Breathe In, Cash Out

by Madeleine Henry

  I started thinking about the class as soon as I left her apartment and anticipated using most of the weekend—Saturday—to plan. I had to think about the flow sequence, the pacing, the modifications, and my own script. Should I sync the flow to music? What kind of music and how loud? Then there was the meaning of the class to consider. I could structure the flow around a mantra or quote, ideally one that would resonate honestly with students. I just had to figure out: How can I teach a meaningful class when my days are full of nothing but meaningless transactions and dollar signs?

  chapter 15

  I woke up Saturday to emails from Mark and Vivienne and a missed call from Jason. Our last analysis for Titan showed how much the company would be worth if it bought Sierra, using models from Anderson Shaw equity research. Titan was intrigued and told us so at the management meeting, after I left. Now we are doing the same analysis, this time with models provided by Titan. Mark phrased this as “moving forward” in a team email sent at 1 a.m. He wants the deck Monday. We should “back-burner” the strips.

  Vivienne sent Tripp and me an outline. Decks are capped at fifty slides each, as one of Anderson’s lifestyle initiatives. Vivienne treats this maximum as a bull’s-eye target that must be hit with precision. Her outline detailed ten slides of what the deal is worth and forty slides of deal rationale, including a section called “Growth Potential.” This section is supposed to show that the monster business would have a spectacular growth profile. It should show, as she underlined, “growth in all segments.” A draft to her was due Saturday night.

  I called Jason back. Apparently, he wanted to check in again and make sure my workload was manageable, but he didn’t ask any questions and spoke only in declarative statements. I wanted to check in on your capacity. Titan is a very important team. I’m sure Vivienne has been in touch. Thanks. It didn’t sound like he was asking about my workload at all. He was warning me to show up for Titan. So Tripp and I spent Saturday together in the office. He rolled in shouldering a backpack stuffed with his new wet-suit booties and GoPro, as he had been on his way to Newport to surf when Mark’s email hit at 1 a.m. Tripp came straight to the office from Grand Central Saturday morning.

  Vivienne effectively babysat us with the length and duration of her conference-call check-ins. She ate lunch with us by phone. She slurped her soup with us on the line. At the end of each call, she asked Tripp, “How is Analyst?” He would say, “She’s fine,” and wink at me. It gave me the sense that not only was this deal under a microscope, but I was under a microscope under that microscope. Then Vivienne would say, “Thank you, Tripp,” and hang up. The and fuck you, Analyst was implied.

  So I didn’t have a long enough leash to plan a class. I told myself, Okay, Sunday, Allegra. Sunday is your day. Find an hour and plan. Break it up. Do it while you pee. Then Vivienne showed up Sunday morning wearing a wrinkled Anne Fontaine blouse, undereye circles, and, for the first time, no wedding ring. I told Tripp immediately, and he said he was seriously not interested. I wondered how long it had taken Vivienne and her husband to call it off, because she was on the phone with us almost all day on Saturday. I actually felt bad for her. Maybe she wasn’t the fire-breathing dragon I thought she was.

  Instead of working in her office, she sat at Puja’s desk all Sunday long. I didn’t see any opportunity to steal away and plan my class. I stayed put, scared shitless of this ghostly apparition who had a deal to push forward in bonus season and who might or might not be getting divorced. Skylar texted me Sunday afternoon that she was “so excited” to watch me “blossom tomorrow.”

  After several rounds of comments, Tripp and I sent Vivienne the latest deck at 3 a.m. on Monday. Vivienne sent a calendar invite three hours later for an 8 a.m. meeting to give us more comments. At 8 a.m. That rooster time is fictional here. I go to midnight meetings without batting an eye, but an 8 a.m. might as well be in Vivienne’s bedroom at her weekend house, which I’ve heard is on the water in Connecticut. Point being: it’s strange, inconvenient, and oddly intimate. I get that this is Titan-Sierra, but come on.

  So I woke up Monday morning, class unplanned, to Vivienne’s meeting request. Her ambush compelled me to backseat drive my taxi to the office—You can make this light, pass that guy—and use the full extent of my free will to avoid any penalties awaiting the tardy.

  * * *

  Sitting inside Vivienne’s office right now is surreal. So far, Tripp is one minute late. I am still sweating from the final sprint to get here, but I made it on time. My foot crossed her SVP office threshold at exactly 8 a.m. My first lesson from her today: “On time is late.”

  Vivienne sits across from me at her round table with the intimidating presence of an entire panel of interviewers. She wears her Monday-morning normal—no makeup, taut bun high on her crown, and a pencil dress—with the exception of one key accessory. Seeing her naked ring finger is like glimpsing smoke as it wafts slowly up from dry tinder. Eventually, the fire has to catch. She starts to tap her foot, the steady thumps muffled by carpet. Her pace quickens. She cups her sharp chin in her pale hand.

  “He is three minutes late,” she announces.

  Tripp needs to get here before Vivienne starts getting creative, or vindictive, or even more desperate for that promotion. The outcome of this meeting determines whether I can plan my class (or make the thing at all).

  “Let’s just get started, since Tripp is busy,” she says.

  Vivienne starts drafting slides on a blank sheet of printer paper. Each box denotes a new PowerPoint slide, free-drawn with the precision of a ruler. The subtitle to this moment would be: “I’m going to create slides until Tripp gets here [chortle].” She makes more boxes until both of our phones buzz to signal a new email: a goodbye blast.

  Whenever a banker leaves, they send a group-wide email with the subject line “Last Day.” It begins with a clause where the sender specifies how long they lasted. Example: “After 2 years and 3 months, today is my last day at AS.” Then we commemorate our time at the firm and thank our colleagues in an idiosyncratic way. This part tends to feel sincere. The message ends with where the alum will go next, plus contact information. Most analysts start planning what to say in their goodbye blast during training.

  But quitting before the bonus cycle is a bold move. It suggests, “I hate this place so much that I would rather leave now than stick around for one more month and get paid $100K.” Or, “My next gig is so much better than this that I am leaving ASAP. Keep the bonus.” It is a giant middle finger.

  Intrigued, I read the email. The bold sender addressed her Last Day email to “friends and colleagues.” It’s not an uncommon way to start, but the phrase has always felt awkward to me. It effectively labels an entire group of people as non-friends. Someone is going to get this email today and think, I’m in the colleague category, aren’t I, you fucking colleague. The body of the email is just a thank-you to the group as a whole, without any personalized spin. It feels like I’m glazing over placeholder type, like lorem ipsum, the pseudo-Latin text that fills text boxes. This person gives fewer than zero shits. She’s probably dashing out to the lobby right now.

  Vivienne sets her phone down. Its scratched, metal ass faces up.

  “People need to honor their commitments,” Vivienne says.

  She draws faster, clearly taking everything personally. She sketches more boxes until the sheet of paper between us looks like a checkerboard. Her two-handed wall clock ticks steadily on. I don’t know what the fuck is up with her personal life, but I feel like the only one who didn’t disappoint her today. I want to help.

  I’ve practiced yoga to the mantra, “The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention,” from Thich Nhat Hanh. Right now, that’s all I can give her. So, I pay attention, accept her boxes, and it hits me that I care about Vivienne. This is new. It may be the first sign I’m improving under Skylar’s direction. So what if I fell asleep in the Titan meeting? Today, I was right on time and, here I am, empathizing with the de
vil herself. Now that’s some fucking compassion.

  * * *

  Tripp falls into his office chair at 10 a.m. He places a Starbucks cup of coffee on his desk and rests his head in his hands.

  “You know who’s the biggest douche canoe on the floor?” he asks.

  This better be good.

  “Who?” Puja asks.

  “Peter,” Tripp says. Peter is the blond, Mormon analyst who went to BYU and is married with a son at age twenty-four. His wife is pregnant with their second child. He brought their baby to an analyst dinner at the Mexican restaurant near Anderson. He put the kid in a cradle under the table and left with his wife at 8 p.m. while the rest of the analysts went out to Up and Down, a club downtown. I sat next to him one day in training, where he told me that he saves seventy-five cents for every dollar he makes.

  Yeah, total douche.

  “What happened?” Puja asks.

  “I was just getting my coffee and complaining about the job, you know,” he says. “And Peter was like, ‘I’m a realist. It’s a secure job, and you have to start thinking about these things when you start a family.’ ”

  Puja snorts a laugh.

  “Yeah, what an asshole,” she says sarcastically.

  “Broo-tahl,” Tripp agrees.

  “Tripp!” I actually smack the hardwood of the desk surface in front of him.

  “Easy, Amy,” he says. “Rough weekend. Let’s talk later.”

  “Don’t hit the desk,” Chloe says.

  “Are you protecting the rights of furniture?” Tripp asks.

  “Tripp, focus,” I say. “You missed our meeting with Vivienne this morning.”

  His irritability becomes genuine fear as I detail the latest comments.

  “Whose ass does she pull this stuff out of?” Tripp asks.

  “That’s irrelevant,” I snap.

  “Are you defending Vivienne?” Tripp asks.

  He glances at Chloe, then back at me, as if Chloe fucking multiplied.

  A bit softer, I add, “Let’s just get it done.”

  * * *

  I plan the entire class on my walk to Yoga Cyclone, which is close to the office. We sent the final deck to Mark at 7:01 tonight. He sent it to the client at 7:30, which granted me freedom at 7:31. Class starts at eight.

  I am bundled up and booking it. My tote holds a change of clothes and laptop. The fresh outfit cushions my prized computer like packing peanuts. If an ASAP work request hits in the next hour, I can handle it right after class. Meanwhile, with my un-mittened hand, I browse my gallery on @AllegraHandstands and mentally arrange a few video clips into a flow sequence. I Google the poses’ Sanskrit names and practice pronunciations, should any student ask.

  “Salabhasana,” I mutter.

  I speed walk.

  “Navasana. Padmasana.”

  “Fuckin’ nut,” the pretzel guy mutters as I pass.

  I ignore him and keep thinking through my script.

  “Hey, I know you!” he shouts. “You owe me!”

  Oh my God, he’s right. I stop and face him.

  “I am so sorry,” I say earnestly. “I will get you cash.”

  “Oh, you have hard time?” he mocks me. “Oh, you have a shitty roadside food stand, where customers steal from you? Because then I understand. Oh. Wait a second. That’s me I have a shitty roadside food stand, get robbed. You have a big fancy job in a building filled with millionaires.”

  You made your point.

  “I will pay you back,” I promise.

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  I add it to the top of my to-do list: Get him the dollar. Sewage problem. Gas problem Yoga books. I keep walking and return to the fast-approaching task of narrating an hour-long class. What should I even say? I’m a banker who steals from local vendors. How is anyone going to take me seriously?

  I scroll through my Instagram feed for inspiration in the captions. What should tonight’s class mean? I haven’t picked a keystone mantra or phrase. I’m an imposter. I decide to tie the class back to the only moment I can remember that touched me recently. When Skylar and I met, she said, “Part of what I do—and what I do believe you are drawn to—is just show compassion.” That resonated, and they say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Tonight, I can pass on what Skylar showed me. The theme will be compassion.

  “Fuckin’ A!” he shouts after me.

  * * *

  I arrive at Yoga Cyclone with ten minutes to spare. The studio is devoted half to yoga classes and half to cardio classes. I cross the threshold and stand in the gift shop between two distinct wings. On the left: rooms for yoga. On the right: a stadium of stationary bikes for high-intensity interval training. There are dozens of boutique fitness studios in New York City, so competition is fierce enough to spark unusual novelty. You wind up with a lot of places like this, smashing opposites together for a niche sound bite.

  The yoga teacher from the previous class stands in her doorway, bidding students goodbye. She uses the word like to indicate the grammatical necessity of a comma, and her enthusiasm is uncannily high given that her task is simply to acknowledge people. The skin of her stomach crinkles like a single layer of Saran Wrap over her abs. She looks like Alec Baldwin’s wife.

  In the other wing, the inside of the cycling stadium looks like a dark cave of shame. Frankly, it’s a crazy place to be if you’re not overeating. Those classes torch up to a thousand calories in an hour, so if you’re not having cupcakes for breakfast, you may die. The cycling instructor stands in her own doorway, saying goodbye to the exiting bikers. Her dark hair is soaking wet, and her black leather pants gleam. She looks like she could be Tim Burton’s wife.

  “I’m teaching a dirgey class next,” she says to a couple walking out through the door. “Do you know what dirge is?” They don’t. “It’s like funeral music. Some people like to work out to fun, poppy stuff. I like dark.”

  This job ruined Top 40 for her.

  I shrug my parka off and hang it outside my studio room, where students are already inside. From here, I glimpse a tranquil, middle-aged couple with their eyes closed in lotus on mats they clearly own. The woman has bed-head-wavy hair and wears two dark-purple hair wraps that drape from the nape of her neck down below her shoulders. The shirtless man beside her has the same haircut and wears stud earrings.

  Skylar smiles at me eagerly from the doorway, barefoot and in a hemp halter top. Does she get fitter every day? She motions with a fast hand that I enter behind her and, like, fucking set up for class already. I know, it’s almost time. On the teacher’s stage, I unroll my mat and sit in lotus. My warm hands rest on my knees. Skylar has laid her mat in the back corner, where she alternates her front feet in a series of lunges. She pushes each knee out sideways to open up her hips.

  Six minutes remain until we start. I’m wearing my favorite black leggings with cinched bottoms, only a black sports bra on top, and a beaded necklace. The room before me, which can hold up to sixty mats, is half-full.

  Another student walks in, and I do a double take. Do I know you? It’s Robbie from Industrials. Robbie, the banking enthusiast known for his Facebook statuses, who told me in training that he wants to send his future kids to “capitalism camp for kindergarteners.” (I had to look that up. Turns out, there is a place called Spark Business Academy that teaches six-to-ten-year-olds about “cultivating an entrepreneurial mind-set” and “building a stock market portfolio.” The website features kids wearing suits and on cell phones.) I am teaching the capitalist of all capitalists tonight.

  Behind him, I recognize another face, also from Industrials: Max. He rowed in prep school and college. Throughout training, he would work out for five hours a day in the Anderson gym. I once saw him riding a spin bike while biting into a device that made it harder to breathe, so that he could build more muscle around his ribs and lungs. His girlfriend enters behind him.

  More analysts trickle in, followed by more associates. Somebody actually points at me. Of course they know me. T
hey aren’t in HG, but they fucking know me. Training was class-wide and sector-blind. We mingled at the new-banker cocktails. We were in each other’s groups for the diversity discussions, where in my randomly assigned group of six, three were white guys from Westchester and two of those three were named Will. Each week, we rotated to a different table of new analysts. The tables were named after financial capitals—New York City, Kuala Lumpur—and together we graffitied over the table-tent labels with better names, like Rack Rack City.

  Robbie approaches the teacher’s stage.

  “Allegra?” he asks.

  “Hey,” I say.

  We pause.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  “What are you doing here?” I shoot back.

  “It’s bonding night in Industrials,” he says. “The staffer said we were all too stressed, so we’re doing yoga. A teacher at the studio reached out about a group rate or something. Everyone is here.”

  A couple of the guys are still in three-hundred-dollar dress shirts with sleeves rolled up past the elbows. More and more heads turn toward me. I feel trapped onstage not as their teacher, but as the night’s entertainment. Industrials is the frattiest banking group at Anderson, and that’s saying something. This is probably their only free hour all week, and they’re going to want to have a good time with their friends. Earnest yoga? Yeah, fucking right. An HG analyst is teaching? They’re going to have a fucking field day.

  “You’re a yoga teacher?” Robbie asks.

  “No,” I say honestly. It’s kind of the truth, but it sounds ridiculous given that all signs point to yes. I’m sitting in lotus wearing a long, beaded necklace that grazes the top of my mat. A couple of other analysts approach us, and I don’t quite know their names, but we are familiar enough to say hi. I hug them and try to stay calm like the yogi I want to be.

  “Do you have a second job?” one asks.

  I part my lips to answer.