Citizen Girl (8 page)

‘All right.’ Her pink cashmere cable cardigan draped just so, she studies my résumé. ‘Girl.’ She eyes my hands
clutched in my lap. ‘I see you haven’t taken any notes. Do you have this completely memorized already?’

My face beats. ‘I was so absorbed by what Monica was saying.’

‘Right.’ She trades glances with her colleagues. ‘We’re going to converse for a moment.’ They get up and stand just outside the cubicle, discussing me in hushed tones. Stepford employees, these people even know how to whisper perfectly.

‘Girl.’ Whitney returns alone, folding her hands delicately in front of her chin as she sits across from me. ‘Here’s the thing. We’re just not getting from you that you’re looking to make money. Money. As much as you possibly can. For yourself. Our clients. Us. We just don’t see it.’ She leans in. ‘
Do
you want to make as much money as you possibly can? Do you
really
want to and we’re just not reading you right?’ She stares at me and I detest her and every last thing about this whole event. I am, however, still sickeningly dazzled by her ring, proving that I’m officially going to end up as a starving forty-five-year-old Greenpeace petitioner drooling her days away outside Tiffany’s. I take a deep breath.

‘I want to make money – as much as I, um, can. You know, for you and me and the clients, and whoever. I just haven’t really been able to get a sense of how you would like me to do that.’

‘Exactly.’ Whitney stands. ‘Okay!’ she calls over the cubicle walls to Stu. ‘Who’s next?’

*

I roll over to check the clock on the milk crate doubling as a nightstand, nudging aside the tiny stack of business cards I garnered at the ‘job fair’. Eleven fifty-three. I inhale deeply, trying to slow my buzzing brain from replaying the phone calls I’ve put in to every half-baked Remy-stained lead. I exhale as I flick on the lamp and realize that my breath is coming out in steamy puffs. The pipes must be freezing up again. ‘I NEED A JOB,’ I yell at the water bug making a relaxed trek across my floor. It skitters back into the shadows over a white card that’s fallen between the wooden slats. Hunching the blanket around me, I reach over and jimmy it out, the thermographed women’s symbol slick under my thumb. My Company.

Debating the air-of-desperation factor, I decide it’s worth the risk in order to go to sleep feeling like I’ve made
any
headway. ‘Getting on with it’, I clear my throat and dial, preparing to leave a message that has the sound of a dynamic team player who’s not even
remotely
desperate. I picture myself as Whitney. Whitney at eight o’clock in the morning, a flamethrower on her finger, and a smile on her money-grubbing face.

‘Yeah,’ a man’s voice answers expectantly, catching me by surprise. I bite my lip. ‘Hello?’ he asks again.

‘Yes! Hi! Hi. Can I speak with,’ I tilt the card back towards the lamp, ‘Guy, please?’

‘Yeah, this is Guy.’

‘Oh, okay. Hi, we met at the … the job event the other night—’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to be there this late.’

‘We met at the Bluelight thing?’

‘Yes!’ I rerun our interaction and sickeningly register that we didn’t talk about anything memorable. ‘I have brown hair, um, it’s long, and I’m tall.’ Note to self: no more networking calls after dark.

‘Yeah. So how’s it going?’ His voice drops a sexy notch. ‘You, ah, want to get a drink or something?’

‘Uh, maybe. Actually, we spoke about my work with social services. I’m following up about your—’

‘Righhhht.’ His voice returns to its original tone. ‘You were talking to the entertainment kid – he’s such an asshole. You work with women.’ Ding, ding, ding!

‘Yes! Yes, I do.’ Did. ‘I just wanted to follow up as you mentioned that you’re hiring and I’m currently in transition, so I thought—’

‘Great. Can you come in tomorrow afternoon at, uhhhh,’ I hear a few fast clicks on a keypad, ‘six thirty?’

‘Definitely!’

‘Very cool. See you then.’ He hangs up.

I stand and flick on the overhead in one deft move. Clicking on the stereo, I turn up the volume, letting Blondie tell me ‘One Way or Another’ as I carefully iron and lint-roll the unraveling H&M suit. ‘Come on, baby, Mama needs a new pair of
ev-e-ry-thing
.’

4. The One, The Answer, The Reason

Having spent the day tap-dancing for overstocked, underutilized temp agencies, I zip into a public library to download everything I can about My Company. But confronted with a two-hour line of kids and dodgy-looking men in oversized raincoats, I hustle to Kinko’s, cursing my fried laptop. At a disgusting dollar a minute, I pound in the URL and find myself before a pixilated collage of Gibson girls and
Vogue
covers: ‘One hundred years of being female at your fingertips.’ The cursor prompts me to enter a search item. Beneath Twiggy’s awning of eyelashes, I scroll down through the options – predominantly beauty products – and click ‘Mascara’. While logos from Almay, Revlon, and countless other brands pulse in the margins, I’m told that there are two thousand, seven hundred and twelve matches. I open the first article from
Galatea
, a woman’s magazine of the suffragette era. ‘Blacken the tips of your lashes with a simple paste of soot and cod-liver oil.’ Yick.

Over ten dollars in, but now handily equipped to make lipstick out of old candles and tartar paste, I click on the tiny hand-mirror icon for ‘Company History’ ‘MC, Inc. is the award-winning designer of highly innovative search engine software and proudly manages the patented online portal linking every major women’s magazine dating
back to the turn of the last century.’ Fifteen minutes later I’ve burned MC’s website and mission statement into my brain in case there’s a pop quiz at the interview.

Heading west towards the Hudson, I burrow into the frigid wind like a salmon on a mission, silently pitching My Company to Grace as a conscionable use of my public policy degree. I stumble, my big toe popping through my last pair of tights.

Oh, yeah. I’m going to Whitney this one so hard Guy won’t know what hit him.

On Twelfth Avenue I pass crews of construction workers transforming crumbling auto-body shops into art galleries, whose anemic interns steal cigarettes in the frigid sunshine. The gusts off the river sting my face, forcing me closer to the brick façade of my destination. ‘HEY, LADY! WHAT THE FUCK?’ I jump aside as a steamroller backs out onto the sidewalk. The driver points belligerently and I dart out of his path and into the cold copper lobby of the former warehouse, where the security guard is huddled like an ice fisherman over his
New York Post
and space heater.

‘Help you?’ he grunts.

‘Yes, I’m going up to My Company.’

‘Ten.’ He jerks a thumb over to the elevator bank. ‘Gotta sign in first. And let’s see some ID.’ In the elevator an impressive roster lights up with each passing floor – clothes I’d love to wear, furniture I’d love to own. Anticipating glamour I step out … onto an abandoned loading dock. Instinctively I get back in and re-press ‘ten’. The doors slide closed and then open again onto the
same cavernous cement space. Confused and not a little concerned that this is how ladies end up on milk cartons, I step cautiously. Filthy eighteen-wheeler bays stand empty around a Mack-truck-sized hole in the floor, presumably where a freight elevator once was. I peek my head over the gaping chasm and see that it drops all the way to street level. This is not safe.

As I turn back towards the elevator, I’m relieved to spot the brushed steel letters of My Company, Inc., the woman’s symbol backlit as if hovering. I cross to the other side of the bay and peek in through the glass portals of the double doors, suffering an instant crush. On the far end of an open layout of at least a hundred blond wood desks, floor-to-ceiling casement windows bathe the humongous bustling room in views of the star-sprinkled skyline above and the Hudson River below.

I want in.

I open the door, preparing to synthesize all I know about women’s magazines (something) and software (nothing) with the determination to speak only in grand affirming statements. ‘I have a six thirty with Guy.’

The receptionist picks up her phone. In keeping with the Urban Outfitters vibe of the rest of the staff, she sports a Mickey Mouse tee shirt beneath her suit. ‘Okay, follow me.’ Happily.

She walks me across the room, past youngish employees in various stages of wrapping up their work week, messenger bags filling, bar names being volleyed. She deposits me in front of three steps leading up to a glass wall running the width of the room, which delineates a
large office. I watch the man inside stoop to retrieve a Nerf Ball while animatedly addressing the air over a speakerphone. I wait for him to hang up before I climb the upholstered steps and enter.

‘Girl!’ Guy grins at me, his blue eyes twinkling as he tosses the orange ball in the air. ‘It’s great that you could come in. It’s great that you just called me up. I love that.’ He tucks the ball under his elbow before tugging lightly at his royal-blue cords and dropping into his desk chair. ‘How are you?’

‘Good, thank you.’ I smile radiantly back. ‘How are you?’

He laughs, the air around him charged with the arrogant charisma of a man who has derived maximum mileage from his prep-school-crush good looks. Picking up a mug of filmed-over coffee, he gulps, wiping his upper lip swiftly as he sets it down. ‘I’m great, Girl.’

Channeling Whitney, I stride over to the seat facing him and sit, unbidden. ‘Guy, first off I have to tell you that I’m a huge fan of My Company – I love what you do here: linking women to information. It’s such an important service.’

He smiles, his eyes locked on mine as he steadies the ball on his lap. ‘Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Women of all ages log on every day with beauty questions, fashion questions, health …’ He smacks his desktop with his hands, rattling the pens in their stainless-steel holder. ‘Yeast infections are our number-one hit!’

‘Really!’ I match his enthusiasm.

‘Want a Vagisil tee shirt?’

‘Uh, sure – yes! Absolutely! I’d love one!’

‘Great, you got it.’ We smile and nod at each other. ‘Cool,’ he says. ‘So now I want to take MC, Inc.’s success and leverage it —’

‘Absolutely.
Everything
should be leveraged. Otherwise, why bother? I’ve spent the last few years conducting research on the needs of teenage girls and then
leveraging
that information to create effective social service policy. Really interesting work.’ I lean back and cross my legs.

‘Huh.’ He nods. ‘So, the thing is, Girl, I want to tap this last corner of the marketplace that remains pretty stubbornly reticent.
Ms. Magazine
, “the leading feminist oracle”. He rabbit-ears air quotes. My team tells me they have some really compelling journalism. Social commentary. You know, rabble-rousing. I’d like to get their archive on the site.’

‘Of course!’ Mascara and … female genital mutilation. ‘It’s an obvious match.’

‘I think so. I brought you in because I have this initiative, a rebranding opportunity, and I thought you might be a good fit.’ He rolls up the sleeves of his blue and white striped Oxford. ‘I’m the CEO, so my plate’s full. I need someone to run it, someone like you.’

‘Interesting.’ Initiative?! How many people involved? What, exactly, do you mean by
run? Ms.
?! But I’ve learned my lesson: questions do not inspire confidence. ‘Guy, I’m honored by your consideration.’ He smiles, I sweat. ‘And I have to say this sounds like an ideal match. First of all, I’ve been working with charitable enterprises my entire
life. My mother runs the Chatsworth Writers’ Colony in Connecticut, which no one’s really heard —’

‘Sure, didn’t Plath write there?’

‘She did.’ I smile, surprised. He doesn’t strike me as the Plath type. ‘So, I’ve been helping my mother with grants, outreach, and administration since I was about as tall as your desk. I majored in Public Policy with a minor in Gender Studies, as you’ll see from my résumé.’ I reach into my purse and pass it to him, trying to steady my shaking hand. ‘And, as I mentioned, my work at the Center for Equity in Community predominantly focused on serving the needs of adolescent females —’

‘And,
you’re
female!’ He laughs.

‘Yes.’ I’m female. I read
Ms. Magazine
. I’ve had a yeast infection. I’m a
Ms.
-toting, yeast infection-surviving,
unemployed
female.

‘Excellent.’ Guy shakes his head slowly as he puts my résumé face down. ‘I feel like you get it.’

‘I do,’ I say without hesitation, ‘I get it and I want it.’ Paid rent, restaurant food, new tights, I want it all.

‘Shit, Girl, I’m looking at you and I feel it, we have found the face of this initiative.’ Do not kiss him, do not kiss him, do not.

‘Guyser.’ A golf club slides the door open, trailed by a very tall, very tanned man in his early sixties.

‘Rex!’ Guy stands and I follow, vibrating ecstatically as I turn ‘the face’ in greeting.

‘
Qué pasa
, my friend?’ The man tugs with his free hand at his cashmere slacks before sitting on the pony-skinned chaise.

‘Have you heard back from the board?’ Guy asks, a surprising display of nerves flickering across his face.

‘Vote’s in.’ Rex tucks the club behind his neck and dangles his wrists over the protruding ends, suggesting a stockade. ‘Apparently you really knocked their socks off.’ Guy beams as Rex continues, ‘You have a green light. But you’re getting limited rope. They want a signed commitment from the client by May.’

Guy passes over a fax, causing Rex to drop his club. It bounces off the carpet, narrowly missing my toes. Oblivious, Rex tosses his leonine white hair off his forehead to scan the pages while Guy and I both stand awkwardly. Actually, I’m standing awkwardly, Guy looks as if he’s ready to burst into ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.