Brooklyn Girls

by Gemma Burgess

  When I’m on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street, waiting for the lights to turn green, I look across to the crowds of suits and tourists standing on the other side.

  And that’s when I see them.

  My parents.

  Here.

  In New York City.

  They’re on the corner in front of Saks, facing downtown. I haven’t seen them since the beginning of the summer, when I headed to Zurich for a week of compulsory family time before heading off to meet Angie. They look just the same as ever. My mother is looking into her purse for something and yapping away. My father is smoking a cigar, frowning into the distance and ignoring her. They’re not supposed to be here till tomorrow!

  I swivel 180 degrees and run into the store behind me. For a few minutes I feign interest in some deeply boring shoes. Next time I look out, my parents have disappeared.

  Why the hell are they here early? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? They wanted to surprise me, so they had an extra day to force me to leave New York. This is really happening. I am going to have to leave Brooklyn and the girls and the life I feel like I’m finally, maybe, possibly making for myself.

  Okay, breathe, Pia. Breathe. They don’t know where my house is, don’t know how to contact anyone’s parents. They don’t know my friends or anything about my life, in fact, they never have. Thank God for that.

  How can I make sure I don’t run into them today? Okay: they usually stay at the Carlyle, and right now they’re probably out for their mandatory post-breakfast constitutional walk (something I was forced to do every Saturday and Sunday growing up and every single day on vacation, even though they walked two abreast and I had to walk behind them and they never even talked to me). My mother likes shopping at Bergdorf, my father likes to have a drink at the King Cole Bar in the St. Regis Hotel, and they both enjoy walking in Central Park while looking disapprovingly at people with dogs.

  Tomorrow they’ll call me. But I’ll deal with that then.

  Oh, God, now I feel even more sick. It’s adding to my coffee-fueled anxiety.

  I’ll just put them out of my head. It shouldn’t be hard, I’ve been doing it since I was about six. I have to focus on the meeting. I have to make the most of whatever Lina’s planning.

  I buy a banana and a bagel with cream cheese from a deli and eat as I walk the streets, doing the occasional 360 turn for recon to make sure my parents aren’t following me.

  Then, at exactly 9:45 A.M., I head for Lina’s office. It’s showtime.

  CHAPTER 32

  More than four hours later, I’m still sitting in the lobby of Carus International, waiting.

  Lina came down first thing this morning, and said, slightly mysteriously: “Our timing is perfect. But I can’t guarantee anything. Can you sit tight for a little while?”

  She then sent me a text message at about eleven saying, I’m so sorry, don’t leave yet!

  And another message at one saying, Grab lunch, we’re still talking.

  And now it’s two. And I’m still here. Now, it’s a nice lobby—spacious, light, with comfortable sofas and flowers everywhere. But come on. Four hours in one spot? It’s mental torture.

  I’m strangely exhausted from the hours of anticipatory nothing. My mouth tastes so sour that I am sure my breath must be kittenesque. My head aches, my back is stiff, I’ve read every magazine and newspaper in the lobby twice, and I’d kick a puppy for a vodka on the rocks.

  Worse, my cell—which is on silent—keeps showing missed calls from my father. Somewhere in New York, my parents are looking for me.

  Why is Lina leaving me here to fester? I should probably leave. She’s just too kind to tell me I’m wasting my time. Selling SkinnyWheels was a silly dream. I can’t just sit here all day. I have parents to talk to, money to borrow, a loan to Vic to repay, and a flight to a frozen European city to catch. I’m just about to walk out, when—

  “Pia! Forgive me!” Lina runs out of the elevator, a big smile on her face. “Come with me, I’ll explain everything on the way.”

  “It’s been a hell of a morning,” she says, as we get into the elevator. “I have been in back-to-back meetings. I’m so sorry that I left you there so long. Were you dying of boredom?”

  “No, no, it was fine! Great!” I say as brightly as I can. “Uh, good meetings?”

  “I was setting you up,” she says.

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll explain everything in a moment,” Lina says, grinning at me. She seems calm, yet excited, and suddenly I feel the same way. She’s a natural leader. I might be going into battle, but I’m not alone.

  I follow Lina down a hallway flanked with glass-walled offices with views over the city. This is the nicest workplace I’ve ever seen. There are calm dove-gray walls and dark shiny desks and soft, warm lighting. Very different from the cheap IKEA-chic of the PR agency and the fluorescent dankness of all those recruitment places. Wow, that seems like a lifetime ago.

  We take a seat in an empty meeting room. I try very hard to act calm.

  “So,” says Lina. “Pia, before I tell you what I’m planning, I want to go over a few questions. Most of them we discussed at brunch yesterday, but I want to make sure I didn’t miss anything so that when you talk the big guy through it all, we’re clear.”

  “Go for it,” I say. The big guy?

  Lina picks up her folder and pad, and starts talking. When did I have the idea for SkinnyWheels? How did I start it? Why did I think it would work? What was my first step? What was my initial investment? What’s my daily turnover? How did the idea develop? How would I expand if I could? How did I come up with the recipes? How did I evolve my social media strategy? (“My what? Oh, Twitter and stuff?”) How do I feel I’m faring versus other food trucks? What do I think makes a food truck fail or succeed?

  After an hour of interrogation, I’m re-energized. Talking about SkinnyWheels and how I’ve made the business work is genuinely thrilling, and I remember how much I love my job. In fact, I’m kind of proud of myself. I show Lina the photos that Angie took, and she’s really impressed.

  “I know it’s only six weeks old,” I say. “And that this growth trajectory”—a term I heard Lina use earlier and have used three times since, I should really stop—“isn’t sustainable—I mean, of course profits picked up after I introduced breakfast; it’s a whole extra meal and pancakes are incredibly cheap to produce, but from here I can only expand, time-wise, to offer dinner, which is far more complicated to do from a truck as old as mine, particularly since I haven’t got much storage space left in the fridges. But I could offer SkinnyWheels delivery service to offices and gyms. I could have people dressed up like old school cigarette boys and girls walking around Union Square Farmers Market or the Brooklyn Flea or Central Park, selling the salads from those little trays.”

  “Damn, slow down!” says Lina, laughing.

  “And I have ideas for different kinds of food trucks, too,” I say. “Organic Italian, all-day breakfast…”

  “I wrote them all down yesterday.” Lina nods. “They’re fantastic.”

  I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt a little bit.

  “What really makes you unique,” says Lina, looking at her notes, “is that you’re not a jaded restaurateur doing this as a last resort, and you’re not a seasoned food truck retailer, either. You’re a genuine entrepreneur, with all the energy, enthusiasm, and blind bravery of youth. You saw an opportunity and absolutely nailed it. I think your instincts are stellar, your work ethic is obviously outstanding, and with the right management support and team behind you, you could really—”

  Lina pauses, interrupting herself. I can hardly breathe, I’m so thrilled. She really thinks all those things … about me? But wait, what did she just almost say? I could really … I could really what?

  “Best of all, you’re not gimmicky,” says Lina. “I was watching that Let Them Eat Cock girl, too, but her food got terrible reviews, she was all about appearances.… She’s the kind o
f person who could really damage the food truck industry. If people don’t trust food trucks, they won’t buy from them.”

  “Right,” I say, nodding. I wonder where Bianca is. I hope she’s safe wherever she is.

  “It’s probably time I explained everything,” says Lina. “I have been looking at new investment ideas for months. I’ve been focusing on hospitality start-ups that are finding new ways to target ‘the personal.’ You know: smaller boutique hotels with truly personal service, pop-up or seasonal restaurants and bars, experiences designed for niche audiences who’ll know it’s just for them and love it. Some people will always love mega-hotels and thousand-room resorts, and giant restaurants and clubs, but a lot of people don’t anymore. A lot of people want something that feels genuine. That they can love.”

  “Something that feels more real, that’s like a friend rather than a company,” I say, continuing her thought almost unconsciously.

  “Exactly! That’s the perfect way of putting it,” says Lina, looking thrilled. “So I met with the management team this morning, to discuss these other projects. And I talked about smaller investment opportunities, and how the market is changing, and asked them if they’d look at a new idea later today. They’re finishing up everything else now, and we’re meeting up with them at four. You’re going to give a presentation to them about the food truck opportunity, focusing on niche, targeted, need-based ideas—like SkinnyWheels, like your organic Italian, like the all-day-breakfast.…”

  “I’m helping you give a presentation to the board … on food trucks?” I say, my mouth suddenly dry. “So they’ll what, they’ll agree to sponsor SkinnyWheels, or something like that?”

  “Something like that,” she says, opening a laptop. “Now, I put a few introductory PowerPoint slides together last night, so let’s put in those amazing photos that your friend took. She’s very talented.”

  “Yeah, she is, but … I’m … I’m giving a presentation? To important people?”

  “There are only eight of them,” says Lina. “And they’re friendly.”

  “Who … who are they?”

  “The CEO, the COO, the CIO—that’s the chief investment officer of development, and she’s a key target for you, so make sure you impress her—the CFO, the VP of acquisitions and development, the VP of concepts and hospitality, and the VPs of hotels and restaurants, respectively.” I don’t even know what most of those acronyms stand for. “Okay, I’m getting coffees, would you like a latte? Great.”

  As Lina hurries out of the room, I stare blankly ahead of me. All those important people. All that experience, all that expertise.

  And me.

  My mouth is so dry that I can’t swallow, my chest is seized with a tightness as though I’m being crushed, oh, God, why does no one call them pain attacks instead of panic attacks when they hurt this much.

  I’m going to puke.

  Somehow I make it across the room just in time, and start heaving into the bucket. Coffee does not taste as good in reverse. Then some not-very-well-chewed bagel drips down the plastic bag lining of the basket. Ew.

  I sit up, forcing myself to take deep breaths. I will not collapse. I will not let Lina think that her confidence in me is misplaced. I will not fail.

  I can do this.

  Grabbing a bottle of water out of my purse, I swill a mouthful around my mouth and spit it into the basket, mentally apologizing to the poor janitor who’ll have to deal with it, and quickly stuff six pieces of chewing gum into my mouth.

  Moments later, just as I’m back in my chair trying to look serene, Lina returns with the coffees.

  “Right,” she says. “We’ll put a simple script together for you to follow, and I will help you with the Q&A afterward. It’s easy. You can do it in your sleep. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Less than an hour later, I feel like I’ve completed a crash course in Business Presentations 101.

  Don’t fidget. Put the pen down.

  Stand up straight. Don’t sway and bob like a drunk sailor.

  Look everyone in the eye, one by one, slow and steady.

  Feel confident enough to pause. You don’t need to rush: everyone is interested in every single word you say.

  Speak up.… No, don’t shout like that.

  Stop playing with your hair. It’s distracting.

  Be more enthusiastic.… Okay, now you just look like you’re a cheerleader.

  Smile. You’re meant to be enjoying yourself.… Not like that. You’re not in a beauty pageant.

  She’s so hard on me that at first, I almost feel like crying. But I don’t, of course. I keep going. Even when I fumble my words, and panic-acid rises in my stomach, and I trail my sentences off into a tiny whispered helpless nothingness, I keep going.

  At 3:50 P.M., Lina runs me through everyone’s names and descriptions. Ken. Charlie. Judy. Louis. George. Cassandra. Gilbert. Jennifer. I’ll never remember them all. Then she barks random, incredibly difficult questions at me. Her aggressive training tactics are working: I’m tougher and more confident than I’ve ever felt before. It does seem like a lot of effort for a tiny food truck that she’s simply going to ask her company to sponsor. But I’m not about to complain.

  Then we stand up, and head upstairs to the forty-fourth floor, to the big conference room where, apparently, everyone is waiting.

  Lina walks into the room first, followed by me.

  I say “room.” “Amphitheater” would be more appropriate.

  It’s four times the size of the cozy conference room we practiced in, with a fifty-seat conference table. Award-filled cabinets line one side. The other side is entirely glass, floor-to-ceiling, overlooking Manhattan. I try not to gape at the view, and focus on looking confident.

  Seated right at the other end are eight men and women, currently being served coffee and cookies. They’re all in suits, aged between forty and that funny big-city sixty-ish that could really be eighty, but they’ll never tell and you’ll never ask.

  “Good afternoon, everyone!” calls Lina cheerily.

  They look up, smile at us briefly, and continue chatting with one another as Lina sets up the laptop. I bend over the laptop, trying to look helpful.

  “Come with me,” says Lina. I follow her to the other end of the room, and she introduces me to the team.

  I try to repeat their names when I shake hands with them all, one by one. I focus on making eye contact and offering a genuine smile, with the firm handshake my father taught me, so inevitably names go in one ear and out the other. The only two I remember are Gilbert, the CEO, who looks impatient and testy, but has very friendly brown eyes, and Judy, the chief investment officer, who has extremely cold hands.

  “I’ll get started, shall I?” says Lina.

  “Please,” says Gilbert. “It’s been a long day.” He glances at me. “Not that we’re not fascinated, obviously.”

  Obviously, I go to reply, smiling as brightly as I can, but my voice is gone. Completely gone, disappeared, vanished. Oh, Jesus. Not now.

  “Thanks, everyone, for coming back, I know you’ve all been here since eight but I think this’ll be a very interesting hour,” Lina says, walking to the very other end of the conference table. She looks at me and taps a chair right in front of her.

  I hurry to the seat and sit down. My chair bangs loudly against the table, and I go to say “sorry” but my voice is still gone. Then I feel my chest fluttering, oh, God, not another panic attack—

  “Food trucks are more than a trend. They’re the future of food retail. Year on year, the food truck industry is growing in double-digit percentages.…” As Lina talks I try to calm myself down.

  Please, oh please, let me find my voice, please don’t let me throw up, please help me to not disappoint Lina and the girls.…

  Lina is midway through her speech. “With an investment of approximately ten thousand dollars, Pia has managed to turn a pale pink truck into a food phenome
non in just six weeks. She serves twelve hundred customers a day, and she’s only hit that limit because the truck can’t pack much more food in without getting a helicopter to drop supplies to the roof—”

  Everyone laughs, and I open my mouth to laugh, too, but my voice still won’t come out. Come on, voice, come on.…

  “And now, I’d like Pia to talk about it a little bit in her own words. Pia?”

  I smile and quickly stand up, knocking the chair over as I do.

  “I’ve got it,” says Lina quickly. “Go, go.”

  I smile and obey her, and take my place at the head of the conference table. It stretches out before me like a football field, unimaginably vast. I can’t shout that far. I can’t do it.

  “Go for it, Pia,” says Lina encouragingly. I look at her in anguish. She took a chance on me and I’m going to let her down.

  “I—” My voice comes out as a tiny squeak.

  There’s silence in the room. Total, horrific, gut-churning silence.

  “Speak up!” calls Gilbert.

  Oh please, oh please, please let me find my voice. I have not come this far to fail now. And if Lina believes in me, and all my friends believe in me, then it’s time I believed in myself. I can do this. I really can.

  “My name is Pia Keller, and I’m twenty-two years old.”

  I see Gilbert leaning forward to hear me better, and I smile and raise my voice, talking from the very center of my being, as Lina told me to.

  “I graduated from Brown a few months ago, and what became immediately, painfully obvious to me—and everyone around me—was that I was completely unemployable.”

  The crowd at the end of the table titters.

  “No one wants to give you a job when you have no experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. It’s the catch-twenty-two for any graduate, and when you think that you’ve spent your entire life earning the right to be treated like an adult, it’s tough to realize that the outside world doesn’t see you the same way.”

  I pause. Everyone is paying attention to me. My voice is strong, I feel completely calm.