Bond Girl by Erin Duffy Read Free Book Online Page B

they need to be?”
    â€œGood question. I don’t have the first goddamn clue. You’ll get used to it though.”
    â€œIf you say so.”
    â€œI have to make some calls. Are you cool now with getting this done for me?”
    â€œI think so. I’ll try.”
    â€œGood. 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.”
    â€œGot it. Thanks for the help. I guess I have more to learn than I thought.”
    â€œGirlie, 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 scream “Pizza’s in the lobby!” at the top of his lungs.
    Without looking at my watch, I knew exactly what time it was. Every Friday for the last six weeks, some guy screamed “Pizza in the lobby!” across the floor at 10:30. And every Friday morning at 10:30, the floor erupted into applause that rivaled what was heard in Yankee Stadium when Jeter scored against the Red Sox. I had had a glimpse of trading floor eating habits my first day at Cromwell—hundreds of egg-and-cheese sandwiches dripping with grease being devoured as fast as humanly possible without choking to death. At the time, I disregarded it. That was before I understood