Breathe In, Cash Out

by Madeleine Henry

  On top of my schedule, there’s no one in my life (read: my workplace) who appreciates yogi values. Meaning, living simply. Not identifying with belongings. A few days ago, for example, a group of second-years were making Keurig coffee in the pantry. One of the girls mentioned she was in a long-distance relationship with someone in New Zealand. Apparently, he lives near Rotorua and spends less than five dollars a day, and she really misses him. Analysts latched onto the middle part. Five dollars? They didn’t believe anyone could live on so little. They asked for his name and, chortling, sent him cash over Venmo. In the description of each payment, they input a different day of the week. They sent him five dollars for “Monday” and then ten dollars for “weekend.”

  Skylar listened, which was intoxicating in its own right. The last time someone listened to me at work was—it’s never fucking happened. Before my first client meeting, the MD assigned the VP, the associate, and me our roles. “Your job,” he told the VP, “is to walk through the presentation. Your job”—to the associate—“is to answer any of their questions about the numbers. And your job”—to me, the analyst—“is to shut the fuck up.” I mention that, too, as the finale to a long, winding answer to a question I’d almost forgotten. Skylar mm’s and squeezes my hand, as if I’ve just introduced myself to a support group. Have I?

  “I am so sorry,” Skylar says. “That sounds . . . inhumane.”

  “Yeah, basically,” I say.

  “For whatever it’s worth,” she continues, “I’ve been through something similar.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says. She leans back and reflects, looking more somber than I’ve ever seen her. “I was in a tough relationship. It reminds me a bit of what you’re feeling. I was dating a photographer, and I thought we fell very deeply in love. I won’t drag you through the details, but it turns out, in the end, he was just using me to help his career.” I wince. “We dated for a couple of years. Looking back, I should have seen the signs. He always wanted to be seen with me, not just to be with me. He made sure he was credited in all my photos. I should have listened to my intuition sooner.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Thank you. But the point is—I get it,” she says. “Feeling used, disrespected. That’s hard. It makes you want to be somewhere else. And that, I think, is suffering: really wanting to be somewhere else.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m feeling.”

  “I can tell,” she says.

  She seems to wrestle with an idea.

  “You know,” she suggests, “maybe I could help. We could meet again, or a couple of times, just until you are in a better place.”

  I am floored. Yes, I want to say. But I need to wait a respectful amount of time before saying, Yes. I wait a few seconds.

  “If that seems intrusive . . .” she starts.

  Fuck. Too many seconds.

  “Not at all,” I interject.

  “Good,” she says. She smiles.

  “Assuming you’re not too busy,” I say to be polite.

  “That’s so thoughtful of you,” she says. “But part of what I do—and what I believe you are drawn to—is show compassion!” She laughs gently. “Right?”

  “Right, of course,” I say.

  Yep, compassion for the needy. Now I feel bad. This poor woman. I’m such a mess that she feels compelled to get my life on track. Worse, my blink was to discourage her. I’ve become so corporate that I tried to talk the yogi in lotus out of doing some good in the world. Like, You sure you’re not too fucking busy? Yeah, okay. I double-palm my forehead.

  “Besides,” she continues, “I’ve always reached out to others in the yoga community, one by one. I spread the beliefs of my practice, help people, and that comes back around to help me. I believe in what I do, and I try to do good where it is needed. And Allegra?” I lift my head up. “Your physical practice is so inspiring. I was blown away by some of your poses. I believe in you one hundred percent. More than that.”

  “Well then, yes,” I say. “Definitely, thank you, yes.”

  She laughs. “Amazing,” she says. She pauses, probably processing the massive shift in our relationship so soon. I can feel it, too. We are no longer on the same level, if we ever were. She’s here to save my ass and she knows it. “Normally, whenever I take on a new student, I ask them to keep a journal for a day, so I can get a sense of their thoughts, feelings, and lifestyle. That might be helpful?” She looks back at me for my approval.

  “For sure,” I agree.

  “Great,” she says. “And you never know. Later on, if you do get to a better place, and we find ourselves in synch, maybe our relationship could grow into something more official. For now, the journal. It would be helpful just to have a baseline.”

  “Definitely,” I say.

  Wait—“official”? Could we actually work together? It’s too good to be true, yet here she is, holding my hand in Shake Shack.

  “Be completely honest,” she says. “If you think ‘piss-bottom,’ write it!”

  I laugh. There’s no implication in her tone that I would lie, and I had no intention of doing so. I don’t think I’ve told a lie since Anderson scared me shitless of the consequences during the month of new-banker training. That’s when Human Resources told us that the most common reason for getting fired at Anderson is lying. After an hour of enduring HR’s fear tactics, I left thinking, Don’t ever fucking think about it.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Just for the rest of the day,” she says. “What words are floating down your stream of consciousness? Does your inner critic have a tone? How are you sitting and breathing? What are your friends like and how do they make you feel? Take time out of the day to really turn inward. Find your voice and tell your story.”

  “For the rest of the day?” I ask. That could be a while. “Will do.”

  chapter 4

  MINDFULNESS JOURNAL

  12:02 p.m.

  Okay feelings.

  My body is a disaster.

  Thank you for listening. Honestly. Can’t say that enough.

  Okay, how am I sitting. I’m hunching forward. The back of my spine is curved like the profile of a cereal bowl, and my shoulders are hiked up to the bottoms of my ears. Just dropped my shoulders. Heard cracks. My torso is at a 45-degree angle to my legs, roughly. Sometimes my feet get numb from poor circulation.

  I know this is “bad posture.” I had a professional tell me that. AS has an ergonomics guy who visits your workstation and makes recommendations. Erg Guy observed me and I sat like this in front of him because my body doesn’t make other shapes anymore. At the end, he said that I was “asking for” neck and shoulder pain. I sort of just looked at him. Like, No, dude, I am doing my job and asking for a backrest. Thanks.

  Anyway, now I’m pissed at Erg Guy all over again. Everything he said was a joke. He said that to move more, I could walk over to my colleagues and talk to them instead of IM’ing. My deskmate was right there, and he said, “Yeah, but what if you hate everyone you work with?” Erg Guy laughed. Then, he suggested I could take the stairs more often. Yeah. As you’re aware, dude, there is a floor below us called the “Sky Lobby.” We are above the Sky Lobby.

  You know what ergonomics is? It’s a department staffed with one guy who walks around and tells you how fucked you are. You say, “Thanks for your pamphlet on how my job is killing me. What can I do?” Then Erg Guy says, “Oh, do these ten things that are totally irreconcilable with your job.”

  Sorry.

  Ugh. I’m so sorry. Not going to cross that out though because this is actually how I think. This is actually my life. This job makes me angry. I didn’t used to be like this.

  Anyway, I’m not always hunched forward, now that I think about it. Sometimes I lean back reclined all the way to the point where my arms are straight and I can keep typing. It’s like being on an overnight airplane flight where you have to work the whole time. I basically alternate between these all day.


  Except when I get up to get coffee . . .

  I take deep breaths all the way back up to HG. For once, I’m trying to manage my excitement and not panic. I bring my attention to my expanding and contracting belly, to the present moment. Slowly, my insanely good fortune dawns on me.

  Learn from Skylar?

  She is a vision of who I want to be. Her contributions to yoga aside, she’s nice in person—just as giving and genuine as her feed suggests. She listened and cared, and she didn’t talk as if she were on a pedestal. Of course, she’s Skylar Smith, but I felt respected. I had dignity in a human interaction. When she opened up about her past relationship, I was touched. She’d revealed as much to a blog I’d read, but in person, I saw how it affected her. It’s like we connected. I connected with another human being.

  I know I’ve been a complete yoga shit show recently. Now, with two months left before my quit date, here Skylar appears like the answer to my prayers. Want a yoga guide? Hi, my name is @SkylarSmithYoga. Someone steps on my foot, and I don’t even fucking care. Making progress already.

  As the elevator opens to the Sky Lobby, I recognize the foot-stepper as an analyst in Industrials. We had a conversation once where he was talking about one of the partners. “That guy has it all,” he said. “Great tennis game, pretty wife, good-looking kids.” Yep, that’s fucking everything. We nod.

  I transition back into work mode, more refreshed than five cups of coffee could’ve made me. I’m almost happy as I arrive at the glass door to HG. My ID card is clipped to the waistband of my skirt, so I have to lift my hip and aim it for the wall pad in order to unlock the door. The card swings and misses. For take two, I press my pelvis to the pad and rub until I hear the unlocking sound.

  On the other side of the door, Harry—an associate and former editor in chief of the Yale Daily News, as he tells everyone—watches me. He smirks. Is he seriously waiting for me to open the door for him? The door locks on a timer as I consider this. With my phone in one hand, and a coffee in the other, I rub my hip against the wall pad again. The door unlocks. I hold it open as Harry crosses the threshold.

  “You’d make a fine doorman,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Want a tip?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “I’ve got it under control.”

  I drop my phone. He hands it to me. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Don’t thank me,” Harry says. “You’ve got it under control.”

  God, what an asshole. My spine zips straight up. Wait—fuck. Should I write that thought down in my journal? I could put horrifying spin on it for an entry: I had to rub my ass across the door to open it, while some guy watched. Then he made a sarcastic remark, so I thought he was an asshole.

  Back at the desk, Tripp is watching Evil Genius. He’s on a serial killer documentary kick in order to stay awake. He just finished Netflix’s The Staircase but said it “wasn’t blood enough.” Now, on one of his computer monitors, the camera zooms gradually in on a mug shot of a horrifying woman in prison clothes. I don’t even know what this show is about, but she definitely killed someone. A larger Excel window in the background frames the scene.

  “Ace,” Tripp greets me.

  “Trace,” I say.

  I pull a graph-paper notebook out of my top drawer—my new journal. Typically, analysts use these things to keep track of their to-dos. Some have a different notebook for every client; others keep track of all live deals in the same one. Everyone has a different system, but we all use the archaic things. Sometimes I walk around the floor with one just to look busy. It’s a flag to suggest I’m headed to a meeting and keeps people from talking to me. Tripp says he uses one as a dream journal.

  “New client?” Tripp asks.

  “Sort of.”

  Just don’t lie.

  12:09 p.m.

  . . . Except when I get up to get coffee.

  My deskmate is watching a movie about murder.

  I put my pen down. Tripp startles as a throat is slit on-screen.

  Chloe and Puja stand, and Chloe waves at Tripp to follow. It’s their lunchtime, just after noon. Anderson’s cafeteria gives 20 percent off everything before twelve and after 1:30 p.m. in order to stagger traffic evenly across midday eating hours. I don’t know how the pod fell into this ritual, but it’s as if they are intentionally going right when the discounts end.

  I stay put, as always. Chloe and Puja asked me to join at first, but after enough no’s, they stopped. I count myself among the discount crowd because I expect to take a 75 percent pay cut next year and I’ve had a twenty-five-year-long lesson in saving money from Dad. So I eat during the cheaper hours, scrounge around the HG pantry fridge on weekends, and cycle strategically through three work outfits. Every so often, the pod laughs off my 1:45 p.m. lunches as a quirk. Tripp still asks me every day if I want anything. I never really do, except one time I asked him for a fucking break and he got me a Kit Kat bar.

  “Need anything?” Tripp asks.

  “Nah.”

  “Bueno,” he says.

  They leave.

  * * *

  They return with their food. Chloe pulls the plastic lid off a chopped salad. God, I’m hungry. Normally, I pack a snack from home. Right.

  Trixie walks past the pod as if she sensed my self-judgment from across the floor. She looks particularly uppity today in a light-pink cardigan with every button fastened. A few days ago, I said hey to her in the hallway by accident. In response, she pointed to the snag in my pantyhose and called it a “nice hooker rip.” She said this with as much judgment as if she had caught me rubbing my keyboard up and down inside my dress pants while softly moaning expletives. I am afraid of my own assistant. I don’t say hey now as she passes.

  A blue rectangle materializes suddenly at the bottom right of one of my computer screens. It’s an email from our manager, Jason Chase.

  From: Jason Chase

  To: Allegra Cobb

  Thu 9 Nov 12:34 p.m.

  Allegra, could you swing by?

  Jason has one refrain: Could you swing by? It means that he is about to assign you to a new client and, depending on what transaction we are trying to push, an unknown amount of additional work. Getting put on a new company is called getting “staffed,” and the manager is the “staffer.”

  “Jason needs me,” I say.

  “Ha,” Chloe enunciates. “Then you’d better ‘swing by.’ ”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Ha,” she repeats.

  Is she incapable of actually laughing?

  “Fuck dat,” Tripp says.

  “No, just fuck him,” Puja says. “Then he won’t staff you.”

  “What?” I ask, shocked.

  “I said—” Puja starts.

  “No, please, no,” I say. “Tripp, can you tell me a joke or something?”

  “Looks like we need a game,” Tripp says. “One of our men is injured.” He lights up and snaps both of his hands into thumb-and-index-finger guns. “I got it,” he says. “Let’s do Whose Life Sucks Most?”

  I make a gag face.

  “Shut it,” he says. “You think your life sucks because you have to do something for your fucking job that you get paid for? Yeah, fucking right.”

  “I’ll go first,” Chloe says. “My job right now is literally to turn a PDF slide deck for an egg freezing company into a PowerPoint slide deck.”

  “God, is that it?” I ask.

  “Yeah, no dice,” Tripp says.

  Chloe gawks to suggest, What could be worse? But I can guess where she’s coming from. Chloe will join the über-elite KKR private equity group next year, where she will churn out financial models nonstop. Until she got the offer last fall, she wore KKR blinders. I was working alone at the pod one Sunday when she sat down, printed a hundred copies of her résumé, and then left without saying a word. Now she wants to learn as many technicals as possible before she starts. That means build as many financial models as she can. A task requiring her t
o resize shapes is going to feel like a waste.

  “Puja?” Tripp prompts.

  “Last night,” Puja says, “I stayed until three a.m. because I had to add historicals for this model I’m building, and Research didn’t have anything. So I had to pull everything manually from the filings back to 2005. Then I’m leaving, and I get into a taxi, and the driver was Indian and he starts lecturing me on how working for Anderson meant I wasn’t siding with ‘our people.’ ”

  “Dayum,” Tripp says.

  “Then, this morning,” she continues, “I had to spend thirty minutes with compliance because they surveilled my emails, and I’m not allowed to use the word clusterfuck when talking about a deal and, apparently, I said this deal I’m on is a clusterfuck ten times last night. And I’ve officially gained seven pounds since I’ve started here. Seven.”

  Holy shit, she went all in on this round. Get this girl a fucking trophy.

  On top of all of that, Puja doesn’t even want to be in this group. Her first choice had been for Consumer & Retail (CRG), an entirely separate industry, because “I love fashion.” But, after extensive interviewing, her only offer was into Healthcare, one of the least popular groups. She only took the position because no reasonable person turns down Anderson. Now her most recent client sells colon cancer diagnostics. As Puja puts it, “I wanted Dolce. They gave me shit.”

  “You look great,” Chloe says. “Really.”

  “Compliance can’t touch me,” Tripp says.

  I roll my eyes. Tripp says he’s too much of a celebrity for compliance to surveil him, all because of his one minute on NYC Elite. He messaged me on Anderson’s internal instant messenger, “ASIM,” the other day saying, I am invinsible. I asked, You mean, invisible or invincible? He said, I mean in-vins-ible.

  “Compliance touches everyone,” I say.

  “Oh, you nasty,” Tripp says. “Okay, it’s my turn.” He rolls up his sleeves with deliberately dramatic slowness. “I’m going to win this one.”