CHAPTER NINETEEN
REAL TALK, NOTDEAL TALK
“Purchase price of thirteen-times recurring revenue. That’s a hell of an acquisition outcome we got to, boys,” one of Rae’s wannabe bosses said, slurping a beer as they celebrated a deal that had just closed. Rae was collectively lumped into the “boys” category, which they probably thought was inclusive of them if they thought about it at all.
They were out at Jimmy at the James, an eighteenth-story cocktail lounge in SoHo with posh modular furniture, glazed tile walls, a working fireplace, and shiny views of Midtown, Wall Street, and the Hudson River. Rae didn’t want to be here, but more than that, she hadn’t wanted to say no. Women on Wall Street were always grumbling about not being invited for golf or beers, but then when invited, they rarely came.
“Good valuation, sure, but the fee structure fucked us over,” another wannabe boss chimed in. “Nothing like we could get away with before the crisis.”
“That’s why we built an extra fifty thousand dollars into closing costs for the client. Next round’s on them!”
The guys hooted and ordered more whiskey and beer.
Rae felt queasy from something more than the drinks.
GQ and TB weren’t here, since they hadn’t been on this deal team, and Rae had no one to exchange eye rolls with. It had been a few weeks since she’d turned down the San Francisco job, and she felt newly trapped, though she could only blame herself.
She tried to picture these guys around her as little kids, running around on the playground, jumping off swings, building forts in the woods. They must have dreamed of something more than shifting money around and charging drinks to their clients.
She was woozy enough to pose the question to the midforties wannabe boss beside her. “When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?” she asked, half shouting to be heard.
“Thought I might be an accountant,” he said. “But realized investment banking was the more lucrative path.”
“Did you ever want to be … an astronaut or something like that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, like this was all far less interesting than comparing purchase price multiples. “Guess I wanted to be a hockey player, but we all get realistic sometime, don’t we?”
“Yes,” Rae said glumly. “I guess we do.”
Some of the guys were still single, eternal bachelors who hit on college girls for the hell of it, and a couple of them were married to women ten or fifteen years younger, maybe because women their own age were too old to have kids or maybe just because the fresh meat was more fun to parade on their arms at the charity galas they attended to prove they were good people.
One of the married guys handed Rae a beer. She took it to avoid their judgment if she declined. Not for the first time, she wondered if she was making the wrong decision by sticking it out through next bonus season.
She wasn’t bro enough to be part of this circle, but she wasn’t brave enough to leave it.
No one noticed her exit, and she walked out onto the sleek roof terrace where chaise lounges surrounded a long, skinny swimmingpool that felt veryGreat Gatsby–ish. No one was in the pool, but a few people were dangling their toes over the edge while they sipped Aperol spritzes.
Keeping her distance from the other people on the terrace, she looked out over the stainless-steel railing, up toward Midtown and the Empire State Building. Cinematic as the view was, she missed the one from the Lorimer Loft rooftop. The see-and-be-seen vibe in this place left her feeling entirely invisible.
Come rescue me from this work party,Rae texted Dustin.
She tried to mentally prepare for having the text go unanswered, like her prior texts had the past couple weeks. With the sixth sense she’d acquired, she could feel he’d been stuck in a downturn.
But her phone buzzed right away.Where is it?he asked.
Jimmy at the James
Be there soon.
Attempting to temper her hopes, she cracked open the beer and looked around her, at all these people in look-alike suits puffing themselves up with pointless importance to distract from the meaningless vacuum their lives had become. And her, right in the middle of it all.
The best thing that could be said was that she was at least more self-aware, cognizant of how she’d sold out, though perhaps that was actually less forgivable than being someone who didn’t realize the choice.
She counted lights in a tall, spindly apartment building a little ways away and did some rough multiplication to estimate how many people were within a three-mile radius of her right now. Often she enjoyed this game, imagining all the parallel and perpendicular stories, but tonight the math felt daunting.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Instinctively, she flinched, bracing herself for a wannabe boss to ask why she was being a buzzkill or requesting that she serve as judge for a beer shotgun contest where they tried to beat their college records.
It was Dustin, dressed just like everyone else in this place, but alive in his eyes in a different way. Not a vibrant alive but a deep one—exactly what she needed.
