THE SECRET of working mothers everywhere is compartmentalizing: the ability to jam into a mental drawer that which can’t be dealt with at the moment. She jams a family problem into a mental filing cabinet, slams the door shut, and does her work. When she gets home she reverses the process, disconnecting her wireless world while reviewing first-grade spelling words, or reading Harry the Dirty Dog for the fifty-seventh time. As she does this she tries not to think about the fact that her entire department will be tested on synthetic mortgage products the following day and that she needs to get a handle on what they actually are. I’m a world-class compartmentalizer and I wish this were an Olympic sport so I could stand on the podium with a gold medal around my neck and get some love for it.
After the chapel drama, I get to the office perilously close to the market’s opening bell of 9:30 a.m. A pink note is stuck onto my computer screen. It reads, “Call Tim Boylan of Cheetah Global regarding EBS.”
I’ve only met Tim once. He is not my daily contact at Cheetah; he’s the CEO of the entire place. I interpret this message to mean disaster because top guys don’t call with good news. I bury the Owen/thong event deep in the filing cabinet of my brain, and I focus on Tim, on work, on the twinkling LCD screens on my desk.
An asterisk sits next to the EBS symbol, indicating news is breaking on Emergent Biosolutions and the stock will have a delayed opening. Whenever there is news that will significantly impact a stock price, trading halts in that stock while buyers and sellers figure out the correct price to begin again. This must be why Boylan wants to talk. I sold Cheetah over a million shares of EBS based on my advice.
I look over at Amy, who is on the phone, tapping her pen on the red underpart of her Christian Louboutin shoes and making some weird contortion of her face. I know she bought EBS for her own account. She raises her eyebrows toward me in a slightly accusing way, but doesn’t say a word, listening intently to her caller.
I snap out of my seat and head to King, looking for information on pharmaceutical trading. King is on the phone, massaging his thick black curls. I get within touching distance, and true to form he tugs on my arm, brings me close to him, and now has his hand on the top of my ass. I pull away in what has become a habitual movement, not unlike the sparring of siblings. There are no boundaries and the parents are distracted. He hangs up.
“How much does Cheetah own?” he barks at me.
“Ten total,” I say. “EBS just came public last year. It’s a great company.”
“Ten?” he repeats. “Ten million shares trading at twenty-two dollars per share?”
“Yes, King, I know. A two-hundred-twenty-million-dollar investment.”
“Like a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar investment!” he barks at me so the Dicks surrounding him can hear this too.
“Shit. What happened? Are they killing people?” My heart pounds.
“Anthrax happened,” King says solemnly before breaking into a smile.
At first I think there’s been an Anthrax breakout or that the vaccine is ineffective but no, it’s got to be good news. King is smiling.
“Or Anthrax didn’t happen if you’re vaccinated?” I respond carefully.
“That’s right. Just ask the two million service people in the U.S. military that have gotten the shot and don’t have Anthrax,” he answers. “They’re great customers!” He burps.
Gross. “Yes, but I already know that, and EBS investors know that, so what’s the news?” I ask, still unsure why the stock stopped trading.
“They pre-announced earnings. They can hardly keep up with demand. This thing is cheap with a low price-to-earnings ratio, only five times earnings. It’s gonna rocket today and I know shit about it.”
“Anthrax vaccines aren’t the big story, King,” I say, now so relieved I could possibly even hug his lecherous self. “It’s got to be the immunoglobulin they make. That’s what will send the stock higher.”
“Whoa,” King says, grabbing my waistband. “Don’t move. All these losers need to hear about whatever it was you just said.”
“Gentlemen!” King announces on the hoot ’n’ holler. “Belle Cassidy is getting on right now to tell you boneheads about blabba blobbulinz.” And he hands the mic to me. I’ve already read enough on his computer screen now to piece the story together. Emergent Biosolutions got great news about upcoming clinical trials for their new drugs. The stock is about to trade up and I just made my client a wheelbarrow full of money. But before I have a moment to digest that, I’m put on the spot to talk about it in front of over one hundred people.