by Meg Wolitzer
During lunch break on Monday, someone passed around a takeout menu and whoever wanted food circled their choice, and cash was collected. Takeout on that day was from a Middle Eastern place, so Greer looked down the vegetarian column and ordered a falafel wrap. She thought that maybe they would all sit around together with their food, talking about the foundation and their desires and aspirations, but instead everyone just took their lunch back to their own cubicles, so Greer did too, eating in self-conscious aloneness at the space that she’d outfitted like a dorm room, with photos of Cory and Zee, and a good supply of ComSell Nutricle protein bars—the half-decent Raspberry Explosion, the sand-dry Double Vanilla—that her parents had off-loaded to her. Cory texted Greer during that first day, asking for photos. She sent him pictures of the elevator and the little kitchen, and a long shot taken across the entire floor, which included the backs of various people’s heads. “Also, send anecdotes from your life,” he said. “Remember, I work in consulting, so I’m pretty bored.” But so far she felt removed from anything of significance. She had the sense that soon, much too soon, she would want to do more here. Other people at Loci were clearly already doing a great deal more. While she and the other booker, a shaved-headed gay man named Tad Lamonica, were left out of the daily meetings, she often glanced over into the glassed-in conference room. Faith could be seen sitting at the head of the table. Also in the room were the three researchers, Marcella Boxman, a sexy twenty-three-year-old polyglot; Helen Brand, stylish, thirty-five, a former union organizer and the only African-American on Faith’s team; and Ben Prochnauer, good-looking, resolute-jawed, five years out of Stanford and most recently part of an antihunger startup; as well as Bonnie Dempster and Evelyn Pangborn, who were firmly old-guard second-wavers, both in their sixties. Bonnie was a lesbian who still wore what used to be called, rudely, a Jewfro, and candelabra-like earrings that she made herself out of scrap metal. Evelyn was patrician and wry and dressed in a good wool suit. Both of them had been with Faith since the start of Bloomer.
On the third day, in the middle of the meeting, Greer heard raised voices coming from the conference room. She looked over and could see an arm gesticulating behind the glass. It was Faith’s arm, recognizable even from across the floor. And there was Faith’s voice, too, though it had a strain to it. Greer heard her say, “No, actually that is not what I meant. Let’s start again. Marcella, go.” This was followed by Marcella Boxman’s voice going, speaking carefully, as if to disguise fear. Then there was another remark from a still-irritated Faith, and then someone else cautiously defended Marcella, until finally the meeting was flowing the way Faith wanted it to. And Faith, mollified, could finally be heard saying, “Nailed it!” and everyone laughed a little too hard in relief.
When the greenish glass door finally slid open with its shush sound, they all looked merry and satisfied, even Marcella. In fact, Faith had her arm around Marcella, as if reassuring her that everything was fine, the bad moment had passed, and it didn’t matter anymore.
Faith could grow impatient and angry, as she had been described, but most of the time she was easygoing and generous, particularly to her assistant Iffat and the rest of the support staff. Greer had already seen her speak kindly to the old custodian who emptied her trash, even though he had accidentally thrown away a diploma from a college in Minnesota that had given her an honorary degree.
Faith was one of those people, Greer had started to see, who was seductive to almost everyone. Seduction was a power move to Faith, and maybe even a compulsion, but it seemed to happen effortlessly, and was in the service of a greater good. She wasn’t a firebrand or a visionary; her talent was different. She could sift and distill ideas and present them in a way that made other people want to hear them. She was special. But still, apparently no one knew much about Faith’s private life. Even her backstory. There had been plenty of interviews, but she remained a combination of warmth and mystery—and perhaps she liked it that way. To keep people from the particulars of your life kept you from being seen as one thing or another, and so it was possible you could be thought of as anything, or even as everything.
They all wanted to know her; Greer sensed this as a secret, quietly present, all-office wish. Greer knew that Faith had been widowed long ago and had a grown son, but that was about it. Did she have a boyfriend? What a ludicrous word to use when describing her. She was far beyond boyfriends; she would tower over them, dwarf them. And she had mentioned that she had a weekend house; what did it look like? Was it gabled? And what were gables? And what about her apartment on Riverside Drive? Only her assistant Iffat had ever been there, and as if knowing Faith wouldn’t want her to say anything about it, Iffat hadn’t ever described it to anyone.
When Faith approached Greer’s cubicle the afternoon after the tense meeting and said, “Hey, stop by today, okay?” Greer became anxious, worrying that she had made a mistake and was going to be called out on it. It was awful to displease Faith, and wonderful to please her; the equation was absolute, as Professor Malick might’ve said. No one ever forgot the way it felt to be on the receiving end of Faith Frank’s pleasure or displeasure. But Faith was smiling now. When Greer came into her office, she brought with her the letter from Zee tucked into a folder. She’d dutifully carried it to work since Monday, waiting for a good time to give it to her. At first, though, it had seemed too soon, and too nervy to assume that she could try to have a friend hired. But Zee was waiting to hear what happened, so maybe this would be an okay time to try.
In Faith’s enormous office they sat on either end of the long white couch. The light was slanting in, falling on Faith’s cheek and revealing the faintest, nearly invisible layer of down that could only be seen from this exact angle, not that Greer would ever tell anyone she’d seen it. Faith leaned forward with her good, distinctive smell—Cherchez was the name of the scent, Greer had overheard her say to Marcella, who was herself so stylish that she would soon no doubt be marinated in Cherchez too.
“Tell me your impressions about what we’re doing here,” Faith said. “Be honest. Don’t worry about my ego. I’m curious how it seems to you so far. The grand new venture. Is it actually grand?”
“At this point, maybe it’s a baby grand.”
Faith smiled at her, and it wasn’t even funny! But it was in the neighborhood of funny, and Greer followed it up immediately by offering a variety of suggestions, all very different, so that Faith couldn’t hate all of them. She had a suggestion about switching the order of two of the proposed events at the first summit, which was to be in March, on the theme of power.
Without changing her tone Greer lightly moved to another idea. “And I was thinking maybe we could look at some of the newer feminist blogs and see what they’re up to.” As soon as she said it, she thought about how the writers there sometimes took swipes at Faith: “The author of The Female Persuasion tries to persuade us that being in bed with ShraderCapital is perfectly fine. Corporate feminism much, Faith Frank?”
Faith just nodded at Greer. “Sure, we can have a look,” she said. “You know, though, I was brought in to do the things I know how to do.”
Greer, like all the other people Faith hired, knew there was a difference between working for Faith and working for a radical organization. But they all loved being led by this strong, appealing, dignified, older feminist; and they loved what she stood for.
When the conversation was almost over, everything had gone so well that Greer didn’t want to ruin it with the clumsy intrusion of Zee’s letter. So she still chose not to mention it. Soon she would bring it up, she told herself; soon. But walking back down the hall, feeling almost jaunty now—jig territory—Greer understood that she really didn’t want to give Zee’s letter to Faith. She didn’t want to share Faith with Zee. She was still trying to figure out her place here at Loci—where she fit, where she didn’t. Of course, she would certainly give the letter to Faith tomorrow, but she would do it only out of obligatio
n.
By Friday afternoon, Greer hadn’t yet found the right time to give the letter to Faith. She realized now that she wasn’t going to give her the letter after all. At around five thirty, still at her desk, Greer was surprised to hear voices gathering in the distance. “Get your jacket, Boxman,” someone called. It was Ben. Men often seemed to call women by their last names when they were flirting.
“That’s Boxwoman to you, Prochnauer,” said Marcella, playing along.
“Did someone reserve a table?” asked a voice that was familiar but not quite placeable, and then Greer recognized it as belonging to Kim Russo, the COO’s assistant from up on 27; they’d met briefly when Greer got the ShraderCapital tour earlier in the week.
“I did,” said Bonnie Dempster, distinctly. “The back one, in case we’re too loud.”
“Oh, we’re definitely too loud,” said someone else. Evelyn, maybe. “They have the best dirty martinis. Olive juice.”
“All of Jews what?” said Ben. “All of Jews are . . . circumcised?”
“No, actually they are not,” said Tad. “And I happen to know.”
“She said ‘olive juice,’” Marcella said, and then there was unstoppered group laughter, and the elevator arrived with its pointed ping and the voices faded as the whole group was swept downstairs together. They were going to a bar, and Greer had not been invited. Suddenly she lost the easy pleasure of sitting there working late. She had already gotten used to the idea that she wasn’t going to be invited into certain meetings, but Tad wasn’t either, and Faith had made it clear it wasn’t personal. Yet Tad was with the rest of them now, and no one had invited Greer to come along.
It was perfectly still in the office now. It occurred to Greer, as if it were a revelation, that she was lonely there, something she hadn’t exactly noticed before. Now it seemed so obvious. Across the big space, evening began to color the windows. Greer sat unmoving and suddenly vulnerable, and soon she heard a sound in the distance. Footsteps; maybe it was a straggler heading off to the bar with the others. The steps were heavy and male. Then there was whistling. Greer sat and listened. “Strangers in the Night,” she decided after a moment. The steps came close, then stopped. Greer looked up and was shocked to see Emmett Shrader peering down at her. She had met him only once, on Tuesday morning when he had come down to the twenty-sixth floor for an awkward meet-and-greet with the Loci staff. He had walked into the larger of the two conference rooms with his young assistants dancing around him like sprites, and an older assistant, homely and probably long-suffering, slightly behind him.
Shrader was seventy, lion-headed, with longish silver hair and, that morning, a dark, sleek suit and expensive tie. “Hello, hello!” he’d said to everyone with forced conviviality, and they’d introduced themselves to him one by one, including the support staff. But by the time they were halfway done, you could see he couldn’t bear to be detained any longer and that he was desperate to bolt. As a result, they all began saying their names at nervous, faster and faster clips, and soon they were through with the exercise and he was gone. Tonight he was in shirtsleeves, released from his suit and tie, but there was something slightly alarming about the sight of an important man in a moment of repose. Anything could happen.
“Which one are you?” he asked, actually entering Greer’s cubicle.
“Greer Kadetsky,” she said.
She looked around frantically at the trappings of her own little space. Her cheap plastic Goody hairbrush was on the desk; she’d used it earlier, and now she could see a few hairs flowing from it. She took in the scent of this very rich man and realized it was unambiguously exciting, or at least exotic, because it had nothing to do with men her own age, those hipsters or little boys who all smelled of smoke and cheese fries and Starbursts and macchiatos. Cory often smelled of the protein bars she gave him by the case, and a cheap shampoo he grabbed from the drugstore that was supposedly made with balsam, but to which he paid so little attention that he once referred to it as “my balsa wood shampoo.” She’d said, “You think you’re shampooing your hair with balsa wood? Like, what kites are made of?” He had shrugged and said he hadn’t ever thought about it.
But someone gave a lot of thought to the way Emmett Shrader smelled and dressed and presented himself. He had a look and smell of holdings and real estate and absolute certainty. In such close proximity to him, Greer felt she desperately needed to hide her ratty hairbrush. “So what do you do here?” Emmett Shrader asked, actually seeming curious.
“Booking.”
“What does that mean, you pick the speakers to tell their sob stories?”
“No, I just try to get them to come. Other people pick them.”
“Sounds fascinating. Why are you here so late?”
“You’re here late too,” she pointed out.
“I have an excuse,” he said. “I was hanging out with your boss-lady. She and I have a two-person soirée once in a while. If I didn’t get a chance to sit and talk with her after hours, then I don’t know what I’d do. I need that.”
“She’s wonderful,” said Greer, spontaneously, and her voice came out sounding so reverent that Shrader laughed.
“She is,” he agreed. He looked at her with a thoughtful new expression. “You’re a Faith Frank groupie, is that right?” he asked.
Greer hesitated uncomfortably. “Well, I don’t know about that. I admire what she does.”
“Oh come on, tell me. You look up to her, right? You think she can do no wrong. You want to please her and all that craperoo.”
“Okay, sure. But I really do admire what she does.”
“Well, me too,” Shrader said.
They were quiet and companionable for a moment. He reached down onto her desk and spun her hairbrush, probably because he just needed to do something with his hands. Greer had read that the founder of ShraderCapital was restless, often bored, with an extremely short attention span. Many years later, after Greer was well-known, someone at a dinner party in LA would ask her if she could name a quality common to successful women, and she thought about this for a second, then said, “I think a lot of them know how to talk to men who have ADD.” Everyone at the table had thought this was a very funny answer, but maybe it was actually true.
“So,” Shrader said. “You don’t like to go out with all the other people at the end of the week? Out for potato skins and the blooming onion, or whatever they eat to absorb all the alcohol?”
“No one invited me.” She heard the self-pitying sound to her words.
“No one had to invite you,” Emmett said. “Come.” He gestured for her to follow him, so she did, confused and cautious, walking behind him along the floor and down the hall and into Loci’s communal kitchen. There, above the coffee machine, was a handwritten and prominent sign: “FRIDAY DRINKS!” it read, followed by when and where to meet. Somehow, in her absorption, she hadn’t seen it.
“Friday afternoons are a thing,” said Emmett. “Everyone goes out. The people from my floor and yours.”
She understood that she had been doing everything wrong there, except for the work itself.
“You can still catch up with them,” Shrader said.
So Greer went back to her cubicle and pulled her jacket from its hook. Then she hurried down the street to the old brown façade of the Woodshed with the leaded glass windows, and there they were in the back, most of the team from 26, as well as some young associates and administrators from 27. When Greer walked through the hot, full bar and arrived at the pushed-together tables, Helen Brand raised a hand in greeting and said, “Everyone, make room.” They all rearranged themselves, opening up a space for her, and she slipped in between Ben and Kim Russo from upstairs.
“Howdy,” said Kim. She raised a glass to Greer—“A Cosmo. So dated, I know,” she said, “but I need something at the end of another ratfuck week”—and drank. “Let’s get you something strong too,
” she said.
“Sure, though I’m not sure I need something strong-strong. My job isn’t too stressful. I actually wish it was.”
“Did you hear that?” Kim said to the table. “Her job ‘isn’t too stressful’ but she wishes it was.”
“You’ll get there, Greer,” said Helen from down at the other end. “I came on only two weeks before you did. It accelerated quickly.”
“Well, your job is different. You have more to do.”
“If you want more to do,” said Kim, “then do more. That’s the rule of thumb in any workplace.”
“Good to know,” said Greer.
“Make yourself indispensable. I somehow made the COO think I had a deeper skill set than anyone else, and he bought it. Now he calls me on weekends to do extra work, and I can’t be like, ‘No thank you, Doug, I’d rather not.’ Anyway, I got a bonus this year.”
“There are no bonuses at a women’s foundation,” said Helen. “But I knew that going in.”
“The bonus,” said Ben, “is when Faith smiles at you. Then it’s like being smiled at by God.”
Greer took a sip of the cold drink that had appeared before her and said, “I would like to be smiled at by God.”
“If God is actually a man, maybe you’ll be winked at,” said Kim.
“Or murdered,” said Marcella. “Seriously, why do men hate women? There are so many words in the English language that men use to describe their hatred of women. Bitch. Whore. The C-word. It’s like the overused thing about Eskimos and snow. But we never discuss this—the actual why of it. Ben and Tad, I’m looking at you.”
“Come on, Marcella, I don’t hate women,” said Ben, holding up his hands. “Don’t look at me.”
“And don’t look at me either,” said Tad. “Most of the time I’m like, ‘Why do I have to share a gender with you, you piece of shit?’ It’s like when you have a bad relative who has the same last name.”