Trainwreck
I'm just a kid, maybe 18, working a clerical summer job at a bank, i n a department that, unless you are a finance major, feels opaque, like one big secret. But my job is easy, attaching labels for certified mail, filing documents. This is the pre-computer age, everything is on paper. The entire department is female, except for the vice president, an older, sagging man in a pin-striped suit, long, white mustache. A skirt-chaser. He has a separate office, Mad Men style. The women are in desks lined close together, forming a grid, front of the room to the back. No cubicles. The lights are fluorescent, pens click, papers shuffle. The woman to my left is in her mid-forties, Greek. She takes a motherly role, shows me what to do, asks about my college plans, my boyfriend. "Oh, I don't have one, but yes, I'll go to college in September." She's surprised about the boyfriend part, and from here on in talks about the boyfriend I will have, and eventually marry,...