by David Bledin
“Uh-uh-uh,” the Defeated One says, raising his hand. “We will have none of that, please.”
The Star hangs his head sadly and swivels back around. The Defeated One kisses the CD, reaches up to his bookshelf, and hides it between the pages of an Introduction to Option Pricing textbook.
“So, any chance you’d be interested in coming to this party?”
The Woman With The Scarf sips her cappuccino thoughtfully.
“Hmmm. I’ll be perfectly honest: I don’t really want to go. I mean, I’m kind of curious to get some visuals to back up these crazy stories you’ve been telling me, but on the other hand, it might be a bit much at this stage in our relationship. What’s it been, only a few coffee dates now?”
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that. Thought I’d give it a shot, though.”
“Look, if you really want me to—”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Not a big deal.”
A blur of Armani in my peripheral vision: Five Managing Directors from the Bank’s telecommunications group stride into Starbucks. My instinctive behavior is to reposition my chair so I’m facing the window. The Woman With The Scarf eyes me curiously.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I mumble.
Fortunately the line isn’t too long. The Managing Directors get their coffees and exit without noticing me scrunched up by the window. She must have followed my line of sight.
“You’re nervous about being spotted by your colleagues, aren’t you?”
I don’t answer.
“That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
When I don’t answer again, she smacks me on the shoulder. “It’s official. You are the biggest dork ever!”
I hang my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Anyway, you’re my dork,” she says, grinning. “So, are we still on for dinner this Friday?”
“Fingers crossed.”
“You better not cancel at the last minute again.”
We were supposed to see a movie last weekend, our very first non-Starbucksian date. The plans got nixed when my BlackBerry vibrated ten minutes before showtime. Damage control was moderately successful—lunch at Han’s Blue Diamond Chinese Gourmet on the Monday—but I think she’s still a little miffed about it.
“Work has been slow lately. Maybe a five percent probability something might pop up toward the end of the week, but that’s it, honest to god.”
She sticks her finger in her coffee cup, licking off the last of the foam.
“Okay. But do try to make it.”
“I will, I promise.”
After I return to my desk, it’s back to the task at hand: Who am I going to bring to this party? I ponder it for a few minutes, puzzling over my mental list of acquaintances and third cousins, but now it seems like every female I’ve ever known has faded into the woodwork, all through my own doing: e-mails or calls I never returned, parties or dinners cancelled at the last minute. Just as I’m about to resign myself to stagdom, Outlook pings: 1 New Message. An e-vite to Steph’s twenty-fifth birthday at some bar I’ve never heard of in the Village.
Steph.
Steph.
Who the hell is Steph?
It takes a moment of intense concentration to place her: Steph from a Suits bar at the end of the summer where I was out one evening with the rest of the analysts from the Bank. What was the occasion? Ah yes, sending the summer students back into the wild. It was your classic Bank social outing: a swarm of Brooks Brothers–clad nerdlings drinking overpriced bottles of Amstel Light and fidgeting nervously with their BlackBerrys. Interspersed, a bunch of heavily madeup high schoolers getting off on the fact they’re intimidating the hell out of guys at least seven years their senior. And then there was Steph, half Chinese and half German, dancing on the bar in a slinky miniskirt. Reaching down, grabbing a hold of my Ferragamo tie, the one with the penguins, pulling me toward her, and slurring in my ear: I just looove bankers. Especially bankers with bussshy eyebrows. One thing leading to another, scribbling down our e-mail addresses on a shredded napkin, the sort of exchange you never expect to lead to anything much. And now this.
My mind racing: Could it work? Would I want it to work? Before I start doubting myself, I whip off an e-mail letting Steph know I’ll try to show up at her party (on a Wednesday night—not likely), and also drop a casual reference to the holiday party, wondering if she’d be interested in joining me for a drink or two. The Defeated One flicks a rubber band at me from across the room.
“All right, man, let’s grab Postal and Clyde. Coffee time and then you boys are going to help me pick out a present for the old lady. Big b-day this evening. I need to find something special, as she’s been kind of pissy lately.”
I pick up the rubber band and add it to my rubber-band ball.
“Why?”
The Defeated One shrugs. “Heh, the usual gross negligence.”
Postal Boy is the only one at his desk. He doesn’t look up from plugging away at his spreadsheet. Postal Boy has been getting his lashings extra severely as of late, single-handedly shouldering the brunt of two projects that both exploded over the last couple of weeks. I’m fairly certain he hasn’t slept a wink in the last thirty-six hours, slaving away until seven in the morning, going home to shower and change into a fresh shirt, and being back in the office by eight. It’s the type of schedule that’s crushed many a lesser mortal. While Postal Boy definitely looks the part of the living dead—rings around his eyes, his skin turning a peculiar shade of ashen gray—the fact that he’s still functioning is testament to an exceptional perseverance.
“Postal,” the Defeated One barks at him, “time to get you some juice. Starbucks convoy is leaving in ten seconds.”
Postal Boy doesn’t even turn around, waving us off.
“C-a-a-n-n’-t r-i-g-g-h-t n-o-w-w”—he’s barely capable of stringing syllables together by this point—“m-u-s-s-t f-i-i-n-i-i-s-h c-o-o-o-m-p-s.”
The Defeated One is already gearing up for a flying kick to the back of Postal Boy’s chair. Just as he’s about to launch off, I step forward and block his path, and the Defeated One stumbles backward from the fruitless exertion. I shake my head and push him out the door. Postal Boy keeps typing away, oblivious to his near-brush with the edge of the desk.
As we’re walking toward the elevator, I chastise him. “Christ, that would have been so goddamn inappropriate. Postal’s on the verge of losing it and you’re going to fuck with him now. Don’t you ever know when to stop?”
The Defeated One sneers at this. “Since when did you develop scruples, Mumbles? And no, I don’t support any of us descending into lunacy because of this job.”
He pushes the elevator button.
“Look, you’ve lost the game unless you can always keep a level head and remember: Nobody’s going to die from this”—the Defeated One pauses to enunciate each syllable—“No-bo-dy’s go-ing to die. Think about it. We’re not emergency-room surgeons, just glorified paper pushers. And so, no, I will not pander to Postal turning into a basket case whenever the Philanderer snaps his sticky fingers.”
Getting into the elevator, I’m unconvinced.
“Easier said than done. You know how difficult it is to finesse the Push Back. And let’s not forget who he shares his office space with. The glorious Prodigal Son, who’s out all day porking high school cheerleaders and playing squash with the board of directors. Oh yeah, and then there’s Clyde.”
The Defeated One blinks rapidly when I mention the name.
“What do you mean by that?”
It’s weird; I’m suddenly conscious of the fact that over the last month, the Defeated One and I have never spoken about this explicitly.
“You know what I’m talking about. Disappearing for hours at a stretch during the middle of the workday. Surfing for porn while the Utterly Incompetent Assistant lurks right outside the door.”
The Defeated One shrugs. “He’s always done that.”
I eye him sternly.
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“Tell me you haven’t picked up on it getting worse ever since his dad died. I mean, how normal was that? Plane crashing and a week later he’s back in the office, la-da-da-da-da-da, look at me, I’m completely unaffected.”
We grab our coffee and walk through the lobby toward the gift shop.
“It’s the Bank,” reasons the Defeated One. “You can’t show any signs of weakness. What do you expect from him, to go seek counseling from the Sycophant?”
He flips through his money clip.
“Crap; all I have is a twenty. Can you spot me anything?”
I only have two cents in my pocket, the change from our coffees.
“Sorry.”
As the Defeated One haggles with the cashier over a bottle of perfume, I continue:
“I confronted him in the elevator the day he came back, you know. Tried to do the Good Samaritan thing and let him know I’d be there to listen if he ever wanted to talk about it. And then he practically ripped my head off.”
He’s barely paying attention.
“That’s what you get for being the Boy Scout.”
The cashier won’t budge on the perfume, so the Defeated One settles on a box of Ferrero Rochers and a stuffed Teddy Bear with an American flag printed on its belly.
“She’s going to kill me,” he mutters. “If this doesn’t have Duty Free afterthought written all over it, then I’ll be damned.”
As the cashier hands the Defeated One his change, I turn to exit the gift shop and spot a familiar flash of red hair.
“Speak of the devil.”
The Defeated One shoves the change in his pocket and joins me in observing Clyde strolling briskly out through the revolving doors.
He shrugs. “So? He’s probably taking a smoke break.”
“Clyde doesn’t smoke. Cigarettes, that is.”
“Give him the benefit of the doubt.”
I’m already walking toward the exit.
“Let’s see where Clyde runs off to during the day, why don’t we?”
We push through the revolving doors. The cold air pierces the thin cotton of our shirts, our suit jackets left upstairs so as not to arouse suspicion while we sneak off on our coffee breaks. We’ve exited into the courtyard at the rear of the building, which is packed during the summer with assistants chowing down on their tuna wraps and fruit cups but a deserted wasteland come the end of autumn. A herd of modern-art cow sculptures droop their forlorn bronze heads over the empty flower beds.
Across the courtyard, beside a pillar, Clyde is shooting the shit with a bike messenger.
“Look at that,” the Defeated One says, slapping me on the back. “Clyde is sooo busted. Sneaking off and fraternizing with the help, huh? The Toad would be absolutely livid.”
He’s already turned toward the revolving doors. I wave him back.
“Give it another minute or two. There’s something peculiar about this.”
We’re standing in plain view; Clyde and the bike messenger could easily catch us spying on them.
“Let’s make this a little less obvious,” the Defeated One snorts.
We hide behind one of the pillars. After another minute, the bike messenger reaches into a pocket hidden somewhere within his sleek spandex tights and pulls out a plastic bag and hands it to Clyde. In turn, Clyde passes him a couple bills. Then a shaking of hands, the transaction completed, and the bike messenger strolls off with a lopsided gait.
“Bull’s-eye!” I exclaim.
The Defeated One is unimpressed.
“What’s wrong with you, man? Look at us hiding away behind this pillar. Are we playing narc now? So Clyde does drugs; we knew that already. And so do I, and so do you, and so does everybody at the Bank. Take that back; probably not the Star. Anyway, what’s the big deal?”
It’s a valid point, but I’m not willing to brush it off so easily.
“The big deal is that there’s a fine line in this industry, a tacit understanding of what’s considered inappropriate. Like, for example, you know when it’s okay to sneak off to the bathroom and do your vices, but you also know when you’ve got to buckle down and crank out some comps. We live and die by the line. And though I like Clyde, I really do, and I understand why you’re being so protective of him, he’s crossing that line every single day now. I mean, look at him”—Clyde is brazenly rolling a joint, only partially concealed by one of the bronze cows—“and it’s not even lunch yet, for Christ’s sake.”
When the final licks are in place, Clyde deposits the joint in a pocket and saunters away in the opposite direction of our office tower.
“You think he’s heading off to grab a burrito? Because I’m getting hungry myself,” I say.
The Defeated One scowls.
“I’m sorry.” I step out from behind the pillar. “It’s not like I’m getting off on this. It’s just that I’m worried about him, and I think you are too. And if all this bullshit doesn’t stop, then, well, I’m concerned that everything’s going to come crashing down on Clyde’s head. The senior guys must have already noticed it.”
“Don’t overestimate their interest in us. As long as the work gets done . . .”
Even he doesn’t seem too convinced by this.
“Let’s go back inside,” the Defeated One murmurs.
I sip my bourbon & ginger, a little umbrella nestled between the blocks of ice, and observe Steph circulating through the crowd of black that mingles around the plastic palm trees lining the Imperial Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel. From the waist up she’s dressed fairly conservatively in a Maoist shirt, a severe high-collared satin affair with an ornate golden dragon circling around the back. Below the waist, though, she’s definitely no love child of the Cultural Revolution in a skirt with two dangerous slits in the sides, almost up to her panties, along with saucy black stilettos.
“Where the hell did you find her?” Postal Boy gapes in amazement.
“End of the summer. That night we took the summer kids out before their release into freedom.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty smoking,” Clyde acknowledges. “Not at all what I expected from you. And look at her network; just wait until she gets slipped your promotion.”
“That’s not all she’s gonna get slipped,” the Defeated One cackles, taking a swig of his beer.
I gulp down my drink.
“Hey, at least I brought somebody to this,” I mumble.
The Defeated One shrugs. “I can’t help it if the old lady came down with a last-minute case of strep.”
We’re all in awe of Steph’s magnificent cocktail party prowess. She is truly a mistress of the schmooze, able to flit effortlessly from one group to the next and blabber away on a diverse range of topics: firewall protocols and sleek new motherboard designs with the zealous IT guys; the latest income-trust taxation laws with august senior bankers; the smoothest brand of peach schnapps with the elderly lushes from up on the bond trading floor; manufacturing growth indicators with the economic strategists; even where to buy durable yarn at rock-bottom prices with the taffeta-draped back-office dowagers. Steph has mastered the wisdom behind the schmooze, namely that it’s not all that important to actually know what the hell you’re talking about. As long as you nod enthusiastically and lubricate the small talk with a couple words interjected here or there, you’ll survive the requisite five minutes until you’re off to the next circle.
Of course, it’s the application of this wisdom that’s the tricky bit. I tried my utmost to keep up with her, towing by Steph’s side for the first half hour of the evening, but my enthusiastic nodding was more of a jerky twitch, and any attempt to add to the conversation only led to a pervasive awkwardness for all parties involved. Eventually worn out from cramping Steph’s style, I slinked back to the safe haven of our Gang of Four stationed at a comfortable reach from the bar.
Steph has a competitor in the schmoozing department: the Prodigal Son. I’m trying my best to ignore him, but he’s impossible to miss, hovering above everybody else in the
room and making the otherwise sullen wives titter shamelessly as they try to accidentally brush up against his bulky musculature. It doesn’t help that his date is a willowy blond goddess in a strapless silver dress.
Then again, who cares? This social incompetence thing is not the biggest deal in the world. And it doesn’t hurt that I’m already beginning to feel a wee bit sloshed. We’ve been at this party for less than an hour, just two drinks deconstructing my system, but the bartender has been mixing them up pretty stiff this evening. Perhaps it’s the desperation in our eyes as we order another that has this bald guy in the black vest and John Lennon glasses intuiting our need for instant liquid courage before any attempt to venture more than an arm’s length from his mahogany countertop. And Lulu Heifenschliefen’s brilliance in scheduling this for six o’clock isn’t helping anything much; an open bar is stocked with an AA group’s wet dream—Grey Goose and Cuervo, a slew of Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons—before anybody has had an opportunity to grab a bite since lunch. A handful of elegant hors d’oeuvres float by on silver trays, but they’re flimsy nothings (slivers of exotic vegetables, spoonfuls of ahi tuna tartar, tiny mushroom spring rolls no bigger than a baby’s pinkie), incapable of soaking up the torrents of booze flowing about this room.
The Star passes by with what has to be his female counterpart, a freckled woman with barrettes in her hair and argyle stockings.
“Were you able to splice everything in okay?” he asks nervously.
The Defeated One gives him a thumbs-up.
“Yup. Your brilliant handiwork is soon to have an audience.”
The Star scuffs his foot.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this? I mean, if anybody finds out, we can get in a lot of—”
“Starsy,” the Defeated One says as he swigs his beer, “don’t worry your little head about it. Just try and have a good time tonight.”
As if on cue, a flurry of pastel-colored taffeta and earth-toned tweed whizzes past, this J. Crew montage now distinguishing itself as a dozen or so members of the back-office tribe, rushing the dance floor to boogie down to the opening strains of the Macarena. It’s evident that they’re already this side of rip-roaring drunk. One guy has the classic telltale tie wrapped around his head, and another has stripped down to an “I ♥ Cancun” T-shirt and Bermuda shorts.