of my reach.
“Fine, be like that.” I do my best to affect indifference, focusing on my exciting heap of salad bar selections.
“Fine, I will,” he says, unwavering. “Mmmmm,” he murmurs, closing his eyes after he takes the first bite of the pretzel. “You would not believe how good this tastes.”
“I hope you get fat,” I retort.
“I’m sure you do,” he says.
So, you see, my welcome at the Mergers and A—gosh I keep forgetting that word—department at Salomon Smith Barney was really very sweet. By five o’clock, I’m pretty much settled into my
“cubey,” which I like to call it, and now like referring to it as even better, because every time I do, Tom says, “It’s a cubi-
cle
, Lane.”
And I can tell he enjoys making those sorts of corrections, even though he realizes I obviously know the difference.
I already have a nickname, something I’ve wanted for years now, really ever since I shed the last one I garnered in college. It was a horrible moniker: Lame, which was attained for obvious reasons, 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 87
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but which, for similarly obvious reasons, did not suit my fancy when used during introductions at parties and other social functions.
My new nickname,Ab Fab, which Tom christened me with over our lunch, as I told him more about my magazine writing, did not have so much to do with the fact that the characters on the show are, and I quote, “Obnoxious, spoiled women.” He insisted that it was more “the whole fashion world thing, and the fact that it is just a combination of words that really suits you.”
I could see why Tom would have been an English major. He really does delight in words.
Everyone in the cubicles around me seems to pile out between five and six, which I guess is because they come in so early. And when it starts clearing out, Tom tells me that I can leave for the day if I wish. But since he is staying, and I am feeling really good all around (and partially because I can’t bring myself to go back to the real world just yet for fear I will find the whole thing was a mere dream), I opt to stay and write about my day’s experiences.
I have decided at the end of each day I will write down everything that’s happened, so that at least I’m staying in practice
and
I’ll have a chance to dissect every encounter I have, every single professional arm, leg, butt, face, neck, and ear. That way I can see if any M&Ms have crossed my path undetected. Also, maybe I’ll stumble upon some other themes over the next couple of months that I can use for other articles.
And I can’t help but notice once again that in this traditional workspace, actually doing work comes much easier. Which is much more than I can say for my own office at home, which normally inspires me to run to the deli for coffee, to flirt with the guy who owns it, if only in pursuit of human interaction. Appearing studious to the men around me also makes me feel quite desirable (odd, true).
I am just starting the
fourth
page of my work journal, probably 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 88
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the longest thing I’ve written in . . . in . . . ever, which I have enti-tled on yet another crisp, gold leaf page, is
Diary of a Working Girl
, which I really like the sound of, when John raps on my cubey wall.
“I’m heading home. You’re really making me look bad here,” he says, smiling, and then, perhaps realizing he should be nervous, catches himself and looks down as if attempting to decipher some
Beautiful Mind
–type code buried deep within the carpet.
“Well, Tom’s still here, too,” I plead, rejoicing in the fact that my studious act is working.
“Yeah, but that’s because he doesn’t want to go home to his evil girlfriend,” John says, still decoding the carpet, but definitely warming up, adding a “
woooh
,” in an attempt to indicate spookiness. Two fingers of each hand inch up from the sides of his pants legs, as if he would make the corresponding international gesture of spookiness, but they drop before even getting close to their headside destination. He wasn’t quite there yet.
“Really? An evil girlfriend? But he seems like such a nice guy.”
The kind of nice guy that is sensitive to carbohydrate consequences; the sort of nice guy who has spinning worlds on his tie.
This is the species of nice guy you don’t come across every day.
This is the last person you’d expect to have an evil girlfriend.
“I’ve gone out with them a couple of times; one day I’ll tell you about the ‘spaghetti incident.’ ”
Just as I’m wondering how long “one day” will be when I don’t even know John’s eye color after spending a full day with him, he surprises me.
“But you didn’t hear any of this from me,” he says, catching my eye for a quick second (yay! they’re blue, by the way) and turning to make sure Tom’s door is still closed, which it is. He shrugs his shoulders and bids me, “Sayonara,” and I swear, ducks his head to stop it from hitting the ceiling as he walks down the corridor.
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Back to my journal, I record this bit of info, and then realize as I’m writing it, that this news about Tom is very surprising.
And isn’t the “
Spaghetti Incident
” the name of a really bad Guns ‘n’ Roses CD? I wonder if there was a stain . . .
hmmm . . . or maybe a disapproved slurp. Wait. Maybe Tom ordered the spaghetti and the girlfriend wanted that but refused to order the same thing and so she screamed at him until he changed to the penne.
Realizing this train of thought probably will not be very useful to my article, or future articles (although I am growing quite fond of the title ‘spaghetti incident’ and wondering if it could make for a really cool fashion shoot; it could be all mod, with weathered seventies furniture and strands of spaghetti hanging off the side of the table, from counters, olive green colanders, orange floral printed bowls . . . ), I move on to more important issues.
I am absolutely in love with my department. I am in love with the fact that I have a department. I am in love with the fact that I will soon hopefully be able to say things like, “I am having drinks with my department.” Day One and already there is a very sweet man named John, whom I know so well already that I am making it my own personal goal to have him open up to me (you NEVER find out that sort of stuff about the FedEx or UPS guys—NEVER) and there is the very intriguing issue of the ‘spaghetti incident.’ Only last week I . . . I . . .
I can’t stop thinking what that incident might be! I will not waste time and creative energy, though, writing about it.
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But wait. Maybe the girlfriend sent back her spaghetti because it wasn’t good, only it was good and she just didn’t want to eat the carbs—only wanted to smell them and see what it felt like to order them, savor the sounds of the syllables—spa-ghett-i—as they rolled from her tongue. That could be why he was so sensitive about the pretzel. Maybe it wasn’t the light, innocent joke I first assumed.
Why, Ms. Lane Silverman, are you wasting the pages of your diary with such thoughts about pasta and its involvement with a woman you don’t even know?!!!!? You will not, cannot get lazy with this project on your first day. Now where were you?
Just last week, I thought I was moving on by utilizing my overdraft account to shop for practical meals for one (a single chicken breast, a lamb chop that he never liked, Mueslix—it’s supposed to be healthy); when the reality of my miserable, lonely existence came up and whacked me in the face. I was waiting on line for some diet cheese when it happened.
He was tasting a cube of fresh mozzarella from a platter; she was reminding him of that special report they’d watched about how unsanitary those tasting platters are—unwashed hands grabbing, no refrigeration. I know it doesn’t sound very lovey-dovey, but it was the intimacy that grabbed me. The fact that they’d watched the special report together, that she cared enough to warn him against eating from the tray, that he smiled and shook his head affecting that he knew her ways and loved them, no matter how quirky. It was then that I looked down at my basket full of meals for one and realized there were tears running down the bag that held my single orange, on my small container of milk, on my produce bag 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 91
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containing four mushrooms—all tiny portions because anything bigger would spoil in a refrigerator opened and closed by only one pair of hands. I realized that if any of the items in my basket were harmful to my health, I had no one to advise me against them. I might have been buying the makings of my final meal. I only hoped that someone would notice if I died by the papers piled outside my door.
Today, however, the world is filled with possibility. Papers could never pile outside my door. I have somewhere to be!
Being that this seems (if I do say so myself) quite a great start to an article draft, and I wouldn’t want to jinx myself by making predictions, I close the diary for the day.
I have already become familiar with the e-mail system here (okay I’ve not turned into a computer genius overnight, it’s the same one I use at home), and, with the help of a stereotypically dorky Information Technology guy, figured out how to check my home e-mail account. So I pull this account up now, to see if anything new has come in.
There is one message, from an address that ends i
n nypost.com!
I am already sure it is a rejection to the article I pitched last week about the temp agency horrors as I click to open it.
Dear Lane,
I am delighted, after having rejected your submissions a record fifty times, to inform you that you have finally hit the nail on the head.The piece you sent in about temp agencies is absolutely perfect.We would like to offer you seventy-five dollars to print it in this Friday’s paper. Please e-mail me a list of your sources for our fact-checker.