Diary of a Working Girl

by Daniella Brodsky

  “Well, Tom’s still here, too,” I plead, rejoicing in the fact that my studious act is working.

  “Yeah, but that’s because he doesn’t want to go home to his evil girlfriend,” John says, still decoding the carpet, but warming up, adding a silly “woooh,” to act spooked.

  “Really? An evil girlfriend? But he seems like such a nice guy.” The kind of nice guy who’s sensitive to carbohydrate consequences; the sort of nice guy who has spinning globes on his tie. This is the last person you’d expect to have an evil girlfriend.

  “I’ve gone out with them a couple of times; one day I’ll tell you about the ‘spaghetti incident.’“

  Just as I’m wondering how far off “one day” will be if I haven’t even caught John’s eye color after a full day with him, he surprises me.

  “But you didn’t hear any of this from me,” he says, catching my eye for a quick second. Yay! They’re blue, by the way. He turns to make sure Tom’s door is still closed, which it is. John shrugs his shoulders and bids me, “Sayonara,” and I swear, ducks his head to stop it from hitting the ceiling as he walks down the corridor.

  Back to my journal, I record this bit of info, and realize as I’m writing it, that this news about Tom is very surprising.

  And isn’t the “Spaghetti Incident” the name of a really bad Guns ‘n’ Roses CD? I wonder if she reprimanded him over a stain…hmmm… or maybe a slurp. Maybe Tom ordered the spaghetti and the girlfriend wanted that but refused to order the same thing and so she screamed at him until he switched to the penne.

  Realizing this train of thought probably won’t prove useful to my article, or future articles (although I am growing fond of the title ‘spaghetti incident’ and wondering if it could make for a cool fashion shoot; mod, with weathered seventies furniture and strands of spaghetti hanging off the side of a laminate table, from steel counters, olive green colanders, orange floral printed bowls…), I move on to more important issues.

  I am absolutely in love with my department. I am in love with the fact that I have a department. I am in love with the fact that I will soon hopefully be able to say things like, “I’m having drinks with the department.” Day One and already I’ve got a rapport with a very sweet man named John, and I am making it my personal goal to have him open up to me. You NEVER get such fun chit-chat with the FedEx or UPS guys –NEVER. And there is the very intriguing issue of the ‘spaghetti incident’. Only last week I…I…

  I can’t stop thinking what that incident might be! I know better though; I’m not going to waste time and energy writing about it.

  But wait. Maybe the girlfriend sent back her spaghetti because it wasn’t good, only it was good and she just didn’t want to eat the carbs—only wanted to smell them and see what it felt like to order them, savor the sounds of the syllables—spa-ghe-tti—as they rolled from her tongue. That could be why he was so sensitive about the pretzel.

  Why, Ms. Lane Silverman, are you wasting the pages of your diary with such thoughts about pasta and its involvement with a woman you don’t even know?!!!!? You will not, cannot get so off-track with this project on your first day. Now where were you?

  Just last week, I thought I was moving on by using my overdraft account to shop for practical meals for one (a single chicken breast, a lamb chop he never liked, muesli—it’s supposed to be healthy), when the reality of my miserable, lonely existence came up and whacked me in the face. I was waiting on line for some diet cheese when it happened.

  He was testing a cube fresh mozzarella from a platter; she was reminding him of that special report they’d watched about how unsanitary those tasting platters are–unwashed hands grabbing, flies, no refrigeration. I know it doesn’t sound very lovey–dovey, but it was the intimacy that grabbed me. The fact they’d watched the special report together, that she cared enough to warn him against eating from the tray, that he smiled and shook his head like he knew her ways and loved them, no matter how nagging. I looked down at my basket of meals for one and realized there were tears running down the bag that held my single orange, over my small container of milk, on my paper bag of four mushrooms—all tiny portions because anything bigger would spoil in the refrigerator opened and closed by only one pair of hands. I realized that if any of the items in my basket were harmful to my health, I had no one to warn me. I might have been buying the makings of my final meal. I only hoped that someone would notice if I died by the papers piled outside my door.

  Today, however, the world is filled with possibility. Papers could never pile outside my door. I have somewhere to be! Things to do! People to see …

  This seems a great start to an article draft, and I wouldn’t want to jinx myself by making predictions, so I close the diary for the day, promising to edit out the maudlin bits later when I’m in love and can finally have that laugh about them everyone’s always promising me.

  I have already become familiar with the e-mail system here. Sure, it’s the same one I use at home, but it’s still a good thing. And with the help of an Information Technology guy straight out of central casting, I’ve learned how to check my home e-mail account. I pull this account up now to see if anything new has come in.

  There is one message, from an address that ends in nypost.com! I’m sure it’s a rejection to the article I pitched last week about the temp agency horrors. I click to open it.

  Dear Lane,

  I am delighted, after having rejected your submissions a record fifty times, to inform that you have finally hit the nail on the head. The piece you sent in about temp agencies is perfect. We would like to offer you seventy-five dollars to print it in this Friday’s paper. Please e-mail me a list of your sources for our fact-checker.

  Best,

  Brian Allen

  This absolutely, positively cannot be. I’m speechless. That is, until I scream “Yay!” and jump up and down in my maroon cubicle. I’m considering dancing around with my pink panties atop my head when Tom emerges from his office, bobbing his head up and down to the rhythm of my jumping.

  “I got the feeling you liked it here, but this joy is unprecedented in Smith Barney history.”

  It is so nice to have someone to share good news with, rather than dancing around your apartment telling yourself “Congratulations!”—even if I can’t put my panties on top of my head.

  “Looks like we have a star reporter in our midst,” Tom says after my Post briefing, patting me on the back, and demanding we share a mini bottle of Pommerey champagne he’s been keeping in his office for a special occasion. “That’s an order,” he says. “Don’t tell human resources,” he adds over his shoulder, placing his pointer across his mouth. “It’s against the rules to drink on the job.”

  It’s warm, which doesn’t do much to help champagne, but it’s sweet enough, and by the time we finish it, I am a bit light-headed. It feds good to be sitting in an office, overlooking the water, the Statue of Liberty, and hanging out after work like this. The champagne loosens my lips, and I tell Tom about how boring his ad in the Times looked and how I’d first come across it, stopping short at the reason I finally followed through with calling. I decide to offer a bit of advice.

  “You should make the ads witty and lively, so that people will be enticed to call,” I say.

  And at first he looks as if he’s going to crack up, but then, his face turns serious, and he says, “You know Ab Fab, that’s not such a bad idea.”

  When, an hour later, Tom’s phone rings, I take a moment to get acquainted with his desk. It’s nice and tidy—the way I always wish mine could be—with few decorative objects to clutter things. In fact, there’s just the one—a frame I can only see the back of from where I’m sitting.

  Can this be the evil girlfriend of the spaghetti incident fame? When curiosity gets the better of me I stand as if to take in the view at the window behind his desk.

  He rolls his eyes at the person on the other end and makes that duck quack gesture with his fingers as if the caller is yapping on. When he turn
s around and starts to jot down some notes, I’m pretty sure I’ll have a second to safely check out the photograph.

  It’s all I can do to stop myself from sprinting to the phone to call Joanne and scream, “OH MY GOD.” The photo of the evil girlfriend is so far from anything you’d expect to see within ten miles of Tom that I do a double take, hoping when I look again it will be completely different.

  The photo is unmistakably a Glamour Shot, the sort they’re always trying to sell at shopping malls. She’s got a hazy soap-opera glow about her eyes and a feather boa floating around her neck. The sparkly cowboy hat tragically elevates the thing into another realm.

  In a gag reflex, I choke on a sip of champagne. Tom turns around and I quickly transfer my gaze from the photo and before it’s too late, mouth to him that I’m heading home. As he waves me through, pointing at the phone and sticking his tongue out like he’s sorry to be interrupting fun with work, I think how amazing it is that his job is so demanding, yet he handles himself in such a light, pleasant manner. I’m considering this as I pack my bag up, shut my computer down, and make the journey up the stairwell to twenty-six to take the express clown.

  Red or white? Despite the fact that this makes me the perfect candidate for the Most Scatterbrained Girl in the World Award, I can’t remember. I flip through my little notebook, and while I can’t locate the information in question, I can clearly see that I chronicled Tom’s entire introduction to the salad bar.

  And this is the lettuce; and here is the tomato.

  I hadn’t even realized I wrote that down. I wonder what he’d say now that I can’t remember how the stupid elevator works again. Ha! I bet he would really be laughing about that.

  I take a chance—I’ve got a fifty-fifty shot, right? I find myself sailing up towards the higher floors, and instead of feeling frustrated, I laugh because I can already see joking around about this tomorrow. Human interaction—it’s a real revelation.

  Finally, I make my way down, through the turnstile and past the security guards, and when I’m outside I can’t help but wonder if the whole experience was just a dream. I fear that when I come back tomorrow I’ll happen upon an empty lot, rather than a tower of wonder where dreams come true.

  When I return that evening to my tiny apartment I feel like I haven’t been there in ages. I think the separation did us both good; I find a new appreciation for my sofa as I sink into it, working a pair of chopsticks through a warm takeout tin of steamed chicken and mixed vegetables. I must eat better now t hat being attractive is part of my job. As I watch sitcom reruns, I have a new understanding of the characters; I get all of the corporate jokes—nine-to-five living and all that.

  It has only been one day but so much has happened already. A new phase of my life is beginning. I feel it all around me, like those magical childhood moments when you just knew the slowly heating popcorn was about to start popping madly.

  Rather than go right to sleep—I’m too excited for this—I have a revelation. I decide to input the relevant information from the pile of press releases on my floor into my computer, and then I throw the actual papers in a garbage bag. I’d been inputting lots of corporate information into databases at work all day, and I don’t see why the same system wouldn’t work here. It gets rid of the mess, that’s for sure. I don’t finish the whole pile, but I take a substantial bite from it, and then drag the huge bag down to the basement to recycle. On the way back up I press seven rather than five and visit with Chris before turning in.

  “How’s my little Mary Tyler Moore?” he asks, taking in my outfit. I’m still wearing the (second pair of) croc heels and he stares at them, asking, “Choos?”

  “Yes,” I say, almost ashamed, as I’m so used to being broke and questioned about indulgent purchases that seem to wind up in my possession anyway. But then I remember I’m actually making money—good money—now.

  Unlike the freelance gigs, where you have to call and call and put all of your pride aside, make your personal life public (“I have to pay my rent, I need to eat, I blew all my money like a complete moron on this wool Mayle dress with the most adorable antique lace because the forgotten feel of actual cash in my hands brought on such insanity I couldn’t think straight, etc.”) just so they can act as if they’re really doing you a huge favor by promising to mail a check that’s already five months late. It’s a nice change to know at the end of two weeks a check for a set amount of money is on the way and will continue to be on the way—for a little while, anyhow.

  Chris knows all of this and so, like the mom you wished for your whole life, he smiles, and says, “Well, I guess you’ve earned them now, haven’t you, you little corporate diva?”

  It feels funny to switch gears with someone from the other world—the fashion one, rather than the corporate one—which is funny, since it’s been my world for so long. There is such a different M.O.: the words, the manner of speech. In the fashion language, “divine,” “genius, and “bisoux” are required vocabulary. And don’t get me started on the double kisses. I can never remember a second one is on the way and run a high rate of accidental kisses on the lips when people swing around to plant the bonus no-actual-contact kiss on the opposite cheek.

  I had become desensitized to the Planet Double Bisoux after so many years of being smack in the middle, or rather, trying to get smack in the middle of it.

  But now the difference is striking. Still, Chris, despite walking the walk (hand out. palm down; thin up. lids down), and talking the talk (“That sportif collection by Dolce was brilliant”), is the sweetest man alive. He can play the role when necessary, but it’s apparent his heart’s not in it, which is why I love him.

  “I know this sounds crazy, but you seem like an entirely different woman. At the risk of sounding like Sheryl Crow, I really think this change has done you good. Twirl for me darling, you must twirl.”

  The champagne, as little as I drank, still holds its grip (probably because for the first time in a while, food without a coating of fat has made up my entire daily intake), and so, it doesn’t take much coaxing for me to swivel my hips as I make my rotation and move on to an unprompted catwalk jaunt across the room.

  Later, as I curl up in bed, after tackling two hundred sit-ups I might add, I’m happier than I’ve been in months. I’m delighted Chris noticed a change because I was beginning to think I was crazy to feel so different in just one day. At first, I thought the happiness factor was on account of the barrage of men and the possibility that any of them could be The One (for both professional and personal reasons), but, when I consider everything, it dawns on me what the biggest change has been.

  After hundreds of rejections I am actually being praised.: It’s refreshing for once not to have dragged myself out of bed to spend hours coming up with never-to-be-used article ideas; running off copies of my published articles from magazines nobody’s ever heard of, hoping I would magically come upon one I’d written for Vogue or Elle; composing pitch letters (this time funny, this time serious, this time mentioning a cousin’s friend’s sister’s ex-boyfriend the editor had once met at a cocktail party) to make myself look bigger and better than my roundup of experience allows me to, only to be appeased with “Yes, we’ve received your packet. We’ll call if we need anything Thank you.”—non-answers I have to hound down with any number of humiliating phone calls.

  And. it’s not just the Cosmo article. It’s Tom and Chris, and even the Post. And I know it sounds funny, but even the fact that I’m good at typing up notes, organizing files (who knew?), and answering the telephone in a pleasing manner feels great when somebody recognizes it.

  When the word “no” becomes so familiar to you, though you become numb, it takes a toll. All that energy and pride you have when you first start out, that gets peeled away because you get used to the negativity and the sense of failure. And maybe, after years of dealing with such acidic stuff, you come to enjoy the expectation of rejection, even if it’s just for the I-knew-it value. Petty conversatio
ns with peers in the same boat, complaining about so-and-so who got an assignment at a big magazine just because she was friends with the editor (“I mean, did you see that intro? And was this even edited?”) become so enjoyable that entire friendships are built around them. You can spend a whole day lying in a pile of the terrible-but-connected writer’s published articles, discussing her unacceptable abuse of commas, counting each and every infraction as if it will somehow get you closer to your goal.

  But that’s a bad place to be—and it hadn’t even occurred to me before. Despite the fact that I feel in my bones that I do have talent (which has been difficult to continue telling myself), I have allowed all those no’s to peel away at me until almost nothing was left. Sometimes, I wake in the middle of the night, positive I will no longer be able to string a sentence together. I’ll sit on the side of my tub for hours paralyzed with fear that I won’t even be capable of writing the story I’ve just pitched, should they—by some miracle—decide to assign it to me.

  As if that’s not scary enough, the negativity spills over into everything I do. I never believe a date will or a party will be enjoyable—it’s always a shock when something is.

  Go figure: all that from a mini bottle of warm champagne, a bunch of flowers, and a pat on the back.

  Five

  The Princess and the Paper Jam

  The next day, I get to work, on time. Well, five minutes late, but that’s really on time—everyone I know puts a fifteen minute cushion on promptness. Thankfully I arrive without snagging either heels or hose. The morning brings with it another chance to stand in wonder at the male population scurrying around in black loafers, brown oxfords, and the sneakers I now know belong to the traders, and excitement ignites inside of me. I decide to smoke a cigarette before heading in, and once again take a seat on the low wall. I’ve got a second day swelled head; I know exactly where I’m going, who to show my ID to, and which elevator is going up (hopefully), and I get a delightful sense of belonging to all the activity unfolding before me. It makes me feel chatty, so I glance next to me and see a girl I recognize as Tiffany of the “Happy Birthday, Tiffany!” sign fame.