Candace clipped a yellow badge to her jacket collar. The square of plastic was engraved with four letters—CAND—followed by her full name in smaller print. Traders chose their badge symbols. Usually based on a trader's name, they sometimes referred to trading or hobbies. Already Lindsey had seen OPEC, KRMA, and BIGG. She attached her own badge, printed with her initials: LAM. Candace pointed at the letters.
"Don't be surprised if the guys call you Lamb or Lambie. If they do, go along with it. A dozen of us against hundreds of them means you gotta roll with the punches, or at least seem to. If someone grabs your ass, don't report him. Instead, tell me, and we'll get payback on a trade. Never let them see you upset or scared or, worst of all, crying. Go hide in the women's bathroom if you think you're coming apart.” She slammed shut the locker door. “Let's go—it's a quarter after ten. We've already missed the opening."
The energy pits were two flights up. Candace and Lindsey took the stairs. Once on the trading floor, Lindsey paused, momentarily disoriented by the noise, the brightly colored jackets, the flashing neon numbers. People shouted and gestured and hurried from one place to another. Crude oil, heating oil, gasoline, natural gas, propane, coal—this was where prices were set for the fuels that ran the world's economies.
Each commodity had its own pit, small amphitheaters with four tiers of steps descending to a hub. Traders stood shoulder-to-shoulder on each level, three persons deep, leaning against each other and the metal railings for support. They screamed, pushed, and waved their arms in their effort to buy or sell at the best price.
Candace grasped Lindsey's elbow and steered her through the tangle of wires and cables strewn across the floor to the row of computers and telephones around the perimeter of the room. They halted next to a young black woman holding two phones to her ear with one hand while typing with the other. “This is the clerk who'll be feeding you orders,” Candace said into Lindsey's ear, then raised her voice.
"DeShawna, this is Lindsey, the new crude trader.” The woman interrupted her typing long enough to yank open a drawer.
"Your trade pad and pit cards. Got a pen?” she said.
Lindsey felt like a fool. “I left it in—"
Candace pulled a marker from a pocket of her trading coat. “Here. Always use black ink—never red.” She flashed her wide grin. “A trader always wants to be in the black."
Lindsey picked up the trade pad and pit cards. The stiff cardboard edges dug into her palm.
"You better get down there,” DeShawna said, the phones still pressed to her ear. “Michelle is out with the flu and I've got orders coming down."
Lindsey felt her stomach do a little flip-flop. She had been counting on following the senior trader's lead for the first few days.
Candace took some of Lindsey's pit cards. “I'll help you get started."
"You can do that?” Lindsey asked. Although entitled to trade any of the energy products, traders usually specialized in a particular commodity.
"Nothing's happening in gas right now,” Candace said. She walked Lindsey to the edge of the crude-oil pit, where two hundred traders were in full cry. “New traders usually start on the lowest level. Ready?"
"Ready,” Lindsey said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
She followed Candace into the crowd of traders, pushing and bumping against the men as she made her way into the pit. The odor of too many bodies too close together made her want to cover her nose. A few traders met her eyes, several stared at her breasts. “Check out thatass,” someone muttered.
Lindsey kept a poker face, determined not to show her embarrassment. She thought back to her first high-school party. She had been standing against a wall, clutching an unopened bottle of beer and enduring the up-and-down glances of teenaged boys, until Candace rescued her. Once within the aura of her friend's popularity, she had a good time. A few weeks later, Candace had fixed her up with Tim.
After finding them a spot, Candace turned to look at DeShawna. Lindsey followed her gaze. Using hand signs, the clerk fed them an order. Candace responded with a flamboyant salute.
DeShawna had instructed them to sell two hundred December at the market, not held. That meant the client wanted to sell two hundred contracts at the current market price, but the floor broker had discretion in terms of timing. Two hundred contracts. Despite the hubbub of men shouting around her, for a moment all Lindsey knew was the pounding of her heart, so hard it was nearly painful.
She glanced up at the neon numbers flashing on the electronic quote boards mounted on the wall. Crude oil moved up or down in one-cent increments, but often jumped ten, twenty cents at a time. She noted the current price. With one contract worth a thousand barrels, she had just been told to move over twelve million dollars’ worth of crude.
"Take your time,” Candace said into Lindsey's ear. “If the other traders realize you have a big order, they'll run down the market."
The brokerage earned a commission on every transaction, whether it was a winner or a loser, but Lindsey knew bad fills meant unhappy customers. Clients didn't want to hear that a sell order placed when the market was at sixty had been filled at fifty-nine eighty.
"Show a small number,” Candace said. “Forty or fifty contracts. I'll work it, too. Once you're in a rhythm, I'll leave you alone to finish the rest of the order.” She raised her hand and started to bounce as if she were jumping rope.
"Fifty Deece at a half! Fifty Deece at a half!” she shouted, flashing the sign for the contract month, then touching her forehead and holding up five fingers to signify fifty contracts. Next, she moved her hand to the right with all five fingers straight up to show the price, palm facing away from her to indicate that she was selling.
"Fifty Deece at a half!” Lindsey called, duplicating Candace's hand gestures, although not as smoothly or swiftly.
"Louder!” Candace said, then yelled again, “Fifty Deece at a half!"
A man wearing a red jacket on the other side of the pit pointed at Candace. “Thirty bid!"
"Sold twenty,” Candace shouted back.
Lindsey was confused. “Why'd you hit the bid?” Sold twenty at thirty meant Candace had unloaded twenty contracts at sixty dollars and thirty cents per barrel.
"It's always better to have some of the order sold in case the market dumps. Here, gimme your pad. That way you'll get credit for the trade."
Candace jotted down the details on price, quantity, and delivery month, plus the badge symbol of the man in the red coat, on both a pit card and Lindsey's trade pad. She then Frisbeed the card toward the man sitting behind a low counter at the center of the pit.
Wearing a baseball hat and glasses as protection from the flying pieces of cardboard, the pit clerk gathered up the cards and time-stamped them. The cards were then delivered to the data-entry room, where their information would be keyed into the Exchange's computers.
Lindsey glanced up at the quote board and felt herself break into a sweat. December crude was down a dime, or a hundred dollars a contract. She had yet to sell anything and already the market was moving away from her. She screamed out the new offer price. “FIFTY DEECE AT FORTY! FIFTY DEECE AT FORTY!” Spit sprayed from her mouth but she didn't care.
"There!” Candace pointed. “The guy in the bright blue coat with lightning bolts. I don't know his badge, but I think he's a local."
Lindsey scanned the crowd until she saw a jacket in an electric shade of cobalt with yellow zigzags on the lapels. The young man wearing it was waving in her direction.
"Buy ‘em!” he yelled.
"Done!” Lindsey yelled back. Elated, she reached for her trade pad to record the sale.
"I'll write it up—you keep working the order,” Candace said as the roar around them increased. From the other side of the pit someone screamed, “Half for Deece."
"Okay.” Feeling a bit more confident now, Lindsey raised her hand, ready to continue selling the order, when the trader on her right turned to her. He glanced at her badge.
<
br /> "Hey, Lamb Chop, how many you got left at forty?"
Lindsey winced at the nickname. “Hundred and twenty,” she said, wondering if it was too late to change her badge acronym.
"I'll take ‘em."
Candace yanked on Lindsey's sleeve. “No! It's half bid!"
Horrified, Lindsey checked the quote board. In fretting over her badge name, she had blanked out the market's move up ten cents a contract. Half for Deece. She'd just given away twelve thousand dollars of her client's money. Sweat began to trickle down her ribs.
The trader turned up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Hey, all I did was lift her offer."
"That's BS, Tommy. You know she missed the move. It's no trade.” Candace lowered her voice. “I seem to remember Michelle went to you last week with a pretty big order—instead of spreading it around the whole pit. Do you really want to be on Zeibel's freeze-out list?"
Tommy's neck reddened. “You little piece of—"
"There you go, flirting with me again.” Candace said airily, then hardened her tone again. “So it's no trade, right?"
Tommy threw her a sour look. “Whatever.” He turned his back and called “Half for a hundred Deece” across the pit.
Lindsey let out the breath she had been holding. “Thanks."
Candace handed Lindsey her trade pad. “If you don't stand up for yourself, these guys will eat you alive. And a little leverage doesn't hurt, either. See why we girls have to stick together?"
"Yeah,” Lindsey said. She had never seen Candace bully someone before.
"Always know where you are on your order and what the market is doing. Watch the boards, pay attention to what the other traders are saying, even make notes on a pit card if you need to.” Candace patted Lindsey's arm. “Don't worry—it'll be second nature before you know it.” She glanced over at the natural-gas pit, where the volume was starting to pick up. “I should get over there. You good to finish out the order?"
Lindsey nodded.
"If you need help, have DeShawna give me a call.” Candace held up a fist. Lindsey made one, too, and touched her knuckles to her friend's.
"To sisterhood,” Candace said.
"Sisterhood,” Lindsey repeated.
* * * *
It was a half-hour until the end of the trading day and Lindsey was exhausted. She had barely kept up with DeShawna's orders, but had managed to execute them all without any major problems.
Lindsey was paging through her trade pad, reviewing the transactions, when she saw it. She read the entry twice to be sure, then pushed her way out of the oil pit to find Candace.
Her friend was trading from the top level of the natural-gas ring. “I need to talk to you,” Lindsey said, trying to stay calm.
Candace signaled to her clerk that she was taking a break, then walked with Lindsey to the edge of the Floor, away from the crowd. “What's the matter?"
Lindsey held out her order pad. “The second trade, the one with the guy in the blue coat with the lightning bolts. You wrote down twenty, but I did the trade at forty."
Candace squinted at the pad, brow furrowed. “Wasn't crude at thirty when the order first came in?"
Lindsey shook her head. “The offer was at fifty, and you made the first sale at thirty. The market moved up, and I did the next trade."
Candace made a face. “My bad, Lynz. I must have been looking at the natural-gas numbers. How did you find out about this? Did DeShawna say something?"
"No. I happened to catch it looking through my order pad."
Candace draped an arm around Lindsey's shoulders and pulled her close. “If you haven't heard from DeShawna, that means the customer hasn't noticed anything, and at this point probably won't. Let it go. You don't want to break a trade your first day. All that paperwork and explaining will make you look bad to the Exchange and the other traders."
"But that local made ten grand off our client!"
Candace's breath was soft on Lindsey's cheek. “This is not the kind of mistake you want to call attention to. Trust me.” She squeezed Lindsey's shoulder, then stepped away. “I have to get back for the close. Meet you in the locker room after the bell? I'll have to dash—analyst meeting upstairs. But lunch tomorrow for sure. My treat."
* * * *
Lindsey walked toward the subway station, swinging her tote bag. After grabbing a bite at a deli, she had gone shopping for shoes to wear on the Floor, choosing twins to the ones Candace had been wearing. She bought a knitted scarf, too. Even though red was her favorite color, she had chosen black.
The cacophony of rush hour was at full volume, but after a day on the Floor, the horns’ blare no longer seemed so strident. Clouds heavy with impending rain hung low over the city, while an icy wind cut down alleys and surged around buildings. Wrapped in her new scarf, Lindsey leaned into the gusts.
At the corner she halted and waited for the light to change. Across the street was a small restaurant. The interior glowed through glass windows like a lantern in the gathering dark. Lindsey could see patrons seated at small tables reading menus, chatting, sipping wine. Toward the back, she glimpsed a mane of blond hair.
The light changed and Lindsey started across the street. At the curb she glanced into the restaurant again and realized that the blonde was Candace, seated alone at a table for two. As Lindsey watched, her friend opened her menu and started to read through the selections.
A waiter brushed by the jacket hung over the vacant chair, setting yellow lightning bolts dancing against the bright blue background.
Boys’ club ... we girls have to stick together ... trust me. Lindsey suddenly felt a numbness that had nothing to do with the biting chill of the wind.
Memories from high school flashed through her brain, scenes she had long since shoved to the back of her mind—Candace “finding” Lindsey's missing PDA with her study notes right after the French final, Candace climbing out of the backseat of Tim's car, buttoning her shirt.... Added to them was a new scene, the one from this morning—Candace's salute, a signal to the young man in the blue coat that the trade would be written in his favor.
As Lindsey watched, the same man slid into the empty chair across from Candace and laid a thick envelope on the table. Candace raised her champagne flute; the golden liquid sparkled in the light.
Sisterhood. Female traders were no better than their male counterparts—breaking Floor rules, front-running, writing up false trades. A few good and mostly bad. After only one day, Lindsey had seen enough to know which kind of trader she wanted to be. And now her “role model” was going to know it too.
She strode into the restaurant, unwinding the new scarf from around her neck as she made her way through the tables. She halted beside Candace's chair, her frozen cheeks burning in the overheated room as though they'd been slapped.
Boys’ club ... we girls have to stick together ... trust me.
Candace glanced up, then did a double take. “Lynz! What a sur—"
"I thought you were my friend,” Lindsey said, twisting the scarf between her hands.
"Hey,” said the trader who owned the blue jacket, nervousness in his voice. Slim and good-looking, he had jet-black hair slicked back in a ‘fifties way. He got to his feet, jostling the table and spilling Champagne onto the white tablecloth, staining it gold.
Lindsey ignored him and moved behind Candace's chair, holding the scarf so tightly her fingers were numb.
"I am your friend, Lynz,” Candace said. She swiveled to gaze up at Lindsey, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. The naked skin of her neck and shoulders gleamed in the low light.
Lindsey unwound the scarf from around her hands and let it drop onto the table. “So where the hell is my cut?"
(c) 2008 by Twist Phelan
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department of First Stories: EXERCISE IS MURDER by Meredith Cole
Meredith Cole directed feature films and wrote screenplays before turning to mysteries. She won the St. Martin's/ Mal
ice Domestic best-novel contest in 2007, for Posed for Murder, which features the protagonist of this new story, Lydia McKenzie. The book will not be published by St. Martin's until the winter of 2009, making this story the author's paid fiction debut.
The plunge into the cold water nearly took her breath away. Lydia McKenzie told herself it was for a good cause and started to do the breaststroke. After a few brisk laps, she started to get used to it. Every once in a while, one of the fast swimmers in the center lane launched into the butterfly stroke and sent large waves across the pool. It was like swimming in the ocean. When a big wave washed over her head, she swallowed a little water: heavily chlorinated and very unpleasant.
Brutally hot in the city and worse underground in the subway, New Yorkers bared as much skin as possible in the summer. And that was Lydia's problem. Winter's worries, and a job with two Italian-American private eyes whose mother ran a restaurant, had caused Lydia to overindulge in cannoli and cappuccinos. There was no way she was going to fit into her lovely vintage summer frocks without exercise.
Lydia avoided exercise whenever possible. Yoga made her anxious. Running hurt. And she felt silly jumping around in an aerobics class. She biked around the city, but it did nothing to diminish the size of her stomach. She needed to do something before she turned into a blob. She couldn't afford to go shopping for more clothes, and besides, her vintage finds were one of a kind. So she decided to join the local pool and start swimming. She had always enjoyed swimming in a lake as a child in Ohio. Although she had hated many things about summer camp (early wake-up and ugly camp T-shirts were her main complaints), she had learned how to swim there.
The Metropolitan Pool was a city pool, and the price to join fit even her limited budget. The building had originally been a bathhouse and was designed by Henry Bacon, the same architect who had designed the Lincoln Memorial. The ceiling over the pool was one giant skylight made of iron and glass and the ground floor had graceful arched doorways. Everything else the city had constructed since the 1940s was ugly, dirty, cracked, and peeling. Here Lydia was able to stare at the ceiling and pretend that only the historical details existed.
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