Diary of a Working Girl (8 page)

But I have the feeling that Tom isn’t the sort of guy who would scream at the top of his lungs: “You are the stupidest girl I have ever met!” He seems to get the fact that I could do the job in my sleep. I am nodding comprehension, as he continues to go into the splendors of investment banking—a spiel I’ve heard and attempted to stay conscious through before at midtown bars during weekdays between the hours of five and ten P.M. I am sure the information will take the same route it has before—in through one ear and, at warp speed, out the other.

“That is fascinating,” I say. (Again, much practice in this sort of reply from midtown happy hours.)

(Possible article: “Everything I Needed to Know About Financial Job Interviews I Learned at Sutton Place.”) One side of his mouth traveled north a bit, in a mock smile, and I get the feeling that although he acted like he was buying my shtick by the wagonload, he can really see right through me to the neon marquee flashing “Zzzzzz.” You have to respect a guy like that. He sees I can do the job, and doesn’t get bogged down in all of the snooze-inducing details that anyone with passing marks in playtime can surely pick up along the way. I never could understand those bosses who allotted two hours in the conference room to explain office supply order form procedure. I’m guessing Mr.

Reiner couldn’t either.

He seemed so cool and yet looked so uncool. I mentally shook my head. Too bad he was wearing a tie with pairs of golf clubs 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 54

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crossed all over it. That’s actually one of the top five things on my list of no-way-in-hell guys:

#4. Never date a guy who wears ties with golf clubs on them.

I am getting all caught up in thinking about how guys are always just one or the other—nice, or cool and sexy—never both, never all the items on the checklist (I have my M&M checklist all neatly typed up and photocopied one hundred times in a pretty, spiral-bound book with a furry pink cover, so that each time I meet someone with M&M potential, I’ll have a clean checklist with which to properly write out an assessment of him)—when everything goes silent.

I notice both Ms. Banker (who I swear, does not want me to get a job, no matter how many posters of successful waves or competitive skiers she had tacked on her wall) and Mr. Reiner are looking at me in anticipation. The former has a smirk on which you could literally see the words “I thought so,” and the latter is wearing that one-sided smile again.

Mr. Reiner saves me. “So, do you think a bit of organizing, filing, scheduling, and telephone answering is something a smart gal like you could handle?”

Gal? Who the heck uses that word?
Oy
. He could have been using it sort of jokingly, which would be kind of cute. But still, if you are going to talk like that you might as well shave off all your hair, grow a round belly, and move to Boca.

“Sure.”

I smile and he stands up at that, sticking out his hand, which was not manicured and a bit on the dry side, for me to shake. “We’ll see you Monday. Eight-thirty A.M.”

“Can’t wait,” I say, and this time both sides of his lips turn up in 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 55

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a full smile, and I am almost sure that he could see right through to my brain, where my little assignment sits front and center and I am mentally swapping his tie for a beautiful subtle silk one.

Imagine how simple this whole thing would be if Mr. Reiner had been The One!

I am almost embarrassed for big, old Ms. Banker, when she gets up to escort Mr. Reiner out of the office, her polyester pants shirring with each stride. She looks like she is trying so hard to impress in a way that shows she doesn’t know the first thing about how to do it. There is hair-fluffing and blouse straighten-ing and forced giggling at comments that aren’t meant to be funny. I can’t help thinking about giving her a makeover—taking her to the gym, a whistle strung around my neck as she chugged along on the treadmill; coaching her through Bloomingdale’s, pointing out stylish clothing that actually enhanced her looks; snapping a pointer at her fingers when she gravitated towards ta-pered slacks. (“Remember the crashing waves! Success! Success!

Say it with me, Banker!”) She does have quite beautiful eyes and a nice, tiny nose.

But when I get up to follow them, and she turns around with a silent “Na-ah, we’re not done yet,” I am back to visually rapping her hand. This time I added a gaggle of highlighted beauty editors coming at her virgin brows with tweezers, chanting, “This won’t hurt a bit!
Hoooh-hoooh, haaaahhhhh-haaaaah-haaaah
.”

So she puts me to the test by running the computer skills evalu-ations. And I am not exaggerating when I say that these are awful, horrible tests that are designed to massacre self-esteem and chuck confidence into the East River. After you fail to know what the vaguest little button on Microsoft Word does (which obviously can’t be too important, since that is the only application I have been using every day for years and I haven’t had the need for it yet) 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 56

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a window disguised as cute and innocent with a bold font and pretty colors, says things like, “Sorry, that is the wrong answer,” and

“Are you sure that is what you want your final answer to be?” in such a dehumanizing way that you really have to fight off the urge to pick the monitor up and hurl it out the window.

I fail miserably.

When I meet with her again in her “inspired” office, Ms.

Banker looks smugger than she had earlier.

“Do you think it funny to lie on your resume?” she asks.

This time I am sure it was not the sort of question that required an answer.

“Our clients trust us to provide them with excellent staffers, and you have taken that responsibility and stomped all over it.” Ms.

Banker appears thrilled at the opportunity to reprimand me thus.

It’s like when you go to McDonald’s and ask the underpaid, caste system–conscious cashier to “Biggie Size” your meal, and avenging themselves for every time they’ve been forced to ask “Would you like fries with that?” they act like they haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, until you realize you’re using Wendy’s terminology in McDonald’s and correct yourself by saying, “Um, sorry, I mean Supersize.” And then, as if in epiphany, they say, “Oh,” like they hadn’t known what you’d meant all along.

It is clear that Ms. Banker has feelings for me like the ones people normally reserve for penny-pinching landlords and shoplifters—

in sum, not the good kind. Who knows the cause? Youth? A difference of 120 pounds, maybe? And I am okay with it, too, just as long as she can find it in whatever she had in place of a heart to let me keep the job with Mr. Reiner.

“But since Mr. Reiner is so set on hiring you, I’m going to let you take the tutorials to learn the programs now.”

I am shocked. I can barely speak. Is she actually being
nice
to 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 57

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me? Maybe this is what she thought her role in inspiring people is all about. You knock them down first, and then you show them that you, and you alone hold the tools to pick them up—and then they’re eternally grateful. It seems like a strange way to make yourself feel important. But I am not about to argue. And you know what? Those tutorials broke everything down so simply that I figured it all out in no time, retested and passed with flying colors. I have to admit that I did feel a bit inspired. I am not about to grab a surfboard and a ticket to Hawaii, but still.

In the end, Ms. Banker shakes my hand, smiling, I might add, and says that she is very proud of me.

I like the sound of that.

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F o u r

The Trial, the Men,

and the Wardrobe

Since I am to arrive at 8:30 A.M. I set my alarm for 7 A.M.

Howard Stern wakes me up talking about the size of someone’s boobs. I look down at mine and wonder what he would think. I fare on the bigger side, and that seems to be his thing. I shake this thought from my head and wonder why the hell I am even considering this point in the first place.

I chalk it up to the unnatural necessity of waking up so early in the morning. If you need an artificial device like a clock radio to get out of bed, then can it possibly be good for the natural, normal way your body functions? I should write an article about that,

“Snoozers Rejoice” or “Ten Reasons Why You Should Chuck Your Alarm Clock.” To regain some normalcy, I throw sweatpants over my nightgown and run down to the deli for coffee.

The guy behind the counter makes some remark about “joining the living today,” since I don’t think I have ever been here before 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 59

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nine. I laugh it off, but it does seem to ring true. It’s been a long while since I worked in an office, and although I normally make a habit of laughing at and feeling superior to the throngs of people squishing into the subway during rush hour (metaphors involving cattle often play in here), today I am proud to be one of them. The new shoes and camel-colored coat don’t hurt, either.

I look very smart in a knee-length red pencil skirt and a printed Chloe top that I bought on eBay for one hundred dollars this winter. The floral chiffon top has the tiniest buds with the same brownish hue as my shoes and so the whole ensemble comes together beautifully. Normally, I am a total moron when it comes to practical dressing (I’m ready for any last-minute invitation requiring a pink taffeta ballerina skirt with crinoline under-lay, but I wouldn’t exactly “blend in” on the North Fork), but everything just seems to be working out effortlessly today. Maybe I don’t have little birds and squirrels putting together my outfit, but this is a very Cinderella-esque moment in my life. When I press the elevator button, the doors open immediately. Never has the elevator been waiting for me in the entire three years I have lived here. I buy a newspaper (after going back and forth between impersonating a professional with the
Times
or being true to myself by indulging in a bit of gossip with the
Post
, I go for the latter—I’ve already got the job, so there’s no longer a need to impress), fold it under my arm, all working-woman-like and descend underground.

I am going to Tribeca. I have been there for parties at design shops, to review bars with velvet ropes outside, to perchance catch Ed Burns coming out of his apartment, but I’ve never gone by train or walked around the area for any length of time. And if you know anything about the “Triangle Below Canal” then you know it is a maze of a district, with street names that taxi drivers rarely 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 60

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know and, as if that’s not enough, two Broadways, a regular old one and another with the word West before it, which is enough to leave even the most street savvy running around in circles like a tourist and feeling the need, when forced to ask directions, to explain that you are indigenous to the city, but you
never
make it down this far.

So perhaps it would have been a better idea for me to take a trial run to the office yesterday, rather than spend hours on the phone with Joanne going over the profile of what my M&M will look like, using the Polaroids I’d won in the poker game as guides. But, gosh, how often do you get to spend a Sunday in such a pleasant way as that—so pregnant with possibilities and hopes?

When I emerge from the train at Franklin Street, the sidewalks are overflowing with suits and all manner of corporate casualites shuffling off in this direction and that, all knowing exactly where to go. I am dumbfounded. I don’t even know east from west, north from south over here. I normally go with the “we” trick—west to your left, east to your right if I can figure out which way is north, but I can’t find any points of reference. I’m straining to see the Empire State Building, but it’s out of my view. I think I see water in the distance, but is that the west or east side? Tom had told me to ask someone where The Travelers Building is, but I can’t imagine anyone would know a building by name.

“Do you know where Greenwich Street is?” I ask one good-looking man, carrying a briefcase. No time like the present to begin my mission; now that I’ve an assignment I’m really interested in, I am a true workaholic.

Only I don’t notice that his other hand is laced through the hand of a woman, and, taking one look at me, she tugs him away before he can even answer. Aghast (it’s not as if I’d inquired whether he could perform oral sex on me right there on the street 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 61

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corner); I turn to look for another suitable (and preferably suited) direction-giving candidate. Only, my foot will not move with me, the occasion for the human pretzel (even if one dressed in a beautiful overcoat and real Chloe top) I am now attempting to Mac-Gyver my way out of.

I am not panicking, but it seems that my shoe may be stuck, and, unlike the charming chain of events set off after this happens to Jennifer Lopez in
The Wedding Planner,
I am all alone in my predicament. Looking down, I see that my heel is lodged between the grooves of one of those subway grates. I have never in my life stepped on one of those—never. I am always so careful about this.

In fact, I remember moaning aloud while watching that movie,

“Yeah right! Nobody walks right over those in heels!”

I am still trying to keep my cool, while twisting and yanking to free myself of the damn grate, but nothing’s happening. Shit!

People are starting to stare, and I can feel my cheeks turning crimson. This is unbelievable. I am the one in need, and they should be embarrassed for not coming to my rescue, and I’m the one blushing.

From somewhere behind, I finally hear someone ask if I need help, and like a lunatic, I scream, “I’m fine! I’m fine!” because I am so busy being angry at the lack of humanitarianism in our society that I don’t realize this is my way out.