“ ‘They’re different from us,’ I was then told.”
“ ‘Different how?’ ”
“ ‘Well, he’ll drink tea and stuff, and keep food in his desk,’ ” the director told me.
“ ‘Sook is the most talented person I interviewed and I’m hiring him,’ I said. Then just as I was hanging up he said, ‘Between the fags and chinks in this place, how do I make any progress in the Institutional Investor research rankings?’ Then, ladies, he hung up.”
We all pause, hanging midmovement while the music in the background seems to get louder.
The other research member at our table is a Julia Roberts look-alike: Nancy Hogan, who was begged to join Feagin with an enormous contract. Her drive and natural intelligence were Street-famous. Nancy gave her boss days and nights for two years, tirelessly completing tasks that she’d drop everything for. One day, however, she shared too much information with her boss, Thomas Toff.
She had a boyfriend and then she didn’t. The fact that she was in New York and he was in London had prolonged what should have been a two-week fling into a six-month relationship. But due to some Russian roulette version of birth control, she was expecting his child. When she could no longer walk around with her skirts open in the back, her blouses hanging over them to camouflage her new girth, she went into Toff’s office.
“I went in there expecting to be congratulated. I mean, he’s a family guy and loves kids. Instead he said to me,” and here she took an enormous swallow of beer, “ ‘I know a place where you can get that taken care of.’ ”
“Take care of what?” asked Alice, someone I knew was desperate to have a baby.
“Have an abortion.”
“Wait. You were six months pregnant,” Amy said.
“Thomas was upset at the potential disruption of his own work. He started openly complaining about me, telling people that I kept running off for sonograms.”
I remember Toff telling me Nancy’s timing couldn’t be worse, so I asked him if his own wife got sonograms with their children. “My wife had a husband with a job,” Toff had told me.
Nancy now tells the table something I knew was coming.
“I’m leaving right after bonuses this year,” she says.
Another very educated talent will walk out the door, leaving no record anywhere of what went on. Nancy, like many before her, will simply evaporate.
“I want to go home to Minnesota,” she tells the table. “Minds are more open there.”
It was Amy’s idea to get us together tonight but it is Amanda Mandelbaum who makes things happen. Amanda is like the aunt who remembers everyone’s birthday, who always has something in the refrigerator, who gets truly concerned if you’re sick, who says the things you think but would never dare say out loud. She has an ambitious side that enabled her to claw her way from sales assistant status to some purgatorial state of almost vice president. She’s made the numbers yet hasn’t gotten the title due to her rough exterior. Simon, my boss, told me to “get her to quit acting like a dude.” She’s five feet two inches of dynamic energy that gets easily irritated.
“So my career is going nowhere if the culture doesn’t change, and we’re the only ones who can do something about that,” Amanda says.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” Alice says, pursing her lips together.
“We meet regularly. We do some things to change the culture. Not with lawsuits but with words. We use the right words at the right moments along with purposeful acts that draw attention to men behaving badly.”
This all sounds almost sweet to me. Sweet and naïve. Still, if I were to bet on any change coming our way, Amanda would be the one to make something happen.
“We should meet once a month,” she says.
“At least,” someone responds.
“I’ll send out meeting notifications by email, with ‘GCC’ under the subject line. They will be from an unknown ISP so look in your spam frequently.”
Heads nod. Mine does not.
“Meetings will rotate from restaurant to restaurant and not be in Midtown. It would look strange for us all to be seen together.”
I finally speak. “What’s with the ‘GCC’?” A harmless enough question.
“I’ve just named our group,” Amanda says. “The Glass Ceiling Club, the club for women who cannot see what in the hell is invisibly blocking them from moving up. We will work to change this entrenched culture and we’re going to do it with manners, without lawsuits or headlines in newspapers.”
“Fitting enough,” I say, feeling slightly energized, high school–ish, and even a little hopeful before I remember that I shouldn’t take part in any of this stuff. I can’t afford the financial punishments of hanging with the rebels. I tell myself I’ll stay on the sidelines.
The Glass Ceiling Club vows not to be catty or spiteful. They promise to be forward-looking and not gripe about the past. They promise to help nurture and maintain the young women who recycle through our ranks like yesterday’s newspaper, and swear to no longer ignore the locker room environment we work in. Without lawsuits or media, we aim to work like grown-ups in breaking up—as a former CEO described it—“the last culturally pure environment in America.”
CHAPTER 5
Where the Heart Is
THE NEXT MORNING I’m in a steamy outdoor shower on some tropical island. Not really. I’m home. My head is hurting as if that party were some off-the-hook night to remember, as if that meeting at the Ear Inn were some beer pong, Jell-O shot throwback, but the pain in my head is really just from sleep deprivation. My kids are hollering on the other side of the door, and it smells like fruit on steroids in here. Magic Marjorie’s Mango Shampoo, Dumbo’s Sweet Strawberry Soap, Slime Lime Body Wash, Power Rangers He-Man Grape-Scented Conditioner. These are the smells of a shower ruled by children. I’m not sure when my salon-worthy soaps, shampoos, and conditioners got taken over by the marketing division of Nick Jr., but the smell is so sweet I can bite it. I used to have face creams from Chanel, plumping gels from La Mer, but at some point, my supply of $90-per-ounce stuff got used as diaper rash cream, and was never replaced. Most days I smell like I will on this one: like a human Scratch ’n Sniff.
Outside the bathroom door, my seven- and four-year-old bounce on the bed. One jumps on either side of the lump in the middle that is their father. Sometimes Bruce does this fake-sleep thing to avoid our programmed conversations of late:
“Who was Kevin’s playdate with?” I ask.
“Ya know, that brat from Australia, what’s his name?” He lifts the bedcovers up just enough to let himself be heard.
“Digby?”
“Sounds right.”
I want to scream that Digby is forbidden here, that he’s out of control, a future drug dealer and leader of organized crime, but instead I swallow the screams and say in a chirpy voice, “Isn’t it great? The baby slept through the night.” When I finally came back home last night Bruce was back in our bed and Owen was in his crib.
“Hmph,” the lump replies. “He’s not really a baby. He’s almost three.” With that he lets the covers fall again and I swallow the urge to tear them off and shake him. Is this really the guy I married?
“Owen has had dry Pull-Ups for two weeks now,” I say, as if this really excites me. What I really want to say is I love you so please get up and get a regular job in the world. Please stop being the depressed house daddy because it makes me feel like I’m all alone in this and I’m cracking.
But even fake, pleasant bathroom talk isn’t getting a rise out of him this morning. It’d be so easy to turn into a whistle-blowing drill sergeant commanding the ship that I’m not aboard during the day, but I try hard not to. Still, there’s only a few minutes before I head out into the world, and I need to be sure we’ve both got the information to get us to the next day.
I do it all in my head: Who drops the kids at school? (Bruce.) Who needs what supplies? (Me/Internet.) Order groceries? (Me/online.) Who will
wait for the never-on-time nanny until she enters squawking a myriad of excuses? (Bruce.) I’m trying hard not to succumb to the instinct to holler the orders that sit like exploding Pop Rocks in my mouth, waiting to be spat out.
Baby Owen is still asleep, which selfishly thrills me. By this hour, he’s usually clawing at my neck, panic rising from his pores. He knows his mother’s time of departure draws near and he hates it when I leave. I tell myself his behavior is age-related. My other two kids did the same until they eventually accepted that I leave each morning, regardless of their efforts, and that I always come back. The fact that Bruce hangs out with them is my comfort. I mean, they have one parent for most of their mornings, and that’s as good as it gets. But Baby Owen can sure emit projectile tears better than his siblings ever did, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t break my heart. Everything in his body language screams of mother-abandonment issues. I do hate those days when he’s asleep in the morning when I leave, and asleep when I come home at night. I imagine that he’ll simply think it’s been one long day when he finally sets his eyes on me tomorrow.
I pick out the three outfits the children will wear for the day. This used to be Bruce’s job until the teacher of our four-year-old called me to ask why Brigid never wears panties to school, and why on that particular February morning, she was wearing open-toed sandals with no socks. “It’s what she chooses,” was Bruce’s defense. “And I don’t wear socks with loafers in February either.”
“But she’s FOUR!”
“And I’m thirty-nine!” he had screamed back. From that day forward, I have always been the one to leave out their clothes.
When I finally get clothes on myself, Brigid plops her shoe choice for me on the bed. This is our deal: I choose for her and she chooses for me. Today it will be the three-inch stilettos complete with rhinestones across the toes. I put them on and stand back to take it all in.
“Match good,” she says, satisfied with her choice.
“Nice and flashy,” I reply.
“Snazzy,” she continues.
Brigid is having a good time trying out new words. I have no idea where snazzy has come from.
“Snazzy,” I agree, admiring her blue eyes that seem largest in the morning.
The lump in the bed groans. My newish auto-alert goes off, that one about trying to remain sexy despite my role as the mother ship. As much as I don’t want to, it’s time to reignite this morning’s inner babe. I head to the lump.
“Do you like Brigid’s choice?” I ask him, seductively putting one bent leg up on the bed.
I lift the duvet off his head so he can take in the view. My skirt has hiked up just enough for him to catch the top of my thigh-high hose. Brigid sees them too. “Big socks,” she says bluntly, pointing at my thighs. His sandy-blond hair is revealed. While it’s moplike, I refrain from suggesting a haircut today. In fact I find myself wondering how he still looks so good. There isn’t a line on his sleep-deprived face and even with the sun directly on his head, not one gray hair reveals itself. He opens one green eye and arches his eyebrow.
“The stripper shoes really make the outfit,” he says, reaching a bare arm out of the covers. He grabs my calf and purrs. Brigid thinks this is fantastic.
“Daddy’s a big cat,” she shrieks.
“Daddy’s a lion,” he answers. “He’s gonna eat Mommy up.”
Brigid runs screaming down the hall and I return my foot to the floor.
“Good day, Big Lion,” I say in a fake English accent. Because the thing we do when we’re uncomfortable with each other is break out in random foreign accents. I have no idea why.
“Au revoir, Mademoiselle Big Tease,” he returns in some Pepé Le Pew voice.
He’s right. Nothing can actually occur between us right now and even if we were alone at this exact second, my biggest desire would be to take the damn big socks off and go back to sleep. Bruce pulls the covers back over his head.
Before I leave I try and reach out to each kid, to make eye contact at least once in every twenty-four-hour period. I turn to my eldest, Kevin, who’s still standing on the bed.
“I saw a Blue-Eyes White Dragon on a kid’s backpack the other day,” I say.
Kevin’s latest obsession is Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
“Cool,” he says, clearly not interested. He has found the remote and is trying to get our childproof television on.
I bend forward to peck his cheek but kiss mostly air because he’s started bouncing again. Brigid has returned but no longer jumps simultaneously with him; instead they go one up, one down, and are probably making Bruce nuts. I sweep my wet hair back into a slick bun; I kiss the jumpers, and the lump, and head to the door. I’m not even fully in the elevator when I hear the Cartoon Network come on the television. Bruce’s sudden alertness is not lost on me.
In the elevator, I swap the stilettos for the Ferragamos in my briefcase, and I hand the fancy shoes to the doorman in what is our daily routine. I’ve never explained it to him and he’s never asked why I hand him shoes each morning. I like it this way. Each day he gets a flashy pair of hooker shoes that he hands to the nanny when she shows up. The nanny puts them back in my closet, and the next day we do it all over again.
CHAPTER 6
Dais of the Dicks
I PREDICT THE most awkward time to address what went on with Barbie’s head last night will be in the afternoon.
And I am right.
If no major earning announcements break after lunch, no wars begin in an oil-laden nation, or no political scandal takes hold of our attention, there is a dull hum that blankets the trading floor in the midafternoon. This is the time of day people run for an extra coffee, a pack of M&M’s, a stimulant legal or not, anything to keep the enthusiasm going. It’s at this moment I hear King shout to me from his spot on the dais.
“Hey, Belladonna, get over here.”
When I say dais, I mean it. Picture a state dinner setup where the heads of state sit at a long table to keep watch over the guests. But on a trading floor, that dais is filled with the “Big Dicks.” No, they are not men named Richard, they are the biggest producers, the highest-paid, and for the twelve years I’ve worked here, nary a woman has ever been seated there. These Dicks are capable of dialing a phone, using the intercom, or even texting me, but King, our most highly esteemed trader, chooses to stand and scream for me to come to the Dick Dais. I’m seated about two hundred feet and seventy people away, so shouting is the way to be certain everyone knows what’s up.
All morning long, most of us have been thinking about Barbie. A few of the women have said things like, “Anything yet?” I’ve been shaking my head and, deep down, filing Barbie into my cabinet of disposable resentment. But since King has announced the time to deal with Barbie is now, a good portion of the floor perks up. They are ready for the show to start.
I point to my headset, indicating to King that he should dial my extension. I want to stay on my own turf but no, he wants me with the Dicks. He shakes his head firmly that he is on the phone and his business is far more important. I stand and march directly toward him, emitting a confidence I’m not really feeling at all.
“I’ve got Bob on the line,” King says loudly.
This confuses me. I think he means Bob, a trader who sits near me. I turn back toward our row to see Bob clearly off the phone. Wrong Bob. The Dicks are perky, and all conveniently off their lines. They have their headsets on and are staring straight ahead, but I see the telephone boards in front of them and instead of the twinkling lights of a busy trading floor, nothing is illuminated. They are all listening to King.
“What’s up?” I say as if I have no time for him.
“Belle, I have Bob Eckert on the line,” he says. “What in hell kind of doll head was that last night?”
Bob Eckert, as in the CEO of Mattel, as in the manufacturer of everything fantastic and pink and Barbie. He’s on the phone with the rainmaking and debonair King McPherson, a guy aching to connect and make Feagin Dixon
Mattel’s investment bank for whatever stocks or bonds Eckert chooses to sell in the future. King is using my Barbie head as an excuse to tell Bob the story of the wild-tempered, sleep-deprived working mother who nearly throttled some upstart for destroying her kid’s Christmas present. Male bonding over women being ridiculous is the perfect way to forge a banking relationship in the Fortune 500, where 12 CEOs are women and 487 are men. That’s why the Dicks are listening. It’s a ballsy call to make. And because he has managed to knock my cool off-kilter I mumble.
“Haircut Barbie.”
“Bob, ever hear of Haircut Barbie?” he says, and the Dicks snicker.
King stands now, running his hand from his hip to his hair, his hip to his hair, like a 70s disco dancer. He continues to speak into his headset, while never once slowing his dance moves.
“Hottest toy of the season?” he booms. “Feagin bankers really do have good taste.”
I can’t believe Eckert has the patience to listen to this. I start to wonder if he’s even really on the phone when King says to me, “How many do you need?”
And for no reason I can fathom, I mumble, “Two.”
I turn, rather than listen to the rest of the conversation, and head back to my seat where Amy’s bright-red face is messing with her no-hair-out-of-place persona.
“Can you believe this shit?” she says.
“Who called you in the ten seconds it took me to get back to my desk?” I ask, wondering how she got the details so fast.
“Call? King had the hoot on. Everyone on the floor heard.”
The hoot ’n’ holler box is a floor-wide intercom. People use it to yell out merchandise, or blocks of stock that Feagin has in inventory, looking for a buyer like a Bluelight special at Kmart. It’s also used for breaking corporate news that affects how a stock trades and is a great distribution device for jokes, flatulence noise, and playground-worthy stunts. To be able to talk to the entire floor at once was too tempting this time. King leaving the hoot on during our little conversation showed everyone how to suck up for business from a powerful CEO. It also showed how to crush a woman who acted up last night.
Opening Belle Page 4