Ghostwriter

There is this beautiful girl at church, like a classical painting. She is the kind of girl who can wear no makeup and a flannel shirt and still shine through with wholesome, true undeniable beauty, and when she joined our small group I turned into a bridge troll and was like “great, just great.” I hated her immediately. I don't know why, you're the "evolutionary biologist" you tell me.

But the beautiful girl turned out to also be honest and funny and real and struggling, and then I had to love her.

The other day we were talking, and she said something about how although she hated working in sales, people always said that she’d be “so perfect for it.” And I asked “do they mean that you’re pretty?” And she said “funny you should ask that!”

She told me about how she had been hired by a boss who is notoriously hard to work with, but she didn’t mind the challenge, or that he gave her all his work to do and never gave her credit because she got to learn the job of a person years her senior- experience that would normally be out of reach for her. And she’s smart, so she enjoyed learning.

There’s another woman who works with her, an administrative person,  someone young and trying to figure it out, who had been put in charge of the logistics of a very big conference. And when this other girl successfully did her job, my beautiful friend suggested to her boss that they should do something really special for her. The boss suggested flowers, but my friend said it should be something meaningful, and so she rewrote the words to a pop song in a funny kind tribute to all the work her colleague had done for the conference, and printed out copies so that on the last night, when she came in they could all sing the song to her. The young woman was so touched, and felt so appreciated and the whole thing was a huge success.

The next year, the same conference was once again executed with aplomb, and on the last night, when my beautiful friend walked in for the final dinner, another woman from the sales team handed her a piece of paper. It was another pop song, rewritten to honor the organizer. The same gesture, again. But this time, my friend had been cut out of the plan. And this time, across the top of the songsheet it read “heavy lifting done by [name of the woman on the sales team.] Not only had she reused the idea, she had given herself credit. Blech.

Later that night, awards were handed out to the sales team members for outstanding work, one from each team. My friend had the highest sales numbers, the largest number of clients. The money she had brought in had allowed the three other men on her team to be hired. It had paid her boss’ salary and covered her own. But the sales award was given to one of the new guys. A really nice guy. Likeable. Potential.

I told her that that was a shitty story, and it is. The story of my life and probably a bunch of other womens’ too. But I asked her “why did you think of that when I asked if they said you’re perfect for sales because you’re pretty?”

“Oh,” she said. “When he went up to get his award I looked around and realized that the only reason anyone ever talks to me is because they want to sleep with me.”