Diary of a Working Girl (10 page)

I mumble something into the receiver about Century 21 and shopping bags, but I’m not really all that interested in this conversation anymore. I just wanted to gloat and share my unbelievable discovery with someone, and that being done with, I need to get going on conquering the kingdom. “Yeah, I’m done gloating now.

Nothing left to say here. There are men to meet!” I say, and with a laugh, Joanne hangs up. She must be thrilled I’m not complaining about something for once.

I figured I would just go on up in an elevator and be seated at my desk in no time. This was a serious oversimplification on my part (not unlike the train of thought that had me believing I would find my way to work without a hitch). Everyone is showing ID

cards to the security guard.

“Hi,” I say when it’s my turn.

“Hi,” he says back. Even saying that word feels sexy. The idea of all of this security feels sexy. This entire fucking place is one big orgy.

“I don’t have an ID card. It’s my first day,” I say, feeling that perhaps what I’ve said is X-rated in some way.

“Okay, any picture ID will do, and then just go to that desk (pointing) and they’ll call your boss and get you a card.”

I’m fumbling through my handbag and trying to balance the shopping bags when suddenly I feel the whole load lighten up.

21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 70

70

D a n i e l l a B r o d s k y

“Can I help you with these?” Someone speaks out from the Sea of Man behind me and grabs for the second group of shopping bag handles currently digging red marks into my left hand.

“Sure,” I say, in a way-too-excited manner, as I am still stunned from this scene, and the fact that this is surely not reality. If I read this in a book I’d be mumbling to myself out loud about how “unrealistic” and “ridiculous” this description is. I’d chide the author for having gone over the edge.

The lobby is even more unbelievable than the exterior. There are so many men that your eye doesn’t know where to look. The marble, swirling imperially, here, there, and everywhere, seems exquisite. I am an elegant Audrey Hepburn or Plum Sykes (beautiful, fashionable
Vogue
writer) in someplace like the Plaza Hotel. And my spontaneous rise to fabulousness is enhanced in a bit of a shallow (but human, really) moment, as I realize that the women passing to and fro, scarce as they are, have really put in very minimal effort. They’re wearing ponytails, flats! I see bare lips everywhere.

Not one contoured-through-blusher-and-highlighter cheek, not a single slim white suit with black shell, no trace of a freshly blown-out head of hair. With all these men? They must be out of their minds! They really must. I can see no other alternative. Do they not read magazines? Have they no televisions?

“First day, really?” the bag-carrier is asking as he follows me through the metal detector and on towards the check-in desk (now
that
is a desk with a fantastic view, I can’t help thinking). I can barely concentrate on keeping a conversation going with him (adorable as he is—in one of those blue shirts, which are really heaven-sent and should be subsidized by the government in an effort to make the world a more beautiful place), as I am simply overstimulated. There goes another, and another, and one with blond hair, and one with brown, and black. Oh my God. Unreal.

21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 71

D i a r y o f a Wo r k i n g G i r l 71

“I’m Tim,” he says, putting his hand out. (A John Cusack look-alike and a shorter Mel Gibson walk by.)

“Lane.” I reach for his hand thinking how I now know what people mean when they use the phrase “a kid in a candy store.” It is unprecedented. I may volunteer my free time as a job counselor at a college. I will only handle female students and I will tell them all the very same thing: “Get a job in finance! That is it. Whatever else you want to do, you can do it later.”

“May I help you, miss?” asks this poor woman in an unfortunate shiny nylon top—
oy!
—and the frizziest hair I have ever seen. I want to reach out to her, work through her sartorial ignorance, really I do, but that feeling goes away and I just feel so glorious and beautiful and desirable in comparison. Who
am
I?

I see behind her an enormous American flag and I think, feeling extremely patriotic, I am an American. And at this moment, feeling so happy with my world, my job, my fellow MEN, I can’t think of a better thing to be. I balk at the urge to belt out the national anthem.

“Well, you’re busy here I see. I’ll catch you around.” And Tim gingerly drops the bags in a semicircle around me, joins his friend, whom he’d ignored this entire time, and I hear the distinct clap of a high five, and I am flattered.

This is going to be a piece of cake. I can probably finish the article in a week and then it will be smooth sailing with lunchtime rendezvous and supply-closet nookie the rest of the time. I can just enjoy the view for the final month and three weeks. Maybe I won’t even quit at the end of the two months. Maybe I’ll stay here forever until I get old and gray and retire. Maybe it’s not really that I’m meant to be a writer, but that I just didn’t know any other life before, like when you’ve been eating your steak well-done your whole lifetime because you consider a hunk of bloody meat to be 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 72

72

D a n i e l l a B r o d s k y

repulsive, and then you finally take your first bite of medium-rare and you can’t believe how stupid you have been.

The poorly dressed attendant calls Tom Reiner and instructs me to wait by the side of the counter. I find no problem with this at all. I could stand here and watch this fantastically erotic bustle for the rest of my life and feel that I have indubitably lived. Ooh! One with dimples. I love that! One with floppy layers of hair on top!

Blue eyes! Green! I would not be surprised in the least if I am swimming in a pool of my own drool. As it is, my cheeks are already hurting from stretching around my full-teeth smile.

I’m not paying attention to much aside from the apparently bot-tomless supply of men, and when I feel a tickle on my foot, I look down with surprise to see that someone has knocked over one of my bags. I’m reaching over to pick up my highly fashionable mess, when the heretofore slowly rising panic level associated with the fact that I have no way of hiding (or explaining) the spoils of a conspicuously monstrous shopping spree that has caused me to be an hour and a half (now an hour and forty-five minutes actually) late suddenly accelerates and reaches a heart-stopping crescendo.

I momentarily consider putting each and every garment on my body, in layers, and tucking each of the wedges into a pocket of my coat. I am just picking up my new adorable pink Cosabella lowrider thong (I hope/fear this may cause a horrible man-pileup collision, and smile wickedly), considering whether I should ball them up and hide them in my purse, when someone says my name.

It’s none other than Mr. Thomas Reiner.

Although I don’t meet his eyes first, only spy a tie covered over in miniature spinning globes (the double lines around them indicate the spinning, raised blue stitching represents the watery bits), but as I rise to a standing position, I can recognize him from this 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 73

D i a r y o f a Wo r k i n g G i r l 73

telltale sign. And when I shift my gaze up to see his face, we compliment each other at the same time:

“Nice tie,” I say.

“Nice color for you,” he says, indicating the incriminating underwear. And despite the fact that you are probably holding your hand up to cover your face right now (and if you are on the subway, yes, everyone thinks you are crazy), this is actually a good thing, because Tom happens to be the sort of guy who flushes at the sight of his new assistant’s underpants.

And so, despite the fact that there are doubtless a number of questions looming in his mind, he decides to push them aside and instead, excuses himself from the situation by saying, “I’m running out for a meeting. I’ve left some instructions with John Tansford, in my department, and I think he can keep you all covered up (megablush) while I’m out.” And while coming from someone else’s mouth, this might sound snippy, from him it is just fine for some reason. “And I hope you’re as good at your job as you apparently are at bargain-hunting. Ask the receptionist to buzz John for you. When I get back I will take you on a tour and to the glamorous (waving his hand loftily here) cafeteria for lunch.”

I follow his image as it disappears through the doors ahead and I am alone, already wondering if John Tansford will be my M&M, or the guy who carried my bags, or the one who winked at me, or the one with the dimples. . . . How does anyone get any work done here?

As I stand, and wait, I am delirious to see that every turn of the head reveals a new man, a new opportunity to meet my M&M. I am a true genius. I must e-mail Karen as soon as possible to let her know what a great start I am off to. Although, if I do, she may come and get a job here and then she won’t be an editor and then they 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 74

74

D a n i e l l a B r o d s k y

may not run my story, and although I’ve never met her, I gather she is one of those beautiful editor types, and then I’ll have competition. With each male passing through the turnstiles (a checked shirt, a white shirt, a black shirt), I am wondering which one will be the hopefully enchanting, single and scrumptious John Tansford.

“Ms. Silverman?” asks the tallest, skinniest man in the world, which to me, now consists of this building and its surrounding grounds. It is a miracle he can even stand up without tipping over.

Looking down, I see this is in no small part thanks to his colossal feet. In actuality, he looks less like a man, and more like a boy, albeit a very tall one, all big-eyed and rosy-cheeked. When I stand (all of five feet four inches—despite how willowy and long my legs now seem), he makes a conscious effort to hunch over—in hopes, apparently, of apologizing for his height and to maintain eye contact with the always predictable, never embarrassing floor. It isn’t difficult to see which side of the sexy/nice line John makes his home on.

“Yes. John, is it?” I ask, shaking his hand, which he takes in his with a grip so light, I can barely feel it at all.

“Yes, John Tansford. Nice to meet you. I hear you had some problems getting here this morning,” he says, his face scrunching up in a questioning way at Mr. Floor as I gather my bags. “Can I get those for you?” he offers.

No matter what people say about the cutthroat world of business, I have to say, if this were an editorial office, there would be no way I would have gotten through my first day walking in with the spoils of a shopping spree an hour and forty-five minutes late. My firing papers would have been filed before I even arrived. And while they had me filling them out, someone would probably have taken my Clergerie platforms as part of the money I somehow owed them for arriving late and wasting their time. But here I am, being escorted with my own personal porter to the ID station as 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 75

D i a r y o f a Wo r k i n g G i r l 75

though I am Julia Roberts in that scene in
Pretty Woman
where she’s just had that divine shopping spree and whirlwind makeover.

(I briefly toy with the idea of purchasing a wide-brimmed straw hat of my own.)

Everything is so organized and professional here. You get your ID

processed immediately. That is, after showing about five forms of ID, and going through all of these security checks, which run just shy of inquiring how many sexual partners you’ve had, the last time you’ve gone to the bathroom, and how often you fight with your mother.

Unfortunately it is not a clip-on, and when I ask the ID man if there is a possibility they can order a clip for me, he thinks this is a joke and begins going off into hysterics.

“That’s a good one. ‘Can you order one for me?’ Ha!” He elbows John (who has barely looked me in the face yet) in the ribs, and it looks like my waiflike coworker may actually be punctured from the jab.

But my picture looks great (and I swear I have never looked good in a picture before—when people view my license they normally make a face like they’ve just seen a hideous rotting corpse) and at least I have a beautiful Gucci wallet to stow it in. (Serious splurge: still not paid off.)

We make our way up twenty-six flights and for some reason, into the stairwell and down one flight, then through the mostly open-format office strewn with cubicles, divided with horribly un-fashionable colored cloth modular walls in maroons and grays, which in any other spot would probably seem depressing. But here, just as a slicked-back ponytail and toned-down makeup can actually highlight a boisterous ensemble on the runway, the drab colors just make the men seem to pop out even more. I note, once again, that women are sparse. I do catch the random “Happy Birthday, Tiffany!” sign here, and the telltale candy dish there, but the tokens 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 76

76

D a n i e l l a B r o d s k y

of female life are few. And those women that I do regard are in suits or androgynous pants and tops of the Express variety. And even that isn’t enough to stop me from feeling like part of one, big happy family with each and every one of them. These are my people. I am drunk with being part of something big, (with lots of men involved). I am mentally taking note of each and every detail for my article.

My cubicle is right outside of Tom’s office and right next to John’s cubicle. Although it does have those maroon walls, I am sure I can work some magic and transform it into an adorable respite. It’s got plenty of space for me to hang things on, and lots of great storage bins and work surfaces. I wish I could come to a space like this to do my regular job. With all of these people working, and the distance from my bed, I’m sure I’d get so much more work done. It’s buzzing here, with telephones ringing, people going to the watercooler, typing away, and drawers opening and closing. It’s like a real office in here. So inspiring! So lively! So, well, filled with men! Now, I know I sound like a little kid who’s never seen the big working world before, but that’s kind of how I feel, since I have been holed up in my apartment for so long. I don’t think I realized how far removed from society I had been. I don’t think I will ever feel the need to sit on my couch and devour a meal made for twenty ever again.