Opening Belle (6 page)

In the elevator, I swap the stilettos for the Ferragamos in my briefcase, and I hand the fancy shoes to the doorman in what is our daily routine. I've never explained it to him and he's never asked why I hand him shoes each morning. I like it this way. Each day he gets a flashy pair of hooker shoes that he hands to the nanny when she shows up. The nanny puts them back in my closet, and the next day we do it all over again.

I
PREDICT THE
most awkward time to address what went on with Barbie's head last night will be in the afternoon.

And I am right.

If no major earning announcements break after lunch, no wars begin in an oil-laden nation, or no political scandal takes hold of our attention, there is a dull hum that blankets the trading floor in the midafternoon. This is the time of day people run for an extra coffee, a pack of M&M's, a stimulant legal or not, anything to keep the enthusiasm going. It's at this moment I hear King shout to me from his spot on the dais.

“Hey, Belladonna, get over here.”

When I say dais, I mean it. Picture a state dinner setup where the heads of state sit at a long table to keep watch over the guests. But on a trading floor, that dais is filled with the “Big Dicks.” No, they are not men named Richard, they are the biggest producers, the highest-paid, and for the twelve years I've worked here, nary a woman has ever been seated there. These Dicks are capable of dialing a phone, using the intercom, or even texting me, but King, our most highly esteemed trader, chooses to stand and scream for me to come to the Dick Dais. I'm seated about two hundred feet and seventy people away, so shouting is the way to be certain everyone knows what's up.

All morning long, most of us have been thinking about Barbie. A few of the women have said things like, “Anything yet?” I've been shaking my head and, deep down, filing Barbie into my cabinet of disposable resentment. But since King has announced the time to deal with Barbie is now, a good portion of the floor perks up. They are ready for the show to start.

I point to my headset, indicating to King that he should dial my extension. I want to stay on my own turf but no, he wants me with the Dicks. He shakes his head firmly that he is on the phone and his business is far more important. I stand and march directly toward him, emitting a confidence I'm not really feeling at all.

“I've got Bob on the line,” King says loudly.

This confuses me. I think he means Bob, a trader who sits near me. I turn back toward our row to see Bob clearly off the phone. Wrong Bob. The Dicks are perky, and all conveniently off their lines. They have their headsets on and are staring straight ahead, but I see the telephone boards in front of them and instead of the twinkling lights of a busy trading floor, nothing is illuminated. They are all listening to King.

“What's up?” I say as if I have no time for him.

“Belle, I have Bob Eckert on the line,” he says. “What in hell kind of doll head was that last night?”

Bob Eckert, as in the CEO of Mattel, as in the manufacturer of everything fantastic and pink and Barbie. He's on the phone with the rainmaking and debonair King McPherson, a guy aching to connect and make Feagin Dixon Mattel's investment bank for whatever stocks or bonds Eckert chooses to sell in the future. King is using my Barbie head as an excuse to tell Bob the story of the wild-tempered, sleep-deprived working mother who nearly throttled some upstart for destroying her kid's Christmas present. Male bonding over women being ridiculous is the perfect way to forge a banking relationship in the Fortune 500, where 12 CEOs are women and 487 are men. That's why the Dicks are listening. It's a ballsy call to make. And because he has managed to knock my cool off-kilter I mumble.

“Haircut Barbie.”

“Bob, ever hear of Haircut Barbie?” he says, and the Dicks snicker.

King stands now, running his hand from his hip to his hair, his hip to his hair, like a 70s disco dancer. He continues to speak into his headset, while never once slowing his dance moves.

“Hottest toy of the season?” he booms. “Feagin bankers really do have good taste.”

I can't believe Eckert has the patience to listen to this. I start to wonder if he's even really on the phone when King says to me, “How many do you need?”

And for no reason I can fathom, I mumble, “Two.”

I turn, rather than listen to the rest of the conversation, and head back to my seat where Amy's bright-red face is messing with her no-hair-out-of-place persona.

“Can you believe this shit?” she says.

“Who called you in the ten seconds it took me to get back to my desk?” I ask, wondering how she got the details so fast.

“Call? King had the hoot on. Everyone on the floor heard.”

The hoot 'n' holler box is a floor-wide intercom. People use it to yell out merchandise, or blocks of stock that Feagin has in inventory, looking for a buyer like a Bluelight special at Kmart. It's also used for breaking corporate news that affects how a stock trades and is a great distribution device for jokes, flatulence noise, and playground-worthy stunts. To be able to talk to the entire floor at once was too tempting this time. King leaving the hoot on during our little conversation showed everyone how to suck up for business from a powerful CEO. It also showed how to crush a woman who acted up last night.

I just shrug at Amy. “Look, the Glass Ceiling whatever meeting last night was all fantasy. In the clarity of the day, I hope we all realize what bullshit it was. Do we really think we can change this place?” My voice is flat and resigned.

“This is our first opportunity,” says Amy, and I see she's been writing names, drawing arrows, as if she's masterminding a plan.

“Which means what?”

“Confrontation. Calling them on the bullshit. Publicly demeaning an employee is wrong. Let's start there.”

“Okay, Rosa Parks,” I say sarcastically. My two phone lines are ringing. I ignore Amy and answer. “Yes?”

“Say something before I say something.” It's Amanda. “We have to stop trying to fit in with them. It's wrong. This is our first chance and if I say something I look like some muthfreaker badass from Queens, but you're the one they respect, you're the one they're dumping on. Confront them. Call them on this bullshit.”

“Look, you first. I have way too many people depending on me at home. I'm not your groundbreaker.”

Amy looks at me with something bordering disgust. Amanda goes silent.

F
ROM WHERE
I sat nine years ago in that Arctic-cold Las Vegas ballroom, the sea of men in dark suits appeared to all have splendid lives. When you're the girl who was left on the literal curb, the climb back to normalcy appears as easy as ascending the sheer side of El Capitán, far off and unattainable. My fiancé had dumped me over a year before, making the trading floor and work my comfort zone and the only place I wanted to be.

I was putting all my former love energy into work and sure, I had a job where complete focus was translating into extra dollars, but I was certain I was the sorriest millionaire there ever was. That's why when the guy working the video and lights that went along with the presentation—a guy so cute I had noticed him at several of these conferences—came up behind me and said, “Hey,” I thought for sure he was going to tell me that my giant head was reflecting on the screen and could I please somehow make myself disappear. I turned toward him, ready to comply, ready to vaporize.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” I said, not even making eye contact.

“Wait, what?” he asked. “What are you sorry for?”

“For my head being in the way.”

He laughed, and that's when I looked up. He was tall and liquidy, with joints that seemed to gush synovial fluid. He shrugged his shoulders and they floated instead of moving the way most thirty-year-old shoulders do. He was a sandy-blond guy with biceps peeking from a simple black button-down shirt that looked natural, rather than steroidally supplemented. This guy looked like it all just came to him so easily.

“Who said your head was in the way?” he asked me sweetly.

“I heard myself think that,” I said, letting those stupid words out before being screened by my brain.

Surfer guy laughed and pushed back some of his longish hair. He had beautiful green eyes that looked electrically lit. I hadn't looked a guy in the eyes in a long time.

“No, I, um, just wanted to say that your bag is open and, well, it looks like you may want to shut it,” he said, all Boy Scouty.

I bent to look at my bag and saw what he saw: a slightly tattered Speedo bathing suit, goggles, bathing cap, and an envelope of small bills that had opened itself and spread money, like litter, throughout. Dishevelment had become part of my latest look.

“Are you running away from home?” he asked, and when he smiled, my eyes welled up. Nobody had tried to flirt with me since Henry. Nobody had made me laugh since Henry. Nobody. I turned away.

Since Henry dumped me, the only place I felt calm was in water. The YMCA near my apartment opened at 4:45 a.m. and losing myself in a chlorine bath each morning, crying into a pool so big, mixing water with water was my most comforting place. I carried a Speedo suit around like an anxious person carries tranqs. I had the equipment I needed to swim in case things got bad, in case life presented me with a swimming pool in an over-air-conditioned, glitzy hotel in Las Vegas.

“Name is Bruce,” the cute audiovisual guy said, not giving up so easily, “as in Wayne.”

Leave it to me to find the only penniless guy in a roomful of investment bankers, and a Batman fanatic at that. I tidied my bag, zipped the top, and turned from him.

“This is the last presentation,” he continued to my back. “Want me to show you the real Vegas?”

“Yeah, no. It's not my kind of place,” I said not unkindly as I imagined shows with high-kicking women wearing rhinestones or smoke-filled gambling halls. “I mean, I have stuff to do.”

“Yeah.”

Marcus Ballsbridge, sitting in the row in front of me, turned around as if asking if I needed a save. Back then the older guys on the desk treated me like some heartbroken puppy they rescued from the shelter. I turned toward the guy.

“I have things to do,” I said weakly.

“Can totally see you have big plans for your afternoon,” he murmured, nodding to the swimsuit. “And I bet they don't get a lot of Speedos in the pools here.”

“Yeah, well, my thong bikini is in my other bag. The one with the handcuffs and blindfold in it.”

He laughed. I made a cute guy laugh.

“Seriously,” he said, “I found this cool place near here . . .”

Several minutes later, for some illogical reason, I rose from my seat and followed Batman out the door. He grabbed a messenger bag as we passed the booth he'd been working from. Attached to it was a well-loved skateboard. I left a ballroom of universe masters to hang with some lunatic and only minutes later was standing in my wool navy suit in ninety-degree weather in a skatepark in Las Vegas. I didn't care that I hadn't dressed for the occasion, that I was wearing pumps with heels meant for a woman sitting at a desk or propped against a bar. I didn't care that this guy could be insane. I just liked being my version of irresponsible; away from everyone who knew me, away from people who knew that my fiancé dumped me, that I was unable to eat like a normal person, and that all I did was work and swim. There was nobody at Doc Romeo Park who felt sorry for me.

At first Batman lent me his giant skater sneakers, which were so big my ankles did U-turns in them. Then I tried skateboarding in my heels, which the twelve-year-olds surrounding us, our fellow skaters, all needed to watch. I finally gave up on footwear and rode barefoot and bareheaded, 'cause while Bruce Wayne's feet were big, his helmet was too small. I have a huge head.

“Is all that cash your drug money?” he asked.

“What cash?” I said. Some little kid had lent me his wood, which I had just learned was skater-talk for board, so Bruce and I were then skating side by side, while the sole of my pushing foot burned with the heat of the asphalt and the friction of each push. Self-inflicted pain felt good to me recently, like it was some designer brand of cutting oneself. I knew I had to stop doing things like this to myself, hurting myself, but wasn't sure how.

“Those ten-dollar bills all over your bag.”

“Oh”—I shrugged—“it's from lap dancing. Those are my tips.”

Bruce pretended to fall off his board. “No, seriously.”

“They're tips, but tips for other people. I like to be prepared.”

“You mean you carry cash around just to hand to anyone who needs a tip? Someone who is nice to you? I can be nice.”

I smiled. “I can't stand how when in a big hotel everyone tips the person who cleans your room or bartends but then you see the bent lady scrubbing down the lobby bathroom and nobody tips her 'cause it's just not the usual point of interaction, or the guy who has to dust all the floorboards or the man who has to separate the garbage.”

“Wait, you tip the floorboard-dusting guy?”

“People don't even notice him. It makes me sad.”

“Are you from some long line of cleaning people or something?” he joked, and I was silent.

“You are.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I just notice people. I see their faces. I think of their stories. Their jobs suck. They don't want to be there. I love my job. You probably love yours too.”

“So you think of their stories and then give them money? I don't get it.”

I sighed.

“Fuck me, I'm an ass. I do get it. You make a lot of dough and you feel bad about it. That was guilt money I saw.”

“The tips are to tell them they aren't invisible and that I appreciate the clean wooden moldings and that they'll get a better job soon. It's nothing more than that.” I skated off, leaving him behind.