People often ask me how I know as much as I do. I tell them I go to places where I don’t belong, and I listen. I did so legally at first, as I live in New York City, a cornucopia where luminaries from around the world convene. For a moderate fee, you can attend a panel. Eat copious hor d'oeuvres, in all your glittering potential. But that lasts one evening, then the men return to their lives. Your inlet should be a conference masquerading as a vacation.  

The proposition found me, as the best ones always do. I was sitting in a hotel lounge one afternoon after my morning shift. Men and women in business casual cluttered around the bar. They wore lanyards, gesticulated, regaled with industry confidence. I‘d befriended the bartender, but as I rose to approach him, he held up the palm of his hand as if he were pushing me back. I stood in a corner, exiled to the outskirts, but close enough to eavesdrop on chatter among doctors. They talked to big pharma companies, who then talked to small biotechs, who then talked to nonprofits who championed voiceless patients. 

“Finally,” sighed my bartender friend after the patrons left. 

“What’s the conference for?”

“Respiratory health.” 

“Interesting.” 

“It is.“ He wiped his brow with his wrist, then grabbed two tumblers from the back bar. “Good people.” 

As I sat on a stool, something pricked the back of my thigh. It was a lanyard, crumpled and forgotten, belonging to a woman named Melissa Vancort. She worked at a company named after a Greek goddess. I sipped my bourbon and looked up what they were developing on my phone - a drug to treat pulmonary hypertension, vasodilators to widen red blood vessels. The same derivative of it treated impotence, and I spent the next hour researching the correlation. I needed a shower and a change of clothes, but while my friend was attending to another guest, I finished my drink and slipped the lanyard between my legs, sucking on ice.

__

It started there, with a talk from Dr. Hamburg, flown in from Los Angeles by way of Cologne. Three international specialists perched in a neat row as he moderated their findings on patient-reported outcomes. I sat far in the back, clutching onto my intestines, trying to defuse my aching premonition of being caught. But as the day went on, I learned to flip my lanyard around, as if by accident. That way, I still belonged. 

Nobody approached me, so in between sessions I rehearsed my fictional CV, found online. By the third day, I felt comfortable enough to converse at cocktail hours at a ten-thousand-foot level, and because I looked young, if I didn’t know something, I could pretend to be stupid. My audience was none the wiser; they fed off my fake curiosity, and when I pet their egos, they offered to help me with my fake career. One by one, after validating their soapboxes, I collected their business cards and put them in my purse.

By the time it ended, I dropped an overstuffed tote bag of swag off with my bartender friend. He cocked his head to the side, picking up a branded cell phone charger and its tentacled wires.

“You’re insane,” he laughed. “What? Why?”

“Why am I insane?”

“We can start there.”

“Maybe I’m tired of waitressing. And living with my dad.”

He didn’t look convinced, so I unwrapped a lollipop and leaned back. “Maybe it’s just too fucking easy.”

__ 

How was it ever easy for somebody like me? I was born into generational failure. Absent mother, veteran father who inherited our apartment from my broke grandparents. He was discharged from the army after sustaining a leg injury in the Gulf that incapacitated him. In the years that followed, he spent most of his time passed out, forgetting to cash in his VA disability checks. I had to sign the back and snap a picture to deposit it into our family bank account, often in the double digits. 

“Profiteering motherfuckers,” my dad scoffed at the TV, gripping the neck of his two-dollar beer. For whatever reason he was watching C-SPAN, spitting at a senator with a nondescript face.

“Made you a sandwich,” I patted him on the shoulder.

“Thanks, little loo.” He held onto my hand, closing his eyes before he gave it a squeeze. Then he looked up and I lost him again.

“Feeling tired yet?”

“A bit. Just leave me here.”

“OK. Love you.” I closed the door behind me. Do better, I told myself as I waited for the 7 to catch the F.

Ground level for me was never the next girl’s. Maybe with the right touch, I could look like her a little. But the fields we grew up playing in were fundamentally different. Hers were green, and sprouted wildflowers. Mine were desert, with no oasis in sight, and by that alone we could never be the same. So when she and her friends came into the restaurant, taking aerial photos of their dinners, I lost it. Cartoon dynamite, simmering into maniacal combustion at the end of its fuse. I bribed my coworkers with cigarettes to wait on them instead, even if they were seated in my section. 

“I see the girls are getting to you again,” my manager said on my first shift back. 

I stood next to the kitchen, crossing my arms and scanning the floor. “I don’t let it get to me.”

“Ha. Sure.”

“Thanks for the time off. I know it was last minute.”

“Anytime,” she said. “You always come back.”

I laughed, dryly, but with no hostility. “You’re a real one.” Then I turned to face her. “Oh, I also need to take a few days off next month. On the 6th.” 

“Why?”

“I’m hosting friends.” 

My alternative investment friends, visiting Hudson Yards for three days this summer.

—

As it turns out, I severely underestimated how people making money diverge from people saving lives. I chose harder and bigger - but on the other side of the spectrum, I figured - looser and drunker. My bartender friend insisted I star and save his number to my favorite contacts. 

“It’s suicide,” he said. “You’ll never get in.”

“Well now I have to.”

“Why are you doing this again?”

I ignored his question and spent most of the day circling the perimeter of the convention center. In the weeks prior, I studied financial jargon, but the dialect proved too formidable to translate, so I determined I would be more passable as a “marketing” rather than an “investment” professional. When the first day came, I hovered by the entrance, glancing at my phone to avoid suspicion. Three burly men in bright neon T-shirts with SECURITY written on them stood nearby. One of them looked at me, and a bright bowl of marbles tipped over and scattered across the floor of my brain. I whipped around and turned my back to him, growing hotter under the porte cochere. 

To make matters worse, I caught several glimpses of the lanyards conference goers were wearing. Full names printed on thick, sleek cardstock, black squares dotted with tiny white mazes. A QR code to verify identity, impossible to reprint or recreate. I knew better than to try my luck twice, but whatever plan I presumed to be airtight was leaking. My self-pity was fleeting, however, when I remembered that I grew up reaping grit by the bushel. As I angrily charged toward 11th, I started a new thread with my bartender friend. 

Need some dust. 

Are you fucking kidding? 

No. 

I can’t. 

My cheeks started to burn. I’ll pay double, I wrote. 

Not happening. 

Just get me the dust, you useless piece of shit. Sweat beaded between the web of my thumb and index finger, and a group of coworkers glanced in my direction. Their judgement was palpable, and when he didn’t write me back, I raised my arm to smash my phone onto the sidewalk. 

__

5:47, at a bar close by. No need to try to blend in at this time. I was wearing a cream milkmaid top with two butterfly barrettes parting my hair. One by one, they filtered in, slightly rumpled from summer’s corrosion, and I scanned the crowd for skinny young blondes, which yielded sizable returns, to my surprise. I sat while two of them, lodged between male colleagues, made their way over to where I was: situated in the room’s gravitational center, the night’s best activity orbiting around me. 

Both blondes ordered aperol spritzes and gold, translucent Coronas for the boys. They pressed their backs against the bar ledge, and I sipped my single malt scotch, waiting. On their third round, one of them wandered over to the door to greet a friend, and the one next to me got another spritz. When it arrived, she took a sip and set it down. This was my gateway. I fingered open a tiny bag in my purse and pinched some powder. While she wasn’t looking, I leaned over to grab a napkin and sprinkled the substance into her drink.

After fifteen minutes, her eyes began to roll in different directions and she screamed wooOooo while describing foreign markets, wiggling one arm into a wave. 

“Are you OK?” one of her colleagues asked. 

She stumbled back and collided into me, spilling her drink on my top.

“Oh my god!” she wailed. “I’m so sorry, oh my god!”

“It’s ok babe,” I said, standing up. I faced the boys. “I’m going to take her to the bathroom.” They nodded in unison, knitting their brows together in concern, but without apprehension.

Under dim lighting, outside of the stalls, she draped her entire body over mine. I hooked my arms underneath her languor and rested my hands on her back, then her traps. 

“You’re ok.” I said, wiping her hair out of her eyes and lifting the lanyard over her head. She looked at me, dazed, as if she were dreaming. 

“You’re so pretty,” she said. “You look like me.” 

Before I could say anything she pressed her mouth on mine, and I could taste the Prosecco on the edges of her lips. Her fingers drifted toward the bottom of my breast and she squeezed it, as if testing the give of a peach. 

“I have a change of clothes back at my place if you want,” she whispered, and the next thing I knew we were in her bed. She yelped when I held her hips to run my tongue along her, her blue eyes rolling to the back of her head, and after she finished, she wilted a little and begged me not to leave. 

“Sorry, I have to.” 

“Stay for ten more minutes?” 

“I can’t,” I said as I shoved her lanyard into my purse. 

“Will you text me?”

“Sure,” I said, slipping on one of her shirts. Dumb bitch, I thought as I left. 

__

The sky was a clear, monolithic sheet of blue the next morning when I walked into the convention center. The attendant scanned my lanyard, and I flinched for a second, but thankfully was greeted by a reaffirming beep. 

“Enjoy the conference,” she smiled, and I floated up the escalator into a mezzanine encased in glass, stretched so high that the light filtering in struggled to find a static place to land. People were standing in clusters, or alone. Filling up plates with grapes and croissants. I sucked my breath in, then melted into the crowd, bifurcating my trajectory into: 

A morning in auditoriums listening to panels, featuring TV-famous investors, a reality star, countless fund managers, some of them legendary, a Hall of Fame inducted baseball player, White House Cabinet members, UAE finance ministers, the mayor, crypto bros, and a former astronaut. We sat in rows of white banquette tables. Some of us pulled out notebooks and laptops. There were no toss offs, and I didn’t take this for granted, soaking up as much information as I could. 

In the afternoon I browsed the exhibitor installations, staffed by pecuniary booth babes. They stood at attention with their arms behind their backs, emitting beggar energy. Perfect for extraction. I barely had to reveal anything about myself, aside from how I worked in real estate investments. 20-something assholes do not exist when they come with the presence and power to buy. After filling my tote bag with chocolate,stationary, pens and a pair of boucle socks, I noticed a crowd pooling around a display, so I wandered over to check it out.

It was the gold. Four solid bars of it, laid out on purple velvet behind a glass case. 

“A million dollars’ worth!” A man reiterated as people stood in line to see for themselves. He unlocked the case, and a boy who looked like a child playing dress-up in his father’s suit picked one up. He staggered under its weight at first, surprised at its heft. Then he grinned at his friend, holding it with both hands near his stomach, an angler showcasing his prize-winning fish. 

I stood off to the side, holding my elbows, though my fingers itched to wrap around it. To stroke it with a tight, agile grip before zipping it into a compartment in my purse. 

“Ridiculous,” someone to my left muttered. He was watching scornfully, hands stuffed into his pockets. 

I didn’t respond.

“All show for blockchain shit.”

“Whatever gets attention,” I heard myself say.

“The highest returns are always in the details. You just have tosniff them out.”

“Like a truffle pig?”

“Exactly,” he laughed. “But as you can see, I’m not fat.”

“Your bank account probably is.” 

He smiled and shook his head. “Give me a couple of years. I’m just a low-level guy.” 

“Don’t have that kind of time.”

He turned to me and scanned my lanyard. “You’re with Marquie?”

“Yeah.” 

”We’ve been looking to partner with you.” 

“We’re fine. Our LPs are committed.”

“I think they could be convinced,” he said. “Come with me tonight to my fund’s reception.”

I glanced at him. “You have a sweetener for us?” 

“250 mil in dry powder,” he smirked. “You might find I’m worth the wait after all.” 

__

The reception took place in a five-star hotel which was vaguely Japanese inspired in decoration, all wooden floors and plush neutral colors, smelling faintly of warm sandalwood. He was standing in front of the private room, checking his phone when I approached. 

“You came,” he lit up. 

I felt electric for a second. “I was curious.”

“Perfect. You won’t regret it.”

Mostly he paraded me in front of his colleagues, then his managing directors. Little talk of shop, although I needed a glass of champagne to sharpen the edges carved out by my research. Somewhere in the middle of the evening, we found ourselves standing at a low boy together, talking about his parents’ upbringing in his country of origin, and how they immigrated.

“My dad was an engineer back home. Then he came here and had to drive cabs.” 

“Why did he choose Manhattan?”

“He wanted to make it.”

“There are cheaper places than here to make it.”

“True,” he sipped his whiskey. “But then we’d be there.” 

“Are they proud of you?”

“They wanted me to be a doctor,” he didn’t skip a beat. “But fuck all that debt.”

I pursed my lips, stifling a laugh. 

“So she can smile,” he noted.

“Fuck off.”

“Might have to, soon.” He said, rattling his glass before putting it down. “Want to get out of here?”

We said goodbye to his colleagues and didn’t exchange a word in the elevator. Outside, I lit a cigarette, lingering next to the hotel’s nameplate, etched in bronze on a thick slab of concrete. The air was damp and we sweated through our suits. He took the cigarette out of my mouth, sucking in a drag. I parted my lips, but he touched them instead.

“You have something,” he examined me closely, using his thumb to graze my mouth’s edge. Then he leaned forward, andinstinctively, I brushed my fingers along the seam of his pants. He instantly hardened and locked his eyes on mine. I matched his exhales as I played with his tip, and he gently pressed his fingers between my thighs. I felt my breath quiver as I let him in.

“Stop,” I breathed.

“What? Are you OK?”

“Yeah.” 

He took a step back, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

“No…it’s...” I patted my hair and adjusted myself. “I just can’t.”

His brow furrowed. Not with anger so much as confusion. “OK. I’ll call you a cab.”

“I’ll take the subway.”

“It’s late,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

When one pulled up, he tapped the passenger seat window to have it lowered and handed the driver a hundred. 

“Thanks,” I said quickly, climbing into the back seat. 

“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

I didn’t look at him. “Maybe.” 

__

The next morning when I presented my lanyard for scanning, I was met with an angry beep. 

“Whoops,” said the attendant, as if it were her fault. “Let’s try that again.” 

Another sharp beep.

“That’s odd,” she squinted. “Not sure why it’s faulty. Go back to registration - they’ll issue you a new one.”

I nodded, but liquid collected in my throat. As I headed back downstairs, fully intending to leave, a security guard began to trail behind me. I recognized him from the first day of the conference and flashed him a smile, but he remained unmoved.

“Know where registration is?” he asked on the escalator. 

”Yes. Of course.”

“I remember you,” he said. “From the first day. You looked lost.”

“It’s my first conference,” I blinked. 

“I’ll walk you.”

“No - that’s OK.” 

“I insist.” We reached the bottom. “Get your ID out.” 

Everyone around me stopped and stared. Or did I imagine it happening that way? My hands shook, and I balled and unballedthem, darting my eyes repeatedly at the door. In a second life, I would reincarnate as a yellow-eyed African black footed cat. Easily mistaken for something domesticated, apex, but with a 60% kill rate. This motherfucker just happened to recognize my distinct fur pattern, the black rings around my neck. I reached into my purse to fish around for what I needed, then clamped onto it with tense conviction. 

Once I entered the belted, split line, I knew it would be over. He stood like a tank, blockading my path toward the exit. My bloodstream heated into an oxygen-rich blue, bubbling into the cavity of my skull.

One long spray of oleoresin capsicum. 

Then I ran, frantic, toward the door. 

__

Amidst all of this, I forgot my father. Or rather, I stopped choosing to see him. Most days he sat reclined in his chair, oblivious to all that kept moving around him.

“How’s your dad?” My manager asked after I returned to my shifts at the restaurant.

“His liver’s giving out.”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

And it had to be, for a while. But in between the disorientation and the bilirubin jaundicing his face, the rest of his organs followed soon after. He lapsed into a coma sometime in December. I spent Christmas Eve in New York Presbyterian.

“His condition is called hepatic encephalopathy,” the doctor said. 

“Is he in pain?” 

“No. He can’t feel much at this point.”

My father’s eyes were open. Completely vacant, staring at the ceiling. Pin pricks for pupils.

“How much longer does he have?”

“A few days, at most.”

I hung my head. 

“I’m very sorry.”

That night, I slept in a chair next to his bed, curling into myself. I dreamt of cornflowers. Vast fields of them, and my father and I were picking bouquets. We lived on a farm. Through a milk lit window in the kitchen, he taught me how to knead sourdough. Flour coated my hands, and I brushed some onto my cheeks. I was seven again.

“Always making a mess,” my father laughed.

I laughed too, and he kissed my head. Later in the night, he tucked me in and read me a bedtime story about a bear. I drifted off under a twinkling web of stars and a thick pie slice of moon. 

When I woke up, my father was still staring into whatever universe he lived in now. It was snowing outside, and the hallways were quiet. Solidarity, I thought. For everyone here. Everyone who was spending Christmas hovering over family about to die. No one needs to be in the spirit of giving when so much is being taken away. 

Somewhere, in another wing of the hospital, a baby was being born. Dozens of babies. I could almost hear a chorus of them wailing as they entered this world. I stood up. 

“I’ll do better.” I said aloud. 

Then I placed my fingers on my dad’s eyelids and gingerly pressed them down, so they closed.

__

My grief manifested in an oblong way. It distorted like rubber, but it wouldn’t dissolve. I laid low for months, only leaving my apartment to purchase groceries and clock in at work. Money was tighter, but the life insurance my father took out provided relief. I knew it wouldn’t last, so after being my manager’s fulcrum for too many years, I quit. 

She took it in stride. “Where are you going?”

“A catering company.” 

“Ah,” she nodded. “Don’t want to work here part time?” 

“Maybe if I’m desperate.” 

She chuckled. “You’re OK, kid.” Then she gave me a hug. “Take care of yourself.” 

I assured her I would, but didn’t hug her back.

In the weeks that followed, I contemplated going back to my original L’escroquerie. Once in a while, I dabbled, but always with circumspection and on a smaller scale. Conferences over a day, otherwise known as one continuous overdrawn seminar, men who were crumbling from the inside and out, posturing over limp cold cuts. But it was my desire - my hunger - to learn that had faded. Over time, so had I.

I tried to text my bartender friend random questions, but he never responded. 

My dad died. I finally wrote. 

I’m so sorry. He wrote back. How are you doing? 

Alright. 

When he didn’t follow up, I asked if we could meet, but was met with silence. Then I gave up. I thought about showing up at his hotel but wasn’t sure what I would do or say. Ghosts are not welcome. Even if they are friendly, they’re no longer alive. So I filed him away into a crevice of my brain I never intended to sanitize, or dust.

__

Then summer arrived. Assured, unannounced. A vise of heat as penance after the rain. Nothing in the world felt more unforgiving, but my paychecks were stable and my bills were paid. 

I had nothing left to deride, nothing left to hold close. All I cared about was my direct deposit twice a month, and the merit that came with hard, clean work. My new company needed staffing in June. Background checks and drug testing were mandatory. This eliminated 90% of the roster, but I was an exception, so they scheduled me in. 

“What’s this for?” I asked my coworker. He was a solid guy around my age, and we found ourselves working together often. 

“Defense contracting,” he said. “A conference. That’s why they’re being such tight asses about it.”

“Yeah. Background checks seem like a lot.”

He rolled his eyes. “Luckily I quit smoking.”

“Why?”

“Shit’s too expensive these days.”

“You’re getting ripped off.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. 

I was stepping into different skin this time. On the other side, but still invisible. I didn’t think I would feel anything, but as I put on my uniform, I flickered. We wore crisp white shirts and bow ties. Military buns. Black trousers for pants. Ballet dancers gliding through open rivulets between haloed tables. Every night there was a different dinner to honor an executive or general or whatever. Regardless of rank, they all walked up to the stage the same way. Proud, chests puffed out like eagles. 

”You got another one of those?” My coworker asked as I squashed a cigarette under my shoe.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Did you get the email about the keynote speaker?” 

“Yeah. He’s vegetarian or some shit.”

“Low carb.” 

“Sounds like a pussy to me.” 

My coworker laughed. “Just make sure he gets his substitutions.” 

We went back inside. I walked to the kitchen and told the chef, and he passed the plate to me. 

We were permitted to stand in the back and listen to the keynote speaker. He was the CEO of a defense firm. I tuned out the entire speech. All I noticed was every so often, he paused to allow the audience to clap, which made my neck flush, and turned a tiny gas knob in the pit of my stomach, igniting a flame. When he sat back down, we quietly infiltrated the floor. He didn’t thank me when I set his plate down. All he said was, “Another Old Fashioned” and I glanced at the butter melting offhis steak as I took his glass.

I located the bartender in the back, turning away from the attendees. Without asking, she set down a shot. 

“Take it,” she said. “You look like you need it.”

The crowd was bustling after the speech, and the vodka seared the back of my throat. Glimmers of what I learned flashed back to a kernel of that seersuckered time. I was reminded of who I was. What I excavated, in knowledge, possessions. Confections. My ability. My access. I’d moved on. I was doing better. On the cusp of being promoted. In a few years, my supervisor told me if I kept it up, I could be a manager. 

“Oh my god!” I heard someone cry.

A crash to the floor. Chaos erupting. The keynote speaker had keeled over onto the paisley carpet, convulsing.

“He’s having a heart attack!” Another man yelled. 

As if time slowed down, molasses. Black strapped, heavy. Full of rich moisture. I turned my body counterclockwise for several seconds. 

Then I screamed too.