The Herd(16)
“Anyway. What are you working on today?” Mikki leaned into the mirror and picked out an eye booger.
“Just sending out about four thousand emails,” I replied. I’d crept in on Tuesday, still cruising with my temporary guest pass, nervous that Eleanor and Hana and everyone would take one look at me and shout, “Traitor! Banned for life! Booooo!” à la the osteoporotic old woman in The Princess Bride. But somehow, improbably, everyone had treated me normally, continuing on without knowledge that I harbored secret hopes of writing about them. If anything, on Tuesday Hana and Eleanor seemed to have sort of forgotten about me—distracted, blustering by without looking up much—but the relief far outweighed the vague rinse of feeling left out. “What about you?”
“I’m talking to a gallery in Bushwick about doing a show,” she replied. “Only collages, no sculptures. So I’m working on an artist’s statement today. Actually, would you be willing to look at it later? I’m not much of a writer.”
“Of course! And I’d love to see your collages sometime. When I left you were still mostly doing those metal sculptures.”
“Yeah, soldering. But I think the collages are my best work, to be honest. Each one has a lot of meaning for me. I’ve been doing these large-scale works and then taking photos of them and working those into my collages.”
“Large-scale? Like, slinging paint onto huge canvases?”
“Sort of. And then I cut the photos into these weird, intricate shapes with an X-Acto knife. I really hope I get the show. It’s frustrating: I’ve worked so hard, but people only know me for boring graphic design shit.” She looked away. “Nobody takes my actual art seriously and that’s all I want to do.”
I was about to reply, surprised by the sudden candor, when a woman moving toward an open shower slipped in a puddle, her arms flailing. Mikki lunged forward and caught the woman’s forearm in both hands as her own towel crumpled to the floor.
The woman righted herself and burst out laughing. “You just saved my life,” she said, giving Mikki a half-hug, perky little exposed boobs and all. The woman hopped into the shower, and Mikki gathered up her things, grinning.
She caught my eye and cocked her head toward the Gleam Room. “That’s the thing about these ugly cunts,” she said. “When you fall, we’ll catch you.”
* * *
—
For a coworking space, the Herd didn’t make working easy—the communal tables were too high, the individual workstations too low, more fun than functional. I drained my coffee and set it on the little marble table I’d pulled up to my knees. It was my fifth day of working at the Herd, my first Friday. I’d thought maybe it would be emptier today, freelancers tapping out for the weekend early, but it was more packed than ever, the sound level higher, giggles and squawks boinging off the snake plants and salt lamps.
And it was dark out; frost fringed the windows, which were now hazy mirrors. On Fridays the Herd closed at five. Eleanor said this was to ensure a healthy work-life balance for employees, which made negative sense when the Herd was open on weekends, albeit with limited hours and a skeleton crew.
“I’m gonna get moving,” Hana announced. “You staying here until close?” She looked especially pretty today, with her dark curls pulled into a pile and careful eyeliner framing her umber eyes. People are always commenting on her striking features. Meanwhile, the guy I lost my virginity to in college once told me, You kind of look like a ferret…but, like, a cute ferret. Not even a hot ferret. I continued to hook up with him for an additional three weeks.
“I don’t know.” I brought my hand to my crown and cracked my neck. “The Wi-Fi’s still being dodgy. I’ve been trying to send these photos for, like, an hour.”
She squinted at my screen. “It only seems to stop working when you’re on the network. They’re resetting the router tonight.”
“I know, I’m Wi-Fi Kryptonite.” I closed my laptop. “We’re on for tomorrow, right?”
“Of course.” It was an annual tradition: We’d start under the massive snowflake improbably suspended above Fifth Avenue and then make our way past other showstopping decorations. I’d made up my mind that I’d broach the topic of the book with her then. Research was going well—I was in touch with the plaintiff behind the discrimination lawsuit and he seemed sufficiently unaware of my disdain for him, and I’d joined some online fan forums that’d bought into the whole Herd cult of personality. And in a stroke of luck, Eleanor had scheduled a glitzy and mysterious event for Tuesday, with reporters and influencers and B to B+ celebrities spangling the guest list, all with the promise of a big surprise announcement. Whatever the announcement was, it was sure to bring a flurry of new attention to Eleanor. Mentioning my book pitch to Hana—softly, carefully, This is just a little idea I had; it’d be done so lovingly and totally with her approval—felt like a natural next step, a gate I could hop over on the way to unicorns and rainbows and people in the publishing world not hating me.
“All right, I’m making moves.” Hana grabbed her purse and gave me a half-hug goodbye. I tapped at my computer, prepared to shut it down—at long last, the damn photos had uploaded. Aurelia, the Herd’s member relations coordinator, breezed through, flicking off lights, and I promised I’d be out as soon as I finished one thing and bade Eleanor goodbye. Aurelia had darkened the other rooms—the library and the sunroom, as I now knew they were called—and it wasn’t until her elevator door thudded closed that I realized how expansive and eerie the Herd was at night.