“S
o last night—” Pam looked over at me while we started to roll up our mats “—my therapist broke up with me.”
According to Cristina, weekday evenings were peak cruising time at The Health & Fitness Club, New York. But after yoga class I was way too concerned about the state of my own muscles to notice anyone else’s. I thought I had pulled something. Cristy thought the yoga teacher had been flirting when he deepened the arch of her back during
downward facing dog.
Pam was thinking about other things entirely.
“I didn’t know you were sleeping with him,” Cristina replied, tossing her mat onto the pile. “Is
Good Old William
having trouble getting the job done?”
“What? No! Of course not! And of course I’m not sleeping with my therapist,” Pamela huffed. “All right, fine, then…He…I guess he fired me as his client.”
“Pam, your therapist can’t fire you. He can only refuse to keep counseling you.” Cristina smoothed her hair into a ponytail before taking a swig from her water bottle. “And only if he’s got a damn good reason. Like if you refused to take your meds. Or if you were too psychotic for outpatient treatment. Or if you kept trying to mount him during therapy sessions.”
“Are you crazy?” Pam fired back as we headed for the door. “Or are you just filling your water bottle with Stoli again?”
Cristy rolled her eyes and took another sip.
“Ladies, can we please move past the bickering, and on to more important things? Like plans for Girls’ Night?” I pleaded, limping behind them and lowering myself gently onto a bench just outside the door.
I rubbed my throbbing calf, and wondered if my third-grade teacher had finally been proven right. Maybe I had hurt myself during yoga because I was “too competitive for my own good.” Or maybe it was that gym-rat in the weight room who had obviously been eyeing my poses through the glass walls. He was cute enough, but such a direct stare could make a statue come off like a stalker. Cristy wasn’t lying, I thought. With all those pheromones flying around the gym at that hour, ricocheting off StairMasters and bouncing off Botox and boob-jobs, it was a wonder somebody hadn’t lost an eye.
“I’m serious.” Pam dropped her gym bag by my feet and sank onto the bench beside me. “He said that I was living in denial of the so-called ‘fact’ that William is never going to propose.”
“Pam,” I said, after pausing to share a pained glance with Cristina, “Have you thought about looking for somebody new?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m just…I know it makes me terribly
unliberated,
but sometimes I worry that I’m wasting my time. I’ve invested a lot of years in William. What if he
never
proposes?”
She broke into tears, and to my surprise, Cristina was the first to jump in. She crouched before us, took Pam’s hands in her own and looked her right in the eye.
“First of all, I’m sure William is going to propose. Eventually. When he’s ready. And you don’t want to marry anyone who’s being forced into it, anyway, right?”
Pam dabbed at an eye before nodding, like a puppet on a string.
“Or, if you’re not so confident,” Cristina continued with a twinkle in her eye, “you could always go off the pill.”
Pamela stopped. I f licked my gaze at the ceiling and adjusted the strap of my sports bra.
“I was
kidding
, of course,” Cristy added.
Reminding Pam that I saw relationships as more than just an investment toward marriage would have come off like an attack. It would be like telling Cristina that being in perfect shape was not my idea of a top priority. So I bit into a stick of gum in lieu of my tongue, and offered another suggestion instead.
“Okay, Pam. I agree with what she said. I mean, except for the part about the pill. And also, by the way, when I suggested that you find somebody new, I was talking about finding a new
therapist
. Not a new
William
.”
Pamela managed to smile and pull herself together while Cristina rose to her feet.
“Maybe we’re all just a little too high-strung lately,” Cristina decided. “Which brings us to the recreational portion of our program. Let’s talk about Friday. The good news is that Reena’s coming into town! I made reservations at Son Cubano, in the meatpacking district. And you know she’s really been on a dating rampage since her divorce. So I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”
“Ladies, I’m actually in pain here,” I explained while they readied themselves for the showers. “I’m not sure if I can make it on Friday. I might have pulled a muscle.”
“No excuses, Vina,” Pam ordered. “You didn’t pull anything. And you’re not getting out of this.”
“How would you know whether or not I pulled anything?” I pouted.
“If I have to go, you have to go,” she marched forward, telling me. “And don’t worry about it. If you didn’t already pull something in that yoga class, I’m sure you’ll pull something trying to keep up with Reena on Friday night.”
I was too preoccupied to fight. In exchange for my promise not to bail on Girls’ Night, Pam and Cristina agreed to leave me alone with my pain. Girlfriends, like used car salesmen, take every opportunity to exploit your weaknesses in their favor.
And men, like hyenas, take every opportunity to feed on incapacitated prey. I was hunched over, rubbing my calves and begging the fitness gods to restore my muscle in exchange for six months of penance at the altar of the treadmill. Naturally, that was when the last thing I needed in my life came looking for me.
“Do you think maybe you overdid it?” a husky voice spoke from above.
“What?” I looked up. “No. I’m fine. I’ve got it under control.”
I resisted the urge to laugh at the cliché who stood before me. It was the peeping-gym-rat. With his legs planted at shoulder width and his arms crossed before him, he pulled his chin to one side and smiled. He must have dipped his teeth in White-Out. But I reminded myself I was in no mood for another brawny misadventure. My
drive-by-dating
days were over.
“You don’t look like you’ve got it under control.” He knelt before me, reaching out toward my leg. I jerked away.
“I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”
“And I’m not offering it. What I’m offering is my advice.” He paused. “My professional advice, as a personal trainer. Trust me. I know a lot about sports medicine. You’ll need to ice it, and you’ll need to apply pressure, like this…”
“Oh. Well, thanks,” I gave in, offering him my damaged limb.
“It’s my pleasure.” He rose to his feet, then took a seat beside me. “I’m Nick. I didn’t catch your name.”
He had to be kidding me with this.
“That’s because I didn’t pitch it.” I slipped into a sweater, and zipped it up to my chin.
“You’re quite the spitfire, aren’t you?” His eyes twinkled. “And with a sharp tongue. I like that.”
“How nice for you,” I began, and then thought better of it.
There was no need to take my issues out on him, even if I knew he was wasting his breath and his energy coming on to me.
“I’m sorry,” I continued. “My name is Vina. And I have just had a really rough day.”
“Happens to the best of us.” He waved it away. “But I’m surprised that the yoga didn’t help. I thought you were supposed to be really good at that stuff. You know, really flexible?”
There was an audible screech of the needle on the record in my brain. It wasn’t as if I had never heard a similar comment before, but I had no patience for it that day. I jumped to my feet and swung around to face him with narrowed eyes.
“You mean because I’m Indian? And we all snake charm and belly dance and twist ourselves into pretzels during sex? You’ve been watching too much porn, buddy. And you know what else?”
“Watch out, Nick. You don’t want to lose any fingers,” Prakash said, appearing from nowhere. “This one’s hard to please.”
“You have got to stop sneaking up on me like that, Prakash!” I snapped. “It’s getting tedious.”
“I apologize, Vina.” Nick stood up. “It was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean any disrespect by it.”
I was momentarily distracted by the flecks of gold in his deep green eyes, but managed to shake it off.
“All right. Fine. So, I guess you two know each other?”
“You could say that,” Prakash replied.
“Okay. Whatever. Apology accepted.” I nodded at Nick, who raised his palms to show that he was unarmed. Then he smiled sheepishly before backing up and walking away.
I turned my attention toward Prakash. “But what’s the deal with the f lowers?”
“Am I going to have to apologize for sending you f lowers, too?” he asked. “See? This is why I date men. Or at least it’s one of the perks. Women make no sense. And their breasts are always getting in the way.”
I crossed my arms and refused to blink. The grin slid off his face like caramel and oozed onto the floor between us.
“Look, I was sorry that I sprang things on you the way that I did, at the wedding. I thought about it. I see now that I should’ve told you up front, when we met over the martini. But it’s not easy to trust people at face value these days.”
He had a point. I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder and exhaled loudly.
“Forget about it,” I said. “I’m over it. Anyway, I’ve got much more important things to worry about. It’s fine. It’s over.”
“So you’ll do it then?” He beamed.
I paused. “Do what?”
“You…er…didn’t read the card, did you?” he asked, puzzled.
I arched my eyebrows and shook my head.
A constipated expression crept across his face. “Vina, I know that I have no right to ask, but I need a favor. I need you to play along. I need you to let our parents believe that we’ve gone on a few dates. It’ll buy me some time before my next family setup.”
“Yeah. Sure. No problem,” I scoffed, shaking my head as I turned to walk away. “I can do that. Hey, while we’re at it, why don’t we just tie the knot? And better yet, I can spit out a coupla babies! That should keep you in the clear for about eighteen years! Just to make it look more believable, right? You’re
insane.
”
He yelled at my back. “Vina, please think about it!”
“No, you weirdo!” I barked. “You’re thirty years old! Grow up and be honest with your parents!”
“Coming out of the closet to your parents is not that easy, Vina. Don’t you have any gay friends? Haven’t you ever had to hide anything from your family in order to protect them?”
Every boyfriend I had ever had f lashed before my eyes. And so did Christopher.
“Fine. I’ll do it. But it better not require any actual effort on my part. I’ll play along for a few fake dates. We’ll say we went out for lunch at Cipriani, and then again for dinner and dancing. Let’s say it was at that new Cuban place, Son Cubano, to keep our stories straight. After that, we can tell them we just didn’t feel any real connection. And you’ll owe me one.”
Y
et another biological design flaw.
I thought this of my calf the next morning while forcing myself into the swamp-water-green Cole Haan flats that I normally reserved for audits and jury duty. Unfortunately, they were the only shoes I could comfortably walk in considering my state. Since my calf had joined my ego in a serious state of disrepair, I was in no hurry to get to the office. Reena called as I was waiting in line to pay for my coffee at the “Creepy-mart.” She began by apologizing for having been out of touch.
“You know how busy I get in the hospital. Crazy hours and everything,” she explained. I bit my tongue about my typical seventy-hour workweek. “And listen, I’m sorry for not getting in touch about Jon, but you know I’m not too good with that stuff.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” I singed my tongue with my first sip of coffee.
“And anyway, you know my motto. There’s no use crying over spilt husbands, or Italians or cowboys, as the case may be.”
“So you heard about Cristy’s rodeo?” I laughed.
“There’s my girl. I miss that laugh, you know.” She paused, and then her voice rose. “Wait a minute, could that be a girlish giggle? Could this mean there’s someone new in your life?”
“No. I mean, not really.” I stepped closer to the register, blowing on my coffee.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that there’s a guy, named Prakash, who my parents tried to set me up with. But the problem with him is that…”
“What?” She inhaled sarcastically. “You mean there’s a problem with the perfect guy that your parents picked out of the Indian catalog for you? I cannot believe it! I simply
will not
believe it!”
Reena was not a big believer in the power of parental instinct. A mutual Indian friend of ours, she had recently reentered the dating world after finding the courage to divorce the thoughtful but uninteresting man to whom her parents had arranged her marriage.
She had never grown into loving him like her parents had promised she would,
she explained to us. Then she signed the divorce papers and moved up to Boston in pursuit of a fresh start and a lucrative medical fellowship. It was around that time that she found out about the recent marriage of her college sweetheart whom her parents forbade her from marrying because he was of a different caste. Reena was as determined never to look back as she was dead set against settling for anything less than true love. While she was waiting, however, she had turned into a total Cougar, routinely amusing herself with the more-than-occasional younger boy toy. Since her divorce she had refused to discuss it. Instead she laughed at herself whenever possible, referred to her breasts as “man-catchers” and wore shiny, dangling earrings almost all of the time.
“What can I say?” I asked for her benefit. “I’m difficult.”
She snorted.
“Enough with the armchair psychoanalysis. More importantly, what does your Nani think about Bachelor #1?”
“I’m not sure she really thinks much of anything about men, especially the ones in my life.”
“Then she’s a smart lady,” she said.
“Do you think we’ll get smarter as we age?” I asked, while the woman before me poured the contents of her purse out onto the counter, and scoured for change.
“God, I hope not. Can you imagine how much less fun we would have if we had any idea what the hell we were doing? Oops, I gotta go. I’m being paged. I’ll see you on Friday.”
Reena was thirty-one going on nineteen, and I loved that about her.
“Dollar ten.”
I blinked. The woman standing before me had disappeared. I had been fixated on something outside the window, and was holding up the line.
“Dollar ten,” the cashier repeated, drumming his fingers on the counter.
“Oh. Sure. Of course. I’m sorry.” I fumbled with my wallet, while the people behind me cleared their throats for my benefit.
“
Vy
are you always
stering
at her?” the cashier asked, as I handed over two dollar bills.
“Excuse me?”
“That
crezy vooman,
” he said, motioning to the dancing Gypsy across the street, and then stirring the air near his ear with a finger. “She’s insane…
pagal
…you know
‘pagal’?
”
“Yes. Well, I guess I don’t know if she’s crazy or what. But I think I’m staring because she always looks so happy.”
I tucked my change into my wallet and then looked up and smiled at him. He lowered his chain, raised his eyebrow, scanned my body and leered. “You from Punjab?”
Later that morning, Peter slumped into the chair across from my desk. I rejected the eleventh instant message request from Jon since nine a.m. and gave Peter my full attention. That was when I noticed something that alarmed me.
“Peter, where’s your BlackBerry?” I lowered my voice, as if appeasing a child with a knife. “And why have you loosened your tie?”
“You haven’t heard, have you?” He ran his fingers across his forehead and then back through his hair.
“Heard what?”
“About the annual bonuses. We’re all getting screwed.”
“What? But the fund is up! I mean
my bonus
is debatable—in light of my recent ineptitude, and how obvious it probably is that I don’t know what I’m doing, or even want to do, anymore—but not
yours.
No way.”
“Way.” He leaned forward to correct me. “And for the record, even though I know you’ve been unfulfilled with the industry, I don’t think it has affected your performance. I definitely don’t think that Alan and Steve think so, either. But then again, those bastards can do whatever they want. In an economy like this, where else are we gonna go? They know we can’t quit our jobs over lower-than-expected bonuses.”
“Wait a minute. How bad is it? What have you heard? Will everyone be disappointed?”
“I heard it from the security guard downstairs. He overheard some of the company’s board members talking this morning. This is torture.” He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “But think about it, Vina. They were scheduled to discuss the performance reviews and annual bonuses with us last week. Why would they keep us all waiting if it was good news? I’m really pissed off. The rumor is that they were discussing my bonus, and it didn’t sound good. And since your bonus is usually about the same as mine, my advice would be to forget about the thirty grand we were hoping for. We’ll probably be looking at less than half that much…if we’re lucky.”
“Well, thanks for the warning. But I wasn’t feeling too optimistic to begin with. It’s been a pretty disappointing couple of weeks.”
Not five minutes later, Alan summoned me into his office. Any effort to remain calm leaped right out the window when he closed his office door behind me for the first time in the five years that I had worked for him. And then I spotted Steve sitting in the corner. Why were they double-teaming me? Normally Alan discussed my annual performance review alone. Would I be fired for my incompetence on the Luxor deal?
Had Alan’s office always been this cramped?
If Steve made eye contact with me, I decided, it would be a good sign, like the jury returning to the courtroom after finding me guilty of a lesser charge. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the fact that the room was slowly shrinking.
“Vina,” Alan began, taking a seat behind his desk, “Steven and I have got some bad news. We called you in here because we want to make sure that the matter is handled…er…in the most tactful manner possible.”
I nodded without blinking. Steve had yet to look directly at me.
“We’re hoping that we can count on your discretion,” he continued.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god. They’ll make me clean out my office overnight. By morning they’ll be denying that they ever knew me, and I’ll be banging a tambourine alongside that crazy Gypsy for spare change outside Grand Central. Or I’ll be forced into the Wall Street Protection program people whisper about! They’ll give me a new identity, an itchy wig and a job waiting tables at a diner in New Mexico. Oh, dear god, I’ll have to start dating a trucker with a pot belly and only one tooth!
“We take sexual harassment very seriously at this firm,” Steve went on, “and we take great pains to hire people who demonstrate integrity, whose core values align with those of the firm. Unfortunately, a serious situation regarding a member of our team has come to light.”
Krishna, help me now!
I thought Alan understood that what happened during the blackout was an accident! I knew I should have insisted on explaining myself. But I couldn’t believe that I was actually being fired because I accidentally groped my boss! How was I going to explain this to my parents?
How did that damn claustrophobes’ mantra go again?
Check your nerves? Close the exits? Count your eyes? Dammit, how could my collar be so tight when I don’t even wear a tie?
“Wade has been accused of sexual harassment by a secretary,” Alan elaborated.
My jaw dropped open.
“Hhhunnhhh?” I blurted, partially because I had been holding my breath for the past two minutes.
“I’m sure you can understand that we are going to have to let him go,” Alan started, with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed beneath a well-wrinkled forehead, “and for the purposes of team morale, this must not seem as if it comes as any surprise to you. Since he is your direct report, the three of us must maintain a united front.”
“I’ll have to concur with Alan, Vina. It could be very bad for the firm if we allow the situation with Wade to get out of hand,” Steve added. “Very bad.”
I was perplexed, having generally come to see Wade as a little brother. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything like that. Had he asked her out one too many times? Had he sent a lewd e-mail? It just didn’t seem like Wade. But then again what did I know? Acquiring a Taiwanese manufacturing facility with poor financials didn’t seem like something that Luxor would do. And having sex with a woman who wasn’t me didn’t seem like something that my
boyfriend
would do, either.
“Gentlemen.” I cleared my throat, after the temperature under my collar fell to a more manageable level. “With all due respect, why is this the first time I’m hearing about this? And who made the accusation? And is there any proof? I mean, I’m not disputing it. But I’ve got to say that I’m overseeing Wade’s work here every day, and he just seems like a good kid to me. I’m stunned.”
“We anticipated that you would be,” Steve interjected. “And I can appreciate that you feel the need to go to bat for your subordinate, but management has made its decision. And our judgment supersedes yours. Obviously. We don’t want this to become a big deal within the company. Business as usual. And we cannot tell you which secretary it was. It all has to be kept confidential, as does this conversation. You will not discuss this with any of your colleagues. Getting him out of the workplace immediately is the only way that we can ensure we will not be sued.”
“But, Steve, I…”
“Vina, we have no choice!” Alan insisted, “The firm cannot afford a lawsuit. With all the bad press surrounding Wall Street lately, we cannot take that chance. Some of our biggest clients have parked more money with us recently
because
we are one of the
only
firms left with a clean reputation.”
“All right.” I gave in. “If you’re sure that he did this, then what can I say? I’m disappointed, but I’ll let him go today.”
“You will tell him that it’s a budget issue, but that we will cut him a check for an additional two weeks’ worth of pay. As a form of severance. You cannot mention the charges against him as the reason because he might challenge them. And we simply cannot afford that kind of publicity.”
I was far too embarrassed about the Luxor debacle to even ask what they noticed in those financial statements that I missed. The bottom line was that their combined forty years on Wall Street trumped my less than ten years any day. So, how could I possibly question them about Wade? The universe was making it clear to me that they knew more about everything than I did. Or ever would.
Back in my office I had taken to banging my head on my desk as a way of testing if perhaps it were hollow. How could I have missed the fact that one of my subordinates was capable of behavior like this? Why did I feel as if I was missing everything lately? Did the other women in the office think I would condone this sort of behavior? How could Wade have thought he would get away with it? Maybe he thought his father’s connections entitled him to more than just a foot in the proverbial door? Ultimately, I didn’t have much time to process it all, since there was a knock at my door.
“Come in, Wade.” I rose and looked out the window.
“Alan said you wanted to see me?”
“Yes. Please have a seat. And um…close the door behind you.” I swallowed and began pacing my office. “Look, Wade, there’s no easy way to say this. I’m very disappointed about it, but we’re going to have to let you go. Budget issues have come up, and…”