The Female Persuasion

by Meg Wolitzer

  “Faith said men are scared of women,” said Bonnie. “And that’s the key to everything.”

  “Right,” said Evelyn. “And she said it once on TV with that asshole novelist. Back in seventy-whatever.”

  “Evelyn and I were both in the studio audience,” said Bonnie. “And afterward, we all went out for fondue. Most of you won’t know what I’m talking about, but it was the age of fondue.”

  “There were used skewers wherever you looked,” said Evelyn. “I can’t remember exactly what she said men were scared of.”

  “Whatever it was,” Ben said, “I’m sure she was right. Men know that women have our number. Like, women can see through us—”

  “Yes, you had a hamburger for lunch,” said Bonnie, to laughter.

  “—and they can tell that we’re full of shit. But the world keeps propping us up, and women know it, and we know you know it, so maybe we hate you because you have something on us. You’re basically witnesses to a crime.”

  Greer, listening, thought about how she wished Zee were part of this. Then she remembered why Zee wasn’t, and felt a new, strange peppering of shame. She also thought about how Ben was like a young feminist’s dream, so good-looking and on the side of women, not threatened by them at all. Cory could be described that way too. Ben’s leg was against hers now, maybe not consciously. His other leg was probably against Marcella’s leg. Marcella in her little skirt and tights and heels. Marcella Boxman looked like she worked not for Loci or for ShraderCapital, but for Vogue. Distantly, Greer recognized her own envy of the way Marcella moved through the world. Marcella had Ben’s interest, and she had survived Faith’s criticism, and she would probably end up being a powerful figure of some kind. It was a good thing that the first summit was about power; Marcella could pick up some tips to hasten its inevitability in her own life.

  The group was laughing, and the back room of the bar heated up further. Greer was overexcited being there, and the talk got loud, and louder, and then it peaked and the mood became reflective and even weary. The drinks stopped coming, and the evening started to wind down. Ben and Marcella would now have part two of the evening, Greer thought: going home to one of their beds. And the other people in the group, did they have partners waiting too? Was Greer the only one who would be alone?

  “Time to tear ourselves away,” said Helen.

  People started to get out their wallets to throw down money, but just then someone urgently said, “Faith,” which didn’t in and of itself mean anything, because Faith’s name was always getting said, a constant, a heartbeat, a rumbling blurp in the water cooler. But then Greer looked up and saw Faith walking toward the table. Wallets went back into bags and pockets, for the night apparently wasn’t over yet after all.

  “Faith, over here!” called Bonnie. Around the back room, a few people at other tables looked up and whispered to one another. They smiled, and one person said, approvingly, “Faith FRANK!” then everyone went back to their conversations. This was New York, where famous people drank from the same trough you did, and where, in the scheme of things, Faith wasn’t all that famous. The long tables, pushed together, were filled to their maximum, but everyone squeezed even closer, and Greer found herself jammed further against Ben; she could feel the key ring in his pocket. Across from Greer, Faith sat down, and almost immediately a martini appeared before her, its glass perfectly beaded, extra olives in a pyramid at the bottom.

  “I’m very grateful for this,” Faith said. “The world is so enormous, but if you have places where they know what you like to drink, then all is well.” Everyone casually talked to her, but no one wanted to monopolize her. Greer noted the way Faith maneuvered her way along the table without actually moving, like a figure in a painting whose eyes follow you around the room. She said something to each person, sharing a sympathetic or amused expression.

  Greer had been talking to Kim when Faith broke in. Kim was telling her how women in a corporate environment were not always good to one another. “We have this woman upstairs who will go unnamed,” Kim said. “She’s a heavy hitter in VC, and awful to other women. I hear stories all the time. I was in the elevator with her and she just stood there staring at the door, not saying a word, not even hi, and I wanted to say to her, I know I’m just an assistant, but don’t you know that we’re supposed to be decent to each other? I totally get that you feel threatened, because you’ve been made to feel this way. The ranks of women are kept really, really thin, so everyone feels that they’re the only one allowed in, and they can’t afford to be nice to other women.”

  Cunts, Greer thought. That is what Zee called women who hated women. She remembered the song with those lyrics that Zee had once sung.

  Suddenly Faith said, “So, Greer, you’re making friends here? Finding your way?”

  It was the drink, partly; that was what she thought later. It was the drink, and the late hour, and the coincidence that Greer had been thinking about Zee at that exact moment; of course, she’d been thinking about Zee a lot all week, because of her letter. Kim turned away, talking to Iffat and Evelyn and giving Greer a moment with Faith; Ben, on Greer’s other side, was talking to someone at the next table. No one was listening to Faith and Greer. “I have a friend who wants to work here,” Greer suddenly said to Faith, almost in a whisper. “She wants me to give you a letter that she wrote, telling you about herself. You met her with me back in college.”

  “Ah,” said Faith.

  “But if I’m really being honest with myself, I know that there’s a reason I haven’t given it to you yet.”

  “Okay.”

  “I guess I really don’t want her to work here.”

  “She wouldn’t do a good job?”

  “I’m sure she’d do a terrific job. She’s been an activist. She just puts herself out there. Plus, she was the one who told me about you in the beginning. She’s wonderful. I just don’t think I want to share this experience with anyone. I think I want it for myself.” Greer was waiting now for Faith to condemn her or absolve her. Greer’s purse with the letter in it, down at her feet beneath the table, felt as dangerous as a nuclear suitcase.

  “I see,” said Faith. “And do you know why that is?”

  “I have an idea,” Greer said. “But if I say it out loud, I don’t know how it’s going to sound.”

  “Try it.”

  “My parents never knew how to be parents,” Greer said, and Faith nodded. “The house was always messy, and I felt like we were all boarders in a boardinghouse. We didn’t eat together that much. They didn’t really get involved in the particulars of my life: my schoolwork, my friends. None of it was very interesting to them. They had this idea about being ‘alternative,’ but really I think they were mostly pretty marginal. They were potheads. They still are.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Faith said gravely. “I wish someone had recognized what was going on, and tried to help your family be more of a family. It must have been confusing. A child just wants to love her parents and be loved, and it seems like it should be simple to do that, but sometimes it’s not.” Hearing the words in the past tense was kind of a revelation. That must have been confusing, Faith was saying, but it is no longer all that relevant.

  “I think they were disappointed in me,” Greer said. “I was so different from them. But I wanted something more.” She realized how easily she was speaking to Faith. It wasn’t like the time in the ladies’ room. “I was very ambitious. I studied like crazy,” she said. “And I read novels day and night. I had a mission.”

  “Which was?” Faith speared an olive in her drink, slid it between her teeth.

  “To absorb everything in the world. But also to escape.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “So I’m not saying that this excuses what I feel about my friend working here,” said Greer. “But I think it’s the truth. She would be shocked if she heard me saying that I didn’t want
her.” She paused. “She’s going to ask me what happened, either way, and I’ll have to say something.” Greer thought about it. “I could tell her I gave you the letter, but that there were no jobs. If I did that, would it make me a terrible person?”

  Faith didn’t answer, but just kept looking at her. “Greer, shall I read the letter and make a decision about whether your friend should come in for an interview?” she asked gently. Greer couldn’t answer. “Or do you just want to let it go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, my offer to read it stands,” Faith said. “You can put it on my desk Monday. Or not.”

  “Thank you,” was all Greer could say, miserably.

  There was a silence, and Greer thought Faith was going to turn away, perhaps in disapproval, and talk to someone else. But instead she said, “I like the way you try to figure things out, Greer. You’re genuine and thoughtful, even about parts of yourself you’re not proud of. Want to do some writing for me?”

  “Sure,” Greer said. “I’d love it.”

  “Good. We’re going to have small events around the city in the months before the first summit. These will be media lunches and dinners. There will be maybe twenty-five guests, max. Very intimate. The speakers I have in mind are women who’ve experienced injustice firsthand and tried to do something. None of them are slick. None of them are used to public speaking. They’re not going to be at our summits, but we want them for these small events, kind of like teasers. It’s important that they really know what to say. And I think, having read your fine writing, and hearing you talk tonight, that you’d be someone who could help them shape their words into something good.”

  “That sounds excellent,” said Greer. “Thank you, Faith.”

  “You’re welcome. Done.”

  And that was it. Greer would write small speeches for Loci. In this way, she would make herself indispensable. The whole evening had been tremendous, even the difficult part when she’d confessed about the Zee letter. Greer knew that the night would stay in her mind for a long time, and she would remember sitting at that long table drinking and chatting more and more easily with other people who wanted to do good in the world. And one of those people had been Faith. Faith, who approved of Greer. The approval was as soft as velvet, and the desire for that approval was, also like velvet, a little vulgar. It didn’t even matter, Greer thought, that nothing had happened tonight that would make Faith think: What a special night this was!

  Faith wouldn’t think: I loved talking to that young Greer Kadetsky. I know that Greer had a moral choice to make about the letter her friend gave her to give to me, and I watched her struggle with it. She is finding her way, young Greer, and I was glad to be there to watch, and to assist if I could. Tonight was a lovely night, a bracing night, a memorable night.

  No, Faith wouldn’t think the night had been unusual at all. But Greer would.

  Just then Bonnie Dempster said, “Faith! What was that witty thing we chanted at the ERA march, remember?”

  Faith turned to Bonnie and said, “Did it go, ‘One, two, three, four’?”

  And Bonnie said, “Yes, it did! And what came next?” to which Faith said, “Oh, Bonnie, I have no idea whatsoever.” Then, to everyone, “Senior moment.” There was laughter.

  The letter from Zee, still at the bottom of Greer’s purse, instantly became less significant. At work again on Monday, Greer forgot about it; she literally did not think about it once, and Faith didn’t mention it. Faith had a lot of demands on her time, a lot of people asking her questions, soliciting her advice, calling her up, emailing her at all hours.

  A few days later, when the fact of the letter suddenly struck Greer again, she thought that it was too late now. Too much time had passed. Faith had probably forgotten all about it, and Greer should just let it drop. That was what she told herself.

  That night, though, Zee called from her childhood bedroom in Scarsdale, where she was sitting beneath her old posters of the Spice Girls, and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, and endangered baby animals crouching in tundra or field or forest. “So did you get a chance to give the letter to Faith?” she asked.

  Greer paused, sickened, madly thinking. “Sorry to say,” Greer said, “there are no jobs there.”

  “Oh,” said Zee. “That’s too bad. I know it was a long shot. Did she say anything about what I wrote?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “No worries!” said Zee, a joke between them. Then, “I appreciate it that you tried. I’ve got to get out of this law firm soon, somehow.”

  A confession to Faith, then a nonaction, then a lie. That was the sequence, and then it was done. Greer wondered, afterward, if everyone had a certain degree of awfulness inside them. There were moments when you idly glanced into the toilet or into a tissue after you’d used it, and suddenly remembered that this, this was what you carried around inside you all the time. This was what was always waiting to be let out. When she got off the phone, the letter went into a bottom drawer of her dresser. She wondered exactly what it said, though she would never read it, and she would never tell anyone else what she had done. Only Faith knew.

  The following day when Greer arrived at work, she found a folder from Iffat on her desk containing printouts about the women who were coming to give talks at the small media lunches and dinners. Over the next couple of months these women came into the office one after another to be interviewed by Greer. They told her their stories about being harassed, or denied equal pay or the chance to play sports, and trying to do something about it. Once they started talking, and realized how carefully Greer was listening, they talked more openly.

  What the stories had in common was a deep and grinding sense of unfairness. Unfair could burn you up. Sometimes the women seemed entirely burned up the minute they started talking, but other times they just seemed defeated, and they cried into their hands as they sat in the conference room with Greer. Their faces became congested, and they were so exposed that she wanted to shield them, knowing they were surrounded by glass, and that some greenish, blurred version of them could be seen by everyone walking past. When they cried she sometimes cried a little too, but she never stopped taking notes or running the little digital recorder. She learned she didn’t need to say much; it was better if she didn’t. Later on, after they left, Greer sat down and wrote the speech as if they were telling it into her ear.

  The first speech Greer wrote was for Beverly Cox, who worked in a shoe factory upstate where the men were paid more, and on top of that where the women were degraded and harassed, and they all had to work together inside a hotbox roiling with fumes. The product they made there was high-end shoes for wealthy women, all pointed toe and weaponized heel. Greer sat in her cubicle playing back a tape with headphones on, listening to Beverly haltingly describe standing in a line of women making heels, while across the way a group of men made soles, and were paid more for it. After Beverly discovered the discrepancy and complained to the manager, she was harassed and threatened by male coworkers. They changed the lock on her locker so she couldn’t open it; they slashed her tires; they left threatening and pornographic messages at her workstation. The smells of leather and glue became associated with degradation; they were in her head and on her clothes all the time. The lawyer she called for help put her in touch with the foundation.

  “I’d get out of my car in the parking lot each morning and walk into that factory like I was walking a plank,” Beverly had said, and then she burst into tears, and Greer had said, “Take as long as you need.” On the tape, for a very long stretch, all that could be heard were Beverly’s scared, shaky breaths, and once in a while Greer saying, “It’s okay. I think it’s great that you’re speaking about this. I really admire you.” And then Beverly had said, “Thank you,” and blown her nose loudly. Then there was more silence. Greer didn’t try to shorten it. A person needed to take her time when she talked about what had been so hard for
her. Greer sat in her cubicle, listening to the breathing, and then, again, the talking.

  When Beverly delivered the speech at lunch in an Italian restaurant in midtown to a small crowd of local media, everyone was quiet, appalled. Of course it was exciting for Greer to be the one who had shaped the speech, and to know that Faith, who was also in the room, knew it too. Faith came over to Greer afterward and lightly whispered, “Nailed it.”

  But what excited Greer now wasn’t only Faith’s praise. While it would always feel extraordinary to know she had the admiration of Faith Frank, what also excited Greer was that the speeches she was writing might give the women who delivered them a chance to be ambitious too; as ambitious as she was.

  * * *

  • • •

  Winter dissolved, and the office hummed louder and the beta lights burned longer and perhaps even greener, and work often extended deep into the night. Pizza was often ordered late, giving work the quality of a college all-nighter. Ticket sales still needed to be ramped up, Faith told the whole office once at two a.m., a slice of pizza in hand. The in-demand disabled former governor who was supposed to come give a barn burner at the first summit about sexual assault in the disability community had just canceled. “It’s crazy here,” Greer said to Cory on Skype even later that night. “No one can sleep, or have a life outside work. We’re all basically doing only this.” But she was excited, and he could hear it.

  “Lucky you,” he said from his own desk in Manila, where it was afternoon and he was shuffling around papers in the service of companies he didn’t really care about. Other people in his office cared, but he didn’t, or at least not enough. “I think I’m supposed to like it more,” he’d said once. “Like you do.”

  Everything, Faith said, depended on the success of the first summit. If it failed, then maybe ShraderCapital would pull out. Though the ticket sales were a problem, the advance press had been impressive, with camera crews appearing at work, and interviewers disappearing into Faith’s office for a long one-on-one.