The Assistants (13 page)

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING
was Titan's workplace sexual harassment prevention seminar—the two hours every year when all mid-to-lower-level female staff had to gather in the building's auditorium (which was actually a state-of-the-art theater) to be reminded how disenfranchised they were. Male and upper-level staff had a seminar, too, but theirs was conveniently conducted entirely online. Ours was all,
We're gathered here today, ovaries-to-ovaries, just us girls, in this safe space to air any and all grievances
. I thought my period would come just sitting there.

I chose a seat in the last row and searched the crowd for Emily. It wasn't easy picking out her long blond hair from all the other long blond hair in the room. I had to locate Ginger's ginger first and then hone in on Emily beside her. Wendi and Lily were also sitting next to each other, but on the opposite side of the room. The four of them had all seen the piece on BuzzFeed, as evidenced
by yesterday's series of exclamatory text messages, but aside from my misleadingly confident
Don't worry, I'll handle it
text, there had been no further discussion. Mostly because I'd turned off my phone and spent the night at Kevin's, so I hadn't even had the chance to see Emily before coming to work.

Needless to say, I hadn't yet tackled
handling it
thus far, at this point in time, etc., etc.

A woman onstage wearing a gray pantsuit tapped her microphone three times. She looked either old for twenty-five or young for thirty-five—it was hard to tell from a seat practically in the lobby. She told us her name was Carolyn and that she worked in HR.

She wasn't the head of HR, obviously, or she wouldn't have been stuck leading this seminar. The same woman never led these things more than once, so it was very possible she was an assistant.

“Today we're going to go over what constitutes harassment under federal and state law,” Carolyn said, too close to the microphone. “We'll explore Titan's anti-harassment policy, activities that violate the anti-harassment policy, as well as some practical examples and interactive scenarios.”

I zoned out then to gaze at the audience. There must have been about two hundred women in the theater, which meant there were two hundred phones throughout the building going unanswered, and twice as many unreturned e-mails. At this very moment there were two hundred angry men who needed packages couriered, documents scanned, car services requested—with no fucking clue how to do it.

“How do we recognize and respond to harassment?” Carolyn asked us. “Do you know how to report incidents of harassment?”

She seemed to have more questions for us than answers.

Someone from the audience who was way better at verbalizing her thoughts than I was called out: “Today I had to sop up the coffee my boss spilled all over himself, while he just stood there.”

Carolyn looked up from her notes and adjusted her microphone. “Well, technically that's not harassment, I don't think, unless it was sexual in nature, the sopping.”

I was not the only one to chuckle.

“Last week my boss called me at six a.m.,” someone else from the audience yelled out, “to tell me he needed a PowerPoint by nine.”

A wave of knowing groans swept across the auditorium.

Poor Carolyn had lost control of the room. Nowhere in her introduction had she indicated this was a call-and-response sort of thing. “Perhaps I should continue going over what constitutes harassment before we address individual questions,” she said.

“You think that's bad?” A Latina woman with hair that was brown on top and blond at the bottom stood up and addressed the crowd. “Last night my boss drunk-texted me at three a.m. to ask where he'd left his car keys.”

This bullshit seminar was turning into real entertainment. A woman near me in the back row, who was wearing too-big glasses, shouted out, “My boss lies down on his office floor and has me walk on his back before he leaves to play tennis.”

Then the woman sitting next to her, who was wearing even bigger too-big glasses, chimed in, “My boss makes me taste his
sandwiches for him to make sure there are no hidden onions inside.”

“Okay, okay.” Carolyn waved her skinny arms behind her lectern. “Some of these may or may not qualify as workplace harassment, but it sounds more to me like—”

“You said we could air our grievances.” Ginger stood up in her Kelly-green skirt suit and with one swift motion tore off her silk neck scarf and used it to tie back her fiery red hair. “These are our grievances.”

This from the woman who had to deal with Glen Wiles day in and day out.

A few people began to applaud for Ginger.

“You know what? Let's take a break.” Carolyn looked at her watch. “We weren't supposed to break until the end of the first hour, but let's do it now. There's coffee and refreshments in the lobby.”

I was the first one to the snack table thanks to my strategic seat location. I had a steaming, eco-friendly paper cup of coffee in hand before anyone else had even made it to the samovar.

Suckers
, I thought—but as I turned around, I found myself surrounded.

There were three of them: two blondes, one brunette, all dressed like they'd just raided the sale rack at Zara.

“I heard about your nonprofit,” the brunette said.

“When's it going to launch?” one of the blondes asked.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, Tina.” A woman whose name I could never remember, who always wore monochromatic outfits with one brightly colored accent accessory, bulldozed through the Zara
girls. “I need to get in on this website of yours. How do I get my loans paid off?”

“What's it called anyway?” the other blond Zara girl asked from behind Accent Accessory. “And can I give you my name now so I can be at the top of the list?”

They were a fierce bunch. I may not have known their names, but I recognized them from around the Titan building, lugging bags that weren't their own, lunches not for them, hauling their bosses' crap up the escalator wearing six-inch heels, sweating through a dry-clean-only dress. I never imagined any of them having student-loan debt because they were all so well put together, so much better put together than me anyway.

But now that I was really looking at them, I could see how beneath all the lacquer these girls were hungry, like they ate Top Ramen for dinner every night, and I'd bet at least one of them had at one time or another considered selling her eggs to make rent.

“When's the site going to launch?” one of the blondes asked again.

It was clear to me all of a sudden how many of us had taken to heart the dicey, New Yorkian advice to “fake it till you make it.” The worst part was that we were the ones who had already made it, over a number of astounding hurdles. And look at us. Look at them—circling me like overdressed vultures.

That was when it occurred to me, what I had to do.

“Soon,” I said. “The site will launch very soon.”

I would launch it. Make it real, legitimate.

“Where are you getting your funding?” someone called out.

I swallowed hard. “Well . . .”

“It's going to be crowdfunded,” a brusque voice that wasn't mine replied. Wendi stepped through the group and positioned herself at my side. “When the site launches, anyone will be able to make donations.”

“
You're
involved in this?” brunette Zara asked.

“I'm only assisting with the technical aspects,” Wendi said, and then stared the girl to silence.

“But I am.” Emily came up behind me. “I'm totally involved in this. I'm Tina's business partner.”

Ginger appeared on the other side of Emily, smiling for a camera that wasn't there. “So am I,” she said. “And we're having a huge launch party. Right, Tina?”

I had no words.

Wendi's jumping in I could understand—she was a veritable genius and quick to catch on to things. Not to mention, this was what she'd wanted all along, for her site to grow and expand. But Emily and Ginger were simply so swept away by their desire for attention that they just gave themselves up as part of this. Or whatever this was becoming.

Accent Accessory tugged excitedly at her chunky neon-yellow necklace. “When's the party going to be?”

“TBA,” Emily said.

“It's a fund-raiser,” Ginger added. “There will be an announcement when tickets go on sale.”

“So wait,” brunette Zara chimed back in. “What's the site called?”

Emily and Ginger turned to me with vacant faces.

Right. It needed a name.

I ran circles around my brain, trying to think of something
amazing on the spot, like Peggy Olson would have done in a
Mad Men
pitch meeting, but I was coming up blank.

“It's called,” I mumbled, “it's called . . . the Assistants?”

“What?” brunette Zara asked.

“The Assistance,” Accent Accessory said.

“Can you spell it?” one of the blond Zaras asked.

“The Assistance,” Accent repeated, annoyed now. “A-s-s-i-s-t-a-n-c-e. As in, the act of assisting.”

I formed an expression that said
, Duh, that's what I said
.

Wendi gave me a nod of her pink horns and pulled out her phone, presumably to buy the domain name immediately.

“All right, everyone,” Carolyn called to us from the auditorium doors. “Finish up. Have you all had a chance to relax a little bit?”

Not a moment too soon, we were directed back into the seminar.

I
N THE HOURS
that passed between the haywire harassment seminar and my and Kevin's after-work fall-foliage stroll through Central Park, my plan solidified.

I would make good on this. I would make like the purpose-seeking millennial I almost was by transforming this obstacle into opportunity.
If life gives you lemons . . .
What would Robert say? Make a lemon cake? A lemon-drop martini?

This wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. The worst thing that could have happened was the truth being outed—not this nonsense about a crowdfunded nonprofit. But now that a crowdfunded nonprofit was what we were dealing with, well, lemon-meringue pie, anyone?

Kevin and I entered the park near Columbus Circle, drifting past a pickup string band and multiple dudes trying to sell us a rickshaw ride.

“I'm sorry I had such a strong reaction yesterday,” I said, “to you leaking the info about the site. I just got scared.” I paused momentarily in front of a pop-up shop hawking Banksy spray-paint-art knockoffs (or were they?).

Kevin nudged us along. “You were right, I should have asked you first. Though I did have Tim specifically say it was ‘rumored' and ‘yet to launch,' just to be safe. Did you catch that?”

I had. But rumors spread way faster than fact. Everyone knows that.

“How about you buy me a hot dog,” I said as we conveniently confronted a street truck, “and we kiss and make up?”

He kissed me first, and then bought us dogs with mustard and sauerkraut. We ate them while we ambled farther into the park.

The funny thing was, this whole mess was sort of turning into Wendi's original plan—a pay-it-forward network. Taking money from the haves and distributing it to the have-nots. Except without our stealing to fund it. (An essential distinction.) It really wasn't such a bad plan after all.

“We're going to have a big fancy party,” I said. “To launch the site. Will you be my date?”

Kevin stopped in his tracks and wiped his mouth with his mustardy napkin. “Do you even have to ask?”

“But I'm going to be the host,” I said. “So you can't get mad if I don't pay enough attention to you.”

“I'll make sure you pay attention to me.” He wrapped his free arm around my torso and pulled me in closer.

We kept walking that way even though it was totally awkward and uncomfortable and kind of lame.

At this point, I will make like Zack Morris from
Saved by the Bell
and call a time-out, because I noticed something about this little scene in the park as it was happening. How I took the initiative in asking Kevin to be my date. How I was being uncharacteristically playful and flirtatious by not shrugging out of his affectionate-while-walking hold. In fact, I noticed that nothing about this scene said Tina Fontana.

Was I actually becoming a girl who threw parties? A woman in charge of a
real thing
? What could be next—would I start accessorizing?

“You look happy,” Kevin said. He took a prideful bite of his hot dog.

Happy, not so much. Determined, yes. Because the best way to get away with a lie was to convince yourself of its truth.

“I like seeing you this happy.” Kevin rubbed his hand in gentle circles over the small of my back, finally convinced he had in fact done the right thing by outing my project, just like he thought.

The truth, I told myself, was that (maybe) I could actually do something with the site once it was out there. (Maybe) I could really help people. Like the forearm tattoo of that girl Brutus from the NYU Women's Center said, maybe I could be the change I wanted to see in the world.

I laughed at myself, and then groaned.

Kevin crumpled the checkered cardboard boat that had previously housed his hot dog into a ball and tossed it into a trash can. “Aren't you hungry?” He pointed at my dog with only one measly nibble missing. “Usually with you and me it's a race to the finish.”

“I'm fine.” I smiled and sunk my teeth in for a hearty portion to prove it.

I guess the new Tina Fontana had less of an appetite than the old one.

“Coming up behind you, coming up behind you!”

A red Adidas tracksuit on Rollerblades sped past us, knocking me into Kevin and my hot dog onto the ground.

“Oh, hey.” Margie Fischer spun around to face us, surprisingly adept on wheels.

Her tracksuit was just like the one Run DMC used to wear, except she paired it with a protective skating helmet, knee and elbow guards, and fingerless racing gloves.

“Are you two an item?” she asked, wagging her half-gloved finger between us.

“No,” I said, as Kevin said, “Yes.”

Margie laughed with gusto. “Sounds like you need to get your story straight.”

What a thing to say. What did she mean by that?

“So what's this I hear about a party you're having, Tina?” Margie said. “For your
non-profit
website.” She drew out the
non
and
profit
for special emphasis.

Dear god
, I thought,
please don't let her say
anything incriminating in front of Kevin
. And I remembered just then how Robert had asked me about Margie that day in the office, how he stared deep into my eyes all creepy like.
If she does start bothering you
at all, asking you questions, anything like that . . . Because you
know there are a lot of people out there who
would like to see me hurt.
Robert had wanted to know if Margie was trying to bully me in any way. I
wondered if this counted. She had knocked my hot dog out of my hands, after all.

“Do you want to come to our launch party, Margie?” I asked. “I think you'd agree with our site's mission.”

Kevin grinned at my usage of the word.

Margie lifted her eyebrows all the way up to the brim of her helmet. “My, haven't you come a long way?” she said. “You're a regular Norma Rae now, aren't you?”

I wasn't sure what that meant, so I neither nodded nor shook my head.

“I don't like parties.” Margie scratched at an itch beneath one of her elbow pads. “But we should talk, you and me. I am interested in your site's mission, as you put it. And how much does this one know?”

Kevin looked to me, a confused and slightly terrified retriever pup.

Again I neither nodded nor shook my head.

“Yeah.” Margie smacked the top of her helmet with both hands. “That's what I figured.” Then she spun around and peeled off, leaving us in her gravel dust.

I made an attempt to continue walking forward, but Kevin stayed put. “What was that about?” he asked.

“Nothing.” I took his hand in mine and gave his arm a rub, as this situation called for an emergency public display of affection. “Margie's always messing with me. All because I once accidentally told her she should switch to skim milk.”

Kevin tilted his head at me.

“Don't worry about it,” I said, pulling him forward, and thankfully he followed along.

—

B
ACK AT MY APARTMENT,
I inadvertently stepped foot into launch-party planning headquarters. Emily and Ginger, still in their work clothes, each with a phone to her ear, glanced up from their laptops.

“It needs to be someone big,” Ginger declared into her cell. “I mean really big. Do you still have a relationship with Don Julio? How about Patrón? Or even Captain Morgan?”

Presumably, she was not referring to some excellently named male strippers she wanted to hire for the launch.

Emily ended her call and gestured for me to take a seat in the empty chair at the table, but I stayed put. Then she began waving her manicure in front of Ginger's face while loud-whispering, “Don't forget to ask about swag bags.”

I bolted for my bedroom while her attention was diverted. God bless the two of them for being the exact sort of girls who were my polar opposite, because I'd never pull this off without them. They took to this abrupt change in plan
like white on rice
, as Robert would say. They were built for this shit—party planning, attention getting, convincing people to give them money.

I changed into my pajamas even though it was only eight thirty at night and took out my contact lenses, enjoying the soft, comforting blur the world became when I could no longer see it. I plopped down onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling bubble. It had lost a little weight on account of the recent dry spell.
Who knows
, I thought,
if the current drought continues, the ceiling bubble might dehydrate into the ceiling dried apricot. Then who would I tell my problems to?

I glanced at my bedroom door to make sure it was tightly shut but I could still hear Ginger on her phone. “Remember that time you accidentally forgot to book your boss a hotel room, and he was stranded in LA, and I managed to call in a favor to get him the penthouse suite even though it was already booked? And he never even knew how badly you messed up? Do you remember that? Because here's what I need from you now . . .”

I listened to one call after the next, one favor traded for another.

“If you can get Brooklyn Brewery to sponsor us, I can get you a reservation for the best table at Per Se.”

“If you score us Cipriani, I'll score you press tickets to Katy Perry at the Garden.”

“I can get you on the list at Provocateur if you can hook us up with a DJ.”

It was like listening to a podcast on high-end bartering. Access as currency, access in lieu of currency, because I knew for a fact that neither Ginger nor Emily, nor any of the assistants on the other end of the phone lines, had two dimes to rub together. After all, that's what got us into this mess in the first place.

As Robert Barlow's assistant, I understood the value of being in close proximity to power. Of being power's gatekeeper. Everyone who was anyone owed me a favor, and if they didn't owe me a favor they were dying to. But I never
called in
any of them, so to speak, because I never cared about any of that crap. Restaurants, nightclubs, hotels. I was much more of a Seamless-in-bed type.

But Emily and Ginger . . .

“You slept with my boyfriend while I was right in the next room. The least you can do is design our logo for free.”

. . . were masters of leverage.

I wondered what Robert would think if he heard about our launch party, or when he heard about it, because Robert heard everything. Would he be proud of me, say,
Good job, shooter
? Would he become suspicious? And once the website went live, would it alter the way Robert looked at me? Would it force him to see something he hadn't seen before? Maybe he would sit me down for a drink in his office, and someone else would cut the limes. Imagine that. Maybe he would trust me a little less but respect me a little more. That was a trade-off worth making.

Ginger was on the phone with someone new. “You want a meeting with him? I'll put you on his calendar for this Wednesday morning, right after his massage so he'll be in a good mood, but only if you can deliver us no less than five donors. And I'm talking significant donors, like the Rockefeller kids, or the offspring to some oil mogul, or a Russian metals tycoon.”

“What about George Clooney? Can't we get him involved somehow?”

I had the urge to go to the kitchen to remind Emily of that one altercation Robert and Clooney had on a Long Island golf course, the one where Robert made Clooney rerake his dune dirt or whatever—but I resisted. Perhaps Clooney's assistant would want to bury the hatchet, or the rake, as it were, and help us out.

My lord, this was blowing up fast.
Fast as small-town gossip. Faster than a prairie fire with a tailwind
.

How much money could we raise from real donors? I hadn't truly considered the possibilities, but all of a sudden it seemed like there was so much money all around us.

“Fontana!” Emily shouted in the direction of my bedroom
door. “What are your measurements? I want to call you in a proper dress for the party.”

I turned off my lamp and threw my covers over my head.

Maybe there was such a thing as too much money. Imagine that, ceiling rain bubble, imagine that.