Annie is a charming Korean American girl who just graduated from college. It was her dream to work in Wall Street all her life. She gets into Lehman Brothers with the help of her best friend, Daniel, but work is demanding and tough. Senior Bankers...
Our plane landed at JFK early in the morning. We said our goodbyes in the terminal because Juhyuk needed to catch the connecting flight to Korea to prepare for the indictment and the pretrial hearing. He wasn't charged yet, but it was coming soon.
"We still have time. It will probably happen next month. "
"Ok, we will have to talk every day until then. You promise?" I said.
We hugged one last time. "Yes, I promise, silly." He kissed the top of my head.
" Two years will go by really fast, imagine all the books you can read without distraction!" I said.
"Will you send me a list of books to read? " He replied.
"Of course, anything for you, wangja nim (your highness)"
I embraced him one last time and let the warmth of his body pass through mine. For a long time, I stood in the same spot, albeit anxious travelers were angry I was in their path, my eyes tracing his towering 6'2" frame through the busy terminal. He turned around one last time to wave. I waved back whispering take care under my breath. He then disappeared from my view.
The next morning at work, my eyes kept glancing at the spot I had given Ryan a CPR. My heart sank thinking about what happened on Sunday. What was more disturbing was that nothing had changed. Charlene's secretary Edna complained about fries smell - how could someone do this to her, she loves fries. Sandip, Muren, Driscoll, Nass, Sujatha...they were working as if nothing had happened.
Charlene stopped by my desk.
"Hi, how are you?" I asked, surprised by her presence.
"I'm good. Do you have time for coffee?" I could tell that she was studying me as if to see if I was all right.
She's never had coffee and I wondered what was going on. Was she going to fire me for taking two days off without advance notice?
We walked down to the Starbucks downstairs. In the elevator, she asked about Barcelona. I told her it was beautiful and that I needed it. She nodded, half listening.
There was really no point of the formalities. I knew full well that she had something important to tell me but I decided to be patient. She was, after all, my manager.
There was a Starbucks on the other side of 399 Park Avenue. When our orders were ready, we carried our drinks to the table near the window and sat on the couch.
We remained silent for a minute, while we each sipped our drinks.
She finally spoke, "I started on Wall Street thirty years ago as a sales desk assistant on the trading floor. One day, I showed up to work wearing long white pants. My desk was on the other side of the floor so as usual, I was walking towards it. And someone started chanting VPL and everybody followed."
"VPL? What does that mean?" I asked.
"Visible Panty Line."
I remembered Daniel telling me about a new woman who started on the trading floor a couple of months after he started. One trader started passing a football around and it hit her head hard. The guys started laughing while apologizing. She went to the bathroom and came back, with swollen eyes. She quit a month after. I was mad at Daniel for not standing up for her. He said he didn't know what to do.
"That's horrible. I guess it was worse back then." I smirked.
I sipped my coffee in silence. People were anxiously waiting to get their morning caffeine.
"I guess I don't understand why you are telling me this now, Charlene?"
Charlene brushed her hair with her right hand and spoke, "Look, I'm probably not explaining this right but I don't want to you be fazed by what happened."
"You mean what happened to Ryan last week? How can I not? I come back and it doesn't even seem like anyone cares?" I said.
"Annie, you worked hard to get here. Just because of this one incident, you shouldn't throw it all away. Ryan will probably quit soon but you shouldn't."
"How can you even say that? We are all responsible for what happened to Ryan. We should have seen it coming. You know that we are all working our ass off with so many deals coming in this year. Nass was constantly yelling at us. You are our manager, Charlene. Not even once you gave us encouragement. And now you are pretending to be my mentor? You weren't there when I was doing CPR to Ryan!" I realized people in the line started to look at me but I just didn't care anymore.
"Look, I'm sorry. I should have been more caring. I was selfish, I know. That's why I wanted to talk to you today and tell you what happened to me. I stayed because I didn't want someone else to go through what I had to go through."
"Thank you for telling me. I appreciate it. I'm sorry I was loud."
"There is an opening party for a condo on Wall Street. Why don't you go? Get your mind off things."
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