Everyone Worth Knowing

‘You didn’t!’ She looked horrified.

‘I did. Very cute bouncer, but a total creep.’

‘Oh, Bette, I’m so sorry! Why didn’t you call me?’

‘I did, a few dozen times, but I guess you couldn’t hear your phone. Listen, don’t worry about it. Tonight’s your night, so try and, well, uh, enjoy it?’

‘Let’s get you a drink,’ she said, pulling a cosmopolitan from a circling waiter’s tray. ‘Do you believe this party?’

‘It’s crazy. How long has your mother been planning this?’

‘She read in Page Six weeks ago that Gisele and Leo were seen “canoodling” here, so I guess she called and booked it right after that. She keeps telling me that these are the kinds of places I should be patronizing because of their “exclusive clientele.” I didn’t tell her that the one time Avery dragged me here the clientele was basically having sex on the dance floor.’

‘It probably would’ve only encouraged her more.’

‘True.’ A model-tall woman wedged herself between us and began air-kissing Penelope in a manner so insincere I actually cringed, gulped my cosmo, and sneaked away. I got pulled into some inane conversation with a few people from the bank who’d just arrived and who looked a little shell-shocked to be away from their computers, and I chatted as briefly as possible with Penelope’s mother, who immediately referenced both the Chanel suit and the heels she was wearing and then pulled Penelope by the arm to another cache of people. I surveyed the designer-clad crowd and tried not to shrink in my outfit, which had been purchased online from a combination of J. Crew and Banana Republic at three in the morning a few months ago. Will had been particularly insistent lately that I needed ‘going out’ clothes, but the catalog orders were not what he had in mind. I got the feeling that any of these people could – and would – feel perfectly comfortable roaming around naked. Even better than the clothes (which were perfect) was the confidence, and that came from somewhere else entirely. Two hours and three cosmos later, certifiably tipsy, I was considering going home. Instead, I grabbed another drink and ducked outside.

The line to get in had cleared up entirely; only the bouncer who’d held me in club purgatory for so long remained. I was preparing my snide remarks should he address me in any way whatsoever, but he just grinned and returned his attention to the paperback he was reading, which looked like a matchbook in his massive hands. Shame he was so cute – but jerks always are.

‘So, what was it about me that you didn’t like?’ I couldn’t help myself. Five years in the city and I’d tried to avoid places with doormen or velvet ropes unless absolutely necessary; I’d inherited at least a bit of my parents’ egalitarian self-righteousness – or intense insecurity, depending on how you looked at it.

‘Pardon?’

‘I mean, when you wouldn’t let me in before, even though it’s my best friend’s engagement party.’

He shook his head and half-smiled to himself. ‘Look, it’s nothing personal. They hand me a list and tell me to follow it and do crowd control. If you’re not on the list or you show up when a hundred other people do, I have to keep you outside for a little while. There’s really nothing more to it.’

‘Sure.’ I’d all but missed my best friend’s big night because of his door policy. I teetered a bit and then hissed, ‘Nothing personal. Right.’

‘You think I need your attitude tonight? I’ve got plenty of people who are far more expert at giving me a really fucking hard time, so why don’t we just stop talking and I’ll put you in a cab?’

Perhaps it was the fourth cosmo – liquid courage – but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his condescending attitude, so I turned on my too-chunky heels and yanked the door open. ‘I hardly need your charity. Thanks for nothing,’ I snapped and marched back inside the club as soberly as I could manage.

I hugged Penelope, air-kissed Avery, and then beelined to the door before anyone else could initiate any more small talk. I saw a girl crouched in a corner, sobbing quietly but with a pleased awareness that others were watching, and sidestepped a strikingly stylish foreign couple who were making out furiously, and with much hip grinding. I then made a big show of ignoring the meathead bouncer who, incidentally, was reading from a tattered paperback version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (sex fiend!) and threw my arm in the air to hail a cab. Only the street was completely empty, and a cold drizzle had just begun, practically guaranteeing that a taxi was nowhere in my immediate future.

‘Hey, you need some help?’ he asked after opening the velvet rope to admit three squealing, tottering girls. ‘This is a tough street for cabs when it rains.’

‘No thanks, I’m just fine.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Minutes were starting to feel like hours, and the warm summer sprinkles had rapidly become a cold, persistent rain. What, exactly, was I proving here? The bouncer had pressed himself against the door to get some protection from the overhang and was still reading calmly, as though unaware of the hurricane that now whipped around us. I continued to stare at him until he looked up, grinned, and said, ‘Yeah, you seem to be doing just fine on your own. You’re definitely teaching me a lesson by not taking one of these huge umbrellas and walking a couple blocks over to Eighth, where you’ll have no trouble getting a cab at all. Great call on your part.’

‘You have umbrellas?’ I asked before I could stop myself. The water had soaked entirely through my shirt and I could feel my blanket-thick hair sticking to my neck in wet, cold clumps.

‘Sure do. Keep ’em right here for situations just like this. But I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in taking one of them, right?’

‘Right. I’m just fine.’ To think I’d almost begun warming up to him. Just then a livery cab drove by, and I had the brilliant idea to call UBS’s car service for a ride home.

‘Hi, this is Bette Robinson with account number six-three-three-eight. I need a car to pick me up at—’

‘All booked!’ barked back an angry-sounding female dispatcher.

‘No, I don’t think you understand. I have an account with your company and—’

Click.

I stood there soaking wet, anger boiling inside me.

‘No cars, huh? Tough,’ he said, clucking sympathetically without looking up from the book. I’d managed to skim Lady Chatterley’s Lover when I was twelve and had already gleaned as much about sex as possible from the combination of Forever, Wifey and What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Girls, but I didn’t remember anything about it. Perhaps that had to do with a poor memory, or maybe it was the fact that sex hadn’t even been a part of my consciousness for the last two years. Or maybe it was that the plots of my beloved romance novels crowded my thoughts at all times. Whatever it was, I couldn’t even recall something snide to say about it, never mind clever. ‘No cars.’ I sighed. ‘Just not my night.’

He took a few steps out in the rain and handed me a long executive’s umbrella, already unfurled, with the club’s logo emblazoned on both sides. ‘Take it. Walk to Eighth, and if you still can’t get a cab, talk to the doorman at Serena, Twenty-third between Seventh and Eighth. Tell him I sent you, and he’ll work it out.’

I considered walking right past him and getting on the subway, but the idea of riding around in a train car at one in the morning was hardly appealing. ‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, refusing to meet what would surely be his gloating eyes. I took the umbrella and started walking east, feeling him watch me from behind.

Five minutes later, I was tucked in the backseat of a big yellow taxi, wet but finally warm.

I gave the driver my address and slumped back, exhausted. At this hour, cabs were good for two things and two things only: making out with someone on your way home from a good night out or catching up with multiple people in three-minute-or-less cell-phone conversations. Since neither was an option, I rested my wet hair on the patch of filthy vinyl where so many greasy, unwashed, oiled, lice-ridden, and generally unkempt heads had rested before mine, closed my eyes, and anticipated the sniffling, hysterical welcome I would soon receive from Millington. Who needed a man – or even a newly engaged best friend – when you had a dog?

3 (#udd89c3a8-2829-5bfa-adf2-4ff67959b207)

The week following Penelope’s engagement party was nearly unbearable. It was my fault, of course: there are many ways to piss off your parents and rebel against your entire upbringing without enslaving yourself in the process, but I was clearly too stupid to find them. So instead I sat inside my shower-sized cubicle at UBS Warburg – as I had every day for the past fifty-six months – and death-gripped the phone, which was currently discolored by a layer of Maybelline Fresh Look foundation (in Tawny Blush) and a few splotches of L’Oreal Wet Shine lip gloss (in Rhinestone Pink). I wiped it off as best I could while pressing the receiver to my ear and rubbed my grubby fingers clean underneath the desk chair. I was being berated by a ‘minimum,’ someone who only invests the million-dollar minimum with my division and is therefore excruciatingly demanding and detail-oriented in a way that forty-million-dollar clients never are.

‘Mrs Kaufman, I truly understand your concern over the market’s slight decline, but let me assure you that we have everything under control. I realize your nephew the interior decorator thinks your portfolio is top-heavy with corporate bonds, but I assure you our traders are excellent, and always looking out for your best interests. I don’t know if a thirty-two percent annual gain is realistic in this economic environment, but I’ll have Aaron give you a call as soon as he gets back to his desk. Yes. Of course. Yes. Yes. Yes, I will absolutely have him call you the moment he returns from the meeting. Yes. Certainly. Of course. Yes. Naturally. Yes. A pleasure hearing from you, as always. All right, then. Bye-bye.’ I waited until I heard the click on her end and then slammed down the phone.

Nearly five years and I’d yet to utter the word no, as apparently you need to have at least seventy-two months’ experience before being qualified to go there. I went to send Aaron a quick email begging him to return Mrs Kaufman’s call so she would finally stop stalking me and was surprised to see that he was back at his desk, busily blast-emailing us his daily inspirational bullshit.

Good morning, folks. Let’s remember to show our clients our high energy levels! Our relationships with these good folks comprise our whole business – they appreciate our patience and consideration as much as our results-oriented portfolio handling. I’m pleased to announce a new weekly group meeting, one that I hope will allow us all to brainstorm ways we may better serve our clients. It will be held each Friday at 7 a.m. and will provide us with an opportunity to think outside the box. Breakfast is on me, folks, so bring yourselves and your thinking caps and remember, ‘Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.’ – Alexander Graham Bell.

I stared at the email so long my eyes began to glaze over. Were his insistence on using the word folks and his constant references to ‘thinking outside the box’ more or less annoying than his inclusion of the phrase thinking caps? Did he craft and send these emails just to add to the all-pervasive misery and hopelessness of my days? I pondered this for a few moments, desperate to think about anything other than the seven A.M. meeting announcement. I managed to move beyond it long enough to field another frantic call, this time from Mrs Kaufman’s nephew, that lasted a record fifty-seven minutes, ninety percent of which he spent accusing me of things that were entirely beyond my control while I said nothing or, occasionally, just to switch things up, agreed with him that I was, in fact, as dumb and useless as he claimed.

I hung up and resumed staring listlessly at the email. I wasn’t exactly sure how Mr Bell’s quote applied to my life or why I should care, but I did know if I planned to escape for lunch, now was my only chance. I’d abided by the no-leaving-for-lunch policy my first few years at UBS Warburg and dutifully ordered in each day, but lately Penelope and I had brazenly begun sneaking out for ten, twelve minutes a day to retrieve our own takeout and cram in as much whining and gossip as possible. An IM popped up on my screen.

P.Lo: Ready? Let’s do falafel. Meet at the 52nd Street cart in five?

I punched in the letter Y, hit Send, and draped my suit jacket over the back of my chair to indicate my presence. One of the managers glanced at me when I picked up my purse, so I filled my mug with steaming coffee as additional proof that I hadn’t left the premises and placed it in the middle of my desk. I mumbled something about the bathroom to my fellow cubicle dwellers, who were too busy transferring their own facial grime to their telephones to even notice, and walked confidently toward the hallway. Penelope worked in the real-estate division two floors above me and was already in the elevator, but like two well-trained CIA operatives, we didn’t so much as glance at each other. She let me exit first and circle the lobby for a minute while she ducked outside and casually strolled past the fountain. I followed as best I could in my ugly, uncomfortable heels, the humidity hitting my face like a wall. We didn’t speak until we’d blended into the line of midtown office drones who stood both quietly and restlessly, wanting to savor their few precious minutes of daily freedom but instinctively getting pissy and frustrated at having to wait for anything.

‘What are you having?’ Penelope asked, her eyes scanning the three different carts of sizzling and highly aromatic ethnic food that men in varying costumes and facial hair were steaming, slicing, sautéing, skewering, frying, and heaving toward the hungry suits.

‘It’s all some sort of meat on a stick or dough-filled something,’ I said tonelessly, surveying the smoky meats. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Someone’s in a great mood today.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, I should be thrilled that five years of slave labor have turned out so well. I mean, look at us, how glamorous is this?’ I waved my arms expansively in front of us. ‘It’s sad enough we don’t get to go out to lunch at some point in the middle of a sixteen-hour workday, but it’s fucking pathetic that we aren’t even permitted to pick out our food ourselves.’

‘This is nothing new, Bette. I don’t know why you’re getting so stressed about it now.’

‘Just a particularly lousy day. If it’s possible to distinguish one from the next.’