Breathe In, Cash Out

by Madeleine Henry

  I take the open seat next to Brian.

  One of these valedictorians is definitely going to notice that I wore this outfit yesterday. A screwup like this is exactly the kind of petty shit that these people thrive on. Mark sits on a panel of MDs at the front of the room. His head arches back mid-laugh. A continental breakfast—mini bagels and C-shaped cuts of melon with flowering strawberry garnishes—lines the left wall. The global head of compliance takes the podium beside a projected PowerPoint slide title that reads, Professional Responsibility. She looks like Matilda’s Miss Trunchbull.

  “Hello,” she declares. “Today’s meeting is about reputation.”

  Whispers die. Nightmares aside, the only other time I have seen this woman was during her unscheduled visit while we were in training to address my class’s “unprecedented, sophomoric behavior.” We were supposed to be in training from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. five days a week, plus homework, but it wasn’t closely regulated. On Fridays, half the analysts would leave at noon and go to the Frying Pan for sangria. Then the head of HR would come in on Monday and say something like, “If you already know everything, then I’m sure your manager would love to hear it so you can hit the desk.” Still, people left. I mean, HR would end sessions with what-the-fuck phrases like “Another hard day—and more to come.”

  Back then, the instructor, Patrick, taught us Wall Street skills from a podium before the four-hundred-person class of new hires. He projected his computer screen onto the wall behind him and worked out of a shared folder we could all access. One day, in the middle of a session, people started adding folders and renaming them. We had learned that Patrick’s wife’s name was Martha, so bankers named the folders Martha’s Snapchats and Martha’s Nude Snapchats. Everyone watched, shocked or laughing. An impromptu compliance talk was scheduled after that, led by this chick, where she warned, “This isn’t college.”

  “You, as employees of the firm, represent us,” she says, bringing me back to the present moment. “You are ambassadors of our brand and legacy. As you conduct yourself, remember: You can do more to hurt our reputation than to help it.”

  Mark says a couple of words about integrity.

  I touch my hand to my stomach, above the nausea.

  “Any headline with the words ‘Anderson Shaw’ in it gets twenty times as many hits as the same headline without those words,” she says. “If you do nothing else in your time here, do not damage the firm’s reputation. Don’t post about Anderson Shaw on social media. If you have the urge to be funny in anything written, remember that being funny is fraught with danger. No one thinks you’re funny except for your mom, and no one cares about her.”

  Mark nods to second her conviction. Yeah, fuck your mom Moms are bitches. Meanwhile, he pats the side of his head to smooth hair that was already smooth. Together, they walk through reminders: Everything done on an Anderson Shaw IP address is surveilled, and there is a zero-tolerance policy for dishonesty.

  “Any questions on lying?” she asks.

  I lean forward slightly, to ease the queasiness.

  “Your use of IM has come to our attention,” she says. “As we have always made clear, we surveil absolutely all IMs.” She pauses. “Some people in the audience may believe they are exempt from surveillance. They may believe they are ‘invincible.’ But I can assure everyone, you are most certainly not.”

  She uses air quotes around “invincible.” I look around the floor until I spot Tripp, sitting straight fucking up.

  “IMs carry reputational risk. I would like to read several IMs we have identified from your group as unacceptable. We don’t care how tired you are. We don’t care how much you are working. Do not send these under any circumstances.” She displays a PowerPoint slide of IMs and reads aloud. “ ‘Presenting to farmers so this has to be kindergarten-friendly.’ ‘After the CEO leaves, that company is going down like the Titanic.’ ‘I was drunk when I did that page. LOL.’ ”

  She displays an unacceptable PowerPoint slide made by someone in the group. The slide mentions due diligence, which is the process of researching a potential target company, as a bullet point in a list of to-dos. The graphic describing due diligence is a picture of someone bending over a minibar beneath the bubble No vermouth? She shuts the PowerPoint off.

  “I won’t dignify a final, especially grotesque example by showing it to the group, but it goes without saying that sorting VPs into categories of doucheness is shockingly juvenile and grounds for a very serious discussion with your managers.”

  She straightens her blouse.

  “Any questions?” she dares.

  I can’t see Tripp anymore. Somebody definitely just pissed themselves. An associate asks if our telephone calls are recorded, which somehow transitions to a short discussion on what Alexa is and is not listening to and whether or not Siri is on by default and temporarily recording what we say. Meanwhile, I hinge forward at the waist until my torso touches my thighs and breathe deeply.

  “You okay?” Brian whispers.

  “Great,” I whisper.

  “You sure?” he asks.

  Stop. I sit up and swivel from left to right to see if anyone else noticed. Thankfully not. Everyone else faces straight ahead, scared shitless of Ms. Trunchbull. I am wiping my chin when suddenly I lock eyes with Vivienne. Fuck, she saw. She stands at the end of my ten-person row, among the small crowd leaning against the side wall. Every other head faces the front except for hers. She glares at me, clearly thinking something awful like, I heard about your 250 percent IRR, Analyst.

  The head of compliance ends the meeting. As Brian and I join the departing throng, an email from Mark says that Titan’s management team will be in the boardroom at 3 p.m. Skylar texts me: Feel the light, see the beauty and bliss around you.

  Brian looks at me and winces.

  * * *

  “Fuck,” I murmur.

  “You left at eleven last night, don’t even,” Puja says.

  “You do an all-nighter from home or something?” Chloe asks.

  The question comes off as if she is trying to size me up. I don’t want to pass the ball to her so she can lay up some shot to prove that her pain is worse. People are always trying to outwork each other here. They want to win Whose Life Sucks Most.

  “I forget,” I lie.

  Tripp shows up to the pod, now half an hour since the compliance meeting, looking like a ghost. He sits down without saying a word.

  “Allegra,” Chloe says. “Hello?”

  “Hm?” I ask. “I just left early. Whatever.”

  “You are so second-year right now,” Puja says. “I can’t.”

  First- and second-year culture is different. The first year is the hardest, because unless you went to Wharton or majored in finance at a state school, you have no idea how to do your job. New-banker training only teaches so much. So when you’re projecting negative cash in 2025 for a major transaction, and the model you inherited from some checked-out associate in the London office has thirty tabs in Excel, and it’s midnight, good fucking luck with that monkey knot you’ve never seen before. Plus, you’re applying to your next job on the side, and you just left college. You’re used to No-Class Fridays and One-Class Thursdays, where that one class was a noon-start, pass/fail survey course on the Meanings of Gender. Your incompetence requires you to give major shits just to avoid being fired. Meanwhile, second-years have built hundreds of models, seen every transaction, and those materials are templates in new deals. Most have an offer signed. By now, we’ve all learned better, or stopped caring.

  “We’re all second-years,” Tripp mutters.

  “Tripp, you’re an associate,” Chloe says. “You’re not one of us.”

  Tripp cocks his head from side to side as if he’s mocking her. Meanwhile, he fishes his phone out of his pocket and opens Tinder. He proceeds to swipe yes on every girl’s first picture. Across the pod, Chloe locks eyes with me.

  “Not now,” I whisper.

  “Is he doing it again?” she asks.<
br />
  “No,” I lie.

  “Tripp, stop objectifying women,” she snaps.

  “He’s having a bad day,” I whisper.

  “I’m fucking desperate as shit,” he says. “Go fucking protest manspreading, I can’t deal with your shit right now.”

  “What’s manspreading?” Puja asks.

  While seated, Tripp lifts one of his legs up at a time and spreads them apart in a slow, exaggerated demonstration until his thighs form a wide V shape with his pelvis as the fulcrum. He leans back in a power pose, with his hands behind his head and his elbows pointed up. Vivienne appears on her phone.

  “Excuse me,” she says.

  “Good afternoon!” Tripp says. He man-cinches so fast that his limbs almost blur, and he gives her his full attention. As he leans forward, I realize his outfit looks more put-together than usual: crisp white dress shirt and navy windowpane blazer tailored to his frame. His baby-blue tie looks new, patterned with a lineless grid of Hermès letter H’s. It’s such a spiffy ensemble, Mark might choose it.

  Vivienne stares at her screen, both of her thumbs at work.

  “How are you today?” he asks.

  “Fine,” she says. That’s a fuck-you fine.

  “I wanted to let you know that the meeting with Titan is very important. Tripp, you should wear a different tie,” she says. “Something less fashion. Allegra, you should wear a different outfit all together.”

  “Brilliant,” he says.

  “Amazing,” I say.

  “Is there anything else we can do?” Tripp asks.

  “Do you have a phone charger I could borrow?” she asks.

  Tripp side-eyes the brand-new phone charger gleaming white on his desk. Vivienne extends an open palm, and Tripp hands it over with first-year zeal. She doesn’t say thanks.

  “I want to underscore the importance of today’s meeting,” she says. She looks up to stare only at me. “This is not the kind of meeting where you can arrive late and then sit in the back row.”

  She leaves.

  “Man,” Tripp declares, “good thing I’m not hungover today.”

  * * *

  I sit at a round table with the CEO and CFO of Titan in my sharpest black blazer, reserved for days when non-AS people see me. The clients are jolly white men from the South who seem pleasant. Everyone is chatting—“Great to see you!” “How was the trip?”—and sipping from glasses of ice water, except me. Tripp’s tie substitute is a cotton J.Crew number, borrowed from the Mormon associate who sits behind our pod.

  “A?” Tripp whispers.

  “Mm?” I respond.

  “What the fuck?” he whispers.

  It’s his way of asking nicely and sincerely if I am okay. I unbutton my blazer and slouch so aggressively that the top and bottom halves of my abdomen are almost touching. Tripp smiles at the management team and subtly inches my glass of water toward me. The clients thank Mark and Vivienne with a twang for all of their hard work on the board-meeting materials.

  We sit on one of the two floors used for entertaining clients, which are both decorated with Zen-like minimalism. The modest decor amusingly suggests anti-materialism. A knock on the door announces two waiters wheeling a silver dining tray of Shake Shack.

  “No thank you.” I refuse the ShackBurger offered to me.

  Everyone else is served a burger and fries. My empty plate reflects ceiling light like a shining prism. From his seat beside me, Tripp leans forward slightly in an effort to make eye contact with me. I shake my head.

  “Do you let your analysts eat?” the CEO asks. He laughs.

  Mark and Vivienne guffaw.

  “Of course,” Mark says. “Allegra, eat something.”

  The waiter serves me a cheeseburger, and I wonder why the more pivotal yoga moments in my life have involved Shake Shack. Feel the light, see the beauty and bliss around you. Skylar’s words drift into my mind as if she is reaching through the distance to encourage me. Everyone else eats. Analysts aren’t supposed to talk at client meetings, so I’m just trying to sit up straight and look interested. Skylar’s words now feel sedative.

  “Sorry, I’m a bit distracted,” the CEO says. “Is your analyst okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Mark and Vivienne both say, overlapping.

  I sit up straighter and smile.

  “In any case,” Mark continues abruptly.

  I try harder to blend in. How do people quit shit cold turkey? As the meeting unfolds, I’m surprised to see Mark faltering a little bit. He tells a couple of jokes that come across as abrasive. The brawny, masculine qualities that make Mark sexy don’t translate well here. It’s as if he’s still riding the 1980s power wave of banking and hasn’t toned it down to connect with two actually friendly clients. I’m sure he vibes with other Northeast assholes, but come on, dude. Think Southern.

  Tripp softens some of Mark’s edge with well-timed laughter that actually makes me smile. Finally, the guy who loves people is exposed to other humans during the workday. Tripp navigates the soft-skills part of the meeting better than Mark and Vivienne, so I start taking my cues from him. My brain isn’t sharp enough right now to allow me to be self-reliant. Every time Tripp laughs, I laugh a beat later.

  Feel the light, see the beauty and bliss around you. The words come to me and repeat, like a lullaby. Feel the light. I did feel it last night. Showstopper. The sign glowed electric blue as I tossed and turned. The pillows were almost soft. The sheets were smooth. See the beauty and bliss around you.

  Thwack. I open my eyes to see the CEO’s knuckles on the table. I must have fallen asleep, and the CEO must have rapped the wooden dining table to wake me up. Anyone home? I wipe my mouth. This can’t be happening.

  “Really working your analysts to the bone, eh?” the CEO asks.

  “Allegra, why don’t you wait downstairs,” Vivienne suggests.

  No one is laughing now.

  * * *

  Wind chimes clash abruptly. I chose “wind chimes” to announce my desktop alerts because that sounded peaceful. Like monks, gentle winds, meditation, om. I wanted to feel like I was under a spa canopy every time I got a message, but that’s not how it turned out. Every time, “wind chimes” sounds like a one-second clip of a tornado sweeping Grandma off her front porch. CHIME. CHIME. Nothing left of that fucking house. I peel my forehead off my desk.

  Trixie: Mark Swift wants to see you in his office.

  Trixie: Now.

  I ASIM her back.

  Allegra: Tx Trixiee

  Allegra: Trixiee*

  Her name is Trixie—one e—but at this point, fuck it.

  Mark is going to be pissed. I turn my desktops off and nervously check my reflection on the black screens. I’m sweating into my blazer. It could be from the fast. More likely, it could be from the fact that I just embarrassed Team Titan in front of an extremely important client and now face the consequences.

  I grab a notebook and move my body shape into his office. I wave to Trixie, who makes eye contact with me and doesn’t wave back.

  “Allegra,” Mark greets me.

  He sits at the head of the table, eerily stern. He touches his fingertips and thumbs together to form a diamond of space between his hands. I take the seat farthest from him. The door opens behind me, and Jason enters. I sit up straight. Vivienne files in behind him, and I straighten further to ruler stiffness. Jason sits to Mark’s left, and Vivienne remains standing at Mark’s right.

  “Vivienne,” I say. “Jason.”

  “How would you describe our meeting?” she demands.

  “Not—” I begin.

  I freeze. I am too afraid to words.

  “Hm? Well?” she prompts.

  “I’ll cut in,” Jason says. “We wanted to check in on you and your staffings. Are you feeling overworked?”

  “Not at all,” I say. “I feel great.”

  “Was the meeting uninteresting?” Vivienne asks.

  “I’ll cut in,” Jason says. Vivienne crosses her arms. The expr
ession goes, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” and, well, Vivienne looks like Jason’s big fucking stick. I dry-swallow. “This does not need to take long,” Jason continues. “We just wanted to get together to show you how much we care about your well-being. And if you are not well here, then we would like to help you get well.”

  Today, Jason left his smile in his office. His tone is civil, but this is as outwardly angry as his personality allows. This is Jason shouting. Meanwhile, Mark stoically preserves the diamond shape with his hands. His two subordinates are assuming all responsibility for reprimanding me, and Mark is not lifting a finger. I apologize profusely and mean it. I promise, “Never again.”

  Jason leaves first, and Vivienne follows. On her way out, she pauses in front of me, apparently deliberating whether or not she should say more. She can’t seem to find the right words and leaves suddenly in a heated shuffle. I get the feeling that she just rejected twenty different ways to say You failed, Analyst, but none was a cold-enough dagger. Only Mark and I remain. He looks at me, unemotional, as if he were just trying to understand.

  “Are you trying to embarrass me?” he asks.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I say. “I am just on a fast.”

  “Is this some yoga thing?”

  “Yes, it’s some yoga thing.”

  “Cut the fucking attitude,” he snaps.

  Attitude? I was just parroting what he said because that took exponentially less mental energy than coming up with my own sentence. Mark leans forward in his seat. My posture erodes an inch in response.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He grunts.

  “Today, I’m just out of it.”

  “I’ll say,” he says.

  He makes several micro-adjustments to his tie knot, drawing attention to the initials MTS monogrammed on his sleeves. The dark-green tie hangs straight down from his collared shirt, collecting in a twisted, snaky mass on the gleaming hardwood. He eyes me up and down once in a way that feels primal.