RECESSION
PROOF
kimberly s. lin
RECESSION PROOF. Copyright © 2011 by Kimberly S. Lin
Published by Kimberly S. Lin at Smashwords
RECESSION PROOF. Copyright © 2011 by Kimberly S. Lin
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever
Without written permission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews.
All references, instances and characters are fictional.
Lin, Kimberly S.
Recession Proof/Kimberly S. Lin
Cover Design: Daniel Maiman
ISBN-13: 978-146358452
ISBN-10: 1463584520
For Dan
“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
-Proverbs 27:17
acknowledgements
I would like to thank my parents and my brother for always loving and supporting me unconditionally.
I am forever indebted to my girlfriends who light up my life with laughter. In particular, Phoebe Delman, Gina Chang and Sunni Churchill. Thank you for always being an ear to listen and whose lives and strength inspire me on a daily basis.
Finally, a special thank you to Daniel Maiman.
recession proof
ONE
If the phone rings one more time I will literally pull it out of the wall and chuck it into the next cubicle. Poor ginger-haired Justin. I imagine his innocent blue eyes transforming into cartoon X’s as the phone collides with the side of his head.
I know I should feel bad for possibly inflicting permanent damage but a small part of me wouldn’t mind. Lately, I haven’t been able to stomach his usual unfounded sense of superiority. Last week I used “there” instead of “their” in an email and was made to sit through seven cruel and unusual minutes of his monotonic ranting about work excellence.
Despite that, he is still sublimely fun to mess with in a juvenile sort of way. Today, I have proudly rearranged all the tacks on his wall into stars. I seriously have tiny gleeful heart palpitations every time he discovers the unsolicited rearrangement of his office supplies.
Impatiently, the phone rings again.
“Sherman & Latham Fund Management,” I say with feigned enthusiasm. “This is Helen.”
“Can someone explain why my portfolio is down 35%?” a voice bellows over the phone.
It’s Mr. Weissman who has been calling everyday around 4 P.M. to scream at any unsuspecting victim who answers the phone. So far, I’ve been ambushed about five times this week. I should start billing him for being his emotional punching bag.
“Get Brian on the goddamned phone,” he demands. “Or I swear to God I’m withdrawing my entire investment.”
I picture a thought bubble forming above my head. And imagine saying, “Come now, Mr. Weissman. You and God haven’t been on speaking terms since you accidentally told Rabbi Finklestein to suck it during Shabbat dinner.”
Instead I go through the usual routine of trying to calm him down.
“Mr. Weissman, I understand your frustration,” I say calmly. “However, Brian is currently on a plane to Zurich. Can I take a message so he can call you once he lands?”
“What kind of operation are you nitwits running there?” Mr. Weissman says with exasperation.
The drive-by expletives are just another unfortunate consequence of the global financial meltdown. Honestly, if anyone spoke to me like that outside of work they’d better be prepared for a thuggish ass kicking because “homie don’t play that.”
I can understand the fear and anxiety everyone must be feeling. Funds have been closing left and right. No one knows when he would be let go or when the stock market is going to finally bottom out. One thing is for sure, there’s nothing like an unprecedented recession to draw those out for blood.
“Stephanie,” Mr. Weissman says.
“Sir, that’s not...actually that’s nowhere near my name,” I say.
“Do you think I give a rat’s ass?” he says. “Leave him this message.”
There’s no response as the dial tone comes on.
“Oh no he didn’t!” I think cuing in my inner diva. The bastard hung up on me. Honestly, if the phone rings one more time I will most certainly pull it out the wall.
RING.
“Sherman & Latham Fund Management,” I say robotically. “This is Helen.”
“Helen, it’s me,” a male voice says. “Don’t they have caller ID?”
The voice sounds familiar but my ears are buzzing. I look at the number on the screen of my super corporate phone.
“Oh god,” I say.
“Not quite God,” he replies.
“Mark,” I whisper. “I’ll have to call you back.”
My voice is lowered to a hush that befits taking a private call at work. I look at the clock and it’s almost 8 P.M. When I applied for the Analyst position at Sherman & Latham in Los Angeles the job posting said “Market Hours.” That lasted for a week. Not only do I work all hours they also have me playing secretary since I am the fund’s token female. I should have known the first day when they introduced our operations manager Dale Zarin as our one-man human resources department.
Apparently, Dale thinks I have a great set of Christmas hams. All I can say is thank god he’s Jewish and Christmas never comes. L’Chaim!
I could set my bra on fire in protest over the clear violation of my rights as a woman but all I’d gain is a singed nipple. No bueno.
“Justin, I got to get out of here,” I whisper over my cubicle wall.
I debate on whether to explain that my best friend’s wedding rehearsal dinner started thirty minutes ago. I decide against it and begin to quietly pack up.
“You know it’s career suicide, right?” Justin dispassionately lectures.
Ever since investment giant Lehman Brothers shockingly dissolved, leaving before 9 P.M. has been enough to get you blacklisted as a bad employee.
At least the worst is over for those that have been laid off. Recently, I have been catching myself holding my breath trying to contain the nauseating feeling I get every single time I try to convince myself that I should be thankful for a job I hate.
“Justin, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say. “I’m coming in early.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says while typing away lazily.
The elevator opens as I call Mark on my cell phone. I know in about ten floors I’ll lose my reception but I think to myself at least I can talk for ten floors.
For the past five years, I have gradually transformed into that girl that would lose consciousness if her cell phone wasn’t permanently attached to her ear. The lady in the Ralph Lauren pantsuit next to me looks me up and down out of the corner of her eye.
“Mark, I’m leaving now,” I sigh.
“Well, I’m parking the car now,” he says. “What do you want me to tell Sophie?”
I can tell he’s maneuvering his black Toyota into a parallel parking spot. He vehemently mistrusts the valet after that one night his two hundred and fifty dollar GPS magically vanished from his glove compartment. I have to say he has never fully recovered.
“Just tell her I’m coming and that I’m so sorry,” I say. “Mark?”
“Damn it!” he shouts in the distance. “I dropped the phone.”
“What happened?” I ask knowing he can’t hear me.
Mark can be a terrible drive, like stereotypical Asian woman bad. He chronically misjudges the amount of space between him and other vehicles while driving. I usually grab onto anything when he brakes hard, which is often.
“Helen, I can’t hear a word you’re saying,” he shouts again. “I’ll just see you inside.”
Mark and I have been dating for five years. Well no, close to six. I just say five to avoid those looks of “Wow, that’s a long-ass time” when I say six.
We met at my first real job at Quantum Research Solutions or “QRS.” The name and the abbreviation are deceivingly ostentatious.
In essence, I just entered data all day while watching videos online. He actually is my first and only serious boyfriend since I moved to Los Angeles over a decade ago.
I’m originally from Northern California and moved down for college. Where I grew up life is much slower and people are less “fake.” I guess before moving I was your typical jeans, t-shirt and North Face fleece sweater type of gal.
My brown mousy hair was always swept up in a ponytail. I never wore any makeup to cover my fair skin and my deep brown eyes always seemed a little too large for my delicate face.
I’ve changed quite a bit in the past ten years. Now my hair is always nicely blown out and dyed “Power Girl Brown No. 1094” every two weeks at a Beverly Hills salon.
I’ve learned a thing or two about the wonders a little bronzer, mascara and lip-gloss can achieve. Meanwhile designer clothes and shoes have replaced the fleece sweaters and normally priced jeans. Los Angeles has a way of sucking you in.
I suppose my taste in men has also changed. Initially, Mark wasn’t physically my type. He is thin, has broadly set black eyes and a pointed nose set above a strong handsome almost borderline angular jaw line. Mark isn’t your typical man’s man nor is he gay. He falls into this new category of male that I’m sure Los Angeles or Miami has pioneered called “The Metrosexual.” I think I might have actually thrown up in my mouth a little when he and I went to our first happy hour together outside of work in civilian clothing. Truthfully, if it wasn’t for the fact that I already knew him and liked his personality I would have written him off as a classic guy from Los Angeles. He went to UCLA, has a job in finance and wears gold-leafed shirts with Ed Hardy scrawled immodestly on the back. In an ironic twist, he makes me feel safe like no one has ever made me feel.
I guess I’ve learned to take the good with the bad, even with my career.
It’s interesting that I ended up working at QRS since my passion has always been writing. I was the Editor-in-Chief of my high school newspaper, a Journalism major and an enthusiastic intern at two local newspapers. However three months after graduation and fruitless job searching in writing, I decided to look for something else that had more money-making potential.
I was twenty-three when I first started QRS. To be honest, I didn’t think too much about the job but I was earning a decent and consistent salary. I think it was a struggle switching from English to Finance. I wish I could have taken to finance like my best friend Sophie takes to a sale at Bloomingdale’s. Still over the years, I’ve concluded that even if I wasn’t great at my job I wasn’t terrible. I did what I could to get by. I traded in words for numbers and the independence has made the sacrifice worth it- at least on the surface.
I do have fond memories of my first year as a real adult. My co-workers were around my age and we’d get happy hour after work at a bar in downtown Culver City and inevitably get hammered if it was a Friday. On weekends, I would pillage IKEA for cool yet affordable home furnishings. I don’t know anyone that hasn’t owned a twenty-dollar LACK coffee table at one point in his or her life. God bless the Swedes and ninety-nine cent meatballs.
Despite paying a grand a month for my four hundred and something square foot studio in a questionable part of West LA, I loved my first place. Mark hated it partly because it smelled like a hodge-podge of curried Indian food and sour Kimchi.
He also hated it in part because I lived right above the parking garage. You could hear the rusted gate rumbling open and close whenever a car came through, which oddly enough occurred with the most frequency at four-thirty on Sunday mornings.
It was all going to work out. We would cohabitate for a year, get married and I would become very successful and important in the next three years.
That was the plan until I realized how much the government, property management and simply keeping myself alive were taking away from my newfound independence. It seems as if it’s the reality all twenty-somethings must inevitably face and accept.
After just one year at QRS, I got it in my head that I was too good for the place. I convinced myself I needed a serious financial job since I wanted to be a serious career woman. That was going to be the key to my happiness. Then Sherman & Latham came along with the cache of working for one of the few hedge funds on the West Coast. It didn’t hurt that the office was on the eighteenth floor overlooking the Pacific Ocean and furnished with fine glass and marble.
I quit QRS for what I thought were more profitable and prestigious pastures. So for the past five years I’ve dedicated my life to Sherman & Latham and I have to say although it sucks balls at times it still supports the Southern California lifestyle I’ve grown accustomed to. Although things haven’t panned out exactly how I’ve planned I think I’m still content.
As the elevator reaches the parking deck with a ping, I quickly dart out and scurry across the parking deck in my heels towards my white BMW.
If it wasn’t for the soul sucking traffic down Wilshire Boulevard I could be at the restaurant in twenty minutes.
“Mother ‘effer!” I scream at the driver who rapidly cuts into the almost nonexistent space in front of me. I make a rather offensive and exasperated hand gesture at him and he pretends to not notice.
“At least an ‘effing courtesy wave!” I yell. “Courtesy wave!”
After forty-five minutes of traffic hell, I pull into the valet and make my way into the Euro-Vietnamese restaurant in Beverly Hills. The restaurant is famous for its “Walk on Water” entrance — a serpentine aquarium that winds through the cocktail lounge. I’m way too underdressed for the occasion when I see Sophie in eight hundred dollar Christian Louboutin’s, a black Chanel dress and Harry Winston diamond earrings. I always feel underdressed around her.
“Sophie, I’m so sorry,” I say genuinely frustrated and sad.
Lately, I’ve been finding that work is cutting into more of my personal time than I would have liked. Possibly it’s a marker of success? Aren’t busy people always more successful?
“Helen!” Sophie says as she climbs over her guests to hug me. “We saved you some cake.”
I give her a weak and apologetic smile as I move to my seat next to Mark and Sophie’s aunt.
“This is my second marriage so it’s really no big deal,” she whispers in my ear. “I’m just glad to see you.”
Like me, my best friend Sophie Meyer is twenty-nine.
We met during freshman year of college where she lived across the hall from me.
I remember being so entirely in awe of her and thinking that if all the girls in Los Angeles looked like this, I definitely wasn’t going to fit in.
Within the first week, the entire male population in our dorm was in love with her high cheekbones, long tanned legs and striking bluish-green eyes.
Being half Dutch and half Brazilian, Sophie is without question stunningly beautiful. She has a je ne sais quo about her so that if she was sitting alone in a café you knew it was by her own choice.
Sophie is a rare breed. Besides being outwardly attractive, Sophie also has a genuine heart of gold.
I remember during Finals Week I came down with some hellish combination of the flu, strep throat and the hives. My body had decided to cluster fuck me in the most gross and contagious way possible.
As my roommate ran for the hills and left me for dead, Sophie took me to the student health center and brought me chicken soup from the cafeteria every meal to nurse me back to health.
I maintain that she is the reason why I literally survived Spring Quarter freshman year.
After college, Sophie became a successful real estate agent with listings in Bel Air and Malibu and got prematurely married to her boss who is now her ex-husband.
She left him citing irreconcilable differences. He is a Taurus and she is a Gemini, which oddly enough is a viable cause for divorce. Those that are in the sign of Taurus are grounded and practical and Sophie is none of those things.
Following the divorce and the splitting of their assets, Sophie swore she was done with men and would focus on her career.
Of course, it wasn’t long before she met and fell in love with her fiancé Michael Steinhardt. Michael is twenty years older, a wildly successful real estate investor and just as beautiful.
He has two kids and two divorces under his belt. And from what I hear that’s not the only thing the silver fox has under his belt. For lack of a better word, it’s monstrous.
Stereotypes aside, she says she has never been happier or at least that’s the way she feels now. Sophie has mood swings that are just about as wild and random as she is. It is another one of her Gemini traits that I have come to love and hate.
“You know my hydrangeas are blooming so big this season,” Sophie’s elderly aunt sitting next to me starts to say vacantly. “Do you grow any flowers?”
“No,” I reply. “But I would love to if I had the time.”
The last thing I want to do is talk about goddamned flowers.
Mark has yet to look up at me. He is engrossed in whatever email has come through on his Blackberry. I was feeling sad on the drive here but I had thought it was just because of the traffic.
I’m halfway through my huge slice of cake and another meaningless dinner conversation when I start to get teary-eyed. It has to be my contacts again. Damn it, I will get my eyes lasered this year. I continue to swear at my unfortunate dry-eye condition for wreaking havoc on my vision. However as a tear trickles down my face I have a feeling that it might be something more. Thank God for dim lighting.
I excuse myself to the restroom and once safely inside the stall, I let the relentless suffocating feeling overtake me and tears start to stream uncontrollably down my face. Crap. It can’t happen now. Look how Zen the bathroom is. For God’s sake, there’s fountain with a granite Buddha sitting on top of it. Think Zen. Be the Buddha. No Buddha’s fat. Okay, be a skinny Buddha.
This emotional breakdown that I’ve been anticipating can’t happen in a public restroom. It can’t happen period. And what’s worse is I’ve left my makeup in the car. Damn it. I just can’t win today.
My shoulders start to shudder and tears start splattering out uncontrollably. I’m exhausted.
I pull out my Blackberry to text Sophie that I’m leaving and before I can hit send I realize I have three emails from my portfolio manager Brian all containing a creative assortment of curse words. I’m sure he hasn’t even made it out of customs yet.
After retrieving my car from the valet I drive off without saying goodbye to anyone.
I can feel the hot tears spilling from my eyes and my vision becomes so blurred that I’m forced to park on the side of La Cienga Boulevard where I bury my head in my arms and start sobbing.
TWO
Great, I think to myself looking at the massacre on my face. My brown chestnut-shaped eyes are puffy and now in the shape of very large walnuts. Against my soft round cheeks they make me look even more like a kid. I push back my hair that is matted from the tears and twist it into a severe bun for the time being as I examine my face further. Yuck.
What the hell is wrong with me? Many things, but I’m such a psycho. Crying for no reason is for kids and crazies I tell myself. Of course my co-workers aren’t going to know about my breakdown last night. They’ll probably assume I left work early to get hammered. I can just see Brian’s smug face upturning in judgment.
I turn on the shower and the steam starts to pervade the room creating a thick fog. My reflection in the mirror disappears into a blur.
My head is throbbing as I step underneath the warm stream of water. The heavy drops massage my tightened back and I let out a heavy sigh, close my eyes and breathe in the shampoo-scented air around me.
It is four-thirty in the morning and the stock market doesn’t open for another two hours but I’m still getting ready. Some people actually go to bed at this hour after a night of heavy partying. I was never like that, not even in college. My idea of a good time was always curling up with a book at a local coffee shop. What can I say? I committed to being a literary nerd.
I step out of the shower wrapping a white towel around my slender frame and leave wet imprints on my white shaggy bathmat. The fog in the bathroom starts to clear up as I open the bathroom door and my reflection in the mirror starts to come into focus. Now I can see the red splotches on my face again. I am in serious need of concealer and a long nap.
After managing to salvage what is left of my blotchy complexion, I drive to work with the heavy feeling from the night before looming over me. I am slightly comforted by the streetlights down Wilshire Boulevard that are still on in the misty morning. The washed down roads are lined with cars with foggy windshields and I have to say that it’s my favorite time of day.
I listen to one of five voicemails left by Mark last night and delete the rest.
I still haven’t explained why I bolted from the restaurant last night. I’m a little bothered that he didn’t try harder to come after me. I’ve never been too emotional and needless to say I’ve never run out of a restaurant in tears. Maybe he just wanted to give me some space.
“Helen, where are you?” he said with mild panic in the recording. “Sophie checked in the bathroom and you weren’t. Then we saw that you had left your chocolate cake and now we’re really worried. Please call me when you get this. I’ll stop by later tonight to see if you’re car is there.”
I text him back, “Sorry for leaving. Hard day at work yesterday. Call you later.”
I know I’m probably not going to bring up last night again. There really isn’t any point since I can’t articulate what I’m feeling. Sad? Overwhelmed? Crazy?
Pulling into the parking deck, my car is the only one of the two here. I sigh heavily and step out of the car gradually. As I walk towards the elevators my steps echo through the empty building and a premature sense of dread grows. I never know what’s going to happen at work— if it’s going to be good day or a bad day. Most of the time it’s conditioned upon whether people are happy with my work and me.
As I step into the dimly lit office the soft whir of computers greet my entrance. In about thirty minutes the chaos will begin and I’m thankful for the quiet before the storm.
I make myself two shots of espresso and add some French vanilla cream. The only perk about working here recently has been the espresso machine. I love it. I want to steal it.
I check through my work emails. There’s a final one from Brian saying that he wants to have a private meeting with me in his office once he lands in the States regarding my mistake on one of the investor marketing materials. I cringe.
Brian Hollis is our junior portfolio manager and has been with the firm since its inception. He is the right hand of Mr. William Sherman our co-owner. He’s young, cunning and mildly good-looking. He’s also 5’5”, a shrew and desperate for no one to notice how utterly incompetent he is.
“Helen, come into my office please?” Brian’s nasally voice pages over my phone some time in the afternoon.
“Yes, I’ll be right there,” I reply and quietly walk over to his corner office.
“Good afternoon,” I greet with a plastered smile. “How was Europe?”
“Helen, sit right down,” he says completely ignoring my salutation. “I’m disappointed in you. I know we’re a young firm with young leadership but you have to trust me. You have to give it your all. Take this firm and make it your own.”
I’m positive that my face looks as blank as my mind. What the hell is he talking about? Is he going to explain the tirade of emails from the night before?
“Helen, people are counting on you,” he says with a minor fist pump. “We’re looking for entrepreneurs and doers that can do.”
As he continues to lecture and superfluously gesticulate, I still have no clue as to where this conversation is headed but I still nod my head in agreement. He’s so tiny, like a tiny yappy dog dressed in Burberry just yapping away. I imagine clubbing him over the head in one whack-a-mole motion. I’m not even sure if he knows what he’s talking about.
“Please come around to my computer screen,” he says. “Essentially, I want this slide of my presentation to show that our potential profits way exceed our costs. Make the green line, you know?”
“Go up?” I offer. He looks a little annoyed that I didn’t let him finish his sentence. I’m hoping he’ll let it go.
“When can I have this by?” he asks. His faint eyebrows arch up waiting for my response.
“When do you need it?” I answer. Wrong again.
I have this habit of answering a question with a question that I have to quit. I read in a Psychology Daily article that it makes people feel threatened.
“I mean I can have it to you as soon as possible,” I say correcting myself.
“I want to send it out by tonight,” he says. “I want them to be impressed with our expediency.”
Of course he does, I think. I’ll put in all the man-hours only for him to be the star. I look at the golden bull on his shelf. It’s inappropriate and borderline delusional.
“Okay, I think I can make that happen,” I say. “Do you mind having someone look at the numbers before you send it out?”
“Yeah sure,” he says as he waves me off and then signs onto his eBay account.
I momentarily look out of his corner office at the sun that starts to set casting an unforgettable warm glow over the glistening ocean. It looks like amber crystal.
As I walk back to my cubicle, I let out a sigh. It’s not his fault. He’s just another pawn in this corporate chess game but I just can’t help but hate him.
“Are you in trouble?” Justin searches. He was always trying to one-up me on something. “What did you do now?”
“Nothing at all, Justin,” I reply concealing emotion.
I desperately wanted to go home and shut the world out.
“Doesn’t seem like it to me,” Justin says still digging. “Anything you’d like me to take off your hands?”
I always keep my guard up at work. After five years, I’ve reluctantly learned to mistrust my co-workers and it is a lonely feeling.
When push comes to shove, the only person that will help you is yourself. It’s a sad reality and I honestly wish people could be more genuine and transparent.
Hell, it’d even be nice if I wasn’t the only girl at the fund. Sometimes I need to vent and talk about hair or the latest celebrity gossip. This afternoon I’m in desperate need of some neuron killing conversation.
The rest of the afternoon goes by quickly and by the time I finish my work it’s ten-forty at night and I’m exhausted from looking at spreadsheets. I finally email the draft to Brian with a request to verify all the data before he sends it out to our investors in Zurich and then turn off my monitor. My eyes and muscles are aching and all I want to do is go home. I want to cry. I want to eat. I want to sleep. In essence, fulfill basic necessities.
There are times I’m unsure if I am trying too hard or not hard enough. So much so that I think that I’ve developed a new form of mental illness: the corporate anxiety attack. For the most part, I feel helpless. I click off my desk light and gaze out into the night sky for a minute thinking about everyone else in the world that was out already relaxing on their couches with their loved ones or out to dinner with a friend. I start to feel a little sad but I’m still glad that it’s Friday and I’m going home to Mark.
The convention that most, if not all women break, is that there should be an equal amount of time spent at your apartment and his while dating.
Unless, of course, you’re Sophie. Unfortunately, I am not Sophie and thus incapable of upholding said rule.
For the past six years, I have spent a total of nine months at my own apartment. If I had a cat or even a hamster it’d probably have more food in the fridge than me. That or it would have died from neglect. Some people shouldn’t have kids, pets or plants. I am one of those people.
Even though I’ve moved out from the shoebox that was my first apartment and into a nice and spacious one-bedroom, Mark still doesn’t come over to mine. He says that he’s more comfortable at his own place because my place is too clean and he doesn’t want to mess it up.
So I usually bring my overnight bag with me in the car and clothes for the next day since I have nothing at his place, not even a drawer. Well, at least I had a key to his bottom lock.
I know it’s a sign. Okay, it’s not just a sign. It’s a bad one. He just never offered and I never brought it up. I don’t know where the fear comes from that I’ll somehow scare him away if I do but I just know it’s there.
To be honest, sometimes I wonder why he isn’t more concerned that I will be scared away from his lack of commitment.
Either way, I’m not going to be the one to force him into something he isn’t ready for like my father did with my mother.
My mother and father got married in their early twenties. They were both Northern Californian hippies— although my mother was far more free-spirited than my father.
She had a sprawling pot farm growing in our backyard by the time I was two and painted ceramic art that no one bought. My father could never quite tie her down even after she had me. The last memory I have of my mother is her leaving to go to the grocery store and never coming back. I hear that she’s somewhere in Costa Rica but I’ve never bothered to look her up and vice-versa. As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead.
After she left, my father cleaned up his act and became a suit and married my stepmother who I was never close to. Not quite the Cinderella evil-stepmother scenario but she was cold. The point was I could never be myself growing up. I always had this strange fear that I would be excommunicated from this new family system if I wasn’t good enough. Then when my stepsister
Jaime was born it just got worse. I didn’t understand it at the time but I just knew she was different. She had both her parents and she could be herself especially around my stepmother without the same fear I had. “I’ll pull my hair out!” she would scream if she didn’t get her way much like her own daughter Hailey nowadays. Jaime could always be herself, good or bad.
So I was always the perpetual straight-A student, never fought with my parents, never partied— the good girl that never made any waves. In fact, it was my father’s idea that I get into finance because he didn’t want to financially support me. I always did what I was “supposed” to do.
“Well, hello,” Mark says as I left myself into his apartment.
There’s a pile of newly laundered whites waiting to be folded on the side of the coffee table and a box of Chinese takeout.
“Hi,” I say defeated.
I set my laptop bag next to the dining table he picked up from the Salvation Army. The furniture in Mark’s apartment is an eclectic mix of pieces he’s found at yard sales, college sales and thrift shops. It’s a strange juxtaposition next to his giant HD big screen television, stereo system and other technological gadgets. If you had to guess you’d think he’s a bachelor.
“Come, come,” he motions and I slump down next to him on the couch and put my head on his undefined chest.
“Sorry about running out of Sophie’s dinner.”
He gently strokes my hair from my forehead and kisses me on my temple. I love when he does this. It makes me feel safe.
“She understands,” he says. “You hungry?”
I’m starving. The last time I ate was seven hours ago if you count saltine crackers and cold coffee. I sit up and start opening the greasy takeout box and pick out the eggplant with my take-out chopsticks. I hate eggplant. It has a certain mushy baby-food texture that makes me want to barf. But Mark loves it so I end up just plucking it out every time. It bothers me to a certain extent because whenever I order takeout for us I know exactly what he likes to a “T” and I adjust my choices accordingly. No cashews (I love cashews), no tofu (I love tofu) and nothing spicy (I love spice). I figure that’s the least of my relationship worries.
“Thank you,” I say politely. “How was your day?”
Mark uncrosses his legs and heads to the kitchen, pours himself water and says that his day was uneventful. He doesn’t offer to pour me a glass although he used to in the beginning of our relationship.
“Can you pour me some?” I ask. “I’m kind of tired.”
“Come on, babe,” he says. “You can pour your own water. You’re a big girl.”
“Never mind then,” I say as he plops down next to me. “Let me have some of your’s then.”
“Alright,” he says rolling his eyes. “Just because I love you.”
I never end up telling Mark about my emotional breakdown and he never asks me about my day. Then again, it doesn’t matter because things will never change. I hate my job but I probably won’t quit. Why would I when people are losing their jobs left and right?
Mark switches the channel over to one of his favorite movies.
I’ve told him that it was one of my favorites too just so we could share something in common. To be honest, I hate movies partly because I could never sit still long enough to watch the damn thing the whole way through. I preferred a good book any day. At best, I could stand trash TV just for the noise.
In the same way that I have a dislike for movies, Mark despises books and reading in general. I begged him to read the Fountainhead once for me and he made it through the first paragraph before pleading for me to stop the torture.
I let him off the hook just as long as I didn’t have to watch any more of his bang-bang shoot ‘em up movies. We still watch them anyways although he’s never read the Fountainhead.
I sit for a few minutes pretending to be engaged as Steven Segal shoots some guy in the leg. Mark is entranced in the movie as I get up to grab my overnight bag. I pull out my toothbrush and head to the bathroom.
The bathroom counter is lined with his shaving gel, razor and deodorant and other various male bath products.
A while back, I accidentally knocked over my perfume and he was livid because his bathroom smelled like “girl.” Since then, I haven’t been able to keep anything of mine there. Hence, the overnight bag.
I brush my teeth and put the toothbrush bag into its holder and back into the bag.
“Babe,” he says. “Can you make sure you put your bag against the wall? Last night I tripped over it and almost killed myself.”
“It was my plan all along,” I joke.
“Get over here,” he replies and I jump into the seat next to him and lay my head on his chest.
He switches the channel again to what he thinks is another one of my “favorite” movies. Can you blame him for not knowing what I like and what I don’t, if I never voice it?
I mentally shrug my shoulders and before I know I’ve fallen asleep to the chatter on the television and the smell of his freshly laundered shirt and eggplant. It’s another Friday night come and gone.
THREE
My neck is sore. I can’t move it. Oh wait, I can move it. It just hurts.
I wake up unceremoniously Saturday morning to the sound of Mark’s loud snoring and a painful knot in my neck.
We’re both still on the couch and there’s no wonder now as to why my neck hurts. I’ve been craned over him the entire night in the most awkward and uncomfortable sleeping position. I looked like one of those rubber chickens they used to sell at joke shops.
The television is still on and playing infomercials about some kind of fitness boot camp. I already feel the burn in my upper right shoulder. I turn the television off and slap Mark awake.
“Let’s go to bed,” I groan and attempt to roll myself up. Mark opens his eyes for a split second and then remains comatose.
It’s nine-thirty in the morning and the sun is poking through the cracks of his blinds creating slivers of sunshine on the floor.
Mark grunts something at me with his head buried in a couch cushion and then pulls the throw blanket I bought for him over his head. I feel old and boring. When did Friday nights become about laundry and passing out on the couch? I was never one to go to
Sunset Boulevard every weekend but at least I watched a movie or tried a new restaurant. There are places I want to go and to see. I’ve never been to Santa Barbara even though it’s only half-an-hour away and I love the beach.
I drag myself into his bedroom while trying to work the knot out of my neck and shoulders. The curtains are drawn and it’s dark in his bedroom. The twin bed is covered with his clothes that are either clean or dirty. He didn’t know and I didn’t know. I find what I think is a clean bed sheet and lay it over the bed and plop myself face down. I can’t relax because of the lumps of clothing underneath. It’s worse than sleeping on the couch. I think about my comfortable California King at my apartment and I get more irritated.
After ten minutes of trying to make it work, I give up and come out grabbing a fistful of his clothing and drop them over his sleeping body. Then in a final tour de force, I quickly draw the blinds open letting a flood of sunshine stream in. Mark screams as if he were a vampire sizzled by the light.
“Are you crazy?” he yells. “It’s Saturday!”
“And now you’re awake!” I say. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”
Mark unwillingly peels one eye open and looks at me incredulously. His jet-black hair is swept to one side and his sweats have bunched up around his calves.
He makes one last giant feline stretch and yawns with his mouth wide open.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he says. “Buy you breakfast?”
“Food is not the solution to everything,” I say. “Most things.
But not everything.”
I throw the pillow over at him and he barely dodges it.
“Honestly, just relax,” Mark patronizes.
I hate it when he tells me to relax. It’s borderline insulting.
He’s gone over to his desk to turn on the computer. Mark’s nearing thirty and still as devoted to playing his computer games as he was six years ago. He sits down with his legs crossed and scratches his undefined stomach.
“I am relaxed,” I say trying to avoid escalating the situation into an argument. “I have brunch with Sophie.”
“Okay well, I’m going to the driving range later today with Ben,” he says. “Did you want to spend any part of your day with me?”
The electronic beeping sounds from his computer games are getting on my nerves. His apartment is a mess. The takeout boxes are still on the coffee table and the trash is piling up. It’s disgusting. I walk over and start taking out the trash that has somehow become my responsibility since I do spend a lot of time here and I have a lower tolerance for mess.
“Mark, I really don’t know,” I say while closing the front door with a fistful of trash. “Just relax.”
As I walk in the café, I text Sophie that I’m here.
Despite the modern day Great Depression, the café is swarming with Angelinos sipping five dollar non-fat cappuccinos and wearing 80s inspired Ray-Ban sunglasses, boho-chic dresses and denim cutoffs. Whoever said that the waif look was passé clearly never did battle with a pair of skinny cigarette jeans at Kitson and embarrassingly lost. Everyone looks like they have money but Los Angeles is a city of smoke and mirrors. No one is who he seems or quite frankly, who he says he is.
Sophie and I had stumbled upon the café in our college days. The owner Monsieur Badeau was a sweet old man who used to be a baker in France and specialized in making the most delectable pastries from scratch. In our college days, he crafted each meringue and tart by hand and hung sepia-toned photos of his family and old Paris on the walls.
Then a few years ago, the café was featured on a reality show and several national tabloids shot a couple of famous actresses leaving the joint. And within a few weeks, the LA Restaurant Group bought out Monsieur Bandeau and transformed his humble creation into an exclusively organic and vegan “patisserie” with meringues as hard as rocks and tarts as tasteless as cardboard.
Despite the deterioration in food and true culture, it isn’t uncommon to see a famous face sitting the next table over and paparazzi stalking the front door across the street.
For that reason, every thin, trendy LA boy and girl from the ages of fifteen to forty-five would flock to the café to see and be seen. It makes them feel important even if they aren’t.
We still come because it’s been our tradition for almost a decade and some things should never change.
“Oh, hi!” I say as I hug Sophie warmly. “How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you forever.”
“Well, you’re always at the office,” Sophie says with a pout.
“Yeah.”
Sophie is wearing her J-brand jeans that are more expensive than my entire outfit. It’s hard keeping up in LA. Even I’m not impenetrable to the pressures of staying young and attractive. I wear Banana Republic shirts and pants to work and Rock & Republic on weekends. Only in LA will you find doctors, lawyers and other white-collar workers in ripped jeans, mystic tans and silicone boobs.
“I’m late,” Sophie says with a groan. She plops down on the white and green woven wicker seat and puts her Gucci handbag and Versace sunglasses on the side of the stone table. She is practically a walking Rodeo Drive catalog.
“What are you talking about?” I say looking at my watch and sitting down. “It’s twelve-fifty and we said lunch at one?”
“No, no, no,” she says loudly and shakes her head. “My period. Goddamn Eve and that blasted apple.”
“I think damning as already occurred,” I say with a wink.
“Tell me about it,” she replies and pouts again. “I feel like a giant blood clot.”
Several girls eavesdropping giggle at the comment and then look away bored. Their tiny toy Chihuahuas sleep comfortably in their owner’s Chanel purses. The two large C’s are perfectly positioned towards another pair of girls sitting at another table. They all look about sixteen. Start em’ young, I suppose.
“Oh,” I say forming my mouth into an “O” with my un-botoxed lips.
“It’s like a dam,” she says. “I’m practically a stuffed potato.”
“Maybe you’re stuffed with a baby?” I quip.
The sun is in my eyes and I scoot my chair over to the shade. It’s interesting because it’s September and still seventy-nine degrees out. I’m sure the temperature must have dropped a few degrees since the summer. It might even have rained a couple of times this year but not enough to cure the persistent Californian drought. I firmly believe that there is a God and he knows that Californians can’t drive in the rain. Sometimes I’m jealous of East Coasters that have seasons because they can actually see change happening. In LA, things change but slowly and it somehow always catches you by surprise when it does.
“Helen, I wouldn’t wish a baby upon anyone,” she says sipping some water the server just brought over. “It’s okay. I’m just anxious about the wedding.”
“Stress kills,” I offer. “But better that than an abortion, right?”
I think Sophie may have had a couple already. Wow, that makes her sound incredibly irresponsible. She’s just really forgetful with her birth control. For the past decade, she’s always doubled up on Mondays. I personally don’t know if I’m pro-choice or pro-life. I’m pro-“getting along with everyone.”
“You’re in a sassy mood today,” she says gleefully with a wink. She takes another sip of her water and prods the lemon around. The ice clinks against the glass. She’s the only person who truly appreciates my acerbic and inappropriate sense of humor.
“Let’s order something with a lot of sugar,” she says. “Oh!
Look a vegan brownie sundae. Sounds disgusting but strangely delicious at the same time.”
I feel my already bloated stomach. After work, I honestly never had the time to go to the gym. That and, I’m always too drained. The little muffin top peeking over my jeans attests to my laziness. I remember reading in the tabloids that Kate Moss once said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny.” I have to agree with her but I have to say that cheese fries taste pretty damn good too.
“Helen, I was trying on my fifth Monique Lhullier wedding gown and looked obese in all of them,” she continues. “I was hyperventilating and Valerie who was helping me disappeared for a whole fifteen minutes. I wanted to die.”
Sophie is really loose and fast with phrases like “I want to die. I’m going to kill myself. My life is over.”
Seemingly inconsequential things typically overwhelm her. Maybe she’s not the only one. There are about twenty yoga studios in any given five mile radius in LA and therapists willing to prescribe a barge of pills for any legit and non-legit emotional ailment.
“Then Valerie, who’s as skinny as my pinky, reappears with a cookie,” Sophie continues. “And in my head, I’m thinking ‘you insensitive bitch.’ So I start bawling.”
“Is that why I got a text from you saying that Valerie is a whore?” I ask.
Sophie is also very loose and fast with words like “whore, slut and tranny.” It’s pretty heinous and “Mean Girls” of her but she just can’t stop. I’m sure some feminist somewhere is out there screaming bloody murder for setting women back another couple of centuries but honestly that feminist would probably call Sophie a whore for doing so.
“I’m what else do call a girl who sleeps with everyone?” Sophie says with a smirk. “But save that story for another brunch.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I say with a smile. “How are the wedding preparations going?”
Sophie hasn’t been able to stop talking about her upcoming nuptials. It’s been hard to wrangle her into a conversation that doesn’t have to do with flower girls, a chicken or veal reception dinner and her being draped head-to-toe in diamonds.
She isn’t a Bridezilla yet but she’s coming pretty damn close.
“The caterer backed out. Something about how I’m a terror to work with,” she says while rolling her bluish-green eyes. “And about how I lack vision and taste.”
“Well, for a wedding that will cost close to two hundred grand,” I say. “I think you have the vision down.”
“You don’t think I have taste too?” she looks at me with her eyes wide and doe-eyed.
“Sophie, you’re wedding costs more than what I make in almost two and a half years.” I say. “That’s okay, you don’t believe in the recession.”
Sophie looks hurt. Money has always been a point of disconnect between us. Sophie and I grew up very differently. Namely, she had money. Loads of money. Sometimes it’s ridiculous the amount of money she spends but you can’t blame her since she doesn’t know any different. To be honest, Sophie’s never in debt and never spends beyond her means.
She continues to swirl her water around and opens her menu. The edges are frayed and there are sugary coffee stains on the pages making them stick together.
When Monsieur Badeau owned the place we’d just order off of a giant chalkboard hanging above the register. Things definitely have changed.
“I don’t spend what I don’t have,” Sophie says quietly. She is always shy about money. “So what if I have a few luxuries in life?”
I pat her on the hand gently and Sophie continues to go on about the details of her wedding.
Although I’m enjoying the company of my best friend, part of me feels anxious and guilty during this time of relaxation. I still have a ton of work to do back at the office and moreover I haven’t been able to shake the feeling of sadness ever since her rehearsal dinner. Normally, I could tell Sophie anything and I usually do but lately I’ve been more reserved than usual.
“What are we ordering?” I ask.
Sophie usually wants everything on the menu. It’s been a huge point of debate amongst our circle of friends as to how she stays so thin considering her version of working out is swiping a credit card. It’s really not natural and just plain unfair.
“I hate my arms,” she says as she scans over the menu. “I could just fly away with the flab underneath my arms. Look, it’s like an aviation device.”
She flaps her toned arms around and I roll my eyes.
“You could always work out,” I propose.
“No,” Sophie replies. “God help me Helen, the other day I discovered Chick-Fil-A and their waffle fries.”
A leggy woman with a leather face and defined biceps fights her way over to the table next to us. Her much younger boyfriend accompanies her. His cheap cologne is so thick that I almost suffocate from the fumes. I pretend to gasp for air and Sophie and I let out a giggle and roll our eyes. It’s so LA.
“Okay, let’s get some water and perhaps more lemon too,” I say jokingly as I close the menu.
I’m sure our waitress would have been thrilled with our order. More than two-thirds of the waiters in LA are “actors” surviving on tips and their own innocent delusions. Still, at least they had the courage to be introspective about their own lives and dreams.
I’m almost thirty and have no idea what the hell I want. To be honest, I’m even afraid to think too deeply about it on the offhand that I get lost in the chasm of self-reflection.
“Ladies, what can I get you?” the waitress says beaming.
She’s just so chipper. Must be new to LA, I think to myself. Either that or she’s getting a good screw from a fellow waiter. Correction, I mean “actor.” Lucky girl.
“I’m going to get the goat cheese omelet, a butter croissant and a mocha with lots of whipped cream,” says Sophie excitedly clapping her hands. “But with the omelet I want the goat cheese fully melted. The croissant needs to be warmed ever so slightly. And full fat with the mocha and lots of whipped cream. Don’t skimp.”
The waitress, slightly stunned, immediately pulls out her writing pad and scribbles down Sophie’s order. I don’t think she was used to be people who looked like Sophie actually ordering food or at least keeping it down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a girl about twenty-one standing over the pastry case eating the éclairs with her eyes and not ordering anything.
“I’ll have the same,” I say smiling up at the waitress.
“It’s good for the baby,” Sophie adds with a smirk.
The waitress offers her congratulations and smiles sweetly at us and walks away with our order as Sophie’s cell phone rings.
“Again, I would die if I was pregnant,” Sophie says as she answers. “Hold on, it’s Michael.”
I’ll have to admit that I’m a bit peeved that she’s answering. She sees Michael practically every waking moment. Then again maybe I’m feeling a small twinge of jealously. Michael has flown her out to Paris, New York and Miami. He’s taken her out on nice dinners and bought her red roses every Sunday just because. When she would talk, he would look at her with his eyes glittering and engaged. He’s happy when she’s happy. Michael loves her. In fact, he adores her. They have a rare connection. There are times they even start to look alike.
“Okay, sweetie,” Sophie coos over the phone. “I have to go but I’ll be home soon. I love you.”
She hangs up the phone and sighs lovingly. The look is unfamiliar to me. I haven’t felt that way for a while. Unless of course you count the loving feeling I feel when Barney’s has a sale. I’m over the moon for her but I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something when I look at my own life and my relationship with Mark. I can’t break up with him though. We have too much history and I don’t have the nerve. The dating scene in LA can be a terrifying place for a twenty-nine year old going on thirty.
Sophie jabs me in the arm and we both see our waitress and another handsome waiter making out behind the kitchen door. Lucky girl.
FOUR
I have been studying religiously for this professional exam for the past five months called the Chartered Financial Analyst or CFA for short. Who knew that after making it through college there’d still be more exams? Basically, if you pass all three levels of examination you’d have further proof that you deserve to keep your job. I am on my first exam and my third fail despite being good at my job.
Nowadays even in LA, it isn’t enough to just have your Bachelors degree or even a Masters. With all the recently laid-off workers vying for your job, you probably need half of the alphabet after your name to just be taken seriously. Probably the entire alphabet if you are a woman.
So every Saturday and Sunday, I am either at a coffee shop or the library studying my brains out. I don’t think I even studied so hard when I was in college.
Sophie doesn’t get it and actually most of my friends don’t really understand it either. I think they just know that I’m always too busy and too stressed to hang out.
Maybe I am just compensating? Frankly, maybe I would be bored if my life wasn’t so filled with productive activity.
I push the distracting thoughts out of my mind as I sit at my library desk with a heavy book in front of me. Lately, I have been finding it harder to concentrate. I feel like I’m in a car heading towards a cliff at 300 mph.
A pretty little Asian girl is sitting next to me with her head resting on her hands as she focuses on the massive open book in front of her. They really are starting ‘em young these days, I guess. She has different colored pens scattered on the desk. I can tell she’s probably in middle school but the stacks of books and paper next to her make for a confusing sight. What is she doing at the library on a late Saturday afternoon? She should be hanging out with her friends at the mall, shopping and flirting with boys.
I glance at my watch and begin to pack up my things. The girl looks up momentarily to gaze out the library window.
The sun is slowly setting and people are packing up their things. She sighs and then returns to her enormous book and highlights something with one of her many colored pens.
I wonder if what she highlighted is worth giving up her Saturday afternoon.
Mark is back at his apartment before me. I hear the shower running as I walk into his bedroom.
His gym bag is on the floor and one tennis shoe is on the bed and the other is thrown carelessly in the doorway. I put both neatly against the wall and then slowly strip off my clothes and untie my hair.
There’s a crinkle where the rubber band has held my hair and I try to comb it out with my fingers. I look in the mirror at my petite yet athletic frame. I could stand to lose five pounds around my midsection and perhaps tone my thighs.
I walk into the bathroom naked and step into the shower with Mark. His body is lean and his black hair is wet and foamy with shampoo. The beads of water trickle down the glass door like tiny drops of crystal.