It feels good to take a hammer to the walls of fear I’ve been living within for so long, so I do an audit of the rest of my life to see where else I can shatter old habits. One thing that bubbles up is how scornful I’ve been of anyone who works a corporate job, even though I’ve never done it myself. I decide I’ll make up my mind about it from the inside, so I apply to a bunch of Wall Street firms in Manhattan because those really are the worst of the worst, all those men sitting around making billion-dollar trades to their fraternity brothers, off gallivanting on their yachts while the rest of us hustle around driving Ubers or pouring coffee or playing drums at subway stations to put a roof over our heads. At least that’s the view I’ve always had.
The job applications ask for a résumé, which I don’t have, so I upload a photo of a sunflower whose petals are just starting to unfurl in the sunlight. That’s really the most honest résumé there is. Anything else is just ego. I’m tempted to reach out to Chris to ask him for connections in the finance industry, but I don’t. This is something I’ve got to do alone.
I don’t get any interviews, what a shocker, but the rejections don’t get me down. I just add them to the tally. Then I download one of those apps where you can trade stocks with your own money because who needs the Wall Street gatekeepers anyway?
I buy shares of different companies, diversifying picks so I don’t have all my eggs in the same basket. One of my portfolio companies is an airline that’s been in the news for having some plane crashes. I load up on that one because I figure they’ll get their act together and come back stronger than ever—I know all about that. Then I buy this woman’s digital health company and some shares of Uber because I’m hoping they’ll pay their drivers more if their stock price goes up. I’m strategic like that.
It’s pretty addicting to watch my few hundred dollars go up and down and back up again. Some days I lose half my money but other days it triples; it’s quite the rush. I’m still an adrenaline junkie even though I’m off the drugs. I just get my thrills in different ways.
I text Hal for investing advice. She doesn’t make any snide comments about how I’ve been a terrible friend since she married Astrid. She just comes over and we sit out in the garden like old times.
She gets on her high horse telling me all about how I shouldn’t be investing in individual stocks because that’s way too risky. “You should get an index fund that’s benchmarked to the S&P 500,” she advises. “And then just let your money sit there for decades without touching it and come back and check on it when you need it for retirement.”
“Where’s the fun in sitting and waiting?” I ask. “I like to be in the heart of the action, you know that.”
Hal gets a kick out of me, says it does seem like a healthier outlet than the booze and the bodies and all that, so she’s supportive. “You should join one of those social media forums where day traders talk about what stocks to buy and sell and all that,” she says. “You’d be a natural ringleader.”
It’s a decent idea, so I make an account right there. My username is @RedstockingRebel and I immediately like the forum’s energy. Everyone’s trying to screw Wall Street and help Main Street. The issue is that nearly everyone on there is a man, so I start a chat called “Women’s Revolt.” Within a few weeks, there are over five hundred women on there and they’re all talking about how they’re tired of men making all the money, talking their big games about investing. They want in too. It’s about time.
Who knew that stock trading would actually be part of my contribution to women’s liberation, but I guess it makes perfect sense because money is power. You can sit back and point your middle fingers at the system like I used to do, or you can wiggle in through the window and make it better from within.
Building a stock trading community for women injects me with a similar type of empowerment to what I was hoping to feel by making Mr. Hubert pay for his evils. It makes me realize that I don’t always need to route my rage into direct revenge. I can channel it into different avenues too, different outputs of the same origin.
Hal is impressed with my work. “When our start-up goes public,” she tells me, “we can get everyone in your chat to buy the stock and push the price high. Rig the system, but legally.”
Tara and Jenni join the Women’s Revolt community too, and the whole thing brings the Redstockings closer again. Though it’s not really the trading that does that. It’s how I’ve finally gotten out of my own way enough to see that Jenni and Hal didn’t betray me by getting married. It wasn’t the sword in the back that it felt like at the time, just a blade cutting them free from the ropes I’d tied around their wrists.
Chapter 37
Some days I feel like I have it all figured out, and some days I slip right back down again.
I guess it’ll always be like that. Baggage never goes away and I wouldn’t want that. That would mean erasing everything that’s brought me to where I am today, and I don’t want to delete the past; I just want it to be lighter so it doesn’t press down on me so hard. Get some baggage with wheels, I guess.
There are a lot of nights when I wake up with these awful flashbacks about the things I did in my past and the things that were done to me. I cringe and sweat and scream at myself.
Maybe that’s the final stage of freedom: self-forgiveness. Extending grace to yourself and not just other people.
I’m sort of like a thirty-two-year-old newborn, having to unlearn everything before I can learn it again. It’s basically triple the work. I’m not asking for credit, but it would be nice to be recognized for it, that’s all I’m saying. The divine woman gives me a nudge to remind me that she recognizes me, and that’s the most important approval I can get. It’s just like her to yank me out of my sulky mood when I’d prefer to stay and wallow for a while.
I get all jumpy and my body tightens as September scoots along, too fast. October 3 is right around the corner: Chris and Olivia’s wedding. It gives me cold feet, which is a ridiculous reaction considering I’m not the one getting married.
I wonder if Chris is having cold feet too. I wonder if he’s thinking about me at all. I hope he’s not. I hope his feet are nice and toasty warm and he’s just thinking about Olivia and how excited he is to build a life with her. When I’m actually prioritizing his happiness above my own and not just pretending to prioritize it, that’s when I finally know, or at least admit, that I guess I am in love with him after all.
“Took you long enough to admit it,” Tara says when I tell her.
“It’s not like I didn’t know I loved him,” I say. “I was just waiting for my feelings to wear off. But I guess some never do.”
It’s been over three years now that I’ve known Chris, and he’s still swirling around in my thoughts day and night, dawn and dusk. It doesn’t really make sense, but none of the best things do.
Even if I never get to be with him, it’s still a big deal to know that I can feel safe around a man. Maybe that was the whole point of getting to know him. It wouldn’t be my favorite moral to the story, but it’s not the worst one either.
One afternoon, eight days before the wedding, I’m walking around Bushwick, listening to Elijah the trumpet player, still on his same street corner. I hum along loudly, not even to try to annoy other people. I’m just doing it to express some melodies that have been bunched up for years and years and now just want a chance to be out in the air, floating or sinking, whichever is most authentic. The music massages the parts of me I can only see were sick now that I’m starting to get healthy.
My phone buzzes. Chris’s name flashes on the screen. I immediately assume something horrible has happened to him or Arnie.
“Chris, what’s wrong?” I say, picking up.
“Hey, I’m okay,” he says, voice calm. “All good.”
