This Could Hurt

by Jillian Medoff

  17 Lucy and Rob no longer discussed Evan. Upon hearing Lucy wanted to meet him (“remeet,” she insisted), Rob closed down like a beach house shuttered for the season. “Jesus,” he repeated. “Why does every woman go for Evan?” Lucy felt like a terrible friend. No one likes to be an afterthought—even if he is happily married with two great kids—so she ceased all Evan-related conversation. While this improved her and Rob’s relationship, it cut off her pipeline, forcing her to pump anyone, even Ozzy Oswald, for info.

  18 Rosa didn’t write nearly as well as Lucy—or that’s what Rosa claimed when she asked Lucy to take over the bulk of her correspondence. (Lucy knew she was being played, but flattery was an effective motivational tool.) Rosa laid it on even thicker when she wanted Lucy to edit something personal. “No one has your magic touch, Lucy girl!” she said, handing Lucy her nephew’s essay for Baruch. (Michael got in. Natch.)

  19 Though Rosa’s marriage ended with her husband’s tragic heart attack, the fact that she found love after forty made Lucy’s own situation seem less dire. Lucy especially enjoyed hearing Rosa say she was satisfied with her choices. Childless women in business are constantly asked to explain themselves, so when Rosa said, “I didn’t want to be a mother, I wanted to be an executive,” Lucy felt hopeful. Honestly, Lucy never saw thirty-eight coming. To her mind, she had lots of time even as the walls were closing in and the windows slamming shut.

  20 To clarify: Lucy wasn’t ruling out a baby, per se, but until the right man, or a man, came along (and Evan was looking less promising every day) or she did it herself (equally unlikely), motherhood was a back-burner project.

  21 The evening was a turning point for Lucy. Afterward, she spent several sessions discussing Rosa with Dr. Ahmet, who offered only conventional metaphors: circles of life, seasons of time, sands through hourglasses, tidal pulls. Lucy couldn’t imagine Ellery without Rosa, and from then on was less contrary to and judgmental of her—and, also, of her mother. Instead, she tried to appreciate their maturity and wisdom as she accepted their vulnerability.

  22 This being the moment that compelled Leo to seek out Dr. Saul and begin forging his Authentic Self.

  23 Horatio and Leo would continue to have sex on and off for several years after this ostensible final pronouncement.

  24 A surprising development. Three girls?

  25 Rutherford’s girls lived with their mothers (the CEO’s first and third ex-wives) in Richmond and Los Angeles, respectively, and had only recently started spending time with him. That he had three ex-wives and three children scattered across the country only enhanced his appeal for Lucy, an issue she plans to explore with Dr. Ahmet.

  26 In Lucy’s defense, she had attacked the engagement survey feverishly for the first ten years. However, as these words apply to the period between December 2009 and September 2010, then yes, her attention was elsewhere.

  27 Lucy has since reordered her priorities and recommitted herself to the successful execution of this critical project.

  28 At the moment, however, she’s in mourning.

  29 At some point in the past seven months, Lucy stopped calling Rosa “Ozzy.” It wasn’t a conscious decision, but one she may not have noticed if her mother hadn’t said it. But to hear “Oswald” from Valerie, especially in the middle of Rosa’s funeral, felt horribly inappropriate.

  30 Nando also pleaded poverty re: Rosa’s funeral expenses. “I’ll get lucky at the tables,” he told Lucy, who, along with Leo and Rutherford, paid for the arrangements.

  31 Remarkable how you can spend eight hours a day with your coworkers yet have very few pictures of them. (Remarkable, that is, if you’re over thirty and didn’t grow up documenting your every waking moment.)

  32 This supported Lucy’s theory that Kenny would make an ideal number two. She just had to keep him out of Janine’s clutches. Determined to win him back, Janine had launched a full frontal assault for his affection, but Lucy was equally determined to keep him focused and on task. Victori spolia!

  33 Three ex-wives?

  34 While Lucy was intrigued and flattered by Rutherford’s offer—his maritime metaphor about the battered ship notwithstanding—his use of the hackneyed “throw some ideas” expression made her want to rip out his tongue.

  35 Ibid and Ibid.

  36 Thus far, her reading indicated that management consultants—Bain, McKinsey, BCG, Accenture—are con men who sell fake words, invented theories, and sham philosophies for millions of dollars.

  37 Re: footnote 36: in her humble layman’s opinion.

  38 Apparently this was a thing in certain parts of the US—well-heeled debs running off with trainers, jockeys, groomers, etc., to the consternation of their cuckolded husbands and rich families.

  39 Including, to her infinite shame, a member of the cleaning staff who stepped into the CEO’s office and asked if she could vacuum around his desk, and to whom he offered a beatific “Of course, my dear.”

  40 Some things, in fact, she actively planned to change. See footnotes 11 and 12.

  41 Lucy had every intention of making the life of Chuckles (who, by the way, had recently hired his own son as a “special consultant”) a living hell. There was no level to which she wouldn’t stoop to avenge her mentor and friend. Brace yourself, Chuckles: there’s a new bitch in town.

  42 And yet Maisie Fresh had beaten them all at their own game. Lucy recently read in the Wall Street Journal (of all places) that Maisie Fresh had just outed herself as the author of an anonymous blog on LinkedIn (of all places), where she’d been chronicling her daily life as an HR wage slave for the past eighteen months. But it wasn’t the blog that chapped Lucy’s ass; it was the soon-to-be published book. Somehow Maisie had turned her 500-word posts into an actual hardcover novel. (Lucy had no idea the kid could read a whole book, much less write one.)

  43 An adoring, high-powered boss, the Fox still worked at JPMorgan Chase, overseeing global employee development, and still owed Lucy a favor, which she’d recently called in.

  44 Unless it involved sex, though to call those encounters “intimate” was a stretch.

  45 His name, she learned from Manny, was Gerald Leong. He had a BA in economics from Baruch and was headed to law school in the fall, part-time. Married with one child, Gerald lived in Queens, where he enjoyed Mexican food, mid-twentieth century jazz, and restoring vintage cars.

  46 The poster was meant to be an ironic statement about the subjugation of women in patriarchal institutions. Not one of her coworkers got the joke—most figured she just loved cats.

  47 A moment so powerfully fraught it was like a dirty bomb detonated in Lucy’s brain, shattering all capacity for rational thought. Hereafter, this announcement, made on January 20, 2010, is referred to as “The W Incident.”

  48 Should anyone doubt the veracity of this statement, Lucy would quickly point out that if she were going to recommend herself for a promotion, would she really say something as trite as “I’d like to toss my hat in the ring” in a roomful of colleagues? Please.

  49 In fairness, Lucy’s feelings for Evan and Rob were more complex than this conversation might suggest. For years, she had dismissed Rosa’s claim that she was in love with Rob. She also took umbrage every time Dr. Ahmet referred to “this Evan” as her “fantasy man.” Yet they were both right: Lucy didn’t love Evan—she loved the idea of Evan. (Point, Dr. Ahmet.) And she did love Rob. (Point, Rosa.) In the end, however, all of this became moot.

  50 Gift subscription from her mother.

  51 The subtext: her future at Ellery was bound to Rosa’s; one could thrive only at the expense of another. What did this mean for her, long-term?

  52 Regrettably, it had taken her many years and much anguish to understand that in business there was no such thing as “off the record.” Indeed, as a junior employee, she spent countless afternoons in a postdiscussion frenzy, trying to recall, recalibrate, and recant all the unvarnished truths she’d offered to leadership in the spirit of “honesty.”

 
53 Eventually this became the Mergers and Acquisitions Committee, which was really just Rutherford, Lucy, and Rosa sitting in a conference room, talking about plans that would never happen.

  54 This is how the feminist revolution would begin. She’d promote hardworking, overlooked women, train them to assert themselves, and show them how to run a business with their heads as well as their hearts.

  55 Refer to footnotes 3, 4, and 43.

  56 To hug corporate-style, create a circle with your arms around a colleague’s shoulders. Lean forward. Do not touch torsos. Do not touch necks or faces. No body part except upper arms should make contact.

  57 While this makes it seem like no big deal to pick up the phone and start wailing to a brilliant, high-powered literary agent, Jen coedited my first novel, Hunger Point, so I’d known her a long time. In 1997, she left HarperCollins and joined ZSH Literary (now Aevitas), where she became the rock star she is today.

  58 What? You thought I was done with the footnotes? They’re my favorite part of the book!

  59 Funny/sad family sagas.

  60 I Couldn’t Love You More, which sold in 2010 to Grand Central Publishing, where I met the equally brilliant, generous, creative, hard-working, and all-around-amazing Emily Griffin.

  61 Nicole’s reputation preceded her. Everyone I asked told me she was one of the savviest, smartest, and biggest-hearted publicists in the business. So of course I was skeptical; no one’s that good, right? Uh, wrong. She’s all that and more.

  62 Someone had to be brave enough to say it.