by Ira Trivedi
‘Reeyaa, wake up! Wohoo!’
I groaned, and cracked open a sleepy eye to find Martha in my face.
‘Good morning, sunshine! There’s someone at the door to see you. He’s been there for a while, and he’s been driving me crazy with the bell.’
‘Huh?’ I said, rubbing my eyes, raising my tired body to sit up. ‘What?’
‘Yup, a semi-cute guy. He looks a bit stressed out. He says his name is Sancho or something. He’s Mexican, I think.’
A Mexican named Sancho to see me at seven-thirty in the morning? That too on, potentially, the most important day of my life. This wasn’t the ideal start to the day. I tried to get out of bed, but plopped back down. My entire body was in pain. I felt like shit. I had not slept well at all, tossing and turning all night, the thought of being rejected hanging over me like a big, wet, stinky blanket. To top it off, I realized that I got my period.
The doorbell pealed loudly followed by desperate banging on the door. What the hell was going on?
‘That’s probably him. If I were you, I would go get it,’ Martha said, slightly annoyed.
‘Um, yeah, just a sec.’
‘I’m leaving, babe. I’ll just get him to wait outside till you go get him, though he is insisting on coming inside.’
‘Hmm … thanks,’ I muttered sleepily. I slowly got out of bed, my head spinning. I didn’t know what it was, lack of sleep, nervousness or the cramps. I stumbled to my closet and sifted through the mess of clothes, trying to find something to wear. I hadn’t done laundry for three weeks and I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t smelly, crumpled or stained. I dug through the pile of dirty clothes lying on the floor, and pulled out a pair of khaki trousers and a T-shirt that had an odd musty smell. I went to the door and opened it to find myself standing face-to-face with a furious Sachin. Suddenly I was wide awake.
‘Riya, I’ve been trying to reach you!’
Sachin looked worse than I did. He was wearing a grimy, wrinkled suit, his hair was messy, and he had dark circles underneath his eyes. I hadn’t seen him like this before.
‘Um, I’m sorry, Sachin, I’ve just been really busy,’ I said, wishing I had washed my face and brushed my teeth.
‘Whatever, Riya. I need those docs.’
‘Uh …’ I said uncomfortably. The Timebom CIM was stashed safely underneath my mattress; I still hadn’t decided what to do with them.
’You bitch!’ he screamed. ‘What the hell is wrong with you? You totally used me to get your stupid internship, and you can’t even get one file for me? You SMS me and tell me you have the docs and then you avoid all my calls … you’ve been playing me all this while! What is your damn problem?’ Sachin had gone out of control. He was screaming at the top of his voice, banging the door with his fist. all the passers-by in the hallway were giving us strange looks.
Even though a part of me just wanted to run into the bedroom, fish out those docs from underneath the mattress and give them to him, I took a deep calming breath and said, ‘Sachin, I don’t have the docs.’
‘You lying bitch. You told me you had them.’
‘It was the wrong file, Sachin. I couldn’t get access to Timebom,’ I said hesitantly.
He looked crestfallen for a moment, and then suddenly pushed me out of the way and stormed into the apartment. He walked straight into the bedroom, to Martha’s desk where he sifted through the papers in a frenzy.
‘Sachin! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ I yelled at him.
‘I’m looking for those docs, Riya, I know you’re lying to me,’ he said in a strangely calm voice as he moved to my desk and started going through the drawers.
‘Sachin, get the hell out of my room!’ I was the one screaming now. ‘If you don’t leave this very second, I’m going to call security,’ I tried to pull him away from my desk, but he just pushed me away. One flick from him and I was halfway across the room. There was only one option left; I ran out of my apartment, down the stairwell till I arrived at the front desk where the security sat. The advantage of living in Chinatown was that our building was always swarming with NYU campus security. ‘Excuse me, I need your help.’ My frantic tone caught his attention immediately. ‘There’s someone in my room, and he refuses to leave.’
‘Ma’am, which unit are you in?’
‘Twenty-one B.’
He immediately began muttering into his walkie-talkie, and walked towards the elevator, beckoning me to follow. By the time we got to my apartment Sachin had already left, leaving my room in complete disarray. Martha was going to kill me. The guard asked me if I wanted to report anything to the cops, but I decided not to. Sachin was in a lot of trouble already, I didn’t want to add to it. As soon as the guard left I checked underneath the mattress, relieved to see that the CIM was still there. I took it out, tore it into shreds and threw the pieces out the window.
I had thirty minutes to get to the office. There was no way I was going to be late today. As I got ready in a flurry, the events of the morning played in my mind. It was surreal … I had seen a side to Sachin which I hadn’t even know existed. The glib, suave, worldly-wise banker had morphed into a desperate, pathetic, scheming thief. Despite his demonic behaviour, for a brief second, I had thought about giving him the documents, but in hindsight, I was glad I hadn’t. I would never have been able to forgive myself; it was better to forego Sachin’s friendship and any chance of getting an offer than to have to live with the guilt of being involved in illegal, criminal activity. Friends were important, as was my job, but I wasn’t ready to sell my soul. The golden prize of Goldstein Smith wasn’t worth the price.
Offer Day
For the last time that summer, I made my way to the subway stop. The smells of Chinatown, the humid air, the crowds of people made the nausea worse and I felt like throwing up. I stopped by the Starbucks and got myself a latte; the caffeine was an elixir to my strained nerves. I walked quickly, it was a banker thing that I had picked up. I entered 85 Broad Street, no longer enamoured by the marble lobby that had once looked so grand. Instead, I saw many flaws—the floor wasn’t that shiny, the wall had spots at many places, the glass doors were marked with fingerprints, the doormen wore shabby uniforms, and the unsmiling people all seemed like robots on a mission. They weren’t even that good-looking or well turned out, everyone just looked … tired. What had once seemed jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring, now just seemed … dingy. I awaited my fate outside the conference room with two other interns. I tried to make conversation with them, thinking it would help ease my anxiety, but they were nervous and unresponsive. As we waited, the door swung open and out came a white-faced intern clutching a folder embossed with the Goldstein logo to his heart. Smiling, he walked up to one of the interns and engulfed him in an embrace. ‘I made it! I made it, man! Me! I made it!’
Alison emerged from the conference room, ‘Riya Jain, you’re up next.’
I took a deep breath. This was it, the moment I had been waiting for, the moment I had been dreading all summer long. I entered the room and sat down opposite the panel—Alison, another woman from HR and an MD in the FIG group, the head of undergraduate recruiting. On the table lay a stack of folders similar to the one the jubilant intern had carried out.
‘R-ee-ya, is that right?’ said the MD.
‘Yes,’ I said with a weak smile, hoping the nervousness which ravaged every single part of my body wasn’t obvious.
‘Well …’ He cleared his throat. ‘From your report it looks like you did a good job this summer. But …’
I felt my body stiffen, I gulped and braced myself for the devastating news.
‘This is a very competitive year,’ he continued, ‘and there are many qualified candidates.’
A buzzing filled my head and my ears. This was it, the end of life as I knew it. I felt the tears well up in my eyes and I struggled to hold them back.
‘We have decided to give you an offer, but with a condition. You have twenty-four hours to revert back to us
with your acceptance.’
Sudden relief flooded my body, the buzzing growing even louder and everything felt light, my arms, legs, and my head. I felt faint. An offer! I had an offer! Had I heard correctly? Had I, Riya Jain, really received an offer to work at Goldstein Smith? Through the din in my head, I heard Alison ask me if I had any questions. I was too overwhelmed with relief to reply.
The MD continued, ‘Most interns have until November to decide, but based on your performance, and the feedback from your group, and given that the competition is very stiff this year we have decided to present you with this conditional offer.’
I didn’t know what to say. All I could manage to do was nod my head vigorously.
‘All right then, Riya, we look forward to hearing from you by noon tomorrow. We’re looking forward to your positive reply.’
Ivana
I was at a diner, across the table from Ivana as she told me what happened. Her face was pale from the long hours spent in the office, she had dark circles underneath her eyes from sleepless nights running financial models and working on pitch books, her hair was straggly and greasy but she wasn’t bothered.
She had had a dreadful feeling about this but she had to face them, she had to be brave, this is what she had been taught to do. Not to back down and hide—that wasn’t who she was.
She had called him the previous night to ask him if she was getting the offer. He hadn’t answered the phone, like he hadn’t answered the night before that.
As they lay in bed naked, a week ago, he had told her that things were getting very busy at work, and that he had a lot of travelling to do. He had stroked her head and told her that tonight was the last night that they would be seeing each other like this, though they would continue to be good friends. She had been happy and relieved. She had thought that the job had been done, that the offer was hers. He stopped calling her, stopped answering her calls, stopped sending her emails, stopped responding to hers. She knew something was wrong. His secretary had sent out a congratulations card for all of them to sign. He and his wife were pregnant with their first child. She had sent him a personal email congratulating him, but as she had expected he hadn’t responded. She knew that something wasn’t right.
As she had suspected, he was there. It was strange to be shaking hands with him like this, strange to pretend that they hardly knew each other. With a stony face he had told her they couldn’t extend her an offer. He didn’t look her in the eye. He had told her that this year was a particularly strong year and that the offers extended had been fewer than usual.
Surprisingly she didn’t look shocked or even as sad as I had expected. It was as if she had known all along that this was the way things were going to turn out. I told her to go to HR, to press charges, but she said it wasn’t her style to be bitter like that. Whatever happened had been her fault as much as his. That she didn’t get an offer simply because she wasn’t good enough.
She didn’t want to go back to work to say goodbye to everyone like she had planned on doing. All she wanted, she said, was to leave Wall Street and never ever come back.
Chasing a Dream
I could have left the office hours ago but I puttered about my desk, procrastinating. It was my last day in the pen, for a while at least. I didn’t have to be here but the thought of the empty dorm room was depressing at the moment. Martha had received an offer and had immediately packed up and gone to her parents. Plus, I had wanted to come in to the office to say bye to everyone, especially Sean. This had been my home for the past three months and though I hated it, I was weirdly attached to it and a small part of me was really sad about leaving. All summer long, at every step of the way, I had wanted to leave and I had dreaded coming here each morning. Now that I was free to go, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the back of a red backpack and for a second my heart almost stopped beating. Jonathan. Could it really be him? He had said he wasn’t sure when he’d be returning, that he’d be away for a while. Maybe his plans had changed … he probably hadn’t expected me to be in the office today, otherwise he would surely have sought me out to ask about my offer. I had to give him the good news, he would be absolutely thrilled. Perhaps if he knew that I was an investment-banking success and that I was coming back to Goldstein next summer he would think of me more seriously.
He was walking towards the elevator. I quickly kicked off the high heels that I was wearing and slipped on my flat walking shoes. I ran down the hallway and reached the elevator just as the doors were closing. I would lose him if I waited for the next one, so I ran to the emergency staircase and sprinted down seven flights of stairs. I saw him just as he was walking out of the building. Breathless and feeling the onset of a killer cramp, I followed him out, keeping my eyes fixed on him and his red backpack. He walked through a throng of suited people and yellow cabs, and I almost lost him a couple of times, but I managed to locate the red backpack. He was making his way towards Starbucks. Right outside the entrance, stood a short, skinny blonde woman dressed in a smart grey suit. He gave her a hug and a kiss, took her hand and walked in with her.
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, my gaze fixed on the entrance to Starbucks. A cabbie yelled and honked at me angrily as I ran across the street.
‘You crazy lady, you wanna kill yourself or what?’
I didn’t bother turning around to apologize … Right now I did feel like killing myself and I would be grateful if he did it for me. Jonathan and the woman emerged holding cups of coffee and outside Starbucks, he cupped his hand around her chin just like he had done with me that night and kissed her on the lips. She laughed, caressed his face, and they walked away, hand in hand and very much in love.
The Banking Dream
‘Riya, you are now a member of the CDO group, a part of the team,’ said Sally, sounding as if she was giving me a death sentence. ‘You should be proud of yourself. You have managed to hop on board even though it’s a difficult time for the group. It’s going to be a lot of hard work next year, and I hope you’re ready for it. It’s not going to be like this easy breezy summer that you have just spent.’
Easy? Breezy? I spend more than eighteen hours in the office everyday … how was that ‘easy breezy’?
‘You’ll have to work harder than you’ve ever worked before. There are going to be a lot of layoff’s this year, and some of your friends in the analyst pen may not be around when you come back. That means that you’re going to have a lot more responsibility.’
For a brief second I felt excited. Responsibility … could this possibly mean … a project? Were my banking dreams finally coming true? Just when I had lost all hope?
‘You’re going to have to spend long hours at the office and do a lot of financial modelling and of course, pitch-work,’ said Sally, shattering my nascent dream into a thousand pieces.
Her sudden change of tone made me look up in curiosity. She sounded gentler, almost nice—if that was even possible. ‘You know, Riya, there were a lot of things that you didn’t manage to do, but I noticed that you worked hard, and let me tell you, it is all about working hard in this industry. It’s the only way to the top.’ She paused, then added hesitantly, ‘I see it in you, Riya. I see in you that fire to succeed.’ I stared at her in shock. Not only had she said something nice to me, she had said it semi-kindly. ‘I admire that spirit in you.’ And just as suddenly, she was back to ‘normal’. Her voice hardened, her face iced over, and she got up from her chair. ‘Is there anything else, Riya?’
’Um, I don’t think so.’
’All right then. Good luck for your senior year, and see you next year.’
For the first time that summer I saw her face contort into what I assumed was a smile, and she extended her hand to me. I took her limp, unmanicured hand in a firm banker handshake. Wall Street had once again managed to shock me; Sally had come through in the end. Gautam had been right; she wasn’t a terrible, conniving person, she was just pathetic. I didn’t hat
e her for what she had put me through and the way she had treated me, instead I just felt sorry for her. She had been through a lot of crap, probably dealt with assholes ten times worse than Jonathan. Understandably, she was jaded and horribly bitter. Still, she had chosen to stay and gradually become the cold, hard person that she was today. I didn’t want to become that person.
At this juncture, I could pack my bags and quietly walk away. I had seen the seedy underbelly of Wall Street. opulent charity balls, elaborate dinners, high-profile deals, fancy bars, restaurants … it was all a farce that lured naive souls into the prison of banking, into a death trap. I sat in my chair in silence, still in shock, the conversation with Sally replaying in my head. I didn’t know what anything meant any more. Nothing was what it appeared to be on Wall Street. Not the people, not the deals, not the money. Little did Sean and Amit know as they ate their $25 sushi that a few weeks later they might be fired. I had never imagined how superficial and slimy my fabulous dream world would turn out to be.
’Ma?’
‘Beta? Are you all right? You sound a little funny,’ my mom asked with concern. She had always been able to read my voice in a second.
