Seeing Tiffany walk into work at 7:30 a.m. makes women in Armani Collezioni suits feel like librarians. Our clothes, in shades of drab and drabber, have little personality, while hers suggest something wild. One of the most popular bets to make is whether or not she’s wearing underwear on a particular day, and while I don’t tell anyone this, I often find myself picking what I think is the right answer. This means even I’m staring at her bottom. Tiffany is a distraction.
I’m not sure it’s wrong for Tiffany to dress the way she does. Working as a sales assistant, supporting the salespeople and making sure that the money owed from a trade equals the money wired in to cover that trade, she rarely comes face-to-face with clients, so she doesn’t really have to wear the corporate uniform. Her necklines plunge where mine rise and her clothes are form-fitting, and made of man-made fabrics that can be washed at home. She takes liberties with the dress code, a code vague enough that one could argue she is compliant. The Glass Ceiling Club resents that her clothing amps up the already overjuiced hormones, so when other women on the trading floor complain about her, we listen. It’s hard to believe that one woman’s clothing is a distraction worth having a meeting over, but here we are.
Since our first meeting at the Ear Inn, I haven’t met with the Glass Ceiling Club. They’ve met while I’ve been traveling—the best excuse for poor attendance. A lunch to discuss dress codes seems harmless enough, so off I go.
Just before leaving the office I counted three different episodes of men having ridiculous excuses to visit Tiffany while other traders watched. She works with Marcus so sits diagonally across from my back. I get to hear it all:
“I need to take clients to a hot place tonight. Figured you know a good place.”
When she rattled off a great suggestion without a pause, he asked her to join them, she said she already had plans. The second guy asked where the shoeshine man went, and the third wanted to know where she got yesterday’s outfit ’cause he’d like to get that for his wife. The wife line is used a lot. The mossy gray carpet that leads to her desk is wearing thin.
The Glass Ceiling Club stands divided on the subject of Tiffany and the distraction she causes.
“Look, she is a woman with a gorgeous body,” Amy says. “To say something to her is jealous and petty.”
We are in the French bistro La Goulue, where the heavy-paned glass doors are thrown open despite the February date. It’s warm and the “ladies who lunch” crowd is everywhere, pressing small shopping bags containing thoughtful gifts into each other’s hands while air-kissing against a background of winter white flowers. They wear perfectly tailored Chanel suits, which, despite the four-figure price tags, look like uniforms here. I note how differently the Lunch Ladies and the Working Ladies treat their purses. The Lunch Ladies carry expensive-looking, monogrammed, and buckled units that seem to hold very little. They place these bags delicately on their tables, touching handle to handle and forming an almost perfect X for a centerpiece. When the owner needs to retrieve something from the bag she slips a moisturized hand in and behold, the card, lipstick, or cell phone is pulled out effortlessly. Working women treat their purse as baggage. Ours lie on the floor, bulked out with papers, business cards, electronic gadgetry, and in my case the occasional Lego block. When we need something from our bags we heave the bulk of the contents one way or the other and shuffle through it all. If we had placed them on the fine linen tablecloths of La Goulue they would leave dirt marks.
Alice Harlington, the quiet analyst, says, “Tiffany gives women a bad name. Who can take an employee seriously who walks around with a slit like that?” She is referring to today’s outfit, a vampy, to-the-floor black dress with three-inch stilettos peeking from below. When she turns sideways the dress reveals a slit cut to within six inches of her panty line, displaying her beautiful legs.
While we summon up that vision, Amanda enters, hollering to us when she is only halfway across the dining floor.
“Great! You’re all here.”
The Lunch Ladies turn in unison and confer like surprised birds. They have an artful ability to look displeased without contorting skin into unflattering countenances.
“Badoit with gas,” Amanda hollers to the waiter, three tables away, meaning she wants carbonated water. Lately she’s been stepping up her Brooklyn shtick to practically wave the flag for the new-moneyed set, even though she has yet to share in the spoils. I may have been raised in the Bronx but I learned from the cradle to leave the accent in the borough. Amanda embraces it, for which I adore her.
“That black halter dress?” she says, rolling her eyes while she refers to Tiffany. “What up with that?”
“Bullshit,” Amy says. “If we all spent as much time as Tiffany at the gym instead of under fluorescent lights, we’d be proudly strutting it too. I have a real problem with women telling other women how to dress. I guarantee you the one complaining is always the less fair one looking in the mirror—Snow White and all.”
“My vote is to turn up the trading floor air conditioning and force her into some survivalist mode of covering up.” I say hopefully.