The Jinx (3 page)

She described the tension that was gripping the campus now that Hell Week had descended upon it.

“Is there anyone I should look out for who's interviewing with Winslow, Brown?” I asked Sara after I'd convinced her to order dessert.

“I'm glad you asked—I'd almost forgotten. One of my suite-mates, Gabrielle LeFavre, is trying to get a job in investment banking. I think she had her first round of interviews with Winslow, Brown today. She's been talking to all of the usual suspects—Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill. She has her heart set on this.”

“What's her background? Does she have any finance experience?”

“No, not really. She was an accountant before business school. She'd put herself through college at a state school down South, and then she went to New York and tried to get a job in banking, but you know how it is—the big firms only recruit people out of college from Harvard, Princeton and Yale for the most part—nobody even gave her a chance.”

“That must have been tough. So she went into accounting?”

“Yes. She had earned her CPA at night when she was in college. Anyhow, she's a bit of a stress case, but she's really ambitious, and I think she'd work like a fiend if she were hired.”

“I'll keep an eye out for her.” I made a mental note to myself, but from what Sara had said, her friend sounded like the sort of high-strung perfectionist who would fall to pieces the first time a partner yelled at her.

I turned the conversation to a lighter topic. “Now, what else is going on with you? How's your love life? Besides Adam, of course,” I added with a smile.

“Nice.”

“Sorry. Couldn't resist. But seriously, anything of interest?”

“Hardly,” she responded with a grimace.

“That good?”

“I was sort of seeing this guy before the holidays, but it didn't go anywhere. I mean, he's sharp and good-looking and everything, but we just didn't click. It's awkward, because he seemed to be really into it. We'd only been out on three or four dates and he was practically ready to propose. It was bizarre—we barely knew each other.” She looked up at me. “Actually, I think you might know him. He was an analyst at Winslow, Brown before business school.”

“Who?” I asked, not anticipating what the answer would be.

“Grant Crocker. Do you remember him?”

My heart sank as I tried to keep my expression even. I remembered Grant all too well, having had the misfortune of working with him several times during his two years at the firm, likely due to yet another of Stan's none-too-subtle plots to torment me. Grant was unusually cocky in an industry where arrogance was nearly a prerequisite. He'd spent several years in the Marine Corps after college, so he was closer to my age than Sara's, and the military seemed to have trained him well in various forms of chauvinism. He had difficulty following directions from a woman, and he more than once almost derailed a deal due to his reluctance to do the grunt work that fell to the most junior person on a team. Several of the secretaries had complained about his condescension and suggestive statements that came just short of overt passes. Most of the men in the department would have described him as a “great guy” and a “real go-getter,” and he was the star of the department basketball team, but the women in the department had their own nickname for him—Too Much Testosterone Guy—which was quite an achievement in our testosterone-rich environment.

Sara was waiting for my reply. “I remember him slightly,” I hedged. “I didn't really know him very well.”

“To complicate matters more, Gabrielle has a massive crush on him. As far as I'm concerned, she's welcome to him, but he won't give her the time of day. And she seems to be taking her frustration out on me. She's barely said two words to me since we got back from winter break.”

“That must make for fun times back at the dorm,” I said sympathetically.

Sara shrugged in response.

“How's your other roommate—Edie, right?”

“Edie Michaels. She's from L.A., and she wants to go back there and work in entertainment after graduation, so she's not all caught up in the Hell Week hysteria, like Gabrielle. It's nice to have at least one sane voice in the suite. Anyhow, enough about me. What's going on with you? How's Peter?”

“Peter's wonderful.” I couldn't keep the grin off my face. “Absolutely wonderful. In fact, he's meeting me here tonight. He has a conference to go to this week in Boston.”

“How convenient,” Sara said dryly but with a smile. “I hope I get to meet him.”

“I hope so, too.” It was getting late so I signaled for the check and handed my credit card to the waitress. “Are you still rowing?” I asked. Sara was passionate about the sport, and she worked out regularly on the Charles River in her single-person scull.

“Every morning, before class. Fortunately the river hasn't frozen over yet. Usually it has by this time of year.”

“It must be really cold. And dark.” The entire proposition sounded unpleasant to me. Exercise was bad enough at a gym, with music and television and the option to skip the treadmill and go straight for a post-workout massage.

“It feels good. I think I'm addicted.”

“Better you than me.”

“You should try it. You might like it.”

“I might like beating myself over the head with a blunt object, too, but I don't think I'll try that, either.”

She laughed. “Well, if you put it like that…”

I signed the bill, and we retrieved our coats and walked out into the cold night. I accompanied Sara along JFK Street toward the bridge that led across the Charles to the business school campus. A bitter wind was blowing off the river. When we reached Eliot Street, where I would turn to go to the hotel, I gave her another hug. “Try not to worry,” I said. “I'll look into what's happening with the stock. And I'll talk to Barbara.”

“Thank you, Rachel. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. Sleep well.”

I watched for a moment as she walked quickly toward the bridge, a lonely dark figure wrapped in a long wool coat.

T
he hotel lobby looked like an advertisement for Brooks Brothers, thronged with men in dark suits and silk ties, their hair cut conservatively short and accessorized with briefcases and cell phones. Here and there I spotted a token woman or minority in the forest of navy. I'd been so distracted by my conversation with Sara that I'd forgotten to steel myself for the jungle that was the Charles Hotel during Hell Week. It was the preferred venue for recruiting, and most people stayed at night in the rooms that they would use for interviews during the day. Hence the Yuppie invasion.

I retrieved my bag and briefcase from the bell desk and threaded my way through the crowd toward reception, catching snippets of people's conversations as I passed. A group of large men with loud ties was debating in even louder voices about which bar to start their evening. I guessed that they were probably traders, generally acknowledged as the most uncouth employees of investment banks and treated by those in corporate finance as a necessary evil, even during years when they contributed the bulk of their firms' profits. Traders were the ones who spent most of their time yelling “buy” and “sell” into the phone with cigars clamped between their teeth. At the Winslow, Brown Christmas party in December a fight had broken out between a renegade group of traders from the Latin American arbitrage desk and their counterparts in corporate finance. Security had arrived before any real damage was done, but my money had been on the traders, hands down.

A Calvin Klein-clad woman was questioning someone intently over her cell phone as she made her way to the elevator. “Did you double-check all the numbers?” she asked anxiously, smoothing the knot in her Hermès scarf. “I want you to check them again, and then rerun the model using the higher discount rates. Fax me here when you're done.” Somewhere a novice banker had just been sentenced to a sleepless night.

I checked in, collecting a pile of faxes and a packet from Winslow, Brown's recruiting administrator that was waiting for me. The man at reception gave me an apologetic look. “We're booked so full that all we have left is a suite. I hope you won't mind.”

I assured him I wouldn't, trying to hide my jubilant smile. Four nights in an expense-account hotel room with Peter was enough of a treat; four nights in a suite was more than I could have dreamed of. Sharing a hotel room with a boyfriend always made me think of
Love in the Afternoon,
one of my favorite movies (aside from bad teen flicks from the eighties). Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, champagne and gypsies playing “Fascination.” Nothing could be more romantic. Of course, with my red hair, I was no Audrey Hepburn, and Peter was a couple of decades younger than Gary Cooper, and we would both be swamped with work during all of our afternoons here, and it would probably be hard to find a band of gypsy violinists for hire in Cambridge, but knowing all this did little to dim my anticipation. I found myself unconsciously humming “Fascination” under my breath as I headed for the elevator.

On the way, I ran into two separate acquaintances from business school who were also here to recruit fresh blood for their respective firms. I paused to exchange news and gossip and took some good-natured teasing about the
Fortune
cover. It was nearly ten by the time I'd shut the door of the suite behind me, happily taking in the cozy living room and nice big bed, all furnished with the Shaker furniture and blue-and-white fabrics that were the Charles's trademark décor. I made quick work of kicking off my shoes and hanging up the clothes in my suitcase. There was no message from Peter, but he was probably still in transit. If all went according to schedule, he'd arrive by eleven. I ran a bath and poured a glass of wine from the well-stocked minibar before undressing and lowering myself into the steaming water, taking care not to splash the faxes I'd brought with me to review.

One of them was from Jessica, my assistant, who had kindly transcribed the voice mails that had piled up for me that afternoon and noted which calls she had already responded to on my behalf.

I scanned the list. Jessica had grouped the calls by subject matter and urgency. Fortunately, nothing seemed to demand immediate attention. Her last notation made me laugh.

As if. The Caped Avenger's real name was Whitaker Jamieson, and there was nothing I'd like better than to see him transfer his affections, but I held out little hope. I sighed and took a healthy sip from my wineglass. Whitaker was the bane of my existence. Or, at least, one among many. He was an old chum of Stan Winslow (Stan seemed to know a lot of people with last names for first names) and was known in the business as a “high net-worth individual.” This was a polite way of saying that he was loaded. Generations of inbreeding among extremely wealthy families had culminated in the production of Whitaker more than seventy years ago. He had a personal fortune of several hundred million, much of which was invested with Winslow, Brown's asset-management group.

Rather than sitting back and collecting his dividend checks, however, Whitaker fancied himself a mogul-in-the-making. All too frequently he would have a “fabulous idea” for a business he should acquire. He would swoop into my office, wearing his trademark cape over a natty custom-made pin-striped suit, and park himself in my guest chair for hours at a time. His breath reeking of gin, he would regale me with the details of his latest scheme, which he invariably described as a “fabulous idea. We simply must do it. It will be too fabulous.” When I was out of the office, he would pepper Jessica with calls, nagging her relentlessly about my whereabouts. She had developed a fierce antagonism toward Whitaker.

Of course, none of Whitaker's “fabulous ideas” actually came to fruition. In the past year alone, I had analyzed the profitability and prospects of a fire-hydrant distributor, a failing women's apparel chain and a producer of diet olive oil. An acquisition of any of these businesses would have been disastrous, and I managed to gently curb Whitaker's enthusiasm.

I had no doubt that Stan had first steered Whitaker in my direction to torment me. I wished I could say that I had since developed any esteem for the Caped Avenger, as Jessica and I referred to him, but unfortunately I still found him just as pompous and tedious as the day I met him. I also had a secret hunch that he wasn't that serious about any of his proposed acquisitions but had another agenda altogether. While Whitaker's wardrobe and mannerisms screamed gay, he'd proved himself to be not only straight but lecherous to boot. When he wasn't invading my office, he tended to favor small dark restaurants for our “meetings” and would encourage me to sit next to him on the banquette, rather than across the table, downing martinis while plying me with wine. I was always sure to order two cars to take us each home separately after these meetings so that there would be no question of any after-dinner activities. I would have loved to be rid of him altogether, but he was far too important to the asset-management group and relatively harmless when handled correctly.

Silence from the Caped Avenger should probably have made me nervous—who knew what he could get up to on his own? But I was glad of the respite, even though I was confident it would be only temporary. I tossed the faxes onto the bath mat next to the tub and turned to the packet the recruiting administrator had left for me.

A team of ten associates had already been at the Charles for three full days conducting the first round of interviews, and my packet included the results, as well as a schedule for the second round of interviews that more senior bankers like Scott and I would conduct over the next two days.

I checked the lists to see what had happened to Sara's suite-mate, Gabrielle LeFavre. Sure enough, she'd had her interviews that morning—two back-to-back forty-five-minute sessions. Judging by the evaluation forms the interviewers filled out, Gabrielle had not fared too well in the process.

“Seemed extremely nervous and on edge,” one interviewer had written. “I was worried she might start crying,” another had added. Apparently she had frozen during her first interview when she had flubbed a fairly basic question about an item on her résumé. Things had gone downhill from there. Unfortunately, the comments were too consistent from both interviews for me to resurrect her for another chance.

I placed the recruiting packet on top of the faxes, ran some more hot water into the tub, and gave thanks that I was long done with business school and all of its associated stress. I'd loved college at Harvard, and after I'd completed two years as an analyst at Winslow, Brown, Harvard Business School had been the logical next step. I was lucky—I knew I'd return to Winslow, Brown after graduation, so I never had to go through Hell Week. But it had been hard not to get caught up in the competitive warfare that was a constant undercurrent of daily life on campus and erupted to the surface during recruiting season.

Harvard College prided itself on attracting a well-rounded class rather than well-rounded students. Thus, most of the undergraduate student body was extreme in some way. The person sitting next to you in class or at the adjoining table in the dining hall was likely to be the junior world chess champion, or a budding novelist, or a future Nobel Prize winning physicist. Harvard Business School prided itself on its diversity, as well. My class had boasted students from more than thirty countries ranging in age from their early twenties to a woman in her late forties. Demographics aside, however, the place was relatively homogenous, which made sense since everyone there wanted to pursue a career in business. And to pursue it aggressively. My college roommates had always teased me about my Type A personality, but at business school I'd felt practically passive in comparison to the other students.

The water was cooling again, and my fingertips had begun to resemble raisins, so I pulled myself out of the bath and dried off, wrapping myself in a plush terry robe. I padded into the living room with my soggy papers and dialed into voice mail to leave instructions for Jessica. With a thrill I checked the bedside clock—nearly eleven, and Peter would be here any minute.

It had been just a few days since I'd seen him last, when he'd put me on the plane after our New Year's ski trip in Utah, but it felt like an eternity. It was hard to believe that I had only known him since August. Our meeting had been less than auspicious, taking place during a disastrous wedding weekend. Peter was supposed to be the best man. But Richard, who was to marry my old roommate, Emma, ended up dead before the ceremony could take place. By the end of the weekend, I'd managed to fall in love with Peter, decide he was a murderer, turn him into the police, realize I was completely wrong about him being a murderer, and force a confession from the actual killer, who'd tried to kill me twice.

The entire series of events hadn't cast me in my most attractive light, but Peter hadn't seemed to mind. The past five months had been nearly perfect, marred only by the difficulties inherent in a long-distance relationship.

I heard a knock at the door, and I rushed to throw it open. There he was, in the flesh.

He enveloped me in a long hug accompanied by a delicious kiss. “Mmm. You smell good.”

“I just took a bath. You smell good, too.”

“You smell better.” He kissed me again.

“No, you smell better.”

“No, you do.” Another kiss.

“You do.”

“Let's not fight about it. We both smell really good.”

“Agreed.” And yet another kiss.

“Can I come in?” We were still standing in the doorway.

I laughed. “Absolutely.” I waited impatiently while he put down his bags and tossed his coat over the back of a chair. He looked so cute in his standard Silicon Valley wear—khakis and a navy sweater, his sandy hair slightly mussed from the long flight. I hurried to pour him a glass of wine from the half bottle I'd opened. He took it from me, set it on the coffee table and pulled me down on the sofa next to him.

“Good trip?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said, running his hands through my hair. If I were a cat, I would be purring.

“Four nights,” I said.

“Four nights,” he replied with a grin. “And a suite. How did you pull that off?”

“I have my ways.”

“You definitely do,” he said, moving in for another kiss. And then his cell phone rang. “Crap. I should take this.” He jumped to his feet and dug the phone out of his coat pocket. “Peter Forrest.”

He was silent for a moment, listening. “That's great, Abigail. Thanks for letting me know…yes…no…sure…I agree.” He began pacing as he talked.

I stood and crossed to the window. The room had a view across the small park to the river, which was still and dark in the moonlight. A vague feeling of unease settled over me as I listened to Peter's one-sided conversation. Peter had hired Abigail to be his head of business development a few months ago, and even though I was more secure in this relationship than any I'd ever been in before, it was hard not to feel a tiny bit threatened by the knowledge that my boyfriend spent most of his waking hours with a woman who was brilliant, accomplished and bore more than a passing resemblance to Christy Turlington.

Peter finished his call after a few minutes and came to stand behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on the top of my head.

“What's going on?” I asked, leaning back into his embrace. “Is everything all right?”

“Um, yeah. It's just that we're, uh, trying to sign up a new client. They'll be at the conference.”

“That's good, right?”

“Yes. The only problem is that there are a couple of other companies trying to beat us out, and they'll be at the conference, too. Abigail and I have been working pretty hard on our pitch—it's going to be a hectic few days.”