The Herd(29)

PART II





CHAPTER 8





BIG NEWS I COULDN’T BE MORE


     THRILLED TO SHARE


                        By Eleanor Walsh          Published to Gleam On Dec 6, 2017



Good morning, Gleam Team! I woke up with a huge smile on my face because I couldn’t wait to tell you the secret I’ve been keeping for the better part of a year. My beloved publicist, Hana, encouraged me to share it first in a huge media outlet, but I was adamant: I wanted to share it here on the blog. You lovelies have been with me since Day One, you’re my inspiration, and you’re what makes running Gleam a dream come true.

First, a story from my childhood. I went to junior high outside Boston, and every summer, a week before the start of the school year, the entire school took over a huge “Adventure Camp” about an hour from our hometown. It was a two-night outing to encourage bonding, team-building, and problem-solving with activities like a ropes course, Capture the Flag, rock climbing, and more. Sounds fun, right?

WRONG. Lovelies, I dreaded Adventure Camp literally all summer. Every time I thought about it, I felt like I’d swallowed a bag of rocks. Nothing especially terrible ever happened to me there, but I felt so nervous and judged and miserable in the months leading up to it and definitely during it. My ENTIRE goal was to get through it without doing anything embarrassing or having anyone laugh at me or even think something mean about me. You know how crazy that is, trying to control what other people think?!

Anyway, I made it through those two outings intact (obviously!) and pushed Adventure Camp to the back of my mind. Then, a few years ago, a friend mentioned that her niece was about to head off to Adventure Camp. She said her niece, who was nine, genuinely loved going every year. She sent me a link to an article about the program, and lovelies, my jaw hit the floor.

This Adventure Camp? All girls. On the surface, it looked a lot like the one I’d attended: ropes courses, archery, boating, you name it. But the program was based on research about how girls can build resilience. High-achieving girls, the article said, are often super-stressed out and terrified of failure. The camp actually throws them into (safe!) stress-inducing situations and equips them with the tools to come out stronger.

As I read, I kept thinking: WHY was my experience so different from these girls’? The answer was both totally obvious and a little shocking: My Adventure Camp was coed. I don’t need a mountain of studies to show you that many women are more comfortable, more creative, more relaxed, more able to think big and let loose when they’re in a space with all women (although there are researchers looking into this very topic). I wondered: What would an all-girl Adventure Camp for adults look like?

And then I had my second lightbulb moment. When Gleam was getting off the ground, our scrappy little team couldn’t afford our own office space, so we rented some desks in a coworking space. It was a huge help, but every one I looked into was owned by men with a majority-male C-suite. One night, I was lying in bed when I thought, “Wait…what if…”

That’s right, Gleam Team: I am SO excited to announce that we’re starting the world’s first coworking space and community exclusively for people who identify as female. We’re calling it THE HERD, both because that’s what you are—my team, my flock, my people—and because it’s all about HER. We’re crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s on an amazing location in NYC now. I’ll share more news soon, but I wanted you lovelies to be the very first to know.

     XX,

Eleanor





CHAPTER 9





Hana


TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 8:48 P.M.

Someone was coming up the hallway as I walked down it, a twentysomething woman pulling a dachshund on a leash, and they both regarded me curiously as I passed. I imagined my dripping nose, my bloodshot eyes, the black tracks ribboning my cheeks. I’d cried the whole car ride home from Eleanor’s place, and when I finally made it to my apartment, I took just a few steps in before sliding out of my heels and lowering myself to the ground. Leaning against the kitchen island, I breathed deeply, pulling myself together like someone sweeping crumbs into a pile.

Frame by frame, I went over it in my head: When had Joanna stolen the press release? She’d been furious when I’d told her the interview wouldn’t happen; she kept repeating, We killed a story for you, as if last week the Gaze team had brought the graffiti photos out back and executed them with a firing squad. Ugh. I had promised her the exclusive, and in my harried state I’d assumed she’d accept my apology and await further updates.

What a mess. Aurelia had counted and confirmed only one press release was missing, and Joanna had broken the news first; a few reporters who’d been at Hielo had tried to confirm the embargo was lifted, but of course, once other outlets started running the story, there was a mad dash for clicks, shares, eyeballs.

Cosmo emerged from the dark hallway, his tail flicking. Of course, my brain was hurtling after Joanna Chen because it couldn’t face tonight’s much larger Terrible Thing. Eleanor was not one to sabotage her own event. Her own company. I could tell myself she had, for some bewildering reason, bounced without warning or explanation, but I knew it was bullshit.