Breathe In, Cash Out Page 11

  I’ve never heard her so critical before—in fact, I’ve never heard her critical at all. Skylar reaches the doorway and notices me.

  “Oh, hi!” she says, back to her bubbly self.

  “Sorry, one last thing,” I say.

  “Of course,” she says.

  We trot down three flights of stairs to the street.

  “What’s going on?” she asks.

  “I just want to say thank you for helping me,” I say. “Again. You have so much else going on, and there are so many other people you could be teaching. I really—really—appreciate your time. I am really committed to learning. I’m sorry.”

  We walk quickly to keep warm.

  “Of course,” she says. Skylar presses her scarf down from her mouth with her chin. “I remember what it was like getting started, you know. You’ll be a great teacher one day. You just need to do a bit of work on your own, okay? Do the fast.”

  “I will,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “Be patient with yourself,” she says.

  “Yes, I will,” I say. “Thank you, Skylar.”

  “You’re still young,” she says. “Believe it or not, you’re further along than I was when I was your age. I didn’t have any sort of mentor around, and I had money problems. When I moved here, I mean, my first apartment? You could cut your feet on the bathroom tile if you weren’t wearing shoes. There was a hole in the ceiling. The shower wouldn’t drain, so you had to use Tupperware to remove water from the bathtub.”

  Oh. Maybe this is why she likes the elite studios. At least those places pay yoga teachers a decent amount. It’s not like going to donations-only Yoga to the People. Skylar’s financial struggles must have made it salient that yoga is more than a spiritual practice. It’s an industry, too.

  “I worked hard,” she says, “to do and spread what I love.”

  I feel positive goodwill being restored.

  “All that being said,” she says, her tone becoming even more tender, “you’re not teacher-ready. I’m sure you feel that. You have to help yourself before you can help others. So reflect and stick to the fast. Who knows? You may have an epiphany.” She smiles. “I hope you do. I really would love to work with you.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “I believe in you,” she says kindly.

  We still have a couple of blocks between us and the subway station. I wring my hands, itching to ask her one more thing.

  “Anything else on your mind?” she asks.

  “Well, yes,” I say. “Since we have a second. I was thinking about friendship this morning in light of your post—which was phenomenal, by the way. I realized I don’t have real friends yet in the yoga community. So, I was wondering, do you have any advice on meeting other yogis? Building those friendships?”

  “That is such a great question,” she says.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Do you practice in a group?”

  “Hm,” she considers. “These days, sometimes with my sister, but mostly by myself. I’ve been so busy teaching and coaching that flowing on my own works best for my schedule. Rosie and I practice vinyasa.”

  “You two seem close,” I say.

  Skylar smiles. Rosie studies arts and media at NYU. Whenever she appears in one of Skylar’s posts, the photo gets double the usual likes. Rosie has Skylar’s blond hair and bright smile, on a slightly heavier frame. Rosie never does real yoga in the posts, but sometimes she strikes a fun pose while Skylar holds a handstand, or they take a mirror selfie together with Skylar’s arm around her sister.

  “I think we feel the same way about family,” Skylar says.

  She meets my eyes thoughtfully. I’m touched, because I think she’s referencing my midnight journal entry about Dad. She remembers that random part of my rant! Before we can discuss it any further, though, we’re at the subway. We hug and make plans to break the fast together on Friday. She tells me I can have a couple of days to recover from the weekend before I start the forty-eight-hour fast on Wednesday night. Skylar reminds me to be gentle with myself before she disappears into a crowd of parkas.

  I should turn right toward my own train, but I can’t quite walk away just yet. It’s weird how much I miss her, so soon. Every time I see her, I like her more and more. Her attitude just makes me feel like I matter—like I’m more than a deck-building, color-coding robot. I imagine us working together again. Maybe we could teach a flow around the theme of family.

  Someone shoulder-checks me.

  “Watch it!” the stranger snaps.

  “I’m fucking standing here!” I shout.

  Ow. I must have lost track of time. I come back to my senses. All I have to do to work with Skylar is have a fucking epiphany during my fast. A fast. Okay, a fast. I once survived a full fifty hours in the AS office on nothing but coffee and saltines I found in my desk drawer—I can do this.

  chapter 12

  I start most mornings with three eight-ounce cups of black coffee in a row, then drink at least three more throughout the day. I dilute each with water until it’s tasteless, because coffee gives me a gag reflex. But I need it. Almost everyone on the floor drinks an insane amount of coffee (except for the Mormons). Puja calls it Prozac. An HG analyst passed out in the shower at home from a caffeine pill overdose a few months ago. She was also on diet pills, though, so it’s unclear what caused the fall. Point being: caffeine is life.

  Not today. Today is pure fast day fucking one.

  I shut my phone alarm off, instantly nervous to face the daily shitstorm of my job un-drugged. I deodorant-shower and pack my phone. I try not to spend too much time in my studio because this shit is depressing. It’s a sixth-floor walkup roughly the size of my pod at Anderson that leeches almost $2K from me a month. That’s despite living on the Upper East Side, where space is cheaper at the trade-off of being “deeply lame,” per Tripp.

  If I weren’t fasting, I’d pack something to eat from my fridge, where I store food bought with only my Anderson dinner allowance. A couple of weeks ago, Jason called a meeting with HG to review which purchases were not acceptable in the allowance. On the “curb your usage” list: alcohol, multiple frozen meals, boxes of cereal, cartons of milk, gum, toilet paper, candies, pancake syrup, and mints. One of the analysts, who was chewing gum at the time, raised his hand to say that he considered gum a reasonable purchase and a food. Jason repeated that gum is not a food. A lively discussion ensued.

  The no-food part of the fast doesn’t scare me. It’s neglecting caffeine that’s horrifying, because I have to be productive for twenty hours a day and act convincingly happy as shit at the same time. Junior bankers get sorted into one of three levels based on performance—top, middle, or bottom tier—and everyone in the same tier is paid the same bonus. If I don’t convince my VPs that I’m masochistic and extroverted, welcome to bottom fucking bonus tier. I’ve relied on coffee since I started and don’t know who I am without it.

  On my way out, I pass two pictures on my bureau: one of Mom cradling me at the hospital right after I was born, and the other showing Dad standing next to me at the finals of American Yoga. This is the best part of my morning, where I feel connected to my family. Then my commute is half an hour. This includes twenty minutes on the subway, where I stand, email, lose all sense of connection, and, whenever I see someone sit down, think, Sitting is for bitches.

  Today, I sit uncaffeinated among the bitches. I am seated bitch number five from the caboose. The first three are in various stages of sleeping. As the 4 train bolts down Lexington, I wobble and remember what Skylar said: on top of the fast, I should reflect to help myself surrender. I will let that unfold. You probably can’t rush epiphanies.

  I check my inbox. Mark emailed Team Titan that he will be back in the office this afternoon. The “mtg went well,” and the client is coming to the office tomorrow to discuss “nxt steps.” Fkn gr8. More emails hit with new tasks, and every request without a deadline specified means it’s due today. Only exceptions are clarified, and most of th
ose are due tomorrow. Of course, you don’t know what else will tunnel up from hell tomorrow, so “due tomorrow” functionally means “due today.” Everything is due today.

  I turn to my messages for a break, where Skylar wishes me peace in a single text. I’d muted Dad’s thread, but read it now, where he has sent several mind-set tips for attacking the massive deal. His excitement shines in exclamation marks. He’s also texted advice from New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick on team building for success. Dad takes Anderson’s bullshit love of “teams” to heart. But after two years here, I’ve learned that when people call you “team,” they usually mean “bitch.” Got this, bitch? Thanks. Couldn’t have done this without my bitch. Dad suggests a phone call when I have time. I promise to call soon.

  * * *

  By 2 p.m., I’ve made a week’s worth of mistakes. First, I sent Harry an accretion/dilution analysis with a pervasive sign error: subtracting costs instead of adding them for ten years into the future. A financial model is a column of formulas extended right to the end of the projection period, so a single error in this column means enormous, snowballed errors in the final year. I had modeled that the deal scenario would yield a sky-high 250 percent internal rate of return, or IRR. Harry stopped by my desk, addressed me as “Miss Warren Buffett,” and sarcastically congratulated me on finding the deal of the century.

  “Thank you,” I said meekly.

  And it’s only gotten worse.

  Today, Tripp is Stage Two hungover and also out of sorts. He went to Tao after work last night, which he told us briefly about at noon when he finally showed up. The first thing he did was ASIM me, I’m still drunk. I snapped at him that compliance surveils everything, and he ASIMed back, Pfft I am a celebpretty. CELEBPRETTY. Apparently, he went to a Victoria’s Secret party where it was $5K at the door to get in. He was accompanied by a few other associates, they charged everything to the company, and Tripp woke up alone on a roof. He looks blind in his sunglasses.

  “Are you guys okay?” Puja asks.

  “Not so loud, Chlo,” Tripp says.

  “It’s Puja,” she says.

  Tripp sips his Coke.

  Another one of my associates just stopped by to shit on me for sending him the wrong version of a file. Version control is holy here. Whenever we change a model, we “save up” and rename the file as a different version. This creates a library of backups. It’s common for files to get suffixed up to “_v100” for “version 100” before “_vf” for “version final.” But when we get stressed, naming conventions devolve. I sent my associate “_vfinal” but the latest was actually “_vf4.” So, he visited to ask if my “dick” was in my “hand.” I actually answered, “No, it’s not.” Tripp, sunglasses on, told the associate to “cheel.”

  A new request rolls in, no deadline specified. My head hurts.

  “Fuck,” I murmur.

  “What?” Tripp asks. “He still being a dick?”

  “No, I’m just out of it, thanks.”

  “Dope.”

  “Were you there last night, Allegra?” Puja asks.

  I shake my head. Ow.

  “A doesn’t go out,” Tripp says. “She sticks to NoFo.”

  It’s wordplay on the name of my neighborhood. People abbreviate South of Houston to “SoHo” and North of Houston to “NoHo.” Tripp abbreviates the Upper East Side to “NoFo” for “No Fun.”

  “What building?” Chloe asks me.

  I try to focus. My brain fog complicates the job requirement for constant maximum sharpness. At annual performance reviews, everyone gets “attention to detail” as a skill to improve, because turns out there are a lot of fucking details in spreadsheets of thousands of numbers while you field the EKG beep of new emails at the same time. I open the hundred-slide management presentation that I need to revise “ASAP.”

  “You guys,” Puja says. “Robbie update.”

  Not now. Robbie is a second-year analyst in Industrials. He is well-known in our class solely because of his Facebook statuses. They invariably have to do with banking and, more often than not, broadcast explicitly that he is a banker. His last one was an Onion article headlined “Coworker with Two Computer Screens Not Fucking Around.” He tagged another banker and referenced “your 8 monitors.”

  Tripp obediently opens Facebook.

  “Wow,” he says.

  “Today’s is so bad,” Puja says.

  “A, come see this,” Tripp says.

  “No, I feel like shit,” I say.

  “Did you wake up on a roof? I think not.”

  I lean over to Tripp’s monitor and read it out loud. “ ‘Q: Why did the CFO never say thank you?’ ” I ask. “ ‘A: Because accounting rules only allow him to depreciate, not appreciate.’ ” So far, it has earned one comment—“No”—and that comment has earned forty-five likes. I add one as Tripp, to make it forty-six.

  “Robbie’s going to Apollo, right?” Chloe asks.

  “Yeah, Apollo,” Puja says.

  OMG private equity. Awesome.

  “You think when he’s having sex with a girl he’s like, ‘You know I’m an investment banker, right?’ ” Tripp asks.

  “Tripp, stop,” Chloe says.

  “That’s all I can handle today, guys,” Tripp says.

  He X’s out of Facebook and pinches his sunglasses between his thumb and index finger to adjust them. As unread emails pile up in my inbox, I remember the yoga credo “The pose begins when you want to leave it.” Well, that would be now. Maybe this is what Skylar meant when she said the fast would help me surrender, because it stole my liquid shield.

  * * *

  Hours later, I’m cold. The office is always cold, but without my metabolism, it’s ice. Anderson must deliberately chill the air a few degrees below normal room temperature. There’s no way this is automatic. Chloe says Anderson keeps us cold because cooler air makes us more alert and more productive. Today, though, it’s getting in the way of my job. I keep returning to the pantry to fix myself paper cups of hot water and use these as disposable space heaters.

  At the Keurig, I mix my latest cup of steaming water with a wooden stir stick. I should have finished revising the hundred-slide management presentation by now, but I’m only halfway through comments. Progress is slow, new shit keeps cropping up, and then I need more hot water. The associate, Adam, still needs to review my work on the presentation before we send it to the MD tonight. He’s known on the floor for picking up people’s slack, and I might need him to pick up mine.

  “Oh my God, hey,” Puja says beside me.

  She looks peppy as shit. Her exaggerated hello is almost funny because I see her all day, every day. I wait in silence for her to finish brewing her cup of coffee. I imagine snatching it. It would be so easy. Meanwhile, pimply first-year Brian opens the HG pantry fridge, takes a 0 percent Fage yogurt, and leaves. Puja and I return to the pod together. As soon as Brian is out of earshot, she leans in as if she has a secret to share.

  “Do you want to know the saddest thing?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say, exhausted.

  “It’s like the more time I spend here, the more attractive everyone gets,” Puja says. “I’m wearing Anderson goggles or something.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Broo-tahl.”

  She laughs.

  “Were you looking at Brian?” I ask.

  “Literally maybe,” she says. “What about you?”

  Brian has one or two bruises reliably above his collarbone because he pinches himself when he gets anxious.

  “Literally no.”

  She laughs. “Any better ideas?”

  “Nope,” I say. “No one.”

  “Oh, come on,” she prods. “Not even Tripp?”

  “Puja,” I chide her. “May I remind you, sometimes, I literally rip his phone out of his hands to get him to stop swiping yes to every single girl on Tinder.” He goes on Tinder whenever he feels slighted in order to boost his self-esteem, but it pisses Chloe off. “Marginalizing women�
� and stuff.

  Puja eyes my water.

  “So you and Tripp didn’t go out together last night?” she asks.

  “No,” I say. I already told her that.

  “Your side of the pod is pretty dehydrated,” she says. “Just saying.”

  “Um, okay,” I say.

  We’re almost back at the pod. Now I understand what she’s getting at. “Oh my God, Puja, no. There’s absolutely nothing going on between us.”

  “Mmkay,” she says skeptically.

  Is she serious? I looked at Tripp that way for a second when we started. Now I have a management presentation to do. I’m woozy, and my head hurts from caffeine withdrawal. I wrap my hands around my space heater, and Puja winks from across the pod. I roll my eyes, which makes me dizzy.

  Work, fuckface. I stare at the PowerPoint. Could this day get any worse?

  “Team.” It’s Mark’s voice.

  He tents his fingertips on my desk.

  Oh my God, it just did.

  “Terrific to see you,” Tripp says.

  Mark stands at the edge of our pod in an extremely unusual mixing of banking castes. This does not happen. The only time I’ve seen an MD visit juniors was the day after Mitch seized at his desk at 3 a.m. after he had been up for eighty-one hours straight. Two of Mitch’s pod-mates rushed him to the hospital. The next day, one of the female MDs walked the floor and visited everyone to ask, “How are you?” She kept saying, “Things are going to change. This cannot continue.” I’m pretty sure my texting invited Mark over. But Tripp, Puja, and Chloe probably think someone in HG has died.

  “How is Team Titan these days?” Mark asks.

  “I have never been happier than I am right now,” Tripp says.

  “Great,” Mark says. He looks at me as if I am supposed to answer, too. But I am a bit out of my element and can’t find any words.

  Mark smirks.

  “How was your meeting?” Tripp asks.

  “Productive,” he says.

  He nods as he leaves our pod. As soon as his pin-striped suit is out of sight, Tripp leans toward the center of our pod.

  “That was the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispers.