One long queue of zeros

Gemma’s craving the young American. It’s obvious by the way her gaze skips across the others like a hungry bird hopping from one bare branch to another. When her eyes rest on Megan Bloom, Gemma doesn’t blink. Instead, she swallows as if gulping down the girl’s luminosity. Out of all the applicants, this one’s the brightest. She has the brightest hair, the brightest smile, the brightest eyes, the brightest brain.

“We’re a diamond of a company. Investment banking alone pulls in enough to make the GDP of a small country look like chump change.” The skin on Gemma’s rawboned face is pulled tighter by her leer. “We’ve got people battering down the door for a shot at working here.”

While the other candidates squirm or sit bolt upright, Megan lounges as if her chair is as comfy as a beanbag.

“Think you’ve got what it takes?” Gemma continues.

They all bob their heads in unison, a chorus line of nodding dogs. Gemma looks at me, challenging me to challenge her.

“A diamond of a company indeed.” I clap my hands. The applicants jump. “But are diamonds really forever?”

The two men, boys really, fresh from university, one with a suit so new he’s forgotten to take the tag off it, glance at each other. The prickly girl with the razor cheekbones and a Home Counties accent nods as if she understands, but only Megan Bloom scribbles a note.

Gemma smacks her pad and jerks her pen back like a knife thrower. I’ve made her hundreds of thousands in bonuses. Numbers that end with one long queue of zeros. She hates me for it. She hates me because she knows I get away with whatever I want.

“Why don’t you just fuck off to Goa or somewhere equally tie dye if you think this job is so morally redundant?” she said to me after I’d dissuaded my first applicant.

“I’d like to pay the company back before I leave.”

“For what?”

“For sixty hour weeks. For a wife who walked out. For making me greedy.”

“Oh please!”

She tried to get me sacked, of course. Said she wanted me out of her recruitment sessions, that I put people off. But the MD didn’t believe her. He told me afterwards she was just jealous of my success. And who could blame her. Not many brokers have the million-pound touch.

I point at the boy with the tag hanging off his collar. “Are you ready to sacrifice your life to make rich people richer?”

“You bet I am. I’m ready to start right now.” He blushes, and I feel sorry for him because it is so clear that he will always be disappointed in his aspirations.

Gemma sighs loudly. Everyone but Megan turns to look. I flash my pad at her. Written in big bold letters are the words THIS JOB SUCKS.

She gasps and clamps her hand over her mouth. Gemma whips her head around and shoots me with an Uzi glare. “Did you say something, Luke?”

“No, not a word.”

But Gemma can see that I intrigue the young American. For the rest of the meeting, the girl focuses her attention on my every word. After a few more of Gemma’s questions and one stifled yawn from me, we say our goodbyes.

Gemma tries to herd them out, but Megan is fast on her feet. Before I walk back onto the trading floor and immerse myself in the barking barrage of orders, she rushes up to me and says: “You were kidding around with me, right? You know, with the sign and all?”

I shake my head.

“Is this one of those psychological tests?”

Before I can reply, Gemma calls her over. I watch them standing together in reception, a lusterless woman and a luminous girl. That’s your future, I want to shout, but the door closes and she is gone.

Two days later I get an email on my Blackberry from Gemma. She says Megan Bloom declined her offer of a second interview. She says it’s my fault. She says I’m a fucking liability. Before pressing delete, I lean back and enjoy the sweet sense of triumph. When I finally return to the red and green numbers tricking down my trading screen, I’m still smiling.