Everyone Worth Knowing Read Free Page B

regularly dread
    their hair, or recycle their bathwater, or wear patchouli oil. I didn't
    stand out as the eccentric girl who always smelled a little bit off
    and knew way too much about the redwoods. I wore the same
    jeans and T-shirts as everyone else (without even checking to see if
    they originated in a sweatshop) and ate the same burgers and
    drank the same beer, and it felt fantastic. For four years I had a
    group of similar-minded friends and the occasional boyfriend,
    none of whom were Peace Corps-bound. So when all the big companies
    showed up on campus waving giant salaries and signing
    bonuses and offering to fly candidates to New York for interviews,
    I did it. Nearly every one of my friends from school took a similar
    job, because when you get right down to it, how else is a twentytwo-
    year-old going to be able to pay rent in Manhattan? What was
    incredible about the whole thing was how quickly five years had
    gone by. Five years had just vanished into a black hole of training
    programs and quarterly reports and year-end bonuses, leaving
    barely enough time for me to consider that I loathed what I
    did all day long. It didn't help matters that I was actually good
    at it—it somehow seemed to signify that I was doing the right
    thing. Will knew it was wrong, though, could obviously sense it,
    but so far I'd been too complacent to make the leap into something
    else.
    "What do I want to do? How on earth can I answer something
    like that?" I asked.
    "How can you not? If you don't get out soon, you're going to
    wake up one day when you're forty and a managing director and
    jump off a bridge. There's nothing wrong with banking, darling, it's
    just not for you. You should be around people. You should laugh a
    little. You should write. And you should be wearing much better
    clothes."
    I didn't tell him I was considering looking for work at a nonprofit.
    He'd start ranting about how his campaign to un-brainwash
    me from my parents had failed, and he'd sit dejectedly at the table
    for the rest of the evening. I'd tried it once, just merely mentioned
    that I was thinking of interviewing at Planned Parenthood, and
    he'd informed me that while that was a most noble idea, it would
    lead me straight back down the path to rejoining, in his words, the
    World of the Great Unshowered. So we proceeded to cover the
    usual topics. First came my nonexistent love life ("Darling, you're
    simply too young and too pretty for your job to be your only
    lover"), followed by a bit of ranting about Will's latest column ("Is
    it my fault that Manhattan has become so uneducated that people
    no longer wish to hear the truth about their elected officials?"). We
    cycled back to my high school days of political activism ("The Incense
    Era is blessedly over"), and then once again returned to
    everyone's all-time favorite topic, the abject state of my wardrobe
    ("Ill-fitting, masculine trousers do not a date outfit make").
    Just as he was beginning a small soliloquy on the far-reaching
    benefits of owning a Chanel suit, the maid knocked on the study
    door to inform us that dinner was on the table. We collected our
    drinks and made our way to the formal dining room.
    "Productive day?" Simon asked Will, kissing him on the cheek
    in greeting. He had showered and changed into a pair of Hefesque
    linen pajamas and was holding a glass of champagne.
    "Of course not," Will responded, setting aside his dirty martini
    and pouring two more glasses of champagne. He handed one to
    me. "Deadline's not until midnight; why would I do a damn thing
    until ten o'clock tonight? What are we celebrating?"
    I dug into my Gorgonzola salad, grateful to be eating something
    that hadn't originated in a street cart, and took a gulp of
    champagne. If 1 could have somehow finagled eating there every
    night without appearing to be the biggest loser on earth, I
    would've done it in a second. But even I had enough dignity to
    know that being available for the same people—even if