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awesome.”
    I’d heard it before, but now I saw it was true: book smarts and street smarts are not the same thing. As far as street smarts went, Adam was clearly a complete idiot.
    Reese stood there, his arms folded across his chest, slowly nodding his head. Then he stepped forward and put one hand on each of Adam’s shoulders. “Adam, we’ve got to teach this girlie how  real  men operate. So, one more time, show us how you yelled it on the floor.”
    â€œI’M A LARGE BUYER OF COX!” he yelled proudly.
    Reese dropped his hands from Adam’s shoulders. He tilted his head to one side, never losing eye contact with him, and said ever so slowly, “If I were you, Adam, I wouldn’t be crowing about having announced that you’re a pole smoker. I’m sure the guys in equities have been laughing their asses off at you ever since.”
    Adam’s body went rigid. He turned bright red as the full force of his own stupidity hit him. He tried to pretend he was invisible. He wasn’t. His brow furrowed like he was in pain, and quietly he said good-bye, this time getting my name right. He walked away slowly, his shoulders slumped forward, no longer pulled back in their arrogant Princeton posture.
    I stood silent. I wanted to laugh, but he was my peer, my counterpart on the equity floor. If they could make Adam—undeniably smart and aware—humiliate himself that way, what on earth did my team have in store for me?
    Reese patted my head again. “Still think we don’t like you, sugar?”
    â€œI can’t believe they did that to him.”
    â€œSee, that’s what people will do when they don’t like you. The more time you spend here, the more you’ll see how badly we can torment someone when we want to make him miserable. If the worst thing that has happened to you is that you don’t have a real desk, then you have nothing to worry about. Play the game, sugar, just play the game.”
    â€œI don’t know how to play the game.”
    â€œYou’ll learn. Until then, just keep your head down and wear beige . . . you get what I’m saying?”
    I did. It was the first thing I genuinely understood since I had started. That was something to be thankful for.
    â€œI get it. And I should keep fancying the swine, right?”
    â€œAlways fancy the swine, sugar. Now, stop holding up the railing. Get over there and start mingling! You’re in sales, for God’s sake. We don’t need any wallflowers in the group. Work the crowd, make people like you, and pretend to like the assholes you can’t stand. That’s all part of your new job.”
    â€œThanks, Reese,” I said as I followed him into the crowd with a renewed sense of confidence and enthusiasm. “For the advice, I appreciate it.”
    â€œYou’re one of us now, sugar. One thing about our desk: we always have each other’s backs. It doesn’t mean we won’t fuck with you mercilessly, though.”
    â€œSort of like older brothers?”
    â€œExactly. Forty of them.”
    Reese had given me my very first sales lesson, and it was probably the most important one that I would ever learn: if I wanted to be successful, then I needed to get really good at pretending to like people I didn’t.

Four
    If I Wanted to Educate the Youth of America, I’d Have Been a Fucking Nursery School Teacher
    T he first week of October, I celebrated a very important occasion with Annie and Liv at a sushi restaurant downtown named, ironically, Bond Street. I had passed all my exams. It was a Friday night and we were all in good moods, so we hit the downstairs lounge of the restaurant and threw back martinis, sushi, and Bloody Marys made with wasabi until two in the morning. It was a good thing we all had apartments to go home to or I have no doubt Liv and I would have fallen asleep on the train and ended up missing our stop on Metro