Girl Most Likely To (7 page)

H
ung over, lying on the floor of her apartment, spooning a severely obese cat while being spooned by its gay, balding owner, with the remains of margaritas and Oreos plastered to the roof of her mouth is no way for a respectable Desi girl to wake up.

I struggled to my feet after shaking Christopher awake. And when I noticed a new stiffness in my neck, I thought to myself,
Something has got to change.

Coffee was a priority, but as usual on a Monday morning the line at Starbucks stretched into oblivion. Of the three grocery stores within a four-block radius of my office, only one wasn’t out of my way. Unfortunately, it was also the one that was open twenty-four hours, and where personal space was a luxury. I particularly avoided that place before nine a.m. on weekdays, since the middle-aged Indian man working that shift had a habit of eyeing me like a plate of Chicken Tikka Masala while asking suggestively if I were from Punjab. I expected better from my own kind.

I was approaching the register when I noticed a man matching my pace and coming from the opposite aisle. He stopped short and extended an arm, offering a flirtatious smile along with an
After you.
He was attractive, in a
Magnum P.I.
kind of way. Normally, I might’ve taken the opportunity to get my own early-morning-flirt on, but the light of recent events helped me see the situation more clearly. He was probably using me to cheat emotionally on the wife he had waiting at home. And if not, then like most men in this cesspool of a city he would probably just as soon hit on me at a bar if I were wearing something low-cut as he would steal my cab on the street if it were raining. I denied him my smile, slammed a dollar on the counter, and headed for the door. I was making a statement on behalf of women everywhere. Without saying a word.

Outside I noticed something over the tilted rim of my coffee cup, which made me stop. I caught a glimpse of a rosy-cheeked, double-chinned woman on the opposite side of Lexington Avenue, dancing gleefully for commuters’ loose change. I crossed over to find “It Had To Be You” booming out of her battery-powered radio. Judging by the wisps of white hair peeking out from underneath her bandana, she must’ve been about sixty-five years old. A self-styled Gypsy, she shut her eyes tightly while twisting in delight, like a schoolgirl crooning into her hairbrush. A small crowd had formed around her, and I found myself staring as much at her as at the people. A man dropped a dollar into the shoe box by her feet, tipped his hat and continued down Lexington.

“Keep dancing!” she yelled.

“I’m not dancing,” he replied over a shoulder.

“Then find a reason to!” She seemed to be looking directly at me.

The crowd snickered, shook their heads and dispersed.

The first thing I saw when I sat down at my desk after our Monday-morning team meeting was a bouquet of f lowers. Logically, I assumed they were from Jon, so I drop-kicked them into the trash. The second thing I saw was an instant messenger chat request f lashing on my screen. Taunting me. Winking at me. Blowing in my ear. “IM” is the modern equivalent of passing notes in class, except that it is sanctioned by the powers-that-be, leaves little chance for some other kid to swipe a note, and is (for most professionally unsatisfied young career-types) slightly more addictive than mediocre sex. I had no choice but to respond when I saw the following prompt from Cristina.

Any time a coworker found me using IM for fun, I felt as if I’d been caught eating my crayons. Looking up from my screen I saw Peter waiting silently for my attention.
For a minute? For a week?

“Ready to explain the Luxor deal to the intern?” he asked. Then he noticed the petals sticking out of my garbage can. “Oooh…I heard somebody got f lowers delivered this morning. I didn’t know it was you. Are they from Jon? Is he still trying to get back together with you?”

“I assume so,” I replied flatly.

“Does this mean that he’s patching things up with you and planning on whisking you off someplace to bear his many, many children?” Peter mock-punched me in the shoulder.
Which part of my office resembled a locker room?

“Why? Are you writing a book?” I asked.

“I guess I’m nervous,” he replied, grinning as he motioned for Denny and Wade to claim a couple of chairs. “Because if anything ever took you away from the firm, I don’t know how I’d live without your witty retorts to my weekly team e-mails.”

Peter was essentially my partner—the other associate on our team with whom I worked most closely. Born and bred in the Bronx by an African-American mother and a Puerto Rican father, he was the product of a full scholarship to Tufts. He mentored inner-city schoolchildren, ran marathons whenever possible, and seemed genuinely excited to be a part of the team. As if all of that weren’t disturbing enough, he was also afflicted with the need to send uplifting weekly e-mail messages to our group.

That morning’s read:
Happiness is fulfilling more than one’s fair share of the teamwork.

I had responded (and cced everyone) with
Happiness is a mutually consensual game of grab-ass.

Honestly, you couldn’t have found a straighter arrow. Peter’s cheerleaderlike enthusiasm for the company made me want to shoot him with a tranquilizer dart. Or myself. Anyone, really. There was no reason to be that pumped up about something like Equity Research.

“You have nothing to worry about, Peter. I would never dream of neglecting my responsibility to the team. I’ll tell you what—if and when someone does make an honest woman out of me, I promise to still fax a retort over to you from my Mommy-And-Me classes every morning. Somebody’s got to temper your hideous and unnecessary optimism with some good-old-fashioned cynicism. Otherwise you’ll blind us all. Really, Peter, that kind of Little-House-On-The-Prairie crap will get one of our interns mugged.”

“Ouch! Someone’s claws are out today! I like that, I like that,” he laughed like a mental patient at his own jokes. “Maybe you can bring some of that enthusiasm to the all-nighter we’re gonna have to pull to finish up the research on that Luxor deal. You know we have to make our recommendation by tomorrow morning. Now, let’s get young Wade here up to speed.”

The call came from inside the house. As usual, they used separate phones. As usual, they assumed I had an hour to waste in the middle of the day. And as usual, my parents caught me wide open and defenseless at my desk when they decided to attack. Only this time, Peter, Wade and Denny were seated in my office, so they, too, got caught in the crossfire.

Peter reclined in his seat across from my desk while Denny took notes beside him. Wade sat on the edge of his seat below my framed SUCCESS poster of a rock-climber reaching the peak of a mountain. That poster, like the two of them, came with the office, along with its mahogany desk, glass door, and many walls of gray.

“This week, we’ve been poring over the past five years’ worth of financials from a software manufacturer in Taiwan,” Peter explained to Wade, through a mouthful of chicken Caesar salad. “We’re finally making an investment recommendation to Alan and Steve tomorrow morning. However, we thought it might be helpful for you to understand how the research fits into the larger picture.”

Denny nodded enthusiastically for the coach, biting off a quarter of his sandwich and chasing it with some French fries from my plate.
What gave him the impression that the fries were communal? Maybe a football field had sprouted beyond my office door and I had missed the e-mail?
Since he had joined us a year earlier, Denny had become like a little brother to the team; he was somebody we could mock openly and use for target practice. I was an associate and he was an analyst, which meant that I outranked him by one level, four years and miles’ worth of respect within the firm. But his good humor in spite of the constant reminders of his low ranking on the corporate totem pole had forced us to develop a soft spot for him. Wade was even brighter-eyed and bushier-tailed than Denny. He had joined us as an intern the month before, and his brown-nosing knew no bounds. Wade was an intensely red-headed and predictably rosy-eyed second-year economics major at Columbia. Though he got the internship through his father’s connection to a partner at our firm, Wade actually seemed intent on proving that he deserved it.

Brrrrring!

I saw my parents’ home number on my caller ID, and against my better judgment I decided to answer the phone.

Dad: Hi, beti! Hold on while your mom picks up on the other line…Are you there?

Mom: Hello? Yes, I am. Hello, sweetheart.

Me: (Motioning to Peter to continue.) Hi. Listen, is it important? Because I’m kind of in the middle of something.

“So here’s the deal,” Peter continued, while Denny sucked on a soda and Wade took notes, “Alan and Steve have been looking at a new investment. A company called Luxor, which makes software designed to help small-business owners protect their networks from Internet-based security breaches.”

Mom: No problem, no problem. This will only take a minute. So, did you hear that Meena and Avinash’s daughter Parul is pregnant?

Me: Who?

Mom: You know. She was that girl from Connecticut you met during that summer when we sent you to The Hindu Vishwa Parishad camp.

Me: Mmm-hmmm.

Mom: Yes, yes, her husband is also a doctor. They met while doing their residency at Johns Hopkins. Anyway, she is due in six months!

Me: That’s great for them. But I’m at work. Can we talk about this later?

“Luxor is considering acquiring a manufacturing facility in Taiwan,” Peter continued. “This acquisition, if they go through with it, would double the amount of software that Luxor could produce each year.”

I nodded in agreement, gulping down half of my iced tea, as if it might expedite the call.

Mom: Yes, and also Freddy and Sylvia’s son, Mark? He just got engaged to a nice girl from Syracuse. She works in some nonprofit company with children or museums or something. Anyway, they met through one of those Internet-dating sites. Jewish-dating. com, I think. That way they can make sure they’re only dating Jewish people, so it saves them time. Imagine!

“The announcement is expected tomorrow evening,” Peter stated. “Everyone on Wall Street knows they are considering the purchase, but everyone also knows that it might be a smokescreen planted to inflate stock prices, so they can sell the company outright. If they buy the facility, the stock will go through the roof because investors will believe Luxor honestly expects the demand for their products to double this year. And higher sales would mean more profit for investors.”

Me: (Elbows on the desk, picking at the skin between my eyebrows.) That’s right. Great.

Mom: Sooooooo, your father and I understand that it didn’t work out with Prakash, but no matter. We have another boy in mind for you. His name is Raj. He’s a doctor, and he lives in Manhattan, and…

Me: (Trying to sound professional.) I’m not sure this is the right time for that.

“Exactly,” Peter jumped in. “What Vina means is that the demand for software is always hard to predict. So we have to figure out if the purchase of this facility in Taiwan is a sound financial decision. If it is, then we’ll have to evaluate Luxor’s financials to see if they can actually afford to buy it.”