by A. H. Kim
“Could I bother you for a refill?” they simper.
It’s not a bother, for God’s sake; it’s their fucking job.
Especially, as here, when the server is so clearly in command of his role, an older black gentleman wearing a crisp white jacket embroidered with his name—Isaiah—beneath the God Hälsa corporate logo, the most respectful thing to do is to allow him to pursue his vocation as he has clearly been trained: impeccably and unobtrusively.
“I noticed you earlier today. Wolford?” Charlotte asks.
“Mais oui,” I answer. I extend my legs to acknowledge her appreciation of my hosiery.
“It’s nice to find a kindred spirit,” Charlotte says. She takes a bite of her timid, tasteless salad. “I fear the local CVS will have to scramble to restock its now-empty pantyhose aisle.”
“Someone should tell these girls that CoverGirl ivory foundation doesn’t go with suntan L’eggs,” I say. “Nude would have been a better choice.”
“Yes,” Charlotte concurs, “the collars should match the cuffs.”
“Mon Dieu,” I reply, “are we already speculating about their pubes?”
Charlotte laughs so hard she nearly spits out her iced tea.
“Elisabeth Lindstrom.”
“Charlotte Von Maur.”
“Of the department store Von Maurs?”
“You must be from the Midwest,” Charlotte mutters. I sense she is suddenly disappointed by her luncheon date.
“No, New York, DC and Stockholm,” I say. “Father spent his career in the Foreign Service. I’ve always had a peculiar fondness for family-owned department stores: Bergdorf’s, Garfinckel’s, Åhléns. Each has its own history and distinctive character. Too bad they’re all going out of business or, worse, becoming Macy’s.”
Charlotte pauses a moment while her social register recalibrates.
“Where’d you go to school?” Charlotte asks.
“Barnard,” I reply. I don’t bother to return the question. If she went to a decent school, she’ll volunteer the information; if not, she’ll move on.
“I almost went there,” she says, “but chose Smith instead. You know, hundreds of years of family tradition and all that.”
I nod and chew. I’m not going to take the bait. Let her come to me.
“Did you know Harper St. James?” Charlotte asks. “I think she went to Barnard. She and I were classmates at Miss Porter’s.”
“That sounds familiar. Did she go by the name James and smoke a pipe? I’m afraid I wasn’t terribly social with girls from outside the city. I mostly hung around with my friends from Brearley.”
I can practically hear the click-click-clicking in Charlotte’s brain.
“So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” Charlotte asks. Her chilly reserve is replaced with sudden warmth.
I hesitate. Do I trust her? After all, she’s my competition. Then I figure it can’t hurt to talk. It’s my first day on the job, and I could use an ally.
I give Charlotte the CliffsNotes version of my life: I wanted to go to med school like my older sister, but my grades sucked and I bombed the MCATs. Twice.
I had the choice of joining the Peace Corps and trying again in a couple years, or ditching med school entirely and coming up with another career plan. I like the comforts of civilization way too much to risk being sent to Mali or Malawi or even Maui for an extended period of time, so I chose option B.
“How about you?” I ask.
“Same story, different details,” Charlotte says.
Charlotte grew up wanting to become Von Maur’s first female CEO. The only problem was her father never did a decent day’s worth of work and ended up drinking and divorcing his trust fund away. Given this unfortunate history, Charlotte’s great-uncle was reluctant to let her into the family business. He told Charlotte he’d consider her for a job if she got a top-tier MBA.
“Alas, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Charlotte says. “Let’s just say my GPA and GMAT weren’t nearly industrious enough for Wharton or appetizing enough for Kellogg, so here I am.”
Charlotte and I continue chatting through the salad and main courses until our dessert-and-coffee conversation is interrupted by a man standing at the podium in front of the room.
“Good dog,” the man says. His greeting sends tiny ripples of confusion among the young women before him. Are they expected to fetch? To heel?
“That means good day in Swedish,” he explains. “As God Hälsa’s VP of Talent, it is my honor to welcome you to one of Sweden’s finest and most esteemed corporations.”
As Talent Man drones on, the white-jacketed server sets down a small shot glass of clear liquid before each of us.
I arch my eyebrow in curiosity.
“Aquavit,” the server explains.
“And so, on behalf of God Hälsa,” Talent Man concludes, “I bid you all välkommen and skål!” He raises his glass to the uncomprehending crowd.
“Skål,” Charlotte and I say in unison, clinking our glasses together.
Maybe it’s the aquavit. Maybe it’s the repartee. Whatever it is, I don’t waste much time before confirming that Charlotte’s collars and cuffs match.
She’s a true strawberry blonde.
I’ve always been sexually adventurous, but nothing compared to Charlotte. She can both read my mind about things I want and blow my mind with things I’ve never even imagined. In beauty, smarts and ambition, Charlotte and I are a perfect match. My older sister, Eva, tells me that being with Charlotte is as close as I can get to having sex with myself.
After finishing employee orientation, Charlotte and I move into a one-bedroom apartment near the God Hälsa headquarters in Princeton. It’s common practice for young female drug reps to live together. We work long hours and spend weeks on the road, so we’re rarely home at the same time. Our meager salaries are barely enough to live on, and we haven’t yet built the client base to earn much in the way of commissions.
Right off the bat, Charlotte is assigned to rep one of God Hälsa’s newest and most highly anticipated drugs. Brand-named Lycka, it’s an SSRI antidepressant shown in Phase III clinical trials to have fewer sexual side effects than competitors such as Zoloft and Prozac.
Stealing a line from Hair Club president Sy Sperling, Charlotte’s killer sales pitch is “I’m not just a Lycka representative, I’m also a customer.” Just one glance at Charlotte would convince anyone that Lycka doesn’t have any adverse sexual side effects—unless you consider turning on every human being within a one-hundred-foot radius to be an adverse sexual side effect.
Meanwhile, I’m assigned to Metamin, a very late entrant into the category of stimulants that includes Ritalin and Adderall. Metamin is one of God Hälsa’s least successful products. By the time Metamin got FDA approval, Ritalin and Adderall were already well-established brands. Parents desperate for relief from their hyperactive boys—Metamin’s patient profile is almost entirely male—know to ask for those other drugs by name. It’s the rare doctor who’s willing to prescribe Metamin rather than one of the better-known and equally efficacious alternatives.
I have little success with Metamin during my sales visits despite my sheer determination and even sheerer blouses. Week after week, I come home to an empty apartment to find a pile of FedEx boxes from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus waiting for Charlotte. We soon run out of places to store her growing collection of Louis Vuittons and Louboutins. We think about using the oven, but the heat from the pilot light isn’t good for the ultrasoft leather.
“I never see you anymore,” I say to Charlotte on one of the rare weekends we’re home together. I hate myself for sounding so needy.
“C’mon, Beth,” Charlotte sighs. She pulls me closer to her and unbuttons my blouse. “That’s not fair and you know it. We went to Bermuda with your brother and his girlfrie
nd last month, and we’re going to France this spring. You agreed that it’s not the quantity of our time together, it’s the quality.”
Charlotte slips off her emerald green silk dress. Wearing my favorite bustier—the sheer black lace one with matching black satin garter belt from Agent Provocateur—Charlotte looks like some crazy-sexy hybrid of Marlene Dietrich in Blue Angel and Kathy Ireland in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit poster that my brother, Martin, had hanging on his wall as a teenager.
“But it seems like you’re choosing to spend time away from me,” I say as Charlotte takes my right nipple into her mouth. “You’re always taking every meeting that comes your way even though there are plenty of other girls on your team who’d be happy to take up the slack.”
“You know the drill,” Charlotte says. She shifts to my left nipple. She’s an excellent multitasker. Her sharp incisors bite gently into the tender pink, and I feel a rush of endorphins.
“You’re only as good as your latest sales figures,” she says. “Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. We’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity we’re given before someone else gets to it first. It’s eat or be eaten.”
With that, Charlotte’s magic mouth works its way down my body. Her pearly white teeth are deployed once again, this time expertly pulling down my moist panties, and Charlotte starts to do what Charlotte does so well.
I lie back and give in.
Who am I to argue? It’s Charlotte’s time to eat.
* * *
By the time Deb the Destroyer and I join the rest of the crew, someone’s already set up the sign announcing the bathroom is closed for maintenance. The other gals are standing around and talking, waiting for us to arrive.
“Okay, Blondie,” Deb says, “start with the first stall to the left. There’s twelve stalls in this row and another twelve around the corner.”
The other janitors chuckle as I make my way to the first stall.
I push open the door to the first stall, which reeks to high heaven. The toilet is filled with the most disgusting mix of crap, diarrhea, piss and menstrual fluid. On the tile wall behind the toilet, someone’s used a tampon to scrawl “Welcome to the Shit Show.”
I was expecting this. Anytime you get a group of people together like this, you’re going to have a hazing process. It’s natural selection. You have to separate the strong from the weak, the winners from the losers.
I know what I am.
Wearing my government-issued prison work boots, I use my foot to flush the toilet. It starts to back up. As the foul contents begin to overflow the toilet bowl, I scream, “Oh shit.”
The chuckling turns into full-on laughter.
“Cut the crap,” I hear someone say.
I turn around and see Deb standing there.
“Seriously, just cut the crap,” she says. Then she pulls me out of the stall.
I watch as Deb bends down to twist the silver knob under the toilet, grabs the plunger from my caddy and uses the wooden handle to chop the fecal logs into small chunks. Without hesitating, she turns the plunger around, holds the shit-covered handle and plunges up and down until the noxious brew starts gurgling down the pipes. Finally, she reaches down, twists the silver knob again and flushes the rest of the crap away.
I notice my crewmates aren’t laughing anymore.
Deb strides over to a sink and turns the hot and cold taps on full blast. She grabs the Ajax from my caddy and uses it to scrub her hands like a doctor preparing for surgery.
“I learned that trick from my baby brother, who’s doing life in Quentin for murder,” Deb says to no one in particular. “He learned the hard way that a plunger handle has a lotta surprising uses.”
Deb turns off the taps and walks over to one of the crew members holding a bag of rags. Deb plucks a clean rag from the bag and calmly dries her hands.
“Yeah, there’s lotsa ways a-makin’ things right in prison,” Deb continues. “’Specially if you don’t care about gettin’ your hands dirty.”
Deb’s boots have left footprints on the bathroom floor. She walks over and grabs a mop from the biggest, baddest-looking member of the crew, uses it to swab her boots clean and hands the dirty mop back to the gape-mouthed woman.
“Cleanup in aisle one,” Deb whispers, causing the woman to scurry away. Deb gives me a nod as I return to work.
hannah
seven
Hey, Hannah, Sam texts, can you take Friday off from work and help me with Claire’s birthday this weekend? I look at the calendar over my desk. It’s been barely a month since we were all together for the Lindstrom family reunion. I’m not used to seeing Sam and the girls so often, but I guess things will be different from now on.
“Claire, your ride’s here,” the after-school monitor calls out. I carefully pull Sam’s SUV to the front of the pickup line. It’s not hard to spot my niece in the schoolyard. Claire stands nearly a full head taller than her fellow kindergarteners at the Princeton Country Day School, and she’s one of very few nonwhite faces. Claire says goodbye to her friends, grabs her backpack and climbs into the back seat next to her napping little sister.
Back at Sam’s house, I lay Ally down on the family room couch, surround her with throw pillows in case she rolls over and head to the kitchen, where Claire is setting up to do homework at the breakfast table.
“Can I fix you a snack?” I say. “Maybe some cut-up apples and cheese?”
“No, I’m okay,” Claire says. She pops the top of a can of Diet Coke and takes a sip before letting out an impressive belch.
“You shouldn’t be drinking Diet Coke,” I say. “It’s full of chemicals. How ’bout I get you a glass of milk instead?”
“Mommy tells me to have Diet Coke when I feel hungry. That way I won’t get fat.”
“You’re not fat, sweetie.”
“Mommy says Auntie Eva used to be fat, so I should be careful.”
Claire pulls a poster board from her backpack. She places a sixty-four-count Crayola box on one corner, a Frozen plastic pencil case on another and some library books on the other two corners, but the poster board keeps rolling up like an old-fashioned window shade.
“Here, let me help you.” I take the uncooperative poster board and roll it in the opposite direction. When it unrolls, the board lies perfectly flat.
“Wow,” Claire exclaims, “Mommy always says you’re smart, and you really are.”
“Your mommy thinks I’m smart?”
“Yeah, she says you went to Harvard, but Daddy only went to Princeton.”
I can’t help but laugh. Perhaps Beth wasn’t praising me as much as she was teasing Sam. Never mind that I transferred from Harvard after freshman year, and Sam didn’t graduate from college at all.
“So, what’re you working on?” I ask.
“It’s a family tree. I have to write everyone’s names and paste in everyone’s picture.”
“That sounds fun,” I say. I’ve always loved school projects.
“First is me,” Claire says. She prints her name in neat capital letters.
“Good, and next to your name, you should put Ally’s name.”
“A-L-L-Y,” Claire spells aloud as she writes.
“Up above your names, you should put your mom’s and dad’s names. Be sure to leave some space so that we can fit in pictures later.”
“Daddy is S-A-M, and Mommy is B-E-T-H.”
Claire’s spelling ability seems advanced for a new kindergartener. She must get that from me. Sam was always an abysmal speller.
“Next to your mom,” I say, “you should put Uncle Martin and his wife, Auntie Karen, and then Auntie Eva and her husband, Uncle Alex. And under your aunts and uncles, you have to put all your cousins.”
“Could you help me with their names?” Claire asks.
“Wait a minute while I find a piece
of paper.”
There’s a thick pile of mail sitting on the kitchen counter. I sort through the pile, noticing several letters from expensive New York law firms. Sam told me he still owes a ton of money for Beth’s legal fees. It’s tempting to peek into the envelopes, but I’ve taken a vow to stop meddling in Sam and Beth’s personal business. I pluck a piece of junk mail out of the pile and write down all the names for Claire to copy. Soon, the right half of the poster board is filled with the names from the Lindstrom side of the family.
“Oh dear,” I say, “we still need to include Grandma and Grandpa Lindstrom, but we’ve run out of room up in that corner. Maybe we should turn the poster board over and start again?”
Claire shakes her head. “No, I don’t need to include them. They’re dead. I only need to include alive people.”
“Okay, then,” I reply, letting Claire’s words sink in. There is a vast empty space on the Min family side of the poster board. “Then I guess I’m the only one left. Next to your daddy, put my name: H-A-N-N-A-H.”
The next day is Saturday, and we’re hosting Claire’s sixth birthday party at a cavernous gymnastics studio just outside town. The space smells of dirty socks and pine-scented Lysol.
“I have a wedgie,” Claire announces. She takes a break from jumping on the trampoline and tugs at her faded pink leotard.
“What’s a wedgie?” Ally asks. She’s clinging to my side, too shy and scared of Claire’s kindergarten friends to join in the birthday party fun.
Claire shows her backside to her little sister. It’s probably just the leotard, which is a year old and two sizes too small, but Claire does have a pretty bad wedgie. She also looks a bit chubbier than usual. I hear Beth’s voice in my head, warning Claire not to get fat.
“Okay, girls,” the gym teacher calls out. “Time to have cake and ice cream!”
The teacher leads the girls up to the party room, which has already been set up with Mylar balloon bouquets, paper tablecloths, plates, napkins and jewel-encrusted plastic tiaras, all in Cinderella Sparkle motif.
Last month, Claire, Ally and I made a trip to the Princeton Party Superstore to pick out the birthday decorations. “Why don’t we get Hello Kitty?” I suggested. “Hello Kitty is really cute. Or maybe Curious George? You used to love that movie.” Meanwhile, I silently cursed the lack of diversity: Where’s that Mulan when you need her?
