Girl Most Likely To. Poonam Sharma
the other kids were in Sunday school. The men who believe that sort of thing are easy to spot; they’re the same ones who claim that “all women are three margaritas away from a lesbian experience.”
Jon asked me questions about me and my family, and he seemed genuinely interested in my answers. Without consulting me, he bought a Hindi for Beginners book and began working choice words and phrases into our everyday conversation. But he also spoke Spanish, French and Italian to me. For all I knew, he was calling me his Little Subway Token most of the time. But if you had seen his smile, you, too, would have gladly answered to anything from Microwave Oven to I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, wagged your imaginary tail and drooled all over his Armani shirt. And you, too, would have ignored all the logic against falling in love with a man who was so totally wrong for you. When we met, he was a former chef who owned his own restaurant. Being with him made me feel sophisticated, as if I was physically incapable of spilling anything on myself.
If it hadn’t been for his not cluing in to the fact that my eggs were expiring by the minute, we would probably still be together. Well, that, and if I hadn’t mistaken his cell phone for my own on that godforsaken morning two weeks earlier.
The day had started out like any other. I was running late for work and cursing myself for hitting the snooze button so many times. The twist that morning was an unexpected visit from my neighbor, Christopher, who f lamed so brightly that he sometimes threatened to set the building on fire. His natural sense of style and inability to keep his couture judgments to himself made me feel like less of a woman, and left me no choice but to ignore his prior attempts to befriend me. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find him waiting outside my door at eight o’clock with a story about a last-minute business trip (Did accountants really have those?) and a wheezing, unimpressed Booboo in his arms. Agreeing to cat-sit may only have been the first in a number of suboptimal choices I made that day, but as it turns out, it wasn’t just me. The entire city was off-kilter that day. Without thinking, and because I was then running even later for work, I agreed, despite my chocolate-brown sofa, to take the fluffy white Persian into my home.
The time it took to get the pudgy little boarder settled precluded my Starbucks stop, so I was at the mercy of the Krispy Kremes, which materialized in our conference room before each Monday-morning team meeting. Sarah, the only other woman on our team, shot an irritated look at me for the crime of inquiring if there were “anything chocolate” left in the box. A former professional golfer who’d gone back to her MBA after an injury, Sarah had recently joined our company in Equity Research. While she was a nice person, if you asked me, Sarah was completely ill-equipped for the world beyond sports. She cursed like a sailor, slapped indiscriminant high fives, and called everyone Dude. Some women believe that in order to compete with a man, you must essentially become one. But then again, some women refuse the epidural.
Question: Wouldn’t you like to be more like a man?
Answer: Why would I want to be hairier, lonelier and more confused than I already am?
The rest of the team shook their heads at my request, but Sarah made her opinion clear. Even in an office where most men had their shoes shined, their backs waxed, their suits tailored and their personal trainers on speed-dial, my obsessive culinary peccadilloes made me a disgrace to feminists everywhere.
“It’s not easy being you, is it?” she said, pouting in my direction.
Peter, a fellow Associate, looked up from his copy of TheEconomist; Denny, a lowly Analyst, swallowed half of a jelly doughnut and Wade, the eager Intern, stopped midsip of his coffee. All eyes around the conference table focused on me, but before I could respond the overhead lights flickered off. Everyone glanced up at the ceiling, and the lights flickered back on for a second, before f lashing out again. The digital wall-clock followed suit, as did the Bloomberg terminal.
Dropping my honey-glazed, I swung the door open and stepped into a darkened office. To my surprise, my otherwise narcissistically-hyper-functioning, Type-A-personality colleagues stood dumbfounded, searching one another’s faces for answers. United in temporary paralysis because of the loss of our Internet connection, we huddled around a secretary’s CB radio. That’s when the crackling voice of a lone CNN reporter explained that through a series of technological mishaps at grid centers across the northeastern United States, the juice had been sucked out of the region.
Within minutes we were headed for the darkened stairwell, since elevators are not an option when someone turns out the lights in New York City. We made our way down each f light single file, relying solely on the sounds of each other’s footsteps to avoid a collision. As my forehead began beading over with sweat, I swallowed hard and chose to rely on the Closeted Claustrophobes’ mantra to keep my mind in focus: Check for exits, Close your eyes, Count to ten, Calm your nerves, Center yourself. My team’s co-managing director, Alan, walked before me, and my partner Peter followed close behind. With our palms on the walls and railings, we made it down the first twelve floors without incident. Clearly, it was too good to last. Thanks to my batlike auditory skills and my nearly four-inch alligator pumps, it was the tenth-floor landing that did me in. I must have miscounted the stairs because my right leg stopped short and sent me doubling over. Knees buckled and back bent, I thrust my arms out before me and grabbed instinctively for something that might break my fall. I won’t mention which part of Alan’s lower anatomy did the trick, but I will say, Thank God I didn’t squeeze any tighter.
That blackout was proof positive that New Yorkers cannot be trusted in the dark. They’re almost as mischievous as Australians are in the light. Once we made it outside, I apologized profusely for sexually harassing my own boss, who refused to make eye contact with me.
“Ahem…Never mind, Vina…Let’s just forget about it, okay?” Alan mumbled, before disappearing into the hordes surrounding our building.
I waded through thousands of ornery businesspeople boiling in their suits and trekked the five avenues and ten blocks toward my apartment. Along the way, I arrived at the surprising conclusion that an alligator pump is in fact the most appropriate shoe for a crisis situation in this city. Because the most effective way to express your discontent when someone gropes you in a crowd is to jam your heel into that person’s foot as hard as you possibly can and twist it, like you’re putting out a cigarette.
It took all of my strength to complete the final stretch: the ten-flight hike up an unlit stairwell to my place. It wasn’t until I stood before the comfort of my front door that the mounting tension in my neck began to drain out of me; here I would be safe. As soon as I was through the door, I wrenched off my shoes and I promptly f lung them across the room. That was the moment I remembered my little houseguest, because I nailed him right between the eyes. Booboo let out a squeal that made me wonder whether there wasn’t a small child hiding in all that fur, and darted straight under my bed.
I spent the next half hour lying on my belly, peering under my bed and pleading with Booboo to come out. He stared at me maliciously, blinking away the dust bunnies, and yawning or repositioning himself occasionally on top of my shoes. Eventually, I gave up on the niceties and decided to make a grab for him. Taking a deep breath to prepare for what should have been an elegant gesture, I lunged at him. I shoved my entire arm in his direction, until my head banged against the bed frame.
“Raaaaaargh!!!!” He growled what I could only imagine was Booboo in cat-speak, and scratched my forearm.
“Shit!” I yelled, and recoiled from the bed, with my eyes watering.
This was the problem with being Super Woman’s only daughter. With thirty months to spare until age thirty, my mother had fine-tuned the balance of home and career, secured the illusion of waking up with meticulous makeup, and mastered the art of willing my pancakes down off the kitchen ceiling mere moments after I threw them up there. I, on the other hand, at the same point in my life, was reverse-sexually-harassing my way out of a career I didn’t honestly enjoy and while swooning over one homosexual man, was failing miserably in my attempt to win the affections of the wheezing, fifteen-pound cat of another. Honestly, it was a wonder that I could even feed myself.
Whether or not I look the