by Janis Powers
Mama’s got a brand new job by Janis Powers. Copyright © 2013 Powers Enterprises, LLC.
All Rights Reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.
ISBN 978-0-9892037-1-5
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Bella Guzmán, Highwire Creative Author Photograph by Carrie Biggar Photography
For more information, visit www.mamasgotabrandnewjob.com.
My mother for her moxie
My father for Jacques
V and B for the inspiration
Laura Burns, Diana Clukey and Jamie Reidy for telling me I wasn’t done yet
“You have to make your own luck.”
–Ernest Hemingway
1
Patent Number 9175638
Collapsible Jogging Stroller/Backpack
Company: Infant Ingenuity, LLC
“Love it!” I hunched closer to the monitor in my office, as if the six-point text on my screen would magically transform into the as-yet-to-be-sanctioned baby gear. It wasn’t clear from the patent application how this contraption was going to function. It didn’t even have consumer regulatory approval. But with the right marketing campaign, its first production run would sell out from advance purchases on amazon.com before a prototype hit the floors of Babies “Я” Us. And I would be making one of those advance purchases.
I wasn’t even pregnant yet, but that was beside the point. I live in Manhattan. In a New York nanosecond, my conventional existence as a patent attorney could be thrown into chaos by a financial crisis, another terror attack, or worse yet, the arrival of a new upstart associate. I had to use the means at my disposal to position myself for success. In this case, that meant trolling the United States Patent and Trademark website looking for next-generation baby paraphernalia.
I jolted up when I heard a tap on the glass wall of my office. It was my admin, Joy. Joy noticed everything and today that included my new lavender dress suit. She tugged on her jacket near the shoulder and gave me a thumbs-up sign. Then she grabbed her earlobe and looked at me curiously. I felt my own earlobes. Only one of them had an earring.
I mouthed the words “thank you” and then patted the clean blotter on my desk in a futile attempt to find the missing earring. As the panic subsided, I realized that the earring was probably still at home. I had been distracted while getting ready, the flustered result of a dreamy early morning wake-up call administered by my husband, Dale. I removed the other earring, ostensibly restoring symmetry around my brain. Perhaps that’s what I needed to get started on billable work.
I paged through the spammy emails on my computer, looking for something important. I kept my eyes on the monitor as I picked up my cell phone. It was pulsating with the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” Dale was calling.
The time was 9:20 am. My conversation with Dale would be brief, since the opening bell on Wall Street was set to ring in a few minutes. And once it did, Dale, armed with a tricked-out mobile device, a tailored Joseph A. Bank suit and an attitude, would step into the role of white collar combatant.
“You make it to work O.K.?” From the breathy undertone in Dale’s voice, it seemed as if he were doing some sort of ritualistic preparatory maneuver, like one-armed push-ups.
“Yup!” I said confidently, ignoring the missing earring issue. “All good. What’ve you got going on?”
“Interesting you should ask. . .” His voice trailed off, and then he told me to wait a moment. He didn’t put me on hold, which would have been a courtesy, considering the tirade that streamed through the receiver. “Did you fucking read the research on Inter-Tech? And what the hell is this graph? Go update the data for Christ’s sake!”
Foul language was definitely the norm for the bankers downtown, but at McCale, Morgan & Black, it was grounds for a professional demerit. I put my hand over the face of the phone, trying to muffle the sounds.
“Jesus Christ!” groaned Dale, finally resuming the conversation. “No one can concentrate now that O’Shaugnessy announced he’s having another kid.”
Patrick O’Shaugnessy was one of Dale’s colleagues, someone who had elevated buffoonery to an art form. And now, this clown had replicated his DNA for a fourth time. “God help humanity,” I said.
“Maxine, we have got to get going with this parenting thing. I can finally get into the club.”
My forehead wrinkled. “Club? What club?”
“The club of dads at Worthington Investments.”
“What are you talking about? That’s not a real club, is it?”
“No. It’s not,” he said in an excited whisper. “But this O’Shaugnessy thing is a real eye-opener. Clearly, the guys with kids are the ones who get ahead.”
“I thought you got ahead by making gobs of money for the company,” I said coolly.
“Right. And the rainmaker around here is Bobbie Macaluso, and Bobbie Macaluso has kids. So any excuse to ask for parenting advice is also an excuse to get some trading tips from the master.”
I swiveled my chair and looked out the window at midtown Manhattan. From the 35th floor, the steam puffing out of mechanical towers on the roofs of nearby buildings belied the fact that it was an early spring morning. “So you’re saying that a baby will help your career because you’ll have more face time with your boss?”
“Yes. Totally! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before!”
“Yeah. Me neither.” Perfect. I’d do all the heavy lifting, and Dale would reap the benefits. Maybe I needed to start a club of moms at McCale, Morgan & Black.
“Maxine, I gotta go. Good luck at your meeting tonight, O.K.?”
I was shocked that he remembered. But then again, I had been going on and on about tonight’s culminating session with a potential new client, Parfum Aix. I was about to thank him for his thoughtfulness, but he had already hung up. I wouldn’t talk to him until the afternoon, after the market closed. Non-work related calls and texts were too distracting for Dale, who was busy monitoring real-time updates of financial information. No big deal, though. If I wanted to know how Dale was doing, I could just check the NASDAQ.
I spent the rest of the day plowing through research materials. Anyone who had flipped through the pages of Vogue knew that Parfum Aix was an elite brand. Their perfumes and skin care products commanded incredibly high prices due to their unparalleled quality. It was a brand any woman dreamed she could afford; most would have to satisfy themselves with a $35 bar of Parfum Aix soap.
Over lunch at my desk, I read about how the company had been independently owned and operated since its inception 50 years ago. Parfum Aix’s superiority was driven by a meticulous product sourcing department. Elaborate deals were structured for herbs and flowers indigenous to countries all over the world. Roses from Bulgaria. Patchouli from Indonesia. Even frankincense from Somalia. Coordinating these international agreements was a legal fee goldmine.
Fortunately, our McCale team wouldn’t have to do the hardship travel. When necessary, we would probably just do site visits to the company headquarters in Grasse, France. Maybe we would take a ride over to Aix-en-Provence to validate the organic cultivation of the company’s signature ingredient, lavender. After all, it was a major component of their best-selling product, Eau de Vie.
As exciting as working for a company like Parfum Aix might be, the real carrot was the fact that if we won the business tonight, I would share lead billing credit. No other senior associate was even close to achieving such a milestone. At this rate, I might even make it to partner at McCale before Dale got promoted at Worthington.
Joy tapped on my window and waved good-bye. It was five o’clock and my desk was a mess. I stood up
, calling out the items I needed for the meeting as a means to help me focus. “Pen. Notes. Phone.”
“To whom are you speaking, Maxine?” The unmistakably gravelly voice belonged to Caine Seaver, McCale’s lead partner for Consumer Business Services. He was also my dinner date for the evening.
“Sorry,” I stammered, “I was try. . .”
“Did you do something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then why are you apologizing?” Caine took pleasure in literally interpreting colloquial terms. I resisted the urge to clock him with my phone. “Never mind,” he said. He bared his teeth—two sets of rectangular enamel. He looked like he had just eaten a row of piano keys. “I presume you are preparing for the meeting?”
“That’s right.”
“Very good. I will meet you at Reception in five minutes. We can strategize in the car.” With his staccato list of instructions complete, he turned on his heel and vanished down the hall.
Some at McCale, in fact many, would describe Caine as brusque. The younger associates dreaded an assignment with him. I had, too, but after years of being paired together, Caine and I had developed a tacit rapport based on our mutual knowledge of his hopeless social ineptitude. Regardless of which breach of social etiquette Caine would commit tonight—and there would be many—I would be on point to fix the situation with my wit and charm.
I had a seasoned set of redirection tactics for these strained social moments. Sometimes, I might interject a scintillating factoid about the stock market. I might bring up something relevant that I had just read in The New York Times. And it was always a safe bet to comment informatively about the wine we would be drinking, particularly if Caine was kind or oblivious enough to allow our guest to select it.
Topics I tended to avoid were children and spouses. Here I was—married and child-less at this biologically critical juncture known as the Early Thirties. It was nobody’s business that I had laid off the birth control, and I certainly wasn’t in any rush to show up at McCale in a maternity jumper. My master plan for pregnancy involved having sex with my husband. And if, God forbid, that method failed, I could revert to fertility drugs, artificial insemination, surrogacy, or maybe even adoption. Regardless of the procurement method, I failed to see how any of these topics were appropriate for dinner conversation.
As for the spouse, that was also delicate territory. If Dale had been a doctor or a teacher, things might have been easier. But few professions (barring mine) generate more scorn than that of the Investment Banker. Upon hearing the news that my husband was “one of them,” I was immediately cast in the shadow of evil and greed, and any attempt to explain otherwise was futile.
In any event, sidestepping a discussion about family was not just about reducing potential awkwardness for me. Family was an equal-opportunity topic. Everyone at the table was expected to participate, and that included Caine. His stock contribution, “I am married with two daughters,” was perfunctory and unemotional. At least, I would remind myself, we could be perceived as lawyers—not mothers or fathers, wives or husbands.
2
The horns honked outside the windows of our Town Car. Caine tapped his Cross Pen on the door handle. Although we were only blocks from our destination, I knew he would fidget the entire way. I hoped that his nervousness wouldn’t ooze over to my side of the car.
He peeled his eyes off the window. “You said you met Deschemel at a charity fundraiser?”
“Right. A Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center event.”
“Do you think he has cancer? Maybe he’s dying. Did he look well to you?”
“No, I don’t think he has cancer. He looked perfectly healthy to me. Sprightly, in fact, for a 70-year-old man.”
Caine shuddered as a bicycle messenger sped by, barely evading the side mirror of a neighboring taxi. “Why would he attend such an event? Don’t they have cancer fundraisers in France?”
All of these irrelevant and previously discussed questions were just a smokescreen to obscure Caine’s anxiety. Caine was baffled that, through casual conversation, I had generated a business lead. All of his “new business” came from referrals from existing McCale clients. For Caine, embarking on a social situation like tonight’s, with so many unknown variables, was professional torture.
And since it was my lead, I didn’t feel like playing the “work wife” to coax Caine back into his comfort zone. Uncharacteristically, I was on edge too. I scanned my notes one more time, hoping that I was prepared.
I heard some stifled tapping noises, an indication that Caine had busied himself with his cell phone. Despite years of typing on a hand-held device, he still lacked the finesse of a seasoned user. While he wrestled with his keypad, I took the opportunity to mentally remove myself from the car, and revisit my first and only meeting with Jacques Deschemel, founder and president of Parfum Aix.
Truth be told, I had been bored out of my mind when I met him. Dale had dragged me to the Sloan-Kettering fundraiser, one in a long line of events we attended so he could glad-hand anyone with wads of cash at their disposal. My job had been to survey the silent auction tables and see who was bidding how much on what. I had only agreed to it because it gave me the chance to look over some of the items myself, which I had planned to do anyway.
While the men bid on restaurant gift cards and professional sports tickets, the ladies focused on the jewelry and spa treatments. I put in a bid for a spa package for two at the newly opened Tribeca Day Spa. After I pledged $500, I realized that I could probably get all the services through a Groupon for half the price. But then again, this was a charity event. But then again, I had no business blowing $500 on a massage and pedicure. I backed away from the table, hoping that someone would outbid me. Then I noticed Bidder 714.
He was older than the average attendee, probably in his late 60’s or early 70’s. His gray hair was cut short and he had a trim-cut mustache, which was also gray. He wore an impeccably tailored tweed sports coat with dark gray slacks. The monotony of color was broken up by an evergreen bow tie and sparkling hazel eyes.
I nursed my Stoli Orange and soda while I watched this curious man’s process. He spent well over 10 minutes reviewing the wines and spirits available. After careful consideration, he placed his bids—but only on half of the offerings. Once he left, I made my own inspection of the potable goods. To avoid suspicion, I placed a bid on a bottle of Dom Pérignon that I knew Dale would like.
I noted that this man, Bidder 714, had pledged $1,300 for a bottle of French dessert wine, Chateau d’Yquem. I had only seen a bottle of it once before, while shopping for Christmas gifts at Sherry-Lehmann. According to the store’s Bordeaux expert, the grapes used to make Chateau d’Yquem were still picked by hand, but only when they had ripened to an almost mold-like state on the vine. Apparently, this “noble rot” was the key to Chateau d’Yquem’s legendary reputation. It sounded like a crazy marketing scheme to glorify the bizarre, but since I hadn’t tried it and certainly couldn’t afford it, I was in awe of it.
Meanwhile, an over-served, under-dressed party-goer stumbled up to the auction tables. He placed a bid on every wine and spirit available. This prompted Bidder 714 to return to the table to defend his territory with even higher bids.
The Dom Pérignon was now out of my range. At $180, it was just over the retail price. I was happy to let someone else buy it, and even more relieved that I was no longer the open bidder for the spa package.
But a few hundred dollars was chump change compared to the current offer for the d’Yquem, which was now going for $1,700. I couldn’t take my eyes off the bottle. The color of the wine had darkened, which I knew was typical for a wine of its age and character. The dimmed lighting at the event made it hard to tell for sure, but it seemed like the top of the bottle looked crusty. As I pondered the condition of the wine inside, an announcer requested that final bids be placed, as the silent auction was set to close in two minutes.
“Excuse me,” said Bidder 714, holding his p
en. “I would like to place a final bid on that d’Yquem in front of you. That is, unless you are interested in it . . . .” His voice was laced with a French accent.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m not interested in bidding on it.” Bidder 714 smiled curtly, waiting for me to move. I hesitated, adding, “In fact, I don’t think you should bid on it either. I think it’s corked.”
“No! Impossible!” He grabbed the wine and inspected it himself. As he held the neck of the bottle, the foil over the cork loosened and fell off. He examined the cork, which was heavily stained and damp. He placed the bottle back on the table and motioned for me to follow him to the window.
“What an outrage!” he said, waving his arms in disbelief. “That d’Yquem; qui ne vaut rien!” I knew the French were passionate, but this guy was downright emotional. His bowtie had turned slightly askew, and he was rubbing his chin so intensely, I could hear the sound of the stubble against his fingers.
“Do you think it was stored poorly?” I asked.
“Bien sûr! The wine must have been stored, eh, vertically.” He struggled a bit with the word and then made parallel chopping movements with his hands. “Alors, the cork dried out, and when the bottle was laid down, it started to leak. Quel dommage!”
I had some idea about how to store wine, but Bidder 714’s expert explanation was both entertaining and edifying. I struggled for something to contribute. “I can’t believe they didn’t do a better job vetting the donations,” I offered.
Bidder 714’s shoulders rose in agreement. “Exactement! I am disappointed with the standards. Now, I will have to reject anything I may win tonight, just on principle.” I wondered if, legally, he could do that, but Bidder 714’s aspect seemed too lofty to be bothered by such details. He extended an arm out formally. I shook his hand as he said, “Merci beaucoup, mademoiselle, for your excellent observation. My name is Jacques.” He did not give his last name. I forgot to ask what it was when he said, “Enchanté,” so beautifully after I introduced myself.