Bond Girl. Erin Duffy
don’t annoy people. When guys are busy, don’t ask them questions. Don’t try and make small talk with anyone. Until people get to know you, no one has any interest in talking to you. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”
“Don’t talk to anyone. Got it.”
“And whatever you do, avoid Kate Katz—a.k.a. Cruella—like the plague.”
“Why?” I glanced at the woman on the phone at the end of the row. He had to be referring to her; she was the only other female on the government bond desk. She didn’t look scary. She reminded me of my third-grade teacher, sort of. Only with more expensive clothes and a better haircut. Her short brown bob was tucked behind her ears, and her crisp white shirt was tucked into dark navy pants. She wore small diamond earrings, little makeup, and loafers. She wasn’t exactly what I would classify as intimidating. She looked friendly enough, I thought.
“Just trust me on this one. Lastly, I assume you noticed the coffee stand in the hallway?”
“Yeah, I saw it when I got off the elevator.”
“Good. We call it Papa’s. I have no idea why. Make the guys who work there your friends. You will be spending a lot of time getting coffees there for the group, and the quicker you get there and back the better. If they like you, they will take care of you faster. Other than that, you’ll figure things out as you go. You can hang with me today. I’ll show you the screens we use, and get you used to following the markets. Cool?”
Very cool. If I could, I’d canonize Drew. “Thanks so much.”
“No problem. Now, where’s your calculator?”
I quickly produced the shiny new HR-issued calculator. “Right here. What can I do?”
He handed me a printout of a grid, filled with numbers in type so small they looked like newspaper print. “Give me the weighted average of these prices. Don’t forget that these are in thirty-seconds, so you’ll have to convert them to decimals before you average. Also check to see if any of the handles look bad. They should all be around par. If not, let me know and I’ll double-check. There are probably a few errors in there.”
“Sure, I can do that.” And I could have, assuming someone had told me what a handle was, how to weighted average something, and how to turn something called thirty-seconds into decimals. As soon as I had those down, I could definitely do this.
He gave me a knowing smile. “You have no idea what I just said, do you?”
“I, ummm …” Shit, I thought. My business classes suddenly seemed like a complete waste of time. I might as well have majored in underwater basket weaving.
“Be honest, Alex. Pretending to know things you don’t will only make it harder. Do yourself a favor and admit what you don’t know.”
“You might as well have been speaking Mandarin.”
Drew laughed. “Here.” He pointed to the first figure on the grid: 99–28. “The 99 part of the price is called the handle. If you booked this trade at 98–28, the trader will tell you that you have a ‘bad handle.’ It’s clear at all times which handle bonds trade at, so a lot of times people won’t refer to them. There’s just no need and the less time you take relaying prices, the better. So if a trader gave me a price on this bond, he’d just say, twenty-eight. When I said to check for bad handles, I meant that if most of the bonds are trading around par–100, and you see a price that’s say, in the seventies, the handle is probably bad.”
“Ohh, okay, that makes sense.” I pointed to the twenty-eight part of the price. “So then that’s in thirty-seconds?”
“Right. Bond prices are quoted in thirty-seconds, so in order to change that to a decimal, you just divide 28 by 32.”
I typed the numbers in my calculator. This was sixth-grade math; I had no problem with that. I entered 28, hit the divide sign, punched in 32, then pressed the equal button on my calculator. The screen flashed ERROR.
That didn’t seem right. “Shoot, I think my calculator’s broken.” I showed Drew my screen.
“I take it you’ve never used a financial calculator before?”
“No, we used regular ones in school,” I said.
“These don’t work like normal calculators. After every input, you have to hit the enter button, and then the function at the end. So you type in 28, then enter. Then you input 32, hit enter again, and the divide key at the end. It’s always that way. For example, if you needed to add two plus two, it’s two, enter, two, enter, plus.”
“Why couldn’t the financial calculator people just leave it the same as every other calculator in the free world and not make things harder than they need to be?”
“Good question. I don’t have the first goddamn clue. You’ll get used to it though.”
“If you say so.”
“I have to make some calls. Are you cool now with getting this done for me?”
“I think so. I’ll try.”
“Good. Let me know if you have any questions, but use common sense. If I’m cursing at someone or losing money on a trade, telling me you can’t figure out how to work the calculator probably won’t go over well.”
“Got it. Thanks for the help. I guess I have more to learn than I thought.”
“Girlie, you have absolutely no idea.” He chuckled as he grabbed his headset and hit a button on the phone board.
I grabbed my backward, nonsensical financial calculator and got to work on my first real assignment as a Cromwell employee.
Three
Girlie
I SPENT THE rest of the month working like a lunatic. I got to the office every morning by 6:15. I wanted to make a good impression, even if there wasn’t much that I could do. During the day, I sat behind people on my folding chair and was mostly ignored. A few guys attempted to teach me how to look at any number of a dozen applications that scrolled numbers in a dizzying array of colors. I learned to discern which ones displayed the stock market, the Treasury bond market, derivatives and swaps; where you could see the calendar of economic indicators that were being released that day; foreign exchange rates; corporate spreads; and prices for futures contracts and for the European and Asian markets. I still didn’t really understand what any of these things were, but I watched their prices flash like mini strobe lights on their computers. I was given little projects to do, which was a problem since they all involved having access to a workstation.
My solution was to stay late every night, using the models and various programs on someone else’s desktop to solve the math equations I had to turn in the next morning. I usually got home around 8:00 P.M., ate whatever I could find in the refrigerator, and collapsed into bed from exhaustion. I was beginning to forget what Liv looked like, and so far, we had yet to take advantage of our cool apartment in the city because we were both too busy working. Every morning I was quizzed on the important news stories around the world, and I was asked what might have moved the market overnight during Asian trading. The sheer mass of material I was supposed to know was staggering. I still didn’t know anyone’s name except for Chick, Drew, Reese (swine guy), and Kate/Cruella. I don’t think anyone knew mine. Instead, they called me “Girlie.” Much to my horror, I answered to it.
On a particularly steamy day in August, I sat in my metal chair, listening to a large man with hands that looked like catchers’ mitts explain bond market basics and tried very hard not to fall asleep. He had a scruffy beard and chocolate-colored eyes that were friendly despite the fact that he looked like he could crush my head like a walnut with his bare hands. His name was Billy Marchetti, but everyone called him Marchetti. As he playfully flicked rubber bands at me while he waited for me to finish the equation he had given me I heard some random guy on the floor