A Special Place for Women

by Laura Hankin

  “And it continues to be such an issue,” Caroline said, indicating a woman in the front row of the audience, one of the business-casual set. “Just earlier this evening, Maya and I were talking about this, right?”

  Maya nodded. “I’m only making three hundred thousand a year,” she said. “And I know some of the men at my level are making more than that.” I stifled an incredulous snort-laugh. In what world was three hundred thousand a year something to sniff at? In this world, I guessed.

  “So clearly there are a lot of factors,” Caroline said. “But, Louise, what do you think is the primary issue holding women back here?” She turned to us. “Besides long-standing structural inequality, obviously.”

  Louise steepled her fingers and nodded. “Great question, Caroline. Women don’t negotiate as forcefully as men do. That’s what I want us to work on tonight.”

  “One hundred percent!” Caroline gushed, then paused, her face suddenly serious. “Of course,” she said, “we have to remember that the wage gap is even larger for women of color, particularly those who come from low-income households.”

  “Yes, of course,” Louise said, and everyone nodded solemnly for a moment before she continued. “So let’s get started! Everybody, find a partner.”

  Libby squeezed my arm. “Shall we?” I scanned the room as the other women in attendance paired off. I caught Margot’s eyes on me. Did she want to be my partner? No, she’d already linked up with a willowy brunette. She was just . . . watching me. Maybe this itself was part of the test: how enthusiastically I participated, or simply whether or not anyone chose me. I felt a sudden rush of gratitude for Libby.

  “We shall!” I said.

  “First things first,” Louise said, as everyone turned to face her in their pairs. “Women can be hesitant to take ownership of their own achievements in the workplace.” She held a hand to her chest and widened her eyes, as if scandalized. “Bragging is so unladylike. Better to share the credit, so no one thinks that you’re bossy.” She shook her head, dropping the charade, her voice turning wry. “I guarantee you that men aren’t thinking that when they do something amazing.” The women in the audience tittered knowingly. “So pretend you’re with one of your closest girlfriends after a great day at the office, and tell your partner honestly what a badass you are.”

  With Louise’s blessing, the pairs of women around us began to chatter with gusto. Libby and I looked at each other, her with an unexpectedly shy expression.

  “Ooh,” she said. “You can go first, if you want!”

  “No, no, you go for it,” I said. “What’s your story?”

  “Okay,” she said, and took a deep breath. “Oh my gosh, okay. Why I’m a badass . . .” She hesitated, thinking, and then pulled a face. “I don’t know why this is so hard!” Now Caroline was looking over, as if to check on our progress.

  “Yeah, it feels weird to be like Hey, nice to meet you, here’s why I’m amazing. But we can’t disappoint Louise,” I said. Then I winked. “After all, she’s friends with Oprah.”

  Libby smiled. “Good point.”

  “From my brief observation of you since we’ve become the closest of girlfriends, you seem very motivated,” I said, indicating the fizzy water she’d been handing out.

  “I am,” she said, her spine straightening. “Thank you. I lugged all that water here tonight!”

  “It was probably heavy to carry,” I said. “So you are literally a strong woman.”

  Delight rose in her face as she laughed. And then, floodgates open, she began to catalog her achievements for me. “I was brave enough to take a leap of faith and start over in a place where I didn’t really know anyone.” She blinked a couple of times, cleared her throat, and went on. “I came up with the idea for Fizzi all by myself, but then built a team where everyone is treated with respect and kindness. I hadn’t been sure whether the cans should feature Africa, or images of powerful women like Frida Kahlo, but I made the call for Africa, and it seems to be the right decision because we’re getting more orders all the time!”

  Maybe, in accepting her offer to be my partner, I’d been doing her just as big a favor as she’d been doing for me. She didn’t seem to fit entirely into this room of women. She was too guileless. She came across as younger than everyone else even though she didn’t look it, like a career gal in her twenties had body-swapped with someone’s kid sister, Freaky Friday–style. I wondered how she’d gotten her Nevertheless invitation. Her water company must have been making a big difference.

  We switched, and I tried to be as enthusiastic as a camp counselor as I listed my own attributes.

  “I’m a very hard worker!” I said.

  “That’s so impressive!” Libby said, her own camp counselor energy much more natural than mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a couple of other women I didn’t know, but who also seemed to hold some kind of sway here, watching us.

  Next, Louise had us reflect what we’d heard back to each other, because we couldn’t tell how “truly amazing” we were until we saw ourselves as our friends did, apparently. (A woman next to us told her partner, “You are such a powerful witch goddess.” Hmm, I could understand why Caroline was apparently so bothered—the witch stuff was already getting to be a little much.) Then we had to do power poses like Wonder Woman. With our hands on our hips and our feet firmly planted, we bellowed, “I AM WORTH IT.”

  All of this validation was like a self-help conference, a far cry from the rumors of shadowy doings. It was self-interested feminism in the extreme, and the women around me were loving it. Our collective voices were so loud, it seemed inconceivable that this clubhouse could remain a secret—surely the neighbors were wondering from whence this battle cry was coming. But it had to remain a secret or else the power of it was gone. Take away the secrecy from tonight, and what you had was a celebrity sighting and some mutual masturbation.

  “And finally, it’s time for some role play,” Louise said. “Not to worry, it’s the safe-for-work kind. I’ll play the boss. Who wants to negotiate with me for the equal pay she deserves?”

  Dozens of hands shot up, a natural result in a room full of Hermione Grangers. Next to me, Libby’s arm flew into the air, and I got a whiff of her shower-fresh deodorant. But Louise picked a woman nearer to the front, the same woman who had spoken up earlier about her paltry $300,000 salary. Business Casual Maya.

  “Thank you for coming in today,” Louise said, giving her a firm handshake and indicating that she should sit in the other wingback chair at the front of the room. The two of them began to act out a salary negotiation. Though Maya was clearly awed by her chance to talk with the Louise Boltstein, that didn’t stop her from going on about her work in exhaustive detail. I began to zone out.

  “And how much of a raise are you asking for?” Louise asked a few minutes later.

  “Fifty thousand dollars, annually,” Maya replied.

  Louise pursed her lips, in imitation of a hard-line boss. “Isn’t fifty thousand a little much?”

  Maya hesitated, then put her hands on her hips as if reminding herself of the Wonder Woman power pose. She thrust her chin up. “If anything, it’s low.”

  Louise nodded. “I see. Well, then.” She reached into a pocket in her blazer. What was she going for? A stick of gum? The women in the room leaned forward in confusion, as she withdrew a slim black checkbook and a heavy ballpoint pen. “You’ve convinced me.” No one breathed as Louise opened the checkbook and began to write on it, then signed her name with a flourish. She wasn’t actually . . . No, she couldn’t be. Maya’s body froze in anticipation. With all the self-possession in the world, Louise ripped the check from the booklet and handed it to Maya.

  “Since fifty thousand dollars is a little low, here’s sixty,” she said, and from the look on Maya’s face as she stared at the check, everyone in the room realized it was true. A $60,000 gift, given as casually as a s
cented candle. A collective gasp rang out as Maya began to shake and weep, and then threw her arms around Louise. The other women in the room began cheering, a few quickly sliding happy masks over their jealous expressions, mad that they hadn’t raised their hands just a little bit quicker. A sense of possibility rippled through the room, the rapturous realization that at any time in this clubhouse, life as you had previously known it could change. (Although to most of these women, what was $60,000? A single fancy vacation?) Yup, this group of women valued their money, all right. Worshipped it, even. Would clearly do a lot to protect it.

  Tears streamed down Libby’s cheeks, mucus beginning to drip from her nose.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, putting my hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m amazing,” she said. “I’m just so happy to be here.”

  “All right, and that’s our time,” Louise called out. “But before I go, I want to remind you all that you have one more powerful tool in your toolbox. You have each other. Women need to support women.” When Nicole Woo-Martin had announced her resignation (and thus the death of her wealth tax), had Louise Boltstein popped some champagne, thrilled that her piles of cash would remain undisturbed? “Look your partner in the eyes.” I stared at Libby’s watery green irises.

  Louise spoke slowly, her words gathering force. “Next time you go in to negotiate for a raise, I want you to call your partner beforehand. She has seen you own your power tonight.” Louise spoke now like a preacher, her voice rising and rippling through the room. “She will reassure you that you! Deserve! The! World!” At that, Libby stepped forward and embraced me, squashing me against her chest, as the other women in the room burst into a thunderous round of applause.

  “Let’s totally be buddies,” Libby said to me. “I’ve got your back.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ve got yours.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The members hung around for a while after the talk was over, jostling one another in the politest possible way to get their chance to meet Louise, to experience her firm handshake and show off their own firm handshakes in return. I stood back and watched, recognizing a few faces in the crowd. Here was a young designer who had taken New York Fashion Week by storm this past year. There was Iris Ngoza, a body positivity model I’d read about in Cosmopolitan just the other day, unsurprisingly radiant. Vy Larsson, the experimental artist who hated me, wasn’t around tonight. I couldn’t imagine her bellowing “I AM WORTH IT” in the midst of a crowd. Or maybe she wasn’t a member after all.

  As Louise left, bound for a private car waiting outside to take her home, the other women headed for the exit too. Yael, my guide from earlier, materialized at my side, with the blindfold back in her hand, my cell phone still held hostage in her pocket.

  “Time to go,” she said.

  “Do I need to thank anyone?” I asked her. “Or make it clear that I want to come back?”

  Her mouth curled. “No, it’s always clear.”

  “Let me just run to the bathroom,” I said. In case I never gained access again, I wanted to get as full a picture of the place as I could.

  “Fine, make it quick, please,” Yael said.

  The “powder room” was like the most luxurious gym bathroom I’d ever seen. It was inconceivable that a toilet in here had ever gotten clogged. Underneath a long mirror, the white marble countertop was laid with bottles of lotion, dry shampoo, mouthwash, and perfumes. A large glass bowl was filled with organic tampons. (I didn’t fully understand what organic tampons were, but I supported them?) Above the mirror, someone had painted the words Hello, goddess! I stared at my flushed cheeks, my shiny forehead, and snorted. Not exactly goddess material. But good enough, maybe, to fool people tonight.

  When I reemerged back into the nearly empty clubhouse, Margot was standing with her hand on the second unmarked door, the one that no one had gone near all night. Vy Larsson was with her, both of them seemingly intent on something.

  “Oh, Jillian,” Margot said, startling when she saw me. Her hand jumped away from the knob, like a reflex. “I didn’t realize you were still here.” She quickly covered her surprise, her languid smile sliding back onto her face, but not quickly enough. Vy scowled. What the hell was behind that door?

  “I just wanted to say that I had such an amazing time tonight,” I said.

  “I’m so glad.” Margot came to my side and slung an arm around my shoulder, casually walking me away from the door and to the elevator, where Yael waited with my blindfold. “We’ll be in touch.”

  NINE

  The next time I got invited to Nevertheless, the shadowy cabal in charge went through Raf. He called me one evening not long after the equal pay talk. In the intervening days, I’d been on high alert, looking for that unfamiliar barista each time I went to BitterSweet, slowing down whenever a beautiful woman passed me on the sidewalk in case she had a message for me. I’d even started checking all my receipts for hidden codes, like a Very Normal Person.

  At one point, I caught the eye of a stylish woman on the train. I gave her a tentative smile. She stared at me, opened her mouth as if on the verge of saying something, then shut it again. As the train slowed down in the station, I made my way to her side through the hordes of commuters. “Do you have something to say to me?” I asked her in a low voice, not looking directly at her.

  “You have lettuce in your teeth,” she said.

  When Raf called, I was home, vegging out on my bed and scrolling through pictures online of cats up for adoption, trying to decide if now was the right time to get one. Probably not. I had to vacate the house soon, giving it up to the yuppie couple who had bought it, and I had no idea where I was going to go next.

  When Raf’s name popped up on my phone, a knot formed in my stomach. It was prime restaurant hours. Why would he be calling me now? Oh God, had something bad happened to him, or a member of his family? Raf had recently sent his parents on a multiweek cruise, and all sorts of terrible things could happen on cruises. This is one of the extra fun byproducts of your mother slowly dying—you get a kind of PTSD about phone calls at weird times. Nobody’s calling you just to say hi or tell you they love you. They’re calling with bad news.

  “Are you okay?” I asked when I picked up the phone.

  “Yeah, just busy,” he said, and I exhaled. “I can only talk for a minute, but I had to tell you: this woman just came back to the kitchen—she’d asked to compliment the chef, and she was at a table that spent a shit-ton of money, so we had to let her.”

  “Of course.”

  “Anyway, she said nice things about the ropa vieja, which was good, because we had a mix-up with our meat supplier and I had to do things differently, so I was kinda worried it would be an off night.”

  “Um, congratulations?” I said. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Uh, but then she said, ‘Maybe you could come over and make it for me privately sometime,’ so I told her that I had a girlfriend—”

  “Girlfriend, huh?” I teased. “I didn’t realize that we’d defined the relationship.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, stammering a bit. “If we’re doing this fake-dating thing, we’ve got to be convincing. We grew up as close family friends, so I don’t think we would just start hooking up. If we were going to take the chance of screwing up our friendship, we would have to really feel . . . serious about each other, right?”

  “True,” I said. “Dammit, that’s such a good-boyfriend thing to say. Now I’m extra sorry I cock-blocked you with this rich ropa vieja woman. Was she gorgeous?”

  “Yeah. But that’s not the point. After I told her I had a girlfriend, she said, all quiet, ‘Tell Jillian same time, same place, Monday night.’ And then before I could say anything else, she just walked away. I assume she meant you. I don’t know any other Jillians that are doing weird secretive stuff right now.”

 
“Yes!” I said, and did a victory dance in my bedroom, accidentally knocking over a lamp.

  “Okay, so that makes sense to you?” he asked.

  “Perfect sense. Thanks, Raf,” I said. I heard a crash in the kitchen behind him, and a muted swear word.

  “Damn, I gotta go.”

  “You’re a gem,” I said. “Call me tomorrow? Or come by the bar anytime I’m working a shift. I owe you free drinks in perpetuity.”

  “Yeah yeah,” he said, and hung up.

  I sat down on my bed, shaking my head at the brazenness of it all. There was something incredibly powerful in the way this random woman had turned an important man into a mere messenger. Half of me wanted Nevertheless’s unpredictable invite system to go on forever just to see what they would come up with next. And half of me had been ready for the gimmicks to end yesterday. Because honestly, it was rude. What if I had other plans? I was just supposed to drop everything in my life for them? Sure, I personally had no pressing social activities and no important commitments. (Luckily the owners of the place where I’d picked up my bartending shifts were used to employing actors and musicians who had to swap hours because of last-minute opportunities all the time.) But for all Nevertheless knew, I could be very busy and popular! Did Nevertheless do this for their businesswomen and models too, expecting them to just reschedule a photoshoot or an important phone call with Tokyo for the privilege of being led blindly down the street like a pig to slaughter? Maybe they did, and everyone wanted to be a part of it so much that they moved shit around.

  I pictured my new friend Libby, beaming in the clubhouse. For Nevertheless, she’d reschedule anything, from a meeting of the board for her water company to an appointment with New York’s most exclusive gynecologist. Shaking my head at the foolishness of people, I marked my calendar.