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  Me: Okay, Dad. I’m sorry. You’re right.

  I replaced the receiver and rubbed my throbbing earlobe, as if their perception of my life might have literally been infectious. Wade had been entertaining himself with my copy of the day’s Wall Street Journal. Swiveling away from my screen, I addressed him.

  “Find anything interesting in there?”

  “Well, certainly nothing as interesting as that phone conversation,” he began, and then caught himself. “I’m sorry. I mean, I tried not to listen, but…”

  “No, no. It’s okay. Go ahead. What do you mean?” I leaned back in my chair.

  “I was taught that life began at conception.”

  I had to smile. “Well, Wade, I was taught that beauty was on the inside, but I’ve got a closet full of six-inch heels and a $200 monthly facial appointment at The Bliss Spa that say otherwise. So anyway, listen, we’ve got a very long night ahead of us. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. For us, it’ll be lots of research and financial modeling. For you, it’ll be lots of typing and photocopying. Grab that pen. Once I print out these financial statements, we’ll be able to get started.”

  10

  In our awkward years, as much as in the others, self-perception is what matters most. Aged ten, I considered myself to be approximately as swanlike as a bullfrog. The notion was cemented for me at a fateful dinner party hosted by my parents. After clearing my plate, I rose from the sofa and headed for the kitchen. Surely, I would impress my mother and her friends with the stainlessness of my white dress. They would shower me with praise and admonish the other children to learn from my example. But on my way to the kitchen I was sidetracked by an uncle who beckoned me to solve the following riddle.

  “Darling Vina, tell me.” He overacted for the benefit of a circle of adults. “What has a big mouth but never speaks?”

  “Auntie Neela?” I replied. It was one of my earliest demonstrations of an inability to censor myself.

  A roar of laughter erupted around me, like icy snowballs being hurled from every direction. The correct answer, my uncle would explain after recovering from a belly-grabbing, knee-slapping fit of raucous laughter was “A Jar.” I felt my throat getting hot, and my eyes welling up with tears. For the first time, I was aware of a tightness on the right side of my neck that felt like the tugging of an invisible noose. When I turned to run, another adult drew everyone’s attention to the stain across my backside. Without noticing, I’d been sitting on a plate of food. It took all my strength not to dissolve into a puddle of Vina on the floor. I didn’t know whether they were laughing because of what I had said or what I had sat in. I did know that by the time I reached the safety of my room, I noticed I had peed myself.

  They say that the universe will keep reteaching a lesson until the person is ready to learn it. The first time I ignored this lesson about the importance of self-censorship, I wound up wetting my pants. This time around, I feared, the consequences could be much worse.

  New rule: On less than six hours’ sleep, I am no longer allowed to speak to anyone.

  Maybe it was the fact that we had been crunching numbers until three a.m. Maybe it was that triple shot of espresso. Whatever the reason, first thing Tuesday morning, I marched swiftly into Alan’s office, threw my shoulders back and jammed my foot directly into my mouth.

  “Not that you’re gonna need this, what with your inside source in Taiwan and all,” I blurted while raising an eyebrow suggestively, “but here’s our report on Luxor’s proposed acquisition of that facility. It’s not a sound investment. Needless to say, therefore, I don’t think that we should buy the stock.”

  Alan motioned toward his speakerphone.

  “Hello? Alan? Are you still there?” a heavily accented voice leaped forth.

  “Yes, Yokuto. I’m still here,” Alan replied, taking a deep breath and glaring me out of the room. “Our line must have gotten crossed with someone else’s for a moment. I’m with you now…”

  I’m sorry, I mouthed. I placed the report on his desk, then backed slowly out of the room like a jewel thief who’d been spotted coming in through a window.

  Just after the close of business that day, Luxor made their announcement. They had finalized an agreement to buy the Taiwanese facility. Since there wasn’t enough space underneath my desk to accommodate me, I sat perfectly still, trying my best to camouflage into my chair, when Denny appeared in my office. Palms pointed outward, he leaned across my desk like a perched seal, smiling.

  “They made the investment anyway,” he said. “At nine a.m. today. The stock is gonna soar at the open of the market tomorrow!”

  I sank deeper into my chair. Did this mean that they would fire me because I made the wrong recommendation? Or would they be in too good a mood to fire me over something as inconsequential as a recommendation which they were obviously smart enough to ignore?

  “How could I have misread the financials?” I said almost to myself. “What did I miss?”

  “It’s not your fault, Vina. We all worked on those statements.”

  “Yes, Denny. But I was the one who made the final recommendation. Dammit! What did they see that I didn’t?”

  He looked me in the eye. “They must have seen something that convinced them it was a good call. But…”

  “But what? I’ve been working here for a long time, Denny, and…it’s just that…I could have sworn I had gone over every damn number in those reports! I rechecked all of the calculations in our Excel spreadsheets. I reran every single financial model. You know what? Maybe it’s a big picture thing? Maybe I was too focused on crunching the numbers, and I missed some larger theme? Did Alan mention anything? Was there some industry-specific news, or some outside factor that I failed to consider?”

  “Who cares, Vina? The firm made money! You’ll probably get a little static about it. But as long as our portfolio’s up, everybody wins. You are an asset to the firm. It’s not like you’ll be fired over this, so why don’t you forget about it, and come out with the team for celebratory drinks?”

  “You don’t understand, Denny. It’s not about getting fired. Just making money isn’t…well…it isn’t good enough.”

  I shook my head. If I wasn’t any good at this job, and I wasn’t any good at relationships, then what exactly was I doing with my life?

  The ladies’ room in a male-dominated office is usually a great place to hide. From your coworkers. Your clients. Yourself. And I would have gotten away with spending the next two hours in there if Cristina hadn’t called.

  “You know,” I explained to Cristina, leaning closer to the mirror to investigate the unfortunate state of my pores, “I’ll look far worse at fifty than my mother did. And that much more so than her mother before her. They were far too busy pulling the gum out of their children’s hair and the stains out of their husbands’ ties to think themselves into the wrinkles that I seem to be capable of.”

  “I take it that your recommendation didn’t pan out,” she replied. “You’re always ridiculously articulate when you’re depressed. No te preocupes. They didn’t have Botox when your grandmother turned fifty. And by the time we turn fifty, they’ll have much better stuff than that. Maybe even in the form of a smoothie.”

  I clenched the tip of my nose between a thumb and forefinger, and inched perilously closer to the glass. Two years earlier, that first hint of a laugh line had crept its nasty way down my cheek. Since then, I had developed the habit of experimenting with at least a dozen facial expressions before my mirror, to see which ones minimized, and which exaggerated, God’s way of keeping me humble. Sometimes I would scrunch my brows or pout my lips to examine the skin-shifting properties of my smile. With or without parting my lips, with or without raising my eyebrows. Other times I would pull in my chin to see how taller people perceived me. Intellectually, I recognized that this probably did me more harm than good. In the act of searching for an expression that minimized my wrinkles I was almost certainly generating new ones by the minute. Even if I was o
nly headed out for dinner with the girls, I would devolve into some pimply, nervous teenaged boy, practicing my best James Dean before leaving for the junior prom.

  It wasn’t really age that I feared, so much as the drying up of my opportunities. Kept to myself, such a personal peccadillo would have come to nothing. I would be no worse off than any man who checked for uncooperative nose hair, or winked and lusted after himself in his mirror, just to confirm that he’s still got it. The problem was that Pamela had caught me a year earlier flirting with myself, as she put it, in her bathroom mirror. A sensitive friend might have laughed with me, or joined in to make me feel less absurd. Pam, however, had taken every opportunity since to remind me of the incident. And that evening’s call-waiting bathroom sneak-attack was no exception.

  “Hold on, Cristy…Hello?”

  “Vina, you’re late,” Pam accused.

  “That’s not possible!” I mocked her, “You haven’t made love to me in months!”

  “Be serious, Vina. I’m talking about yoga class.”

  “I’m not late, Pam. I’m going to the gym with Cristy at eight. And it’s only seven-thirty.”

  “Yes, but I know how you are.”

  “Oh yeah? How am I?”

  “You’re fabulous. And also, you’re running late. I’ll be joining you ladies in yoga class. I…Ughh, look at me! I have no right to leave the house looking like this. No right! Dammit, my ponytail is lumpy. Now I’ll have to redo it. Anyway listen, we need to talk. And getting a cab at this time in your area is murder. So if you don’t leave now, you won’t make it in time to get a good spot or a clean yoga mat.”

  “I know, I know. I’m just finishing up, umm, some paperwork.”

  “Vina, stop seducing yourself.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m in the office. I’m in my office. I’m not even anywhere near a mirror.”

  She huffed impatiently. “Then why did I just hear a f lush?”

  I looked up. Sarah was emerging from a cubicle behind me, heading toward the sink.

  “Okay, fine,” I relented, “you win. I’m in the ladies’ room. I’m a geek who can’t stop blowing herself kisses in the mirror. And I’ll see you at the gym. At eight. But listen…I’ve had a long day, and I really don’t want to talk about Jon tonight.”

  “Vina,” she replied, “I said that we had to talk. Not that we had to talk about Jon. Honestly, not everything is about you.”

  When I switched back to Cristina, she had already hung up. I dropped my cell phone into my suit pocket and managed an unenthused smile at Sarah’s ref lection in the mirror. She pivoted to face me, and plunged her dripping fists into a scrap of paper towel. Then she tossed it over a shoulder into the wastebasket as she was heading for the door.

  “It’s nice to see that you take your time on the job so seriously,” she stated smugly.

  And before I could reply, she was gone.

  11

  “So last night—” Pam looked over at me while we started to roll up our mats “—my therapist broke up with me.”

  According to Cristina, weekday evenings were peak cruising time at The Health & Fitness Club, New York. But after yoga class I was way too concerned about the state of my own muscles to notice anyone else’s. I thought I had pulled something. Cristy thought the yoga teacher had been flirting when he deepened the arch of her back during downward facing dog. Pam was thinking about other things entirely.

  “I didn’t know you were sleeping with him,” Cristina replied, tossing her mat onto the pile. “Is Good Old William having trouble getting the job done?”

  “What? No! Of course not! And of course I’m not sleeping with my therapist,” Pamela huffed. “All right, fine, then…He…I guess he fired me as his client.”

  “Pam, your therapist can’t fire you. He can only refuse to keep counseling you.” Cristina smoothed her hair into a ponytail before taking a swig from her water bottle. “And only if he’s got a damn good reason. Like if you refused to take your meds. Or if you were too psychotic for outpatient treatment. Or if you kept trying to mount him during therapy sessions.”

  “Are you crazy?” Pam fired back as we headed for the door. “Or are you just filling your water bottle with Stoli again?”

  Cristy rolled her eyes and took another sip.

  “Ladies, can we please move past the bickering, and on to more important things? Like plans for Girls’ Night?” I pleaded, limping behind them and lowering myself gently onto a bench just outside the door.

  I rubbed my throbbing calf, and wondered if my third-grade teacher had finally been proven right. Maybe I had hurt myself during yoga because I was “too competitive for my own good.” Or maybe it was that gym-rat in the weight room who had obviously been eyeing my poses through the glass walls. He was cute enough, but such a direct stare could make a statue come off like a stalker. Cristy wasn’t lying, I thought. With all those pheromones flying around the gym at that hour, ricocheting off StairMasters and bouncing off Botox and boob-jobs, it was a wonder somebody hadn’t lost an eye.

  “I’m serious.” Pam dropped her gym bag by my feet and sank onto the bench beside me. “He said that I was living in denial of the so-called ‘fact’ that William is never going to propose.”

  “Pam,” I said, after pausing to share a pained glance with Cristina, “Have you thought about looking for somebody new?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m just…I know it makes me terribly unliberated, but sometimes I worry that I’m wasting my time. I’ve invested a lot of years in William. What if he never proposes?”

  She broke into tears, and to my surprise, Cristina was the first to jump in. She crouched before us, took Pam’s hands in her own and looked her right in the eye.

  “First of all, I’m sure William is going to propose. Eventually. When he’s ready. And you don’t want to marry anyone who’s being forced into it, anyway, right?”

  Pam dabbed at an eye before nodding, like a puppet on a string.

  “Or, if you’re not so confident,” Cristina continued with a twinkle in her eye, “you could always go off the pill.”

  Pamela stopped. I f licked my gaze at the ceiling and adjusted the strap of my sports bra.

  “I was kidding, of course,” Cristy added.

  Reminding Pam that I saw relationships as more than just an investment toward marriage would have come off like an attack. It would be like telling Cristina that being in perfect shape was not my idea of a top priority. So I bit into a stick of gum in lieu of my tongue, and offered another suggestion instead.

  “Okay, Pam. I agree with what she said. I mean, except for the part about the pill. And also, by the way, when I suggested that you find somebody new, I was talking about finding a new therapist. Not a new William.”

  Pamela managed to smile and pull herself together while Cristina rose to her feet.

  “Maybe we’re all just a little too high-strung lately,” Cristina decided. “Which brings us to the recreational portion of our program. Let’s talk about Friday. The good news is that Reena’s coming into town! I made reservations at Son Cubano, in the meatpacking district. And you know she’s really been on a dating rampage since her divorce. So I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”

  “Ladies, I’m actually in pain here,” I explained while they readied themselves for the showers. “I’m not sure if I can make it on Friday. I might have pulled a muscle.”

  “No excuses, Vina,” Pam ordered. “You didn’t pull anything. And you’re not getting out of this.”

  “How would you know whether or not I pulled anything?” I pouted.

  “If I have to go, you have to go,” she marched forward, telling me. “And don’t worry about it. If you didn’t already pull something in that yoga class, I’m sure you’ll pull something trying to keep up with Reena on Friday night.”

  I was too preoccupied to fight. In exchange for my promise not to bail on Girls’ Night, Pam and Cristina agreed to leave me alone with
my pain. Girlfriends, like used car salesmen, take every opportunity to exploit your weaknesses in their favor.

  And men, like hyenas, take every opportunity to feed on incapacitated prey. I was hunched over, rubbing my calves and begging the fitness gods to restore my muscle in exchange for six months of penance at the altar of the treadmill. Naturally, that was when the last thing I needed in my life came looking for me.

  “Do you think maybe you overdid it?” a husky voice spoke from above.

  “What?” I looked up. “No. I’m fine. I’ve got it under control.”

  I resisted the urge to laugh at the cliché who stood before me. It was the peeping-gym-rat. With his legs planted at shoulder width and his arms crossed before him, he pulled his chin to one side and smiled. He must have dipped his teeth in White-Out. But I reminded myself I was in no mood for another brawny misadventure. My drive-by-dating days were over.

  “You don’t look like you’ve got it under control.” He knelt before me, reaching out toward my leg. I jerked away.

  “I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”

  “And I’m not offering it. What I’m offering is my advice.” He paused. “My professional advice, as a personal trainer. Trust me. I know a lot about sports medicine. You’ll need to ice it, and you’ll need to apply pressure, like this…”

  “Oh. Well, thanks,” I gave in, offering him my damaged limb.

  “It’s my pleasure.” He rose to his feet, then took a seat beside me. “I’m Nick. I didn’t catch your name.”