Camille Perri - When Katie Met Cassidy

The Assistants

Katie left the stale pile of her pajamas behind her like a cow pie on the bathroom floor and put herself into the shower. Morning routines would continue, she thought as she washed her hair for the first time in days. Oral hygiene would carry on. Brush, rinse, spit. Once in a while floss. A whitening strip if youre really feeling dazzling. These were the days of our lives, for as long as we lived, until we died. Alone.

Wrapped in a towel, she fished through the maze of cardboard boxes littering the floor of her one-bedroom West Village apartment until she found the one containing her work clothes. She pulled out the black Dior skirt suit that she always wore to closings, which would require a great deal of effort to de-wrinkle.

Now, where was her steamer? With each box she searched through, Katie felt herself becoming more hysterical, until the truth was undeniable: Paul Michael had forgotten to pack it. Or, correction, he had forgotten to direct whomever hed hired to box up her things to pack it.

Unless he left it out on purpose? He was always borrowing her steamer even though it was carnation pink and only cost twenty dollars and he could have easily bought himself one in black or gray.

Im going to buy you your own steamer, shed once said to him while standing in the doorway to the bathroom with her blouse at her side, waiting for him to finish smoothing out the final creases in his chinos.

Nah, he said. No sense in having more than one.

Wearing a suit with shar-peisized wrinkles to her meeting was unacceptable, but what was Katie supposed to do? There was a little bit of steam still in the bathroom, so she shuttled everything in there. She hung her jacket, blouse, and skirt from the shower curtain rod and then sat on the edge of the tub with all of it swinging over her like a hanged woman.

Todays closing was with a group of lawyers representing Falcon Capital. Falcon fucking Capital. Hedge funds loved to give themselves names that implemented intimidating animals, names like Lion Management or Tiger Fund. Katie swore if she ever started a fund, shed go against type with something like Lemur Partners or Sleeping Sloth LLC. Or, in homage to her home states favorite backyard game, Cornhole Capital. Youd think someone might appreciate the humor in naming a fund as such, but Katies experience so far was that finance guysand most of them were guyslacked a sense of humor. They were too busy counting their money. And their lawyers were even worse because the lawyers were the ones who had to do all the arguing on their clients behalf.

In other words, it was safe to assume no one in the boardroom today would even crack a smile if Katie explained that she was sorry but her suit was rumpled because her life had imploded over the weekend and her ex-fianc refused to give up custody of the one item shed ever bought on HSN that meant shit to her.

When Katie finally arrived at Falcon Capitals office building, she checked her watch to see exactly how late she was, but shed forgotten her watch, so she only checked her bare wrist. Inside she was met with a vast reception area jam-packed with the most massive crowd of suits and ties anyone had ever seen outside of Grand Central Terminal or the Republican National Conventionall of them waiting for the next elevator.

Katie heard one of the suits say mechanical malfunction, and she understood this to mean that her day was not about to get any easier. She trudged directly to the receptionist desk, where a preppy young man had a phone in the crook of his shoulder against one ear and a Bluetooth earpiece in the other. He held his pointer finger up to her to say, Onemoment.

Katie mouthed the words, Im looking for the stairs, but he paid her no attention. She went so far as to mime walking up steps, but he still ignored her.

Just then a slickly dressed man in a trim suit bulldozed up to the desk, knocked on it with his knuckles, and demanded, The stairs. Where are they?

The receptionist looked right up and pointed to an unassuming door on the opposite side of the room.

The guy was off without so much as a thank-you. Katie jogged after him, benefiting from his complete lack of politeness when it came to forging a path through the crowd and praying her three-inch Dior heels would not let her wipe out. She lost sight of him on the stairwell, but when he threw open the door to Falcon Capitals floor she realized they were going to the same place.

Katie entered the boardroom just a few steps behind him to find everyone else already seateda line of old white men and young white men, various bald and balding heads of innumerable ages. There were handshakes all around.

Cassidy Price, he of the trim suit and shiny dark hair said. His handshake was firm, but his skin was soft. Katie looked straight into his deep-set brown eyes, as one should do when giving a professional handshake, and only then did it hit her. Cassidy Price was a she.

Katie was thrown and embarrassed, and thankful, too, that she hadnt put her foot in her mouth. It would have been just like her to crack some joke about being the only female in the room and have everyone avert their eyes and pretend they hadnt heard her.

Ms. Price and Katie sat directly across from each other near the center of the conference table, and everyone got down to business.

Whats your first comment to Section 1? the baldy at the head of the table who was also Katies boss said, and the meeting proceeded from there like all these meetings did.

Okay, lets discuss...

Whats next? Section 2(a). Okay, whats your issue there?

... And so on.