Dear Money

by Martha McPhee

  Immediately the bid on the follow is 97–03. My gut feel is spot-on. "Jesus Christ," Snake says, smiling. "Okay, let's try another. That was luck," he says. Maybe. But not if it becomes a streak. Not if you're consistent.

  And soon I was. And soon, like statistics in baseball, it was all there for everyone to see, plain as day. I was good. The word got out. I could do this. In the beginning there were high-fives, thumbs-up, and I was grateful to these fierce, uncomplicated boys on the trading floor, to be counted among their number. "Keep hitting those singles," Snake would say, leaning back in his chair to catch a full view of me three seats down. All the others could hear. I liked that they could hear. And those not on our desk took roundabout routes to the bathroom to pass behind us, just to hear how it was going, how I was doing, catch a telltale phrase. People knew I was Win's, but they didn't know I was also Radalpieno's. At best they could guess how high up the bet went.

  Getting it right, making money from your own good judgment, is a sensational emotion. Yes, there's a mix of fear in there, like oil in sandstone—the fear needs to be there, is essential. I became part of the team, but I was simply there, too busy, swept up in the Mo. And in this way I rose, my trades going from singles to the occasional extra base. I was high. Everyone knows the rush of winning, the giddiness, the urge, the need for more. I wanted more, and there was more to be got, plenty, like picking apples from trees in the fall—easier even. Money was cheap. I worked ten-, twelve-, fourteen-hour days, but only as an afterthought did I ever notice it—say, in the limo home that Win had ordered for me. He was proud, which made me want to work harder. The big game no longer fazed me. Tens of millions took their proper shape—or maybe I was finding mine—and it was with these faces, laughing after hours, their ties askew in midtown bars, the people behind the trades, that I belonged, and out of this I stepped completely from myself to become something I barely recognized, and yet thrilled to behold.

  Then it happened. The first time. I can remember what I was wearing that day, a blue silk blouse, a lighter shade than the pantsuit I had on. In the mirror that morning I'd thought the shirt had looked pretty; it had brought out the blue of my eyes. I can remember the date, October 15, one year almost to the day since the publication of Generation of Fire. The paperback was in the stores, notices were in the papers, but on the way to work none of that crossed my mind. I was thinking about the shirt, how much I liked it. Later, I'd save it as a reminder, but I'd never wear it again. The pit taught you about luck, about talismans: you never wrote with a red pen; you found a penny, you picked it up; no hats on the bed; no riding in the elevator you rode in on the day you were slammed; no ordering from the restaurant you used that fateful day. Snake wouldn't have let me wear the shirt again had I tried. "That shirt's not coming in here," he said when the deal was finished. It was the shirt's fault in the end, but in the beginning it was my fault we got rinsed, and no one was laughing.

  My mistake was simple: I'd bought Toyotas today at yesterday's valuation. I'd bought quite a few, compounding my loss. Let's put it this way: yesterday, 1,000 houses were selling for 95. Overnight, some pretty big things happened in Japan, and the ripple of the wave worked its way around the world, affecting LIBOR and the rates at which a homeowner, and even I, could borrow money. In my speed to cover risk from late the day before, I didn't watch the other markets, ignored data.

  I wanted the bonds. We were short the basis, and FN 5s were nearly impossible to find. I stood to gain a bundle, my biggest win to date. But because of the overnight changes, the equivalent of yesterday's 95 valuation of 1,000 houses was now 94–18. The fast calculations I did were based on yesterday's curve, spread and carry calculations, causing me to lose more than a million dollars. It's the overconfident beginning skier who smashes into a tree. Let's put it another way: ice cream is selling all over the city for $1 a cone, $10 a gallon for the fancy stuff. Overnight, the cost of cream shoots up because there's a milk shortage, a problem with cows in the heartland. You forget to check the one crucial piece of information that's going to let you know if the pricing is steady, and you think you're getting quite a deal when you sell all those gallons for $11, but the person buying is the winner, because everywhere else those gallons are selling for $14. If you failed to check on the cows—news that would be right before your eyes if you were in the business of peddling ice cream—you'd be out a crucial piece of information. If it was sunny yesterday, there is, of course, no guarantee that it will be sunny today, even if you wake up to a clear blue sky. You must check the weather report and also the feel of the air, the way it hits your intuition.

  A million dollars. The realization that I'd lost came on all at once, an immediate and very visible mistake, the kind of situation in which the blood drains from your face in seconds, you feel queasy, yet at the same time you are rooted to the floor, watching yourself be killed, a sharp pain in the pit of your stomach. The whole room vanished and for a moment it was just me, alone. No one else. A relief in some measure, I closed down, shut the others out. Money that had become abstract was suddenly, miraculously, painfully real to me again. Before my eyes a million dollars slid down the drain and into somebody else's coffers. I applied yesterday's valuation to today, a rookie mistake. In my cocoon, that's what raced through my head. Then the room started to light up again, all the surrounding traders wanting to know what happened, their interest aroused more than usual because the commotion surrounded me, the phones bleating, and in the self-centered state of the loss it seemed they were signaling my failure. I'm just a novelist, I said to myself. I'd never gone this high.

  "Patience," Tiger said.

  I wasn't sure if he was speaking to me or if that was even what he'd said. Impatience was his character flaw, and it had become mine too. I knew better. I'd been paying attention to the mistakes of others. I wanted to get up and leave, and a part of me felt I could do that. The game's over. I lost. My writing desk, my family, they're all waiting for me. I felt ridiculous in my suit, an impostor. The laws of life finally caught up with me. You are not allowed to switch around like this. You can't become someone new at thirty-eight. I thought of all the comments of disbelief I had received, all the parents of my children's friends, astonished. When it was all over, Snake patiently but firmly asked me what had happened, how I got my price—95. He wanted me to learn. His style was cool, poised, kind.

  SNAKE: What happened? How did you get that price?

  ME: The 95?

  SNAKE: Yes, walk me through your thought process.

  ME: Well, I sold those 5.5s in June yesterday afternoon at 95–04, and the drop to July is 3 ticks, so I was just trying to cover the risk and make a tick on the trade.

  SNAKE: Two problems. One, is 95 the right bid in the front month? Two, is 3 the right drop to July? Where was the ten-year note when you sold FN 5s last night?

  ME: 97–12.

  SNAKE: And where are they now?

  ME: 96–24.

  SNAKE: So with a 70 percent hedge ratio, where should FN 5s in June be this morning?

  ME: 94–21.

  SNAKE: And where did you get 3 on the drop to July?

  ME: Well, yesterday you bought it there.

  SNAKE: Yesterday's yesterday. Gone. And what's the market today?

  ME: 3.25/3.75.

  SNAKE: So what's the right drop?

  ME: 3.75.

  SNAKE: So what is the right bid side of 5.5s in July?

  ME: 94–172.

  SNAKE: So how much did it cost?

  ME: 14.75 ticks.

  SNAKE: No, on 250mm bonds, how much actual money did you just give away? Do the math.

  The thing about Snake was that he was gentle. He wanted me to learn. He wanted the others on the desk to learn too. He had enough confidence to be generous. The conversation was for everyone. His tidy manner, the long sleeves of his white shirt crisply ironed, no wrinkles at the elbows, his short-cropped hair revealing a smooth, clean neck—his dark skin a contrast against the white collar. When
he finished walking me through my mistake, the business was over, relegated to the past. He moved back to the trades at hand.

  But on this particular day, because of the size of my loss, it didn't take Win long to come marching out of his office in a way I had not seen before, his feet thumping more heavily on the gray carpet. I realized, in the speed of his gait and the stern furrow of his brow, that I was about to meet a Win I'd not met before. He loomed above me. If Snake spent a good ten minutes on the loss, Win spent less than one, yelling at me for the first time. The first time I'd seen him mad, yell at all, his calm demeanor splitting, and I realized then that the calm was a front. He was not organically calm, in the way of Snake. Like a sudden rainstorm his wrath descended.

  "No! Not the right level! Wrong level on the drop, and why would you use the bid side of the roll anyway? You know the 95 bid is wrong. They're offered lower than that! You should know it's stale. How could you not look at the move overnight? Not to mention the move of the curve, of the widening in swap spreads? Do you have any idea how the markets work? Are you paying attention? This job is hard enough without giving the money away. Tighten it up!"

  All eyes were on me. The floor seemed quiet. My eyes burned. For the first and only time I wanted to cry. It was all I could do to hold back tears. He stood above me for a few seconds more. A quick check with Snake would have helped me avoid the error, but I'd been heady, had thought too much of my own talent, my own gut feel.

  Finally Win left, indicating that I was to come to his office. It was the end of the day, already dark out. A canopy of only the most potent stars glittered in the clear night. If I looked into his window in a shallow way, not through it, I could see my reflection. My suit, my pumps, my silk shirt, a gold scarab bracelet that had belonged to my mother, that she'd given to me, that while writing I hadn't seen the need to wear. I hadn't seen the need to be adorned to sit alone all day. I had come to appreciate being adorned, by clothes, by jewels, by knowing I could pay for my whims: a highlight, eyebrow-shaping, a dinner out with a friend. I felt more present. Perhaps that was a common description of any giddy beginning. What had become of the woman who could sit alone all day, who could think deeply, who cared to understand the depths beneath the surface? The reflection caught me: my tidy hair, my precise bangs. Whom had I become?

  Win closed the door and sat down. We couldn't hear the floor, but everyone could see us. The pain in the pit of my stomach continued to gnaw. Win swirled his chair around to face the window and then to face me. I looked him in the eye. I knew how far away I was from the shore, how difficult it would be to get back home. Something big had come to an end. I was no longer potential. Like the moment you wake up in bed with a lover, having thrown away your family, and realize he is not what you'd imagined him to be—like the husband you've left, he burps and farts and drinks too much, has flaws and a history of his own. He is not a blank slate upon which happiness can be written.

  "I thought you didn't yell. You told me you didn't yell," I said. Win considered me, but did not respond. I remembered how unafraid I'd been of Mr. Radalpieno.

  "I've helped you win your bet," I said. For I had. I knew enough to know that. The loss was a loss, but he'd made me into a trader, and wasn't that what he said he'd do? And he'd done it in record time, less than a year. On the floor people were leaving their desks for the day. Win continued to look at me, holding me with his eyes.

  He wanted me to speak, to fill the room. But I said nothing. The East River striped the night, an enormous trench on which sailed the lonely lights of a small boat. A woman who'd vanished while walking her dog had just turned up there, the remains successfully identified after nine months in the waters. I imagined they were called the waters because of the mix of rivers and the ocean. When I was in elementary school, an upstanding mother in the community had met her end wrapped like a sausage in an Oriental carpet, tied taut and carted from Maryland to New York, to be deposited in the East River. I could remember my parents discussing it. They didn't think I was paying attention. But I was, of course. What child wouldn't have been? A woman wrapped in a carpet, murdered by her husband—at least the husband had been accused of the deed—and my father, flabbergasted, saying, "A cliché. A cliché," offended not by the murder, it seemed, but by the murderer's lack of imagination. Blue lights blinked from the tips of a pair of cranes that loomed in the dark like outsized dinosaur skeletons on the Brooklyn shore.

  "You've proved to be what I'd thought you'd be," Win said. "Though it's taken you longer to fail than we'd predicted. You also lost more than we'd predicted, but to a large degree that's our fault."

  "How much did Radalpieno bet I'd sink?"

  "I'll lose a little here, but in the end I'm coming out ahead. You don't need to worry." I could still see my reflection in the glass, the lights of the city adding patterns to my uniform. We were all the same here. No future, no past.

  Snake, though more experienced and talented and male and Indian, was no different from me. We were erased. His Hindu name was Seshnaga, which he used when he began at B&B. Seshnaga, the serpent, had been born of what was left after the universe and its inhabitants had been created. The king of snakes, he had one thousand heads, swift, gliding movements, hypnotic eyes. His heads formed a massive hood, and beneath it, protected from the monsoons, sat Vishnu as if upon a couch. Earth is said to rest on Seshnaga, and he is believed to spew venomous fire that destroys creation at the end of each kalpa, or eon. Of all the snake gods, he was the most revered. Here at B&B, Snake was not the boy who was brought to America at nine months of age by a mother joining her husband at MIT, not the boy who flew back to Calcutta twice a year to stay in the family mansion, to be waited on by fawning grandmothers who didn't like how he was being Americanized, who impatiently and with speed tried to train him in their Bengali customs so they would shape the man he was to become. Rather, here, Seshnaga became Snake, a lovely man, yes, with his crisp shirts that fit snuggly round his neck. Good at numbers, kind. But he could have come from anywhere. In a different time, when a doctor's salary competed with a Wall Street paycheck, he would have gone into medicine.

  "And what will you do with me when you're finished?" I asked, looking Win in the eye. Suddenly I hated this person.

  "Shall we have a drink?"

  "If you like."

  "I'd like you to pour me a Scotch." His face was in shadow, his dark eyes like pits. I thought back to him on the beach in Maine, with his ridiculous goggles and leather jacket. I thought of him in Radalpieno's office, perhaps a little nervous. I thought of his pursuit of me in the fall a year ago. He'd got me, and had neatly turned my indifference into fear, and in so doing came to own me.

  I stood up and went to the bookcase and opened a drawer, pulled from it the bottle of Macallan he kept there, poured him a glass and set it down, more noisily than I'd intended, in front of him.

  "And for you?" he asked.

  "Thanks for being concerned," I said. I thought of my girls, how many nights I'd been missing them, not putting them to bed. Tonight would be another. I felt the ache. Again my reflection made herself known to me. How did I allow this? I had another life. That was a truth. And had it been such a bad one? We'd struggled, certainly, but we'd always made it work. I looked at the door. How easy it would be to open it and leave. I did not pour myself a Scotch.

  "I still have work to do with you yet. You'll make your mark this year, but I want to see the ramp."

  "The year's almost up," I said.

  "There are eighteen months. Then there's another year."

  "So you'll keep stoking the bet?"

  "That's how it works."

  "And when you're finished?"

  "I'm not following."

  "Me. When you're finished with me?"

  "What are you implying, India?"

  I came in with my eyes open. I knew that. But I wanted to blame him for my own folly, for allowing myself to be used, then humiliated, for allowing myself to annihilate what I had spent year
s of struggle to create, for tempting me, really.

  "You know what I'm asking. When your bet is won, where will I go?"

  "My bet is won. You just said so yourself."

  "Where will I go?" I persisted.

  "Oh, that. You're worried, are you? It doesn't become you, India. I prefer the anger." He sat back aggressively in his chair, tipping it so that his head reclined toward the window, the sprawl of a man completely confident in himself.

  "You're mad at me because I fucked up today."

  "Today was nothing. It's called tuition." He sat up abruptly, placing his elbows on the desk, a new intensity in his eyes. "Yes, a lot of money, a high price, but it happens to everyone. The problem is if that's all you can do. You need to know what it feels like to lose, because then you know where the bottom is, where you don't want to go again. This is a business that's as much about losing as it is about winning. We need losers, India. There are always losers. We just need them to be somewhere else. A lot of people are winning these days, but we all know that's not going to last, and then it'll get ugly, really ugly, and there will be a lot of losers. If you stick around I'll put a lot of money on the fact that you'll see ugly. Banks will be eating each other alive. Hedge fund wonks will bet against people like us. Why? Because they can. And if their voices are loud enough, they can bring the whole operation down simply by instilling a little fear. If everyone could learn the feeling of failure, use it to his advantage, the Street would be a much more complicated and interesting place. As it is, we career from the pain of crisis to the euphoria of new opportunities. I'm paid to find the balance, and learning how to find it starts with the tuition you paid today."

  He took a long sip of his drink, sloshed it in his tumbler. The pit of my stomach was now fairly empty. How fast, it seemed, these walls had become the perimeter of my existence.