Allison Pearson - I Don't Know How She Does It

Best, Jack

To: Kate Reddy

From: Candy Stratton

What say we hit Corny & Barrw for bottle or 2 so we can get arrestd for disordly cnduct & miss fckg stratgy mtng?

U look wreckd. C xxxxx

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

I don’t have to be drunk to be disorderly. Need to go to bed for a week.

love and kisses K8 xxxxxx

To: Candy Stratton

From: Kate Reddy

URGENT! Tell me you just got that msg.

To: Kate Reddy

From: Candy Stratton

Wot msg?

To: Candy Stratton

From: Kate Reddy

About being drunk and disorderly. Quick. HURRY!

To: Kate Reddy

From: Candy Stratton

Srry, hon. U mst have sent to some other lucky gal.

To: Candy Stratton

From: Kate Reddy

To client in New York actually. Am dead woman. No flowers please.

To: Kate Reddy

From: Candy Stratton

Holy shit. Snd anothr Right This Minute.

Dear Sir, my evil depraved twin, also calling herself Kate Reddy, has just sent U a crazy and offensive e-mail, please ignore.

Anyway, don’t worry. Abelhammer’s American, right? Remember we have No Sense of Humor.

3:23 P.M.Team leaders start to file in for strategy meeting in Rod Task’s office. My eyelids are closing like a doll’s. Only thing keeping me awake is the thought that Jack Abelhammer will sue for sexual harassment. Yanks are obsessed with “inappropriate behavior.” Still no e-mail back from him. Hopes that he will put mine down to charming British eccentricity are fading as fast as the daylight. Lost in a nightmare reverie, I fail to notice the approach of Celia Harmsworth. Extending one bony finger, the head of Human Resources prods the place where Ben sank his teeth in this morning. Feels at least three lifetimes ago.

“Something on your neck, Katharine?”

“Oh, that. The baby bit me.”

A couple of guys seated at the table start to snigger into their Perrier. Celia gives the wintry smirk you see on the face of the wicked Queen when she’s handing the apple to Snow White. Make my excuses and shoot to ladies’ room pursued by Candy. Lighting is terrible in here, but the mirror reveals what appears to be a love bite left by a teenage vampire halfway down my neck. Try foundation. No use. Try face powder. Damn. Bite looks angry and foaming, like an aerial view of Mount Etna.

Candy comes in waving Touche Eclat Concealer and starts to dab it on my neck.

“Hey, did Slow Richard give you a hickey? That’s terrific, honey.”

“No, the teething baby did. My darling husband slept through it all. But I nearly bit him to wake him up.”

Back in Task’s office, my male colleagues are doing what they like doing best: they are having a meeting. If this meeting goes really well, if they drag it out long enough, then they can reward themselves with another meeting tomorrow. With luck, the lack of progress in Meeting One can be reviewed in Meetings Three, Four, and Five. When I first arrived as a trainee in the City, I assumed that meetings were for making decisions; it took a few weeks to figure out that they were arenas of display, the Square Mile equivalent of those gorilla grooming sessions you see on wildlife programs. Some days, watching the men maneuver for position, I reckon I can actually hear the bedside whisper of David Attenborough commenting on the beating of chests and the picking of nits: And here, in the very heart of the urban jungle, we see Charlie Baines, a young ape from the US Desk, as he approaches the battle-scarred head of the group, Rod Task. Observe Charlie’s posture, the way he indicates his subservience while desperately seeking the senior male’s approval….

Most women I know around here have a very low tolerance for this kind of politicking. For obvious reasons, we miss out on the willy waving that goes on at the corporate urinals, and seeking out some dandruffed drone to flatter him in a wine bar after work does not appeal— frankly, who has the energy? Like the good diligent girls we were at school, we still think that if we do our very best and get our work done on time, then (a) merit will have its own reward and (b) we can be home by seven.

Well, it doesn’t. And we can’t.

A light vibration from the phone in my jacket pocket tells me a text message has landed. I press VIEW. It’s from Candy.

Q: Hw many mends it tkto scrw ina lightbulb?

A: One.He just holds it& waits for theworld torevolve arnd him.

My snort of laughter attracts hostile stares from everyone around the table except Candy, who is pretending to take furious notes on Charlie Baines’s suggestions for something he calls organizational amelioration.

The review of monthly reports goes on and on. Am losing my battle with unconsciousness again when I suddenly notice that Rod’s computer is still displaying his Christmas screen-saver. It shows a snowman gradually disappearing in a blizzard. I think how restful it would be to be buried in snow, how delicious to slip into its cold accepting nothingness. Think of Captain Oates at the South Pole: “I’m going out now. I may be some time.”

“You’ve only just come back in, Katie,” snaps Rod, aiming his MontBlanc pen at me like a dart.

Realize I must have spoken thoughts aloud like crazy woman who wanders streets dressed in bin bags, giving running commentary of her paranoid inner world.

“Sorry, Rod, it’s Captain Oates. I was just quoting him.”

A roomful of fund managers swivel eyes in unison. At the far end of the table, within licking distance of Rod, my assistant Guy’s equine nostrils flare appreciatively at the first whiff of humiliation.

“You remember Captain Oates.” I prompt my boss. “The one who walked out of a tent to certain death on the Scott expedition to the South Pole.”

“Typical bloody Pom.” Rod snorts. “Meaningless self-sacrifice. What do they call that, Katie, honor?”

They’re all looking at me now; wondering how I’m going to get out of this one. Come on! Kate to brain, Kate to brain, are you receiving me?

“Actually, Rod, the South Pole expedition is not a bad management model. How about we apply it to our worst-performing fund, the one that’s sapping our resources? Maybe the worst fund needs to take a walk in the snow.”

At the suggestion of cost-cutting, Rod’s eyes take on a viscous piggy gleam. “Huh. Not bad, Katie, not bad. Look into it, Guy.”

Eyes swivel away. That was a close one.

7:23 P.M.Crawl home only to find Paula in a huff. A nanny huff can descend as suddenly as sea mist and be twice as treacherous. Can tell this is a bad one because she is actually clearing up the kitchen. What I really want to do is collapse on the sofa with a glass of wine and figure out if any characters I recognize are still alive in EastEnders, which I haven’t seen since June — enough time for entire dynasties to have fallen in Albert Square and for Phil Mitchell to have spawned at least two more love children with his late brother’s ex-wives. Instead, I have to navigate with extreme care around the events of the day. I praise the nutritious contents of Emily’s lunch box, I promise to pick up some name tags tomorrow, saying it’s really no trouble (as if); then I try blatant cultural suck-up by mentioning a soap star who has just given birth and is featured across seven whole pages in Paula’s new copy of Hello!

Two pregnancies have wrecked my short-term memory but left me with freakish instantaneous recall of the names of all celebrity babies. Knowing the offspring of, say, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis (Rumer, Scout, Tallulah) or Pierce Brosnan (Dylan; also the name of the Zeta-Jones/Michael Douglas first sprog and of Pamela Anderson’s second) may not be of any immediate professional use, but it has lifted my stock with Paula on several critical occasions.