Breathe In, Cash Out Page 6

  Finally, Tripp adds his half and skims the full deck like it’s an electronic flip-book before attaching it in an email to Vivienne. He signs the email “Aloha, Tripp” and forgets to add my name. We head down to pick up our food.

  “You bringing your diary?” Tripp asks.

  “No,” I say.

  Obviously he noticed.

  “Tryna cope with the bullshit?” he asks.

  “Actually, yes,” I say. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way.”

  Tripp ordered us each a full eggs-bacon-and-pancakes breakfast. The rule is that Anderson will buy its bankers dinner every night up to twenty-five dollars, and then another twenty-five dollars’ worth of food if you stay after midnight. But the after-midnight rule is gray and you can only take advantage of it if you have a good relationship with your assistant. Tripp can buy whatever he wants because his assistant, Clarita, thinks she’s always one personal favor away from taking him home. Clarita is forty-something and divorced. She baked him a chocolate cake for his birthday, which she has not done for anyone else. She says he is “so full of life.”

  “I have a question for you,” Tripp says in the Sky Lobby.

  “Shoot,” I say.

  I open Instagram, where Skylar’s picture from this morning reminds me, “Fall in love with taking care of yourself.” One day, I fucking will. The photo shows her meditating with her legs in lotus and her eyes closed. She smiles so warmly that I actually feel better just seeing this photo. Like.

  I scroll through her profile and stop on one of her more touching posts from a few weeks ago. The video is of her doing a vinyasa flow in her kitchen. The caption:

  @SkylarSmithYoga: I was shy, quiet

  Spent most of my time alone

  I just found it hard to relate. I was in my head.

  Dreaming, thinking, doubting, feeling different.

  Not at ease, I didn’t belong. Not good enough.

  Comparing.

  Then I found yoga.

  I was comfortable in yoga classes because it was

  individual—but in a group. It made it easier to be with others.

  “The wound is the place

  where the light enters you.” —Rumi

  My struggles to form relationships helped me

  appreciate connection. The connections I found in the studio.

  I was deeply without, so now I savor.

  I’ve built a life around helping other people.

  “Love is the water of life.

  Drink it down with heart and soul.” —Rumi

  However you choose to connect,

  Spread love.

  Love, Skye

  I’ve already read the comments thread, where hundreds of people tell stories about when they felt like an outsider. It’s a great post.

  We enter the cafeteria, next to the Sky Lobby.

  “One sec,” he says.

  We part ways to pick up our food. The cafeteria transforms every night after 8 p.m. The dozens of food stations—pizza, Mediterranean, sushi, chopped salad—are packed away, and the crowds are gone. Takeout plastic bags cover every surface, sorted by last name. I grab mine from the “A–C” section and scroll through the rest of my Instagram feed, which is filled with yoga.

  Tripp and I reunite at the elevator bank.

  “Your question?” I prompt.

  “Right,” he says. “So, where are you going after bonuses? Chloe was bugging me about it again today.”

  “Oh really,” I say.

  “Yeah, you’re the only one she can’t nail down,” he says.

  “No one knows about Puja, either,” I say.

  He gives me a come on look. Everyone knows Puja has been buy-side recruiting for two full years and doesn’t have an offer yet, while almost all other second-years have jobs waiting for them. It’s late in the cycle for her not to know where she’s going. The longer before you lock down your exit, the more likely it is that you haven’t made the cut.

  “Anyway, I told Chloe I don’t know,” he says.

  “Are you asking for you, or are you asking for Chloe?” I ask.

  I eye him to say, I’m onto you. He surrender-palms me.

  “I’m just starting drama,” he says.

  I laugh. I’ve considered telling the pod my plan, but the idea still makes me squirm. Admitting to my yoga dreams would be admitting that I’m abandoning these people on every level. Like, Hey, see you in Aspen this March? “Not fucking happening.” Want to join me at the Lobster Club? “How about no, no to your entire lifestyle, forever, starting now.” People refer to the jobs after banking as “exit options,” but yoga is truly an escape, once and for all. I’m not as close with Chloe and Puja, but for some reason, I can’t even tell Tripp. Goodbyes are tough.

  “Chloe thinks you’re doing a start-up in stealth mode,” he says. “And that’s why you won’t say.”

  “Does she just gossip about me when I’m not there?” I ask.

  “Nah,” he says. “You’re not that interesting.”

  “You really are starting drama, huh?” I say.

  “Obviously,” he says.

  With bonuses approaching, the pod took bets last week on the order in which people would quit. I was in a meeting. Tripp told me that Chloe bet I would quit first because I have a “foot-out-the-door vibe.” Apparently, I “get my shit done” but “there’s a distance” to me. On the other end of the spectrum, everyone knows Tripp isn’t quitting at all. Associates don’t have as massive an exodus, anyway, and Tripp says he’ll stick it out here until he meets a woman who will pay for his lifestyle. He wants to be a househusband so that he can work on his body all day.

  “Fine, fine,” he says. “I’ll lay off.”

  I don’t know how much longer I can avoid the question, though. We stop at the HG vending machine so he can buy Twizzlers.

  “Twizzlers?” I ask. “How old are you?”

  “Sree,” he says.

  He holds up two and a half fingers.

  12:47 a.m.

  The backstory with my dad is that he and I are very close. I’ve seen your posts with your Mom and Rosie, so I think you know where I’m coming from. Just that family is core to who we are. Idk. I think you said that once.

  Just got a text from him. Thinking about home.

  I put my pen down.

  Dad’s text: Do today what others won’t, so tomorrow you do what others can’t.

  It’s one of his winner’s-mind-set phrases for me to apply to my job. The last he sent before that was Success requires sacrifice. Dad and I text or email every day, but we don’t talk much by phone. Last time we really touched base, his latest idea was to write a daily summary of the markets, circulate it as an email newsletter around the block for a dollar, and grow that fee over time. He had the same idea a few years ago, and I made him a template to use in Word, but nothing ever came of it. I don’t know how much time he spends trading every day, but I get the sense he watches more and more sports alone.

  I’ve been planning how to tell Dad that I will quit. My best idea is to appeal to his appreciation of strength. He would never want me to take shit from anyone. Meanwhile, my job requires I wear a bitch mask 24/7. I say, Yes, amazing, to every absurd request. Analysts have to accept every assignment without question at any time of day, even if they are on the train to go to a funeral, which I know because it actually happened to Puja.

  I have been collecting stories like that for when I finally break him the news. In March, for example, an MD asked me by email to drive for three hours one way during HG’s annual ski trip in Jackson Hole so that I could take a picture of a client’s storefront. He wanted to use that photo in a presentation. So I did. On the way back, it started to snow. In the end, the MD didn’t use the photo. Dad, do you see this isn’t actually who you want me to be? Can’t we do better than this?

  As I rehearse for the heart-to-heart, though, I know I’m avoiding the real issue. The real issue isn’t how I will deliver the news to Dad, it’s how the
news will change our relationship. I don’t know how to prepare for that part—what we have is fragile and a little awkward, but family is family, and I cherish it all the same. For now, I keep collecting anecdotes. It feels like I’m working toward something.

  * * *

  Vivienne calls Tripp at 1 a.m. Since we sent her the deck, we got caught in the dead zone known as “waiting for comments.” People complain about bankers’ hours, but what they don’t usually say is that the hours are not correlated with amount of work. Even if you have no work, you can’t leave the office before 9 p.m. unless you want to be ridiculed for having a bedtime or acting like an MD.

  By now, Tripp has undone the top buttons on his dress shirt, and a few associates have gone home for the night. Behind us, two analysts take turns on an MD’s putter, practicing their short game on one of the Styrofoam cups from the pantry. Apparently, whoever gets fewer balls in the cup has to take the SATs next weekend and publish the new score on his LinkedIn.

  “Hey, Viv, how’s it going?” Tripp asks.

  “Hi, Vivienne,” I fawn.

  “Yes,” she says. Partyish voices sound in the background. “Sorry, I’ve been tied up at the Women’s Group event.”

  We get it. You have more important things to do than this assignment that you completely made up.

  “No problemo,” Tripp says.

  “I have some comments,” she says, crisp as winter. Tripp pretends to shiver, rubbing his hands up and down his biceps and mouthing brrr. That’s funny. I would pound his fist if we weren’t so deeply afraid.

  Vivienne proceeds to comment so extensively as to dictate an entirely new and equally absurd, unrequested assignment. We did exactly as she asked; she just changed her mind. Vivienne wants us to use a different peer set for the stock price comparison and benchmarking charts, and then compute new merger analyses with CVS and Walmart.

  Those mergers would be enormous and ridiculous, but they may encourage Titan to think about buying gigantic shit, and then we can all get paid more. I fall silent, but Tripp is enduringly positive and responds, “Awesome,” “Sensational,” and, “Brilliant.” Vivienne ends with, “Thanks, team,” before the line, like my morale, is suddenly dead.

  “How does she live with herself?” Tripp asks. “Every day, she looks in the mirror, and she has to know, I am Vivienne. I am this person.”

  “Hey,” Chloe snaps.

  “Oh my God, what?” Tripp asks.

  “Are you only criticizing her because she’s a woman?” Chloe asks.

  Tripp rolls his head in an I-can’t-win figure eight around his neck. To answer her, he points at the raised outlet on his desk, where his iPhone charger used to be. A half-eaten bag of Twizzlers now occupies the space.

  “No, I don’t want a Twizzler,” Chloe says.

  “I do,” Puja says.

  Tripp points again, calling attention to the fact that Vivienne asked to borrow his charger before she left for the closing dinner. She plopped it in her Louis Vuitton bag and took the fuck off.

  “She stole my phone charger,” Tripp says. He bites into another Twizzler and hands one to Puja. “Phone. Charger.”

  “I’m working now,” Chloe says.

  “Whatever,” he says. “I literally hate all of my VPs.”

  Tripp and I once sorted the HG VPs into categories of Douche, Double Douche, and Evil on a whiteboard in an MD’s office one night. He thought this was so funny that he ASIMed me a picture of the list for ya records. I had to snap at him, Compliance literally surveils everything, Tripp. He ASIMed me, In-vins-ible.

  “I mean, Will?” Tripp continues. “Asshat. Nick? Total asshat. Jim? Asshat. Viv? Asshat. She doesn’t get special treatment.” Chloe is absorbed in work again, but Tripp is happy at the chance to talk. “Quick follow-up question for you. So, French Revolution, did you feel bad for Louis the Fourteenth? Just curious.”

  “You don’t understand the social context of working women,” Chloe says.

  “Obviously. The last time I touched a woman was months ago.”

  “So, Tripp, do you want to do Walmart?” I ask.

  “Kill me now,” he says.

  “Tripp?” I ask.

  The lull that follows is good for productivity.

  Meanwhile, I side silently with Tripp. Hating VPs is a way of life. Cartooning the shit out of them is a form of therapy and frankly, other viewpoints wouldn’t even make sense. Who would act this way? A human being? Not possible. So I imagine Vivienne showing 0.0 emotional response to ASPCA commercials and then having long talks with her four-hundred-dollar-an-hour psychologist about feeling empty. Chloe shakes her head randomly, as if she is still deeply offended by our lack of empathy for female investment bankers. But I know where Tripp is coming from. It’s survival: Vivienne stole Tripp’s phone charger, and Dad didn’t raise a wimp.

  * * *

  4:10 a.m.

  Finished another Skittles.

  4:12 a.m.

  Neck and shoulder pain.

  “Will you quit your fucking diary entries?” Tripp asks.

  I lay my pen down, parallel to the edge of my notebook. Tripp, Chloe, and I are the last three on the floor. Tripp mouths the words of his email to himself as he proofreads before finally hitting send. Meanwhile, Chloe’s Excel shortcuts pitter-patter like rain. She’s been pulling all-nighters for the past week on some $17 billion deal team, per her broadcasts.

  I type my journal entries for Skylar. The novella is littered with junk food, sarcasm, and some tortured lusting for my boss—to the tune of, I want him, I hate myself, I want him, I hate myself—wrapping up only now, just after 4 a.m. I imagine Skylar opening the email while in lotus on her yoga mat, well rested and sipping ginger tea, dropping her mug lower with every additional anecdote. She thought I would be a quick fix, but I might have to start paying her. I can’t afford her. Fuck. I’m self-conscious to reveal the shitstorm of my life to someone I respect but having the Skylar Smith as a mentor is too good to pass up.

  I email the journal and stand.

  “See you tomorrow,” I tell Chloe.

  “Later,” she says. Her darting fingers draw attention to her nails, which are painted whitish pink. The color is chipped but nice. Getting that far on the continuum of physical presentation is frankly astounding. She’s even wearing mascara.

  “Nice mascara,” I say.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “Who makes it?” I ask, out of curiosity.

  “I forget,” she says.

  Right. She cares way too much about labels not to know.

  “That’s too bad,” I say.

  “You have a great face for makeup, you know,” she says.

  As I leave, I get the distinct impression that this is not a fucking compliment. Thanks a lot, Chloe, I imagine telling her. Oh yeah, and I am going to a start-up in stealth mode after all. Our niche is outbidding KKR on every deal they ever fucking do.

  chapter 7

  I trudge to work four hours later, screening emails as I walk. My world is the size of an index card. I thumb out another Will do.

  No one is staffed on only one company at once. Vivienne aside, I have five other psychos suddenly needing shit from me yesterday. Their projects include two deals—one, selling a company, and the other, issuing debt—and three industry updates. On one of my industry update teams, the guy in the associate role has turned over three times since we started working with the client a year ago. Incredible personal touch.

  I stop beside the pretzel food cart that faces Anderson and wait for the light to turn. The stand is almost as much of a monument as the headquarters itself. The owner is always fucking here, and it’s winter. I would wave, say hello, or something, but his bad attitude is as legendary as his cart’s constant presence. He is sour and randomly spiteful.

  I cross the street. Allegedly, I have one new personal email. I follow the alert to see if it’s spam or a subscription leftover from college. Turns out a girl from Princeton High School emailed me for ad
vice in deciding between Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. “Did Princeton feel small?” she writes. Oh my God, I do not have time for this. If she can get into all three, she can figure that the fuck out while I devote all mental resources toward saving my own ass.

  Another personal email arrives—from Skylar. She writes that she has so many thoughts in response to my journal, and that I can call, text, or email her whenever to talk about them. Her signature gives her cell number.

  I call her right away.

  “Hello?” she answers.

  “Hi!” I say.

  “Good morning,” she says. She clears her throat. “Allegra?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Sorry, you said I could call.”

  “I did, of course,” she says.

  “Chop, chop.”

  I laugh.

  “So, am I fucked or what?” I ask.

  “Excuse me?” she asks.

  God. “Right,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  She laughs.

  “I mean, what did you think of the journal?”

  “There was so much in there,” she says. “Do you want to talk in person? Over the phone feels so impersonal.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Tonight?”

  There’s a pause.

  “Sorry, is that too soon?” I ask.

  “Not at all,” she says. “But before we talk about your journal, I would suggest you do a heartfelt-desire meditation. I can send you instructions. I think this will help center you and get you back in touch with your practice!”

  “Before tonight?” I ask cautiously.

  “Yes,” she says. “The meditation is simple. If you tried it at your desk, no one would even notice. If you don’t have time, no worries, but I really encourage you to take some time to refocus on you. And if you have any trouble with it at all, or if any part of it is confusing, just let me know. You know where to reach me!”

  “Thank you, Skylar,” I say.

  She laughs. “Of course! I am here to help.”

  I know. Thank you.

  “How about nine p.m. at Yoga Mala?” she asks.

  “Perfect,” I say instantly.

  “Okay, see you tonight,” she says.