Faith, who had been at Bloomer the longest, was in her middle sixties now, and the love that people felt for her, Greer knew, had to do with their feelings about the past more than anything else. Fem Fatale would be a far better place to work than Bloomer, though there was no money at the blog.
Now she had no job working for Faith Frank, and never would. But as she experienced the news through her own self-absorption, she became aware that the office was growing quiet. Something was about to happen. Faith stood straighter and looked around, preparing to speak. “Listen, my friends,” she began. Not, “Listen, people!” like an officious and exhausted teacher, and not, either, the latest iteration of the way people spoke to groups, “Listen up, guys,” especially since these were mostly women here. “Oh, I’m heartbroken today,” said Faith. “I know we all are. But we’re heartbroken together. We’ve done a lot. We marched together. We celebrated together. We fought for the ERA, and reproductive rights, and against violence. And right here, in our offices, we wrote about it all. And we sat in one another’s living rooms and talked about everything under the sun, and we ate sprouts together. Lots and lots of sprouts. I believe we’re the ones who put sprouts on the map.” There was sentimental laughter. “Look, some of what we did succeeded, and some of it failed spectacularly—ERA, I’m talking to you—but what I know and you know is that all of it mattered. And it still matters. We’re part of history, the history of women’s struggle for equality, though of course I don’t have to tell you that. We’ve been doing this forever, and we’ll keep on doing it.” She looked up. “Oh, please don’t cry, because then we’ll all cry, and we’ll end up dissolving in a puddle of tears like women in the eighteenth century.” Some people laughed through their tears, which fractionally changed the mood. Then Faith said, “You know what, I take that back. Let’s all cry! We’ll get it out of our systems once and for all, and then we’ll go right back out there.”
Faith was as she had been when she spoke at Ryland: kind, intelligent, allowing for other people’s emotions. The truth was that she wasn’t a rare or particularly original thinker. But she was someone who used her appeal and her talents to inspire and sometimes comfort other women. Greer wouldn’t get a job at Bloomer, for Bloomer would no longer exist in any form, and she wouldn’t even get a chance to sit for an interview with Faith Frank, which would have been exciting, regardless of the outcome.
“This is over, and now we have to scatter,” Faith told everyone. Then she gestured around her. “But this,” she said, “isn’t over, and we all know it never will be. We’re not going away. I’ll see you all out there.”
The women applauded, and some cried, and several of them began to speak in overlapping voices and take group photos. Someone opened a bottle of champagne, and then music played: fittingly, Opus’s old hit “The Strong Ones.” Greer took that moment to leave, and as she walked out she heard the lyrics that opened the song:
Don’t ever think I’ll be easily beat
Just because I’m wearing Louboutins on my dainty feet
We are the strong ones
We are the lithe ones
We are the subtle ones
We are the wise ones . . .
Greer felt congested with disappointment, and something more substantial and different. She headed back into the hallway, where, behind other doors, the sounds of everyday life were released: the squeal of a dental drill, the throb of dubstep, the chirp and murmur of people getting business done. The world spun even as a modest but once important feminist magazine did its death rattle and then died.
Cory was in a coffee shop on the corner of West 30th Street, waiting for her as they’d arranged. She hadn’t been able to tell him what time her interview would be over, so he’d said, “Don’t worry, I’ll just plan to be there.” He was in the back booth now in an orange Princeton hoodie, an econ text open in front of him. These days a soul patch and a thin mustache served as a framing device for his mouth. Wordless, Greer slid into the booth beside him and he opened his arms to her, so she went into them. “It didn’t go well?” he asked.
“They’re closing.”
“Oh no. Bad luck. Come here, you,” he said, and she turned her face up to his so he could kiss her mouth, her cheeks, her nose. He wanted her to get what she wanted. He hadn’t even met Faith Frank, though he’d listened to Greer talk on and on about her after the lecture freshman year, and she’d given him a real-time course in feminism as she herself was getting it. It was much the way Greer had learned about microfinance from Cory, or at least its outlines. Here he was now, waiting for her, sympathizing with her.
“You’ll find something,” he said. “And they’ll be lucky to hire you.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Whoever.”
“It’s not just the job, exactly,” she said after a moment. “It’s also her and what she stands for. And how she acted when I met her. Faith Frank.”
“Yes, I know. My competition.”
He reached out and played with the edges of her hair, rubbing them between his fingers. He did this sometimes, she noticed, when he wasn’t sure how to comfort her. She remembered the way Darren Tinzler had played with her shirt collar, not to comfort her but for his own pleasure and interest. It made Cory nervous to see her unhappy, and she knew he wanted to swoop in and do something. Of course, it was true that he also liked to touch her. She leaned even closer, and Cory palmed her entire head with his big hand. He was touching her head, her face; then his hand was on her neck, the thumb stroking the scooped hollow above her collarbone, and she kissed the side of his face. They were both slightly stale, having traveled from their colleges that day by bus and train. She would’ve liked to be in a bathtub with him, and she realized that they had never once taken a bath together. They would do that when they lived together, when all of this had been figured out and resolved. She pictured his long legs displacing the water in their tub.
“I realized today—it got kind of sharply defined for me—that I wanted to know her,” Greer said. “And I guess I wanted her to know me too. I know that’s hubristic. A word Professor Malick loves.” She paused. “Maybe I’ll write Faith Frank a note, kind of a condolence letter. You think that’s okay?”
“I think you know what’s okay.”
“Zee once told me I should be Faith Frank’s pen pal, but of course that was ridiculous. At least now I have something to say to her.”
That night, Greer sent Faith an email:
Dear Ms. Frank,
I came in for a job interview with you this afternoon, and I was there when you said goodbye to everyone. Listening to you talk, I felt like I knew you. I think everyone must feel that way. Thank you for all you’ve done over the decades for women. We are so lucky to have you.
Sincerely,
Greer Kadetsky
Greer began sending her résumé out more. The plan had been that after commencement, which would take place in a couple of weeks, she and Cory would spend a month up in Macopee living at home before going down to the city to try to find an apartment in Brooklyn. But Greer still had no job waiting for her. She became worried about what would happen, even a little frightened at the uncertainty. Then one day Cory received his own disappointing news. Armitage & Rist had changed their offer, and now wanted him to come work in their Manila office. They enhanced the deal with even more money, but the news was shocking, and he had been afraid to tell her.
“Do we ever get to be together?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What if you tell them you won’t go?”
“Then I have no job. All the entry-level consulting jobs have been locked down by now, and I need to be a big earner. Lionel and Will and I agreed on this. Look, I feel like crap,” he said. “I wanted us to be in our place. I pictured the whole thing. Framed shit on the walls. Big spoons in the kitchen.”
“Spoons?” she said. “We never discussed that. You pictured spoons?”