The song changes to House of Pain’s “Jump Around” and jump we do. I briefly entertain the idea of asking him about a block of stock that traded away from me (someone else bought stock my customer was trying to buy) but realize I’d be screaming in his ear while jumping, and I just don’t have that sort of energy right now and I don’t want to get closer to him. The song is mercifully short, and I bolt for the ladies’ room just to have someplace to go. It’s there I run into Amy Yapp.
Amy and I sit about five feet from each other but rarely speak. She’s slightly my junior and anxious to be promoted. She sneakily sniffs around my turf every time I have a baby so I usually keep my distance from her. Tonight, though, we stand together at the sink, awkwardly washing our hands in sync, and avoiding eye contact in the mirror in front of us. Her super-chic blond hair has been cut tight to her head, her average height raised significantly by tall, pointed heels, and her red cocktail dress tailored to within a millimeter of her skin. Everything about her is tightly wound. The sound of running water is too quiet and the absence of talk between us too weird. Why are we so uncomfortable with each other when there is no immediate business to discuss? Amy is recently divorced, childless, and seems to have no outside interests beyond work.
The voices of two sales assistants distract us. Sales assistants are support people who spend their day balancing trades. They match, buy, and sell orders for millions of dollars, which until a few years ago were physical tickets illegibly scribbled with account numbers. These assistants balance the piles of money moving around each day and pray they get it right. They are underpaid, abused women, constantly staring at the juicy carrot of a job like mine. It’s unclear to me who of us works harder, but they seem to have more fun, and I make more money. That’s the real trade between us.
Stall #1: “Did you see King pull me onto his lap?” [sighs.]
Stall #2: “Puh-leeze, those guys already gave me keys to the after-party.”
The after-party is a notorious event held in a block of hotel rooms after the official holiday party. Think of the cool kids who went to the Jersey Shore together after the prom, while the rest of us went home. I was never invited to the after-party either. At this moment, Amy nods toward the stalls, where the conversation regarding Flirtation with Men Who Determine Bonuses continues.
Stall #1: “I can’t believe how fresh you were out there!”
Stall #2: “They loved it. That King could give my Anthony a run for his money any day.”
Stall #1: “Give him a little something tonight . . . Bonus season, ya know?”
Amy turns up the water stream, hard and loud to muffle the sound of their voices and remind them we can hear everything they say. I know her hands are already clean and I wonder why these women make her so mad? The water gushes loudly, but not loudly enough. Their voices just amplify. I expect to see Amy smirking. I expect to see her rolling her eyes in an “aren’t-they-pathetic?” way. Instead she looks at me blankly, her piercing blue eyes looking into mine. What? I think. “What?” I say.
She seems mad at me. The water stops, the chatting from the stalls stops, and Amy, with one furious motion, snatches too many hand towels from the glass shelf. The extras flutter to the floor, moved by the wind of her anger as she turns on her heels and leaves.
When I reappear in the main room, the mood has changed from caution and anticipation to debauchery. I’m looking at a frat party in good clothes. The bulk of men on the dance floor have their Hermès ties wrapped Indian-headdress style around their heads like preschool boys. They body-slam each other, and sandwich women caught in their paths. The women shriek in mock horror but make no attempt to leave the floor. One could argue they’re enjoying this, but maybe not. Maybe they also feel the need to please, the need to be the team player, to hang out with the big guys as they cling precariously to some piece of the banking pie. I might know that to be true if I ever had a real conversation with one of them, but I don’t. Nobody ever really talks about this stuff, especially to me, one of the few senior women on the floor. I became a managing director at twenty-eight here, the youngest to ever do so. And now at thirty-six I am really comfortable in the role. It makes me so proud. It makes me so lonely.
The other thing to note about the dancing Injuns is that they’re mostly older higher-ups. The younger ones stand timidly on the sidelines, unlearning every politically correct thing ever taught to them. Body-slamming women or removing pieces of clothing while moving in a sexually explicit manner would seem to be a bad choice in a corporate setting. The scene before them is confusing and they don’t know how to act. They stand uncomfortably, shifting their weight and their drinks, trying to take in a subconscious lesson on being a big shot on Wall Street.
The professional women all stand at the bar, appearing slightly lost, as if they came upon this party by accident. They look as if they hardly know one another, because they really don’t.