The Debutante's Guide to Wall Street

By Kristen Fanarakis

The Debutante's Guide to Wall Street...

Of all the advice on how make it on Wall Street, a Southern girl would tell you It's
everything Mama told you not to do. Determined to have more than a life perfectly
planned before she ever lived it, Gigi moves to New York City and lands a job at one of
the city's top investment banks. Though like apartments and Louboutins, dreams don't come cheap in the Big Apple. Gigi finds the trading desk is the last place any good
Southern belle should be.

With the tenacity to rival Scarlett O'Hara and the help of a salty Wall Street veteran, she  learns to navigate the Wall Street jungle. But you can't go to the zoo and not expect to see any animals.

Just when she thinks she's figured out how to succeed in a way that would make even Emily Post proud, crisis strikes and she becomes the target of coworker's scheming.
Everything she's worked so hard to create is suddenly gone and Gigi must make a
choice: She can go home and start picking out her china pattern, or she can stick it out
and try to prove that true Southern belles really are bulldozers disguised as powder puffs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristen Fanarakis
• Release date: Mar 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732045804

Kristen Fanarakis

Kristen Fanarakis Former Wall Streeter. Fashion Entrepreneur. Double Tarheel. Not a debutante, but an avid wearer of A-line skirts and pearls.

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Copyright © 2017 by Kristen Fanarakis.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Kristen Fanarakis

Charleston, South Carolina

www.debutantesguidetowallstreet.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Book Layout ©2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others.

Book The Debutante’s Guide to Wall Street/Kristen Fanarakis.—1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-7320458-1-1

DEDICATIONS

For Mama,

who always believes I can do anything.

For Theo Yianni,

who gave me a curiosity about the world and made me brave enough to take it on.

&

For Sina,

who would have been the first person celebrating this with me.

A true Southern belle is a bulldozer – she’s just  disguised as a powder puff.

— Maryln Schwartz

chapter one

Try to do and say those things only which will  be agreeable to others.

— Emily Post

ON THE SCALE OF RESPECTABLE careers for Southern women from good families, Wall Street ranks slightly above one that requires a pole and six-inch stilettos.

There are two types of Southern women: the genteel, always agreeable would-be politician’s wife, and the stubborn no-way-in-hell I’d ever be a politician’s wife. To my Mama and Daddy’s great dismay, I was the latter, with a bad case of wanderlust to boot.

You Gigi Armstrong? Trading floor is this way, a lanky sandy-haired guy in a church-boy starched-white shirt said, without waiting for confirmation that I was the newly hired sales analyst.

I followed my nameless guide down a long sterile hallway and through a set of double doors, to a space large enough to house multiple football fields and engineered to cram in as many people as possible without violating the fire code. The man with a forgettable face led me through the labyrinth of interconnected desks.

Every few feet, I’d catch a whiff of day-old eggs and fermented fruit. It was a scene out of a Hoarders episode. Not what I’d expected from the office of Sloane Friedman, one of Wall Street’s top investment banks.

Bankers apparently weren’t big on the minor elements of good manners, such as a proper introduction or personal space. Everyone in the room could link hands and sing Kumbaya without ever leaving their desks — if they ever put down the phones that seemed surgically attached to their heads. No one paid me any attention, though. Their eyes were glued to their computer screens.

My mystery guide continued talking over his shoulder, but I couldn’t hear a word with everyone shouting, televisions blaring, and phones ringing.  A room full of preschoolers hyped up on Red Bull and gummy bears would be Zen-like in comparison.

Until I accepted this job and moved to New York, I’d done everything expected of me. I went to UNC for college. Anywhere else wasn’t an option in my family. Not that I’d minded. The quintessential college town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, known as the Southern part of heaven. A top university with a bustling student life, picturesque tree-lined streets, and grand collegiate Georgian style buildings. No one minds going to UNC.

After college, I was supposed to marry a proper Southern gentleman, join the Junior League, and start collecting silver julep cups.

But for a girl who’d dreamed of living in New York City for as long as I could remember, I had a different idea. I’d watched every episode of That Girl and Sex and the City. I wanted a chic job at an art gallery or Sotheby’s. I wanted the same life as the women in all the books and magazines I’d read.

The unfortunate problem with chic jobs was that the annual salary would cover two month’s rent — in rural North Dakota. Since Hermès would start mass-producing Birkin bags before Mama and Daddy would support me living in a Yankee city where people urinated on the street in broad-daylight, I needed to find another way.

This entry-level position on a Wall Street trading desk wasn’t my dream job. But it kept me out of a four-hundred square foot studio apartment in a questionable neighborhood with five roommates. I had standards.

My guide finally stopped at a row of desks bookended by two enormous trophies topped with Santa hats and turned to me.

You’ll sit there, he said, pointing toward two empty desks next to a tall bald guy pacing behind his chair and trying very hard to convince the person on the other end of the phone to do something. He looked like the kind of guy you wouldn’t disagree with. Here’s your login information.

He handed me a piece of paper covered with strings of random numbers and letters that looked like a coded message.

Call 4111 if you need help with your computer. Shoot me an email with any questions about logging into the trading systems. Our assistant can get anything else.

Like a clue? Maybe she could help me get a clue. That’d be grand, thank you, sir. But the man disappeared before I could ask the assistant’s name, where I could find her, or which of the two desks was mine.

The guy who had taken my ID picture earlier told me how festive I looked dressed in a white suit. I wasn’t feeling particularly festive at the moment. After spending thirty minutes in the subway where the humidity could suffocate a small animal, my loose blonde curls had wrestled their way out of the low bun that should’ve kept them under control.

My feet were throbbing after barely an hour in my new heels. I couldn’t show up for my first day in a pair of flats, though. New York women didn’t wear flats to work. Perhaps they numbed their feet before they left home. My Mama used to tell me: Never underestimate the power of underestimation because then you’ll always have the upper hand. She and Daddy had underestimated how much I wanted to live in Manhattan, while I’d underestimated how far I could walk in a pair of three-inch, sling-back, camel-colored heels that I’d purchased with my graduation money.

The desk next to the animated bald guy had a sparse, abandoned look, as if the previous owner had left in the middle of the night under suspicious circumstances. The computer screen was dark. I surveyed the papers scattered across the desk for a nameplate or other small hint that I was in the right place. All I saw were coffee-stained reports on Japanese inflation.

I put my pocketbook on the floor next to the chair and sat down.

BOOM. My head snapped right at the sound of cracking plastic from his phone meeting the edge of the desk.

He never wins a fight with his wife, that’s one important thing to remember in this business, the bald guy said, his finger pointed inches from my face. Most of the guys you talk to in this business never win, and then they take that pathetic fact out on you. Hey, I wouldn’t put your purse on the floor unless you want a mouse to make a new home in it.

Oh. Okay. Thank you, sir.

I grabbed my bag and placed it on top of the desk.

I’m Gi—.

It’s annoying. But don’t take it personally.

Ignoring my outstretched hand was also difficult not to take personally, but I smiled instead.

The guy was over six-feet tall with broad shoulders, a sturdy chest, and shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal his massive forearms. He looked like a well-dressed Mr. Clean. His finely woven powder-blue herringbone shirt had a slight sheen, which complimented his sparkling blue eyes. Even without smiling, he had deep dimples that belied his gruff intensity.

Of course. I’m Gi—

Before I could finish again, he turned away from me, grabbed his handset, and stood again. How he knew to pick up the phone was a mystery. The phones never stopped ringing. The boards that seemed to control the phone lit up and flashed constantly. They looked as if they belonged in Las Vegas, not on Wall Street.

I need a price in one hundred dollar-yen, he yelled across the trading floor to another guy who had wavy gel-soaked salt-and-pepper hair and could have moonlit as the attractive extra in mobster movies.

The two traded a few clipped, nonsensical words before my bald neighbor dropped his phone back onto one of the many piles cluttering his desk.

A moment later, I heard Salt-n-Pepper mobster say, JOKER! THAT GUY IS A DICKHEAD! Call that asshat right now. He started to sit, but spun around to yell at someone else. He topped off his lengthy tirade with a string of expletives, slammed his phone, and then kicked the chair into the walkway.

What does it mean when the FX market is sixty bid? Mr. Clean asked me, completely ignoring the profanity-laced temper tantrum in part directed at him.

Come again, sir, I stammered.

I’m never at a loss for words. The Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t come by our house anymore for fear of Mama or me answering the door. We tended to put a damper on the number of souls they could save in an afternoon.

But my head was spinning, and it had nothing to do with all the expletives. I didn’t have a clue what he was asking. I’d read my fair share of business and economic textbooks, but none mentioned anything about bids or anything else I’d heard them say.

Did we make or lose money on the trade? What does sixty bid mean?

Well, I know — I shifted in my seat.

Do you even know your bid from your offer? How in the hell did you get this job? he barked as a doughy older gentleman came up behind him.

Oi, nice one, Joker, he slapped Mr. Clean’s shoulder. You miserable prat.

This other guy was British and had a head full of wispy light-blond hair. His complexion matched the light-pink checked shirt. The purple and orange striped tie drew undue attention to his paunchy midsection, the buttons straining to break free. It was hard to tell if he was trying to look like a bowl of rainbow sherbet or was simply colorblind.

Stop stealing your wife’s shit, man. First, you steal her luggage, and now by the looks of it, you nabbed her shirt, too.

The Mr. Clean guy gave the British guy an amused once-over.

Sod off, mate. Now, you dear girl— the colorful Brit turned to me — are far too lovely to sit next to this arse. Don’t let him lead you astray. He’s completely full of shit.

He walked down the aisle, sat down and propped his feet up on the desk that would have been right next to me, but for a large column covered with collages of doctored pictures. On them, the colorful Brit’s face was superimposed on a buff bodybuilder meant to look like a dating ad, with the caption, SEEKING A CLUE, written in crayon, while other signs used cutout letters similar to the notes psychopaths and serial killers paste on their walls.

I would have to edit what I shared with Mama about this place — heavily. It wasn’t going to translate well to a Southern woman jacked up on Lily Pulitzer and fine manners.

Don’t pay any attention to him. The Joker leaned in and lowered his voice. He’s pissed about being detained at the airport yesterday. I wrapped a few, ahem, personal toys in tin foil and stashed them in his posh man bag when he wasn’t looking. A mischievous smile danced on his lips.

It took me a minute before I understood what he meant by personal. Oh my, I stuttered. The Joker. I could see how that name could work for him.

He was asking for it. Men shouldn’t carry white designer duffle bags, period. And it was a slow news day. I was bored. Now, back to the trade, did we make or lose money?

Um...I was fixin’ to ask you— I tucked a stray curl behind my ear.

Fixin’? What the hell does that mean?

My smile evaporated. My cheeks matched the Brit’s shirt. Note to self, watch my Southernisms.

Without waiting for me to respond, he said, Rule number one, Scarlett. This is New York and looks are deceiving. Rule number two, traders think all clients are assholes. Unless you drop a pile of free money into their laps, they aren’t gonna’ be happy. Hell, that’s the only way anyone is happy here. You better learn how to discern a real problem from a bad mood.

Yes, sir, understood, I lied and scooted to the edge of my chair.

Where did you intern last year? he asked, now banging away on a large, brightly colored keyboard.

Most analysts started preparing for a Wall Street careers in their freshman year of college.  A handful started after they were potty-trained. I just wanted to live in New York, and the job I wanted didn’t pay me enough to do so. But I couldn’t tell him that.

At a museum, but I—

My pearl bracelet did double duty as a set of worry beads.

How in the hell did you end up on a trading floor? Boyfriend in banking? You clearly aren’t from here.

No, sir. I became interested in the markets and decided I wanted to take a different route after—

So, no boyfriend in the city and you’re miles from home. Interesting. He nodded and waved me off. Doesn’t matter where you’re from, anyway. Only where you’re going, Scarlett.  Don’t forget that. And don’t call me, sir. Rule number three, your privacy – it’s over. From now on, everyone will know everything that’s going on in your life. All your fights with your supposed nonexistent boyfriend. How many times a week your mom calls. Everything. You’re not a gross eater, are you?

Pardon? My hair was a tad unruly, and I’d noticed the large black mark on the cuff on my jacket sleeve, but I didn’t look as if I’d been raised in a barn. I mean, no sir. Sorry. No, I’m not.

I figured. Your teeth are too white and your purse matches your shoes. I bet you don’t have a rude bone in that pygmy body. And I told you already, don’t call me, sir.

He was nearly a foot taller than me and probably played college football, but at 5’4" and size four I wasn’t exactly a pygmy.

Over the next few hours, my only relief from the Joker’s barrage of questions came from the verbal volleyball he played with the Salt-n-Pepper mobster and his minions. I wrote down everything he said, even if I didn’t understand. I quickly learned that the Joker provided short windows to ask questions, so I needed to be ready.

Bottom-line, ninety percent of this stuff is hard to teach. How do you convince someone that one plus one equals four? But if you can do that, you can do sales. You’ll figure it all out or you won’t, Scarlett.

I needed to learn the unteachable. Peachy. Maybe living in a hovel in New Jersey might not have been so bad after all.

The Joker finally fell silent, either out of sympathy or exhaustion. I scanned his desk again for a clue as to his real name, but all I saw was a small plaque with four numbers and letters along the edge of the desk. He was 4B10, while I was 4B09. It made me a tad uneasy that I was nothing more than a number at Sloane Friedman, in part because Southern women will monogram anything without a pulse.

You know, I’m probably going to need some extra notebooks. Could you possibly tell me where— I asked in a drawl that’d give most people a toothache, but with the hope of getting a straight answer.

Admin. Brunette. Sits under the Polish flag in the far corner, right-hand side, the Joker snapped, never looking away from his computer.

The trading floor was a giant U-shaped room with a half dozen alcoves off the main area. Telling me the right-hand corner was as useful as having an extra baby toe. I would’ve asked him to clarify, but a football came flying across his desk, and he’d moved on to a spontaneous game of pass, signaling our conversation was over.

So much for the power of Southern charm.

chapter two

No matter what goes wrong, she must cover it as best

she may, and at the same time cover the fact

that she’s covering it.

— Emily Post

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN a quick visit to our admin turned into a twenty-minute excursion. Thank God for the Santa hats on the four-foot tall trophies at the end of my row of desks, which were like a beacon in the serpentine maze guiding me back to the FX group.

I started my day of work in an oven and spent the rest in a pressure cooker, which made my hair double in size. And not in the fluffy pageant girl way.

The hundred pounds that had taken up residence on my shoulders from the moment I sat down at my desk finally started to lift when the Joker disappeared without a word shortly after five. I hadn’t understood ninety-percent of what came out of his mouth all day. But I did know that fresh out-of-undergraduate, twenty-two-year-old analysts shouldn’t be the first to leave. And so I sat and waited for the rest of the FX group to head out for the night.

I emptied my desk drawers, filled with salt, ketchup, napkins and plastic cutlery. Then I tried to make sense of the hodgepodge collection of notes I’d scribbled over the course of the day that said things like: There aren’t always seven days in a week, and cable means pounds.

It’ll be okay, mate, the first day is always a touch overwhelming, a woman with a thick Australian accent had said from across the desk.

I stopped writing, my red-penned words reading like chicken scratch and looked up to see an Asian girl who could’ve have been Lucy Liu’s sister waving to me from behind a wall of computer monitors.

It’s not as bad here as you think. I’m Kylie. Georgina, right?

Yes, but everyone calls me, Gigi. So nice to meet you.

Pleaz-ah. I’m one of the quantitative traders. She looked as if she could have stepped off the pages of Elle, not out of an MIT classroom, which I already knew she must have, to have earned that kind of position. The sales blokes can be a bit scattered when it comes to introducing new people. Not to worry, they’ll get around to it. And you need to toss the red pen. No red pens on the trading floor, she said, waving a finger at me.

Pardon me?

Red pens bring bad luck. Unwritten rule of the trading desk. They fired people on the spot for not knowing that once upon a time. Definitely don’t let the Joker see you with one, Kylie warned and threw a blue pen across the desk to me. Then, as if she could sense my rising anxiety, she added, The learning curve is steep the first few months. Once you get through that you’ll be fine, I promise.

Oh, thank heavens you told me. I certainly don’t  need any bad luck. I had grabbed the pen from the admin on my earlier excursion and quickly tossed it in the trash.

I glanced down at my dingy, once-crisp-white jacket. There was a fine line between bad luck and poor planning. I might have graduated at the top of my class, but I had planned poorly on every front today.

Scaling Mount Everest in a pair of four-and-a-half-inch heels seems like it would be a breeze after this day.

Ha. Yes, it’ll feel that way for a little while. Make no mistake, though. You’re in a good spot next to the Joker. He’s a fair dinkum. That’s prime real estate you’ve got there, so use it wisely, and you’ll be aces, mate.

I smiled and nodded encouragingly, even though I had no idea what a dinkum was. The foreign exchange group could have been the foreign language group given half of what I’d heard today.

She continued, "Play your cards right, and he’ll make