Chapter 4
Pivots
From her desk in the office, hours after the winter sun has set and the windows have turned to dark mirrors all around her, Susan hits send on a tweet that reads, Don’t miss?
?’s record release show tonight at Bowery Ballroom.
The Monas are opening. We’ve got a few tickets left. All your friends will be there.
The copy is decidedly not her best work, but it’ll do the trick.
She’d always thought that by now—the last year of her twenties—she’d be done writing Rider tweets herself, but it seems her career has plateaued. At least now that Ben’s gone, she can post without anyone asking about her sex life, or lack thereof, as the case may be.
The office is mostly empty, besides her and a few other senior-level people. The younger generation seems to have better boundaries. They’re always gone before 6 PM. Susan can’t tell if she’s annoyed by it or jealous of it.
As she scrolls through the replies to her tweet, her phone buzzes. It’s a text from Jonny: “Remind me why I have to perform tonight?”
She writes back: “Because your adoring public demands it. (Me, I’m your adoring public.)”
Jonny had wanted to do the show at Cake Shop, with a smaller, more intimate crowd, maybe even invite-only, but like many independent music venues it recently closed.
Only the big or midsize spots are still able to pay the always-rising rent, which means two things: One, the city has lost some of its DIY appeal—and two, Jonny’s show is going to be larger than he’s comfortable with.
She chalks Jonny’s misgivings up to nerves.
The album is his most ambitious project to date.
She’ll always have a soft spot for his early stuff, but Susan thinks, technically speaking, this one is his best yet.
The music sounds fuller, more grown-up, cinematic.
Some songs feature a string quartet, and others have a horn section.
The lyrics feel more personal, too, more explicit. His feelings aren’t couched in metaphor anymore. He’s baring it all, like he wrote it in his own blood.
He said he liked my face and so I gave him too much power.
Now his touch is growing sour. The minutes feel like hours.
But if this thing never flowers, who will devour me?
The first time she listened to it, lying on her bedroom floor with her legs up on the wall like a teenager, she wept, overwhelmed by its richly textured beauty and Jonny’s bottomless well of creative genius.
It sounds like all her hopes and regrets in harmony at once, like a combination of Eliza wanting her and Eliza leaving her.
Though most songs remind her of Eliza these days.
There’s no escape from her memory; she still lingers around the corner of Susan’s every thought.
Susan has been looking forward to tonight for some time. She always loves watching Jonny play, because it makes everything else sort of just fade into the background. At the very least, it makes her feel like she’s seventeen again, dancing at the Masonic temple.
Susan hears the sound of sneakers squeaking on the floor as Tamara, Ben’s replacement, approaches her desk.
“Have fun tonight,” Tamara says.
“You’re not coming?”
“Some of us have kids, Susan.” Tamara flashes an impatient smile. “Tell Jonny we love him.”
“I will,” Susan says, ignoring the microaggression aimed at her childlessness. “I think it’s going to be amazing.”
Tamara nods in brusque agreement. “Always is.”
“Ten Women on What It’s Really Like to Work for Ben Kaplan, Dark Lord of the Music Scene” came out a month after Susan sent Heather her recording. Susan’s headshot was collaged alongside women she sort of recognized. She was the only current employee.
“Viva la revolución, babe,” Heather texted afterward. “Remember that no matter what happens, you have a job with me.”
Jonny texted her next. “SHERO!!!!”
Soon, dozens of other women came forward with similar stories about Ben.
A media frenzy followed. On Twitter, he was accused of harassment, groping, stalking.
There was an op-ed in The New York Times by a prominent female musician about a time he hired her to play a private party and then tried to pressure her into coming home with him, withholding her fee when she wouldn’t.
Ben stopped showing up shortly after the article came out.
The staff was anxious about what it meant for the future of the company, but more than that, they were vindicated.
The women couldn’t stop talking to each other about everything they’d endured.
The men were supportive, but Susan also suspected they were afraid of being implicated next.
For once, people were being careful about the things they said at work, especially to her.
They continued working, but not very hard. Susan told her department to stop posting on social; it felt tacky to promote articles when everyone knew the controversy they were embroiled in.
Linda quit, left without saying goodbye to anyone. That was a relief, too. She was a traitor. Susan never wanted to see her again.
After what seemed like a lifetime, but was really only ten days, the senior staff got an email from the director of the board, a man Susan had never met. She read it at her desk, her hands over her mouth.
“We’ve voted to remove Ben Kaplan as CEO, effective immediately,” it read.
“Ben has also decided to sell his majority share of the company, which means we’ll be looking for new ownership.
Please communicate this to your teams. We have a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment of any kind and will be providing harassment training in the coming weeks. ”
As she read the email, Susan thought that Ben’s punishment was more like early retirement: He got to cash out. Some people just fail up.
Soon, a private equity firm bought Ben’s stake, and shortly thereafter, Tamara was poached from iHeartRadio, an infinitely more established, more corporate environment.
Susan couldn’t imagine why she’d leave it for a place like Rider.
There were rumors, of course, about the size of the salary Tamara was lured over with, though Susan had a hard time believing anyone could make that kind of money in media.
On her first day, Tamara walked around the office introducing herself to the staff wearing a hot pink pantsuit and Nikes, her hair cut into a chic brown pixie, exuding a kind of queer masculine confidence.
She looked like a basketball coach, though Susan could also tell—how, she wouldn’t be able to say—that Tamara was totally straight.
The entire floor was silent as she moved from desk to desk.
When she got to Susan, she took one look at her and said, “Susan Goldstein. The original assistant, right?”
In a weird way, by going public about Ben, Susan had given herself the kind of job security she’d never had before: She knew she couldn’t be fired.
The optics would be terrible. But it would also be hard for her to find another job if she wanted to leave.
She was glad Heather would hire her if she needed, but she also hated the thought of leaving the music industry.
She was committed to sticking it out as long as she could, for better or worse.
Tamara continued, “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m excited to hear what you think about the future.”
It was a big deal that Tamara performed being nice to Susan in front of everyone, even though it stung that she mentioned Susan’s role as an assistant instead of her actual job managing the company’s social media.
“Oh,” Susan had said, trying her best to seem professional and calm, like she didn’t think this was a test. “Thank you. I’d love to tell you.”
Tamara gave a satisfied nod and then, knowing the whole editorial floor was listening, gestured to the space around her and said, “But first we need to do something about this office. We’re hemorrhaging money on rent.”
A lot of things changed that day. Later that same afternoon, Drew pulled Susan aside and said, “Hey, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for Austin. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you or anything.”
He looked sweaty and paler than usual. He was having trouble meeting her eyes. She let him squirm for a moment before she said, “I’m over it. Really. It’s not even a blip on the radar compared to the shit Ben put me through.”
She meant it. After all, though he’d sent the text, she was the one who had kissed him.
She’d been drunk, but not too drunk to give it some real thought, to walk across the bar and try it, even if she’d ultimately decided that she didn’t want to kiss him again. There are shades of gray, she thought.
Drew looked so relieved, Susan wondered if he might cry. “Thank you,” he said.
“It was more annoying that you wouldn’t tell me your salary,” she said.
“One ten,” he said, looking at his big feet.
“I fucking knew it.”
Susan had fought to get $80,000.
“I’m sorry,” he nearly whispered.
She considered telling him it wasn’t his fault, but she didn’t. She didn’t have the energy left to make him feel better.
A few months later, everyone packed up their desks for the moving company that would transfer their things to a new space in the Financial District.
Tamara had allowed a real estate developer to buy them out of the lease.
The warehouse where Rider was born was going to be turned into waterfront condos.
In the new space, Tamara is the only one with her own office. Everyone else sits in the middle of a huge open floor plan. There are no magazine shelves or posters or merch. It’s soulless. A content farm.
Even the building their new office occupies is huge and sterile, and the security guard never seems to remember who anyone is. There’s nowhere good to get lunch or coffee or even happy hour drinks, just cheesy finance bro bars and bad delis.
Susan’s commute has become long and annoying. She hates getting on the subway to and from City Hall with people in suits. Still, it’s better than when Ben was her boss. Even when she’s frustrated with the changes, she’s grateful he’s gone.