The Underwriting

by Michelle Miller

  “Good morning,” Tara said carefully as she entered the office.

  Catherine turned to face her, the sun rising in the floor-to-ceiling window behind her desk.

  “Good morning, Tara,” the president said, her voice giving no indication of what was coming. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “And you,” Tara said, shaking the woman’s hand and praying hers wasn’t noticeably clammy.

  Catherine’s hair was a perfectly coiffed brunette bob, and her skin had just enough lines to neither look her true age nor look like she was trying to hide it. She wore a Chanel suit that matched the one she was wearing on the “Power Women of Wall Street” cover of Forbes magazine that sat, framed, on the bookshelf beside her desk.

  “Have a seat.” Catherine indicated the chair and jumped to the point. “I heard what happened at the Frick last night.”

  Tara sat forward and started, “I can—”

  “Lauren is very sick.” Catherine cut her off. “We’ve sent her to all the best doctors, but at some point a girl has to help herself.”

  Tara paused, her mouth still open. “Lauren?” she asked. “You’re talking about Lauren,” she clarified.

  “Yes,” Catherine said. “My daughter.”

  “Right.” Tara felt her blood pressure drop. “She did a really great—”

  “I trust you haven’t told anyone,” Catherine interrupted. “And won’t.” She paused for effect. “I’ve got enough going on right now without being accused of being a bad mother because my daughter has a problem.”

  “Of course,” Tara said. “I mean, of course I won’t say anything. But I don’t think you’re a bad—”

  “How is the Hook deal going?” Catherine changed the subject. Was she not going to mention Rick Frier?

  “Oh.” Tara adjusted. “Well. We filed the S-1 yesterday and the preliminary conversations have been extremely positive. I think we’re going to be able to beat our initial price target without sacrificing investor quality.”

  “Good,” the woman said. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important it is that it go well, for the firm’s sake and your own.”

  “No,” Tara agreed, feeling the weight again, “you don’t.”

  “It’s hard to find good women in this industry, but I’ve been told you have potential, and I hope to discover that’s true.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her heart in her throat. “I’ll do everything I can to live up to that.”

  “Good,” Catherine said. “Is there anything else?”

  Tara felt her heart lift, like she’d been pardoned on the execution line. She was back in the race. “Do you have any advice?” she asked the woman.

  Catherine paused, studying Tara’s face, looking for what weakness the younger woman needed to correct. “Never stop improving,” she said. “You can always work harder, go faster, be more. There’s no such thing as too much discipline.”

  Tara nodded. Seven miles hadn’t been so bad this morning—maybe she’d start doing that every day.

  “How old are you?” Catherine asked.

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Boyfriend?” Catherine glanced at Tara’s left hand.

  “No.”

  “Don’t get married until you’re thirty-five,” Catherine said, “but freeze your eggs at thirty so it isn’t a distraction. I’ll have Leslie send you the information for a good clinic.”

  “How old were you when you got married?”

  “Twenty-five,” Catherine said, turning back to her computer.

  “Thank you.” Tara started to stand, then stopped. She had to know. “Did John Lewis say anything about the event?”

  “John Lewis is no longer with the firm,” Catherine said without turning from her monitor.

  “What? Why?”

  “Rick Frier moved all his accounts from the bank,” Catherine said. “When I heard about John’s behavior I had no choice but to let him go.”

  “Rick moved his accounts because of John?”

  “Were you there when John went on his pro-Obama rampage?” Catherine turned, lifting a brow. “Callum called me late last night to tell me about it—he said it was quite a scene.”

  “That must have been after I left,” Tara said carefully, hoping it was a possibility, and not Callum covering up for her at John Lewis’s expense.

  She walked to the door before she had time to think about it.

  “Oh, and Tara?”

  Tara turned back, her heart racing again.

  “The next time you go to an event, wear something less . . . edgy,” Catherine said. “You’ve got enough working against you as a young woman without drawing extra opportunity for criticism.”

  Tara’s cheeks burned as she thought about the purple gown. Had Callum told Catherine what she’d been wearing, too? “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes, of course.”

  She walked carefully, feeling her anxiety still pulsing through her veins. Calm down. Stay focused, she coached herself as the elevator doors opened and she got to work.

  TODD

  MONDAY, APRIL 7; NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  Todd was in a great mood and nothing was going to ruin it.

  He’d been pissed as hell when Tara got Catherine’s invite to the Frick event, but after some careful consideration, he realized anger was unproductive. Catherine was only in her position because the firm needed women leaders—she wasn’t where the real power sat, and neither were the stodgy old clients who attended bank-hosted events like the one at the Frick. Tara could have them.

  The real power, Todd realized, was in guys like him—the young, smart, driven future leaders of Wall Street. Which is why he’d corralled his crew to skip out of work this afternoon and convene at a bar downtown to watch the NCAA tournament finals and have a networking event of their own.

  To top it all off, Todd was getting laid tonight. Louisa LeMay, his old fuck buddy, was in town from LA and had texted Todd to see if they could get together. Louisa was one of the few girls he’d slept with who could actually maintain a pure friends-with-benefits agreement, never asking to cuddle, never expecting him to pay for anything, never contacting him unless she wanted to hook up.

  And so today, Todd was checking out of the office at four, watching the game with the guys, then spending the night having sex with Louisa.

  All of which he deserved, he thought, as he took his seat in the conference room and read through the preliminary road show schedule. The deal was going great: he’d nailed it on the S-1 and funds were already calling to get in, which meant they’d be oversubscribed, which meant they could offer more shares at a higher price, which meant L.Cecil got a bigger fee and Todd got a bigger bonus and they both got great press.

  “Is it just me, or are there no babes on this list?” Beau asked from his seat.

  Todd looked up. “What are you looking at?”

  “The list of employees who have shares in Hook. Jules is the only chick on here, and she has like ten percent of what the dudes who joined at the same time as her got.”

  “Who’s Jules?”

  “The receptionist,” Beau said.

  “Are you banging her?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the point,” he said. “Like, I think she got screwed.”

  “She’s a receptionist,” Todd pointed out.

  “Who cares. George E got twenty times the shares she got for painting those ugly mermen. No way he added more value than she does.”

  “She’s still making five million dollars for answering phones for two years.”

  “Whatever,” Beau said. “Doesn’t change the fact she’s the only chick on here.”

  “It’s not like it’s any different on Wall Street,” Tara said without looking up from her computer.

  “Yeah, but Wall Street’s old-school. If you’re a chick here,
you know what you’re signing up for. But out there? That’s Silicon Valley. That’s people our age making the decisions. You’d think they’d be more”—he looked for the word—“gender neutral or whatever.”

  “It’s not Hook’s fault. How many girls do you know who like computer programming?” Todd countered. “You can’t always blame women making less than men on men.”

  “Oh, I blame women making less than men on the fact they don’t eat.”

  “What?” Tara looked up and finally stopped typing.

  Beau shrugged. “My girlfriends eat like nine hundred calories a day. And most of it’s sugar-free, fat-free crap. How are you supposed to do good work when you’re eating nine hundred calories a day? I’d be cranky and comatose.”

  Tara laughed. It was the first time Todd had seen her crack a smile since the S-1. Until the edits came back from the SEC, she was largely running the show, and she’d hardly looked up from her computer since last Wednesday. “You think that’s going to set a girl back more than being fat? How many fat girls do you see in this office?”

  “Eating real food doesn’t make you fat,” Beau said. “That’s another problem: you’re all so susceptible to these crazy get-skinny-quick marketing pitches that don’t make any sense.”

  The phone rang and Tara picked it up. “Hey, Rachel.”

  Beau punched the speaker button. “Hey, Rach,” he said. Tara reached for the console but Beau pulled it away. “Why do you think chicks are still behind men?”

  “In business, you mean?” the PR director asked. Todd had only met her during their first visit to California, but she’d been helping Tara figure out how to position Josh and Nick during the road show.

  “Yeah,” Beau said. “Like, why haven’t women really broken the glass ceiling?”

  “Easy,” Rachel said casually. “No orgasms.”

  Todd’s face flushed and he leaned forward. Did she just say what he thought she said?

  Beau laughed and lifted an eyebrow. “Do go on.”

  “Women don’t masturbate as much as men, and half of them never have orgasms during sex.” Her voice was calm, as though she were reporting data from the S-1. “So they don’t think as clearly. Can you imagine how poorly you’d work if you hadn’t jacked off in three days, much less a year, or your whole life?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Tara said unconvincingly.

  “You know how women used to have hysteria?” Rachel’s voice continued. Apparently she was an expert on this subject. “Like in the eighteen hundreds they’d be diagnosed with it? The ‘treatment’ was going into the doctor’s office to get masturbated, until vibrators were invented and women could do it at home. Good for your heart, good for your brain, good for your nerves. I guarantee if you passed out vibrators in your office, female productivity would go through the roof. Men wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Tara reached over and pulled the console out of Beau’s astonished grip, transferring the call back to her headset. “I promise I didn’t start this.”

  Todd was definitely banging Rachel next time he was in California.

  “Oh god,” Tara sighed into the phone. “He hasn’t changed his mind, has he? He told me a third was enough and he’d sell the others after the IPO.”

  Todd watched, assuming they were talking about Callum.

  “What?” Tara asked the phone, listening. “That’s ridiculous. He likes Russian supermodels. And I made such an ass of myself at the—” She listened. “Well, yes, I am, but—” She shook her head. “No, I’m not interested,” she said resolutely. “But listen, we’ll be out there next week—can we get some time on the calendar to run through this stuff in person?”

  “What was that about?” Todd asked when she hung up.

  “I just wanted her advice for how to coach Josh and Nick next week.”

  “No, the first part.”

  “What first part?” she said, falsely innocent.

  “About Callum.”

  She shrugged. “I guess he wanted to know if I date older men.”

  Todd rolled his eyes. “I knew it.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “That’s why he wanted to meet with you and not me.”

  “I knew how to answer his question about selling shares,” she said.

  “But that’s not why he asked you to meet.”

  “I can’t help what men want.”

  “As a man, I most definitely disagree with that statement,” he said firmly.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Will you give me a minute? I’m just going to pop to the restroom and slip on my burka.”

  Todd felt his muscles tense. She was so full of shit—she knew exactly what she was doing. Which is why she sat in the office with her headphones on like a cold fish, hardly speaking to him or anyone else on the team, and then dressed up and turned on the charm when rich clients like Callum or senior management like Catherine came into the picture. She was such a fake.

  Todd looked at his watch. He wasn’t going to let this get to him. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Where are you going?” Beau asked. Tara, apparently, didn’t care.

  “Catching up with a few fund managers,” he said. “Probably won’t be back tonight, but e-mail me if you need anything.”

  Todd let the door to the conference room slam and settled his mind with the thought of Louisa’s naked body. He was going to get drunk and have fun and get laid and nothing was going to stop him.

  NICK

  MONDAY, APRIL 7; PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

  There were going to be tears.

  But Nick couldn’t think about that. She’d understand in the long run that it was for the best.

  Or would she? What was it like for girls who got dumped by guys just beginning their trajectory to success? Would she ever actually recover, or would she watch Nick gain in power and influence and wealth, his face on magazines and his name whispered in elite circles, and wince in pain, knowing how close she’d been to having a dream life? She would find someone else, of course—she was still pretty and smart—but no one in the same league as Nick. Because guys in Nick’s league didn’t need girls like Grace.

  What was going to be hard was explaining that there was nothing she could have done. Of course, it might have lasted longer if she’d stopped crying in her sorority house over some slutty girl she hardly knew and come to San Francisco to support him. He lived in the nicest building in the entire city, after all; it’s not like he’d been asking her to slum it.

  But that wasn’t worth bringing up: even if she had had sex with him, and she hadn’t canceled dinner last week, she still wouldn’t be right, and those things would only have delayed the inevitable. She wanted to start her own company, to wait until her thirties to have kids. And that, unfortunately, didn’t fit in Nick’s new world. He needed a woman who was going to focus on him, to put her own needs and ambitions aside to support his career and personal brand. Darrell Greene was right: not every guy could have that, but Nick could, as was clear by all the women drooling over him at the Rosewood last week. And why shouldn’t he have all that? Wasn’t this what he had worked so hard for through prep school and Stanford and McKinsey and Dalton Henley and Harvard Business School and two years of putting up with Josh Hart?

  “Exactly,” he said out loud. He zipped down 101 to Palo Alto, where he was stopping by Darrell’s office to sign his loan documents before meeting Grace for coffee.

  His phone rang and he answered it over Bluetooth. “This is Nick Winthrop.”

  “Did you take Juan off the Android update?” Josh’s voice was irritated.

  “I need him to focus all his energy on the IPO,” Nick replied.

  “He’s our best programmer.”

  “We need to give the new guys opportunities, too,” Nick said patiently.

  “These aren’t your decisions.”
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  “The IPO has got to be our priority,” Nick said. “For the next month it takes precedent. And I need Juan fully dedicated.”

  Nick knew Juan wasn’t doing much, but he didn’t like how much power the young programmer had accumulated in the office. All the employees looked up to Juan. They called him “Minister of Fun” and did whatever he said, like that time he’d led the sit-in when Nick had tried to cut back the bartender’s hours. Having him work on the IPO, digging up statistics from the internal database, was Nick’s way of isolating him for a bit, giving other programmers time to fill in the void and balance out Juan’s power.

  “I thought we hired L.Cecil to manage the IPO,” Josh’s voice said through the dashboard.

  “We need someone internal to gather statistics for the securities filings. He’s just pulling information from the database.”

  “You lifted his restrictions to the database?”

  “He signed an NDA.”

  “You’re a fucking moron.” Josh hung up the phone.

  Nick rolled his eyes, unbothered. Josh didn’t know what he was talking about. He was a classic example of a great engineer who had no business leading a company.

  He pulled off the freeway and parked outside Darrell’s office.

  “Hi, Nick,” the busty blonde assistant in Darrell’s office greeted him.

  “Hi,” he said, loving that she knew his name.

  “Darrell had to run to a meeting, but I’ve got all your loan documents,” she said. “Follow me and we can get them all signed?”

  “Sure,” Nick said, forcing himself to look straight ahead and not at her hourglass hips swaying back and forth as she led him to a small conference room.

  A stack of papers was on the center table, along with a silver fountain pen and a notary pad.

  “You’re a notary?”

  “Certified. Pass me your hand?” She bent over him to press his finger in the ink, and Nick was glad the room was dark enough to hide his blushing.

  “So it’s five percent interest, right?” he said, looking through the documents for the final terms they’d agreed to.