The Boys' Club

by Erica Katz

  From: Peter Dunn

  To: Alexandra Vogel

  Subject: How is Academy?

  From: Alexandra Vogel

  To: Peter Dunn

  Subject: Re: How is Academy?

  More interesting than I thought it would be. Let’s leave it at that.

  From: Peter Dunn

  To: Alexandra Vogel

  Subject: Re: How is Academy?

  Always is, kiddo. When will you be back?

  From: Alexandra Vogel

  To: Peter Dunn

  Subject: Re: How is Academy?

  Tonight!

  From: Peter Dunn

  To: Alexandra Vogel

  Subject: Re: How is Academy?

  That’s the best news I’ve heard this month. We miss you!

  I stared at my phone and couldn’t keep the grin from spreading across my face. Feeling charitable, I finally opened the email from my parents that I had allowed to linger in my in-box for the past twenty-four hours, and agreed to meet them for dinner on the day I got back from LA. I knew they were anxious to see me, having both remarked at Christmas that I looked thin and tired. As soon as I hit send, I regretted it.

  Chapter 19

  “Hi!” I kissed my mother’s cheek outside the entrance to L’Artusi in the West Village. She lingered close to me, inhaling my scent the way she always did. “Where’s Dad?” I asked, looking past her.

  “He’s not coming.”

  “Oh no! Why?” I struggled to swallow as my mouth dried out. I needed my father’s hospital stories and corny jokes as a buffer from my mother’s interrogation.

  “Because I asked him not to,” she said, and patted my shoulder gingerly. “I thought we could have some girl talk.”

  Crap.

  I followed the hostess robotically to our table, feeling that I was somehow in trouble.

  “How are you?” she asked as soon as we sat, looking like she was expecting me to break down right there at the dinner table.

  I met her gaze, but no words would come. Instead, I gulped down my water. Why did I always feel sad when my mom thinks I might be sad?

  “Working too much. Can we get wine?” I scanned the list of bottles without registering any of them.

  “Yes!” she said. “Wine is a great idea.”

  I ordered a bottle of cabernet, and all of a sudden I had the sense of occupying a different role in the universe than I had even a few months before—an adult on equal footing with my mother. When the waiter returned to open the wine with a flourish and pour a taste, I swirled it in the glass and smelled it and took a sip. I thought for a moment. And another.

  “I’m sorry, I think it’s off,” I said politely, as my mother’s eyes widened. “Can we try something similar?”

  “Miss, I just opened it,” the waiter said, stating the obvious.

  “Maybe you could just have the sommelier come over,” I said before my mother had a chance to speak. The waiter looked annoyed but turned on his heel obediently.

  “Alexandra, that’s a perfectly good seventy-five-dollar bottle of wine. When they ask you to taste it, they don’t expect you to send it back.” Her voice grated on my eardrums.

  “It wasn’t. And they do if it’s not actually perfectly good.” I put my hands to my temples, attempting to soothe the headache that had just come on.

  “Are you okay?” My mother eyed me apprehensively.

  I looked up at her. I don’t know what it was about my parents’ concern for me, but it always forced me to become somebody who warranted it. Their sympathy made me depressed, their worry made me anxious.

  I sat up and forced cheeriness into my voice. “Just jet-lagged, I think.”

  “You’re so thin. And—”

  I was saved by the arrival of the sommelier.

  “Bonsoir, mademoiselle,” he said with a slight bow.

  “Bonsoir, monsieur. I think this wine is off.”

  I saw him size me up, noticing my Alexander Wang boots, and soften. He took the glass he was holding and poured himself a bit. He smelled and paused and scowled.

  “Of course it is, chérie,” he said, shaking his head, then shot a scornful look at the waiter. “If it’s cabernet you’re after, I have just the one. A real gem. And I’ll charge you the price of this bottle. Which is just passable when it’s at its best.”

  I looked back at my mother, who studied me as though I were a stranger, but I felt somehow steadier in my position from having been right about the wine.

  “I’m so glad we did this. I never see you as just us,” I said, breaking the silence.

  “I know, me too. Tell me what’s going on. How’s Sam?” She leaned in as though I was about to tell her a secret.

  I inhaled sharply. “He’s good! He’s the same! We’re the same!” I raised my voice, trying to reassure her, but I detected a slump in her shoulders. Suddenly the image of the engagement ring surrounded by black velvet burst into my mind, and I felt nauseated. I hadn’t thought about it in so long. Thank god work had been so busy.

  “Oh honey. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing! Is it hot in here?” I swatted at the air around my face.

  “Well, if nothing’s wrong, why are you ‘the same’?” she asked, using air quotes. I hated when she used air quotes.

  “We’ve always been happy. Why would being the same be bad?”

  “Alexandra, Sam has spoken to your father and I about . . . wanting to move forward. Are you ready for that?”

  “Your father and me,” I muttered, staring down at the menu without focusing. Of course she knew the correct grammar. I didn’t know why I felt the need to correct her. I felt her frustration emanating from her intertwined fingers, but the arrival of our wine was a helpful distraction.

  I nodded as the sommelier moved his lips and I pretended to take note of the label. I thought for a moment about telling her I wanted to get another year at Klasko under my belt before I got engaged. Who knows, maybe that was the truth. It occurred to me that if I told her everything I was feeling, she might be able to snap me out of whatever was keeping me from being excited about marrying Sam. She could help me to stop whatever itch I’d been scratching when I slept with Peter.

  I stuck my nose in the glass and inhaled.

  “Is that asparagus?” I asked. The sommelier almost clapped, chatting so gleefully about the grapes and the fog that year that I bought myself another four minutes of mindless chatter before facing my mother.

  When we were left alone, we clinked our glasses, and I thought I saw a look of pride in her eye at the sophisticated adult daughter.

  “I taste asparagus for sure,” she said after taking a sip. I inwardly sighed. She didn’t taste asparagus, I would hope. She probably didn’t even smell it. I suddenly felt an enormous gulf between us. It seemed like the life she had given me had spun off in a direction so different from her own that we had irreparably diverged. I decided against telling her what was going on with Sam and with Peter. What advice could she offer me, anyway?

  “What is it, Bunny?” she said.

  I opened my mouth but couldn’t quite bring myself to speak as the tightness in my chest migrated upward to my nose. I wavered for a second, and then opted to change course.

  “My life with Sam isn’t exciting anymore. I don’t think it’s the life I want forever,” I said softly.

  “That’s just intimacy, honey,” she said with a slightly dismissive but knowing smile.

  “It’s boring,” I said, staring at the table. “But you’re right. Boring is part of intimacy. I’m not sure I want to get married. Ever.”

  I looked up, expecting to see disappointment on her face, but she just laughed. “That’s just cold feet. Of course you want to get married.”

  “No, Mom. I think I’m just not the marrying kind. I don’t really know what kind of person I am yet.” My words were raw, the kind that escape your lips in a rare and precious moment. And they can really knock the wind out of you when you hear them aloud. I fought back t
ears.

  “Alexandra, you act like a relationship owes you something. Like it’s supposed to make you whole or better or more fulfilled or excited without working on it. You want a perfect marriage to appear the way you can order delivery for dinner—like it’s sitting there waiting for somebody to bring it to you in neat packaging. It’s not a thing you can order, it’s a fluid state. A process.”

  I stared at her. “You’re not even listening to me! I don’t want to be served marriage at all! I want Aspen for the weekend and a vacation home and good wine! Maybe if I want kids down the line, I’ll think about it. But right now, the idea of wedding rings and wedding plans and suburbs really doesn’t appeal to me.”

  My mother straightened her spine against the back of her chair. “Do you not think we gave you a good life growing up?”

  “Mom, this isn’t about you. I promise.”

  My mother blamed herself for anything that ever went wrong in my life, and as a result, anything that went wrong in my life became about her. When I was young, she used to apologize for my asthma and my slight scoliosis, telling me she was sorry she “made” me that way. But my problems were harder to solve now, and I had no patience for this. I scratched at my forearm as I planned an exit strategy from this topic of conversation. “I do love Sam. I guess you might be right. It’s probably cold feet. I just need time.”

  As I took a long drink of wine and watched her posture relax, I felt a hollowness in the pit of my stomach, an oblong shape with round edges that was so dark it was almost black.

  * * *

  On Friday the entire office vibrated with the rumor that Derrick had just gotten fired for his indiscretion at First-Year Academy, the stories spinning so fast it was impossible to tell fact from fiction.

  I heard he got arrested in the hotel.

  He had a huge party in his room with hookers and blow.

  He’s dating a stripper.

  The firm is freaking out because he was their star black associate.

  He’s cleaning out his office right this second.

  I didn’t know what had precipitated his downward spiral, but I felt a blinding guilt for not sitting down with him earlier to figure it out, as well as for my role in his being caught. I shot him a quick note.

  From: Alexandra Vogel

  To: Derrick Stockton

  Subject: Can I stop by?

  From: KLASKO TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT

  To: Alexandra Vogel

  Subject: ERROR: Invalid email address

  ERROR1209724 - derrick.stockton@klasko.com is not a valid email address

  I typed his name into our firm database, only to find that his picture was no longer up on the website. It didn’t surprise me that an institution as powerful as Klasko had a way of making people who reflected poorly upon the institution vanish into thin air. I opened my iPhone to send him a Facebook message but couldn’t find any trace of his account. He must be mortified, I thought. He must want to disappear. I got up out of my chair and marched down the hallway. Maybe I could catch him before he left the building.

  When I arrived at his office, the door was half open, but he wasn’t alone. Lincoln stood watching him, arms folded and his expression stoic and tight-lipped. They both looked up as I entered.

  “Hi,” I said softly, and turned to Lincoln. “Um, can I have a moment with Derrick?”

  “Afraid not,” he said apologetically.

  It took me a moment to realize that he wasn’t joking. Derrick had stopped packing up the cardboard box on his desk and was looking at me expectantly.

  “Can we sit a minute?” I asked Lincoln. He thought for a moment and nodded, as though making a concession. I took a seat in his guest chair.

  “I just wanted to come by . . . I just wanted to say . . . I’m sorry this happened.”

  Derrick took the seat opposite mine. “Thanks. You’re the only person who’s come by.” He watched me for a moment, then arched his spine backward, as though he had a pain in his rib. “I totally deserve this. I think sometimes I get so sick of this place treating me differently, even if it’s better, because I’m black. I was sick of it. It’s like being a show pony. I guess I just got carried away with testing the boundaries.”

  I paused before answering that. “I think I sometimes feel just a fraction of that as a woman.” I didn’t want him to think I was pretending to know exactly how he felt, or experiencing it at the same level. But I did feel some of it. And honestly, most of the time I was grateful for it. “I’ll miss you. Can we stay in touch?”

  Derrick nodded at me and then looked at Lincoln, as though weighing his next words. “Watch out for yourself here, Alex. You’re one of the good ones.”

  I hugged him goodbye and headed back to my office, not realizing until I settled into my chair to start drafting a term sheet that Derrick had not given me his new number.

  * * *

  I spoke quickly as I watched Harold Gottlieb, my fellow first-year associate, scribble down every word I said. I should have been kind and spoken more slowly, but part of me took a twisted pleasure in challenging him. Harold had worked for the tax group for his first five months, and had only recently decided he wanted to make the switch to M&A, so Jordan and Matt had staffed him on a deal with me, and put me in the unusual position of supervising a peer.

  Harold combed through his curly red hair and scanned the room, looking everywhere in my office except at me—he was awkward and unsure of himself. He was put together, though—his suit was perfectly tailored, and he wore a tie clip, which I thought gave him a charming and old-fashioned touch of flair—except for his fingernails, which he’d bitten down so far that they were simply small strips of keratin with bloodied borders, the equivalent of webbed feet paddling frantically below a glassy surface.

  “I can never find your attachments. You attach them way at the bottom of the chain. It’s like a treasure hunt,” I said, scrolling down. Harold parted his lips to apologize, but I cut him off. I was trying to remember what it was like not to know anything, but annoyance trumped my sense of empathy. “So, after you read the minutes, you and I—” My phone rang. Jordan. I heard Anna pick it up. “—you and I can sit down and review any of the flags you raised on stock—”

  I half heard Anna saying “. . . in with an associate. I’ll give her the message.” An instant message popped up on my screen.

  JORDAN SELLAR: NEED YOU ASAP!!!! DEAD BODY IN MY OFFICE

  I peered at my computer to confirm what I had just read. “I’m so sorry, Harold. I need to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can to finish up our conversation. Feel free to stay in here and finish up notes,” I said, already halfway out the door. Anna stood up in her cubicle as I exited.

  “Make sure he doesn’t touch anything,” I whispered to her. She eyed the back of his head through my open door and raised an eyebrow.

  I pushed the elevator button repeatedly, despite knowing it would do nothing to accelerate its arrival. When the doors opened on Jordan’s floor, I ran down the hallway to Jordan’s office to find his door closed and the sound of a frantic female voice coming from inside. I almost turned to leave before reminding myself that he had begged me to be there. Instead I knocked casually.

  “Come in!” I heard him call, and I swung the door open to see a woman standing by the desk. Her eyelids were so swollen they drooped low, leaving only little slits. Her hair was piled into a messy bun, and the unforgiving fluorescent light of the office did no favors to her blotchy skin, a mosaic of tear stains. Was that what I looked like after I closed a deal?

  I glanced at the wedding portrait behind Jordan’s desk to confirm that she was the same bright-eyed, glowing bride I’d spotted across the ballroom at the Pierre in December.

  “Hi, Jessica! I’ve heard so much about you!” I smiled and then allowed it to fade, pretending to just now notice the expression on her face. “Is this a bad time?” I asked innocently.

  “Yes,” she hissed.

  “It is,” Jordan began. He’d been pac
ing nervously. “But actually, it’s good that you’re here.” His wife whipped her head around to him in disbelief. “Shut the door.”

  I obeyed.

  “Jessica, Alex Vogel.” Jordan pointed to his wife and then to me.

  “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” I said, bending my legs at the knees just in front of Jordan’s spare chair.

  “Don’t sit!” she snapped. I straightened up.

  “Alex, I can’t tell you what this is about, but . . . answer one question,” Jordan said, then paused and looked at me squarely. “What do I think of Nancy?”

  Jessica whipped her head at him, looking indignant, but then she turned to me, and I saw something softening her features—maybe hope.

  In that moment, I threw out any sense of morality or girl code. There was only loyalty.

  “Nancy who?” I asked. “Duval?”

  Jordan nodded. I let out a small snort of laughter.

  “She’s fit for a straitjacket. She’s the butt of all our jokes,” I said. “Look, I don’t really know that much about her, but I do know that she’s totally unstable.” Jessica looked at me, clearly latching on to my words. “I know it’s not nice, but Jordan and I spend every waking work hour together, basically, so we need something to make fun of, and she’s just such an easy target.”

  I saw Jordan’s shoulders relaxing away from his ears as he took a seat at his desk.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, touching Jessica’s shoulder and furrowing my brow. “I don’t understand. Are you friends with her? Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. We’re just mean and bored.”

  “No.” Jessica shook her head and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “You think she’s crazy?” I nodded. “How do you know?”

  “Oh, it’s all rumors,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. “But I heard she just gets really obsessed with guys. Like apparently she’s even created fake boyfriends.” I swirled my finger around my ear and crossed my eyes, my Oscar-worthy performance continuing.