The Assistants - Couverture souple

Prologue

You’ve probably heard of my former boss. And even if you haven’t heard of him, he has influenced you, I promise. Ever watched the all-day news or seen a big blockbuster summer movie? Him. Do you read the newspaper? What about one of those glossy magazines with magenta cover lines like Dirty Talk Hot Enough to Make His Boxers Combust? Him. Odds are, if you exist in the modern world, Robert owns all or a portion of the media you consume. He hovers around number thirty-five on the Forbes billionaire list. I was his assistant.

All important men have assistants.

That’s the first principle I want you to remember. Do important women also have assistants? Yes, of course. But men rule the world. Still. That’s the second principle I want you to remember. Men still rule the world. Not because this is some feminist manifesto, but because it’s a simple fact essential to how this all started. And that’s what everyone wants to know—the reporters, the bloggers—what they all want to know is how we did it.

How Did Two Little Girls Outsmart the Most Powerful Man in New York? That was the Upworthy headline. I’m thirty years old; Emily’s twenty-eight. My five feet four inches on tippy-toes brings down the average, but Emily is a solid six foot something in heels. Not so little. What Upworthy meant was “powerless.”

A BuzzFeed story read: Modern-Day Robin Hoods Look More Like Charlie’s Angels. They Photoshopped us into swimsuits and put guns in our hands.

Gothamist dubbed our network the Secretary Sisterhood of Thieves! (Exclamation theirs.)

Rumors, all of it. Internet chatter. No one knows for sure what actually happened.

So, let me make this perfectly clear. It wasn’t stealing, really. And it was almost by accident that we discovered just how much money there was out there for the taking.

That’s the third principle I want you to remember. There is enough money.

There is so much money.
 
Chapter 1

Here’s how this whole mess started: Robert had to be in LA for a big meeting with his West Coast Titan Corporation execs and his Boeing’s engine had the gall to malfunction.

“Tina!” he yelled from inside the soundproofed glass cube of his office.

Robert isn’t a yeller by nature, but he had no other choice in order to overcome the soundproofing, forcing his voice to travel through his open office door. I knew it was my name he’d called by the tone. We each had our own tone. If it had been his deputy he’d wanted it would have been a gruff monosyllabic bark; for his senior editor it would have been a throaty holler; his executive producer called for a higher-pitched squawk. My skill at deciphering these subtleties was critical because it was my job to fetch whom-ever he called. When he wanted me, his voice dropped to a quieter bellow that bordered on a plea. It was a more intimate sound because with me Robert’s needs were always personal—he had an upset stomach and required TUMS, he’d forgotten a birthday and needed a last-minute gift, or he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to upload this new software onto his iPad. Robert’s vulnerable call for me was a daily assurance that I was essential to the success of this castle of a man—a man whom half the world considered to be a monster because they could never come within ear-shot of understanding him.

In less than a second I was at his desk, notepad in hand. Behind me a wall of flat-screens flashed the news being broadcast by Titan and its so-called competitors. Robert had the uncanny ability to devote a small portion of his gaze to each screen simultaneously. In all he owned nine satellite television networks, one hundred  seventy-five newspapers, one hundred cable channels, forty book imprints, forty television stations, and one movie studio. His total audience reached around 4.7 billion people, which came out to around three-fourths of the population of the entire globe. But the news was his baby. He was never not watching it, analyzing it, shaping it. That’s why he situated his office at Titan News headquarters, where he could keep close watch not only on his wall of flat-screens but also on his journalists. A man as powerful as Robert could have hidden himself anywhere, pulling at the strings of the world from a lounge chair in the Seychelles, unseen by his employees—but he needed to be here at the center of it all, at the hub.
Our office didn’t look like a newsroom that you’d imagine from movies or TV drama series. The floors below ours were more like that—the broadcast, print media, and digital newsrooms, each of which could have easily passed for something out of The Matrix. And there was an entire floor of flashy studios used for our non-stop news coverage and thrill-a-minute opinion shows. But our office on the fortieth floor was far less exciting, just row after row of desks and cubicles. Still, we were the brain of the whole operation, the source from which all orders trickled down. Titan’s chief editors and all of Robert’s most trusted deputies had desks on our floor so Robert could pull them into impromptus with the business leaders and celebrities he met with—and so he could foster relationships between them and the political-party representatives (yes, from both parties) who came to lobby him. I guess what I’m trying to say is, what the fortieth floor lacked in flash it made up for in influence.

Robert had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was rubbing his dark-haired head with both hands like he always did when he was upset. For a man his age, Robert had a surprisingly full, thick head of hair, which he attributed to a hearty diet of smoked meats and aged bourbon.
“I need to be on the next flight to LA,” he said. “And have them bump the seats around mine.
”Robert made requests like this as if he were ordering a pastrami on rye at the corner deli, or in his case, maybe braised brisket on a roll.

“You’re flying commercial?” I asked.

“Don’t get me started. The Boeing died and they tell me there aren’t any jets available for the rest of the afternoon. Can you believe that shit? Not one. I used to be somebody in this town, you know that?”

In the six years I’d worked for Robert, not once had he ever flown on a commercial airline. I glanced at the clock. In order for him to make the LA meeting on time, he’d have to be on a flight in the next two hours.

“And make sure they comp me,” he said.

“The airline?” What amounted to buying out half of first class on a flight that would be leaving almost immediately, Robert wanted for free. And he expected it to be done as simply as saying “hold the mustard.”

“Okay,” I said.

Robert brought his hands down from his head, placed them flat on his desk, and looked at me amiably with his big brown eyes. “Thank you,” he said.

That’s something people who haven’t met Robert can’t understand—his graciousness. They see a seventy-year-old media tycoon accused of evading every tax and law imaginable to expand his multinational domination. They see a sinister businessman accused of single-handedly making a mockery of news journalism. They see a one-percenter with a “Don’t Mess with Texas” bumper sticker on the back of his Mercedes. But actually, Robert’s a very nice man.

So I called the airline, used my executive voice, and politely explained our crisis situation.
“You do understand this will cause a great disruption to our other first-class passengers,” the phlegmy-voiced woman on the phone said. “But because Mr. Barlow is such a valued customer we’re happy to accommodate him.” She sounded like one of Marge Simpson’s chain-smoking sisters.

“Thank you,” I replied, perfectly mimicking Robert’s amiability.

All sweetness and light, Robert always said. That’s how you have to talk to people, all sweetness and light, but tough as stewed skunk.

She clicked away on her keyboard. “The total fare will come to nineteen thousand, one hundred forty-seven dollars.”

I had the urge to gasp. That was a high enough figure to make flying in a private jet sound fiscally reasonable.

“Ma’am?” I said. “I do understand this is terribly short notice and you’re going to great lengths to accommodate Mr. Barlow’s sizable request, but I was wondering if it would be possible for this fare to be complimentary.”

Silence.

“Hello?”

More silence. Then laughter, then the clearing of mucus, then finally—“You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

“Excuse me?”

“Who does this guy think he is?”

“Ma’am,” I said again, which always made me feel slightly Southern in spite of my New York roots, and also a little bit like an asshole, “did you just curse at me? I’d like to speak to your man-ager immediately.”

“There is no way we’re comping Robert Barlow,” she said.

I glanced at the time and then at Robert’s desk. He’d already left for the airport, unable to even fathom that his request would be denied. Jesus, no wonder he never flew commercial if this was the treatment he got. Asking to fly for free or not, where were these people’s manners?
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll pay the fare. But as soon as I hang up this phone I’m filing a complaint with your customer service department.”

“Credit card number, please.”

I recited Robert’s corporate Amex number from memory as obnoxiously as possible.

Two seconds later the woman replied, “I’m sorry,” like she wasn’t sorry at all. “That card’s expired.”

“Impossible.”

I could hear her grinning through the receiver. “That card is expired.”

Shit. Fine. How could I be losing this battle of wills so terribly? I fished through my bag, found my wallet, pulled out my own credit card, and read off the number.

Titan didn’t allow assistants to have corporate cards, so it was my personal card that I had to use.
“One moment, please,” she said.

I listened to her breathing, which sounded like Darth Vader performing an anti-tobacco PSA, and then she came back with: “I’m sorry. That card’s also been rejected. You’ve exceeded your credit limit.”

I pretty much set myself up for that one. None of my credit cards had a limit over eleven thousand dollars. “Can I split it be-tween two cards?” I flipped through my wallet.

“No,” she said.

“No?”

“No.”

“I would seriously like to speak to your manager immediately,” I said. “I’m not even kidding now.”

“Okay, fine. You can use two cards.” My nemesis was growing bored of sucking the life out of my day; I was obviously harshing her mellow disengagement. “But this isn’t customary. I’m doing you a favor.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, because at heart I’m a total weakling.
I read off the number to my second credit card, got “one  moment”–ed again, but—at last—tragedy was averted.

I hung up the phone and took a deep breath.

Of course I filed an expense report the moment I received an e-mail confirmation for the fare. Twenty thousand dollars was half of my yearly salary.

People often assumed I made more as the assistant to one of the richest, most powerful men on the planet, and I let them. It was less humiliating that way. Maybe there was a time when “executive assistants,” also known as “secretaries,” were “taken care of,” but those days are long gone, at least in the media industry. They went out with lunches at the Four Seasons, smoking indoors, and the existence of the middle class. Every assistant I knew made under fifty K a year. But the new hires made only thirty-five K, so it wasn’t really my place to complain.

You know how sometimes when you call to order something over the phone, like plane tickets, let’s say, a recording might come on just before a real person answers that says, This call may be re-corded for quality assurance purposes?

Well, my call with the hater from the airline was one of those lucky calls. I’d never filed a complaint the way I threatened to; I’m way too lazy for that sort of thing. But a few days after the incident, I received a call from the airline’s head of customer relations apologizing for the “confusion” of the attendant on the phone. She’d been “let go,” I was told, also known as fired. The airline retroactively comped Robert’s flight and they were sending a gift for his troubles.
“Would Mr. Barlow enjoy a bottle of good red wine?” the groveling woman asked.

“Why, yes. Yes, he would.”

Things like this happened to Robert all the time. Before I worked for Titan, I never realized that very rich people didn’t pay for stuff.

(Let’s call that rule number four: Very rich people don’t pay for stuff.)

I was so naïve. This sucking-up from the airline would have at one time struck me as shocking and unbelievably unfair, nonsensical even. Why wouldn’t a billionaire have to pay for something a poor person would absolutely have to pay for? But I’d grown used to it in the past six soul-crushing years, so it no longer fazed me. I immediately filed the whole incident under forgotten, went home, watched some Netflix, and fell asleep ignoring the unpaid bills piling up on my kitchen table, per usual.

A few days later I was g-chatting with Handsome Kevin Hanson from legal (that’s what every female in the office called him, or just Kevin Handsome for short) while shoveling spoonfuls of Pinkberry into my mouth. I was enjoying an intense brain freeze coupled with the rush I always experienced while chatting with Kevin, when Billy the mail guy (aka “Patchouli,” on account of his stinking to high hell of the stuff and dutifully passing it on to all of our parcels) dropped a white, hippie-infused envelope onto my desk that read: Travel & Entertainment Reimbursement.
Suddenly I remembered.

I signed off g-chat, made sure Patchouli Billy was at a safe distance, and then sliced open the envelope with my silver letter opener. And there it was. A crisp green check in the amount of $19,147 with my name on it.

Of course. My credit cards were billed. My credit cards were unbilled. But T & E had already filed the claim. I’d already been approved for the reimbursement.

I couldn’t stop looking at that beautiful, blossoming number. Nineteen thousand, one hundred forty-seven dollars. It was so much money to me. It was nearly, to the dollar, the exact amount of my student loan balance, and I’d been struggling to pay that down for almost a decade. (Thanks for nothing, NYU.)I folded the check in half, then in half again, and shoved it deep into the black-hole darkness of my bag.

Later, I would recognize this as the moment that I faltered, my pivotal turn. But at the time it seemed innocent enough. I would just, you know, bring the check home and then tear it to shreds.

Sure, I could have torn it up right then and been done with it, but I wanted to look at it some more first. To sit with it in my moldy one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment, with its leaky roof and rats in the walls. I needed to take the check home to bed with me, for just one night, before discarding it.

So I did.

One night then turned into a week that I slept with that gorgeous green-patt...

“Anyone who’s ever struggled to pay down a student loan and make the rent on that rat-infested apartment will savor this wry, keenly observed debut.”—People 

“Five pages into reading The Assistants, you know Perri has a hit on her hands...Nine to Five meets Thelma and Louise—except nobody dies at the end, rape is student debt and nearly every woman we meet is a survivor.”—The New York Times Book Review

“This read is Ocean’s Eleven meets The Devil Wears Prada, and it’ll go fast.”—The Skimm

“Wickedly funny.”—Vanity Fair

“Reminders of the 1990s movie Office Space are present, with a millennial, feminist reboot...a fun, modern twist on a Robin Hood story.”—Library Journal

“Perri’s debut is reminiscent of the golden era of early-aughts chick-lit...The characters’ millennial concerns—overwhelming student-loan debt, underemployment, loneliness in a world of hyperconnectivity—ring true, making this a winner for readers who long for the return of light, clever novels with young, professional women at their center.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Attention readers fed up with their jobs: call in sick tomorrow and dive into this[crackling] debut...Perri's writing is quippy and the pace breezy...enjoy the sweetness of plotting revenge over cocktails (expensed, of course). You'll feel better after reading, promise.”—Kirkus Reviews

“If the characters of HBO’s Girls were capable of larceny and blackmail, they could be the main characters of Perri’s sharp first novel...Perri has a gift for the glib one-liner, and reserved Tina and glamorous Emily make for a great pairing, resulting in a smart and fresh novel.”—Publishers Weekly

“Anyone who has ever been an assistant will appreciate Camille Perri’s funny, honest, 100% relatable (and did I say funny?) debut novel about a band of exploited, entry-level strivers who even the score with their billionaire boss in the most ingenious way. After a long day at work, this is the book you’ll want to pick up—and, after reading it, you’ll never look at an expense report (or your colleagues) in the same way again.”—Elisabeth Egan, author of A Window Opens
 
“With an incredible sense of humor and an eye for detail, Perri perfectly captures what it's like to assist a high-powered boss. The Assistants is addictive, hilarious, and smart. It's 9 to 5 for the student loan generation.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Engagements and Maine

"Camille Perri’s The Assistants is a hilarious romp through the world of corporate greed and the people who assist them. It’s also a great story of criminal redemption. It was a blast from start to finish.”—Lisa Lutz, author of How to Start a Fire and The Spellman Files
  
“The Assistants is wry, thoughtful, and funny as hell. I read through the night with a huge smile on my face as lovable Tina Fontana and her raucous band of disenfranchised assistants wreak some Robin Hood-style havoc on their corporate overlords. I had no idea income inequality and grand larceny could be this much fun! I'm so glad Camille Perri did.”—Eliza Kennedy, author of I Take You

“This delicious page-turner is a rallying cry for everyone squandering their 20s in thankless servitude to those who will never share the wealth—unless someone cleverly forces their hand.”—Nicola Kraus, co-author of The Nanny Diaries and How To Be A Grown-Up
 
“Full of not-so-harmless fun and intriguing characters, The Assistants is a rallying cry for the leagues of overeducated and underpaid women who wonder, perhaps daily, why they’re still assistants.”—Domino.com

“This isn’t exactly the stuff fluffy romances are made of—it owes more to Robin Hood, or maybe Bonnie and Clyde, if Bonnie left Clyde in the car and distributed her spoils among her friends...The Assistants is an economic fable, a story of class warfare dressed up as chick lit...Powerful people of the world, take notice: The assistants will have their revenge.”—BookPage

“[A] raucous debut novel...It's great fun, and Perri freewheels enough millennial savvy, parenthetical asides and clever repartee to give Girls a run for its money...Just sit back and let a smart, funny writer entertain.”—Shelf Awareness

“Assistant Tina Fontana and her cubicle coconspirators hatch a scheme to hijack their boss's expense account to pay off their student-loan debts...but soon their plot takes on a life of its own.”—Cosmopolitan
 
“Fact informs fiction in The Assistants, a fantasy-fulfillment novel for all the underpaid workers who make important people's worlds go round, by former Esquire assistant Camille Perri.”—Elle

“An insanely fun ride that is as hilarious as it is smart.”—Popsugar
 
“So well-written, so clever, so smart, and just so much fun...[the plot is] so delicious, and there's something really modern about [it].”—Reading With Robin
 
“A pretty unflinching but also damn fun (Funflinching? No.) look at wealth and power in the twenty-first century.”—BookRiot
 
"With a sharp and funny voice, Camille Perri has written a Robin Hood tale for the assistant set and drilled deep into one particular stream of income inequality that resonates with, I'd wager, just about everybody who graduated from college in the last ten-fifteen years."—Raging Biblioholism
 
“Romantic comedy might be on life support at the movies, but the genre is alive and well in Camille Perri’s debut novel...Although The Assistants is basically a terrific piece of entertainment, the book explores a real national crisis situation.”—The Connecticut Post

"[A] fun, smart Robin Hood tale for the millennial generation.”—Real Simple
 
“With this debut novel, Perri gives the world the call to arms for an entire generation strapped down by debt, to the underpaid and under-appreciated. Hilarious and stylish, this sly and subversive debut should be read by those about to go into the real world, and those of us stuck in the mire of it already.”—Vol.1 Brooklyn
 
“The Assistants is as witty as it is fun, and is the perfect almost-summer read.”—Signature Reads
 
“If you've ever been an assistant, this book will give you a thrilling wave of vindication. With unexpected friendship, a romantic twist, and a unique perspective on the financial divide, this novel is a supremely fun romp through the corporate world.”—Bustle
 
“Charming and clever, Perri's debut novel is the perfect escape from your own work woes."—Bestbookgrams
 
“A great vacation read."—Mad Book Love

“The Assistants isn’t only about a corporate embezzlement job that quickly gets out of hand, it’s also a story about some people taking privilege for granted while others face the skyrocketing price of a college education. Although Tina’s actions aren’t justified, the book does provide a way to open a dialogue about women who are overeducated, underpaid and still in the role of an assistant.”—Associated Press

“[A] sly debut.”—Newsday

“A frothy debut.”—O, The Oprah Magazine

“This is pure fun...Camille Perri uses a bright, savvy style...to deliver a serious message about income inequality and student debt.”—Raleigh News & Observer

“This delightfully wry debut from former Esquire and Cosmo books editor Camille Perri is equal parts satire and modern-day Robin Hood tale. And if you’ve ever worked too hard for too little while the people above you are rolling in bank...well this is a book you’re going to adore.”—Refinery 29
 
“The Assistants is outstanding.  It’s often hilarious, always engaging, a page-turner and more fun than any job...a great read for anyone who likes a funny, smart, enjoyably tense novel.”—Narrative Species
 
“This is a fast, fun read, sure to appeal to any woman who feels stuck in a job that doesn’t utilize her education, skills and ambition.”—Book Bitch

“This is the book you’ll see peeking out of every beach bag. In the vein of The Devil Wears Prada, it’s populated with overworked, underpaid assistants in the New York media world.”—The Tennessean

“[A] smart and snappy satire, which blends a timely theme with strong character work. If you loved The Devil Wears Prada or last year’s Dietland, don’t miss this one”—Bookpage

“The Assistants is fun, fast-paced, and full of heart.”—Vulture
 
“Fun. Easy. Great beach read, or an ‘I’m too tired to think’ read, or a ‘how am I ever going to pay off these student loans’ imaginative fun.”—Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow

The Assistants is the story of an underdog...It highlights the shades of gray that can be encountered in life and proposes that the concepts of “good” and “bad” are not necessarily written in stone.”—The Oklahoman
 
“Camille Perri has written a novel of sweet revenge that goes out to every woman who's worked for incompetent men for too little and too long.”—Thrillist

“This quick-paced look at excess, wealth, morality and revenge is very much a true New York story.”—AM New York

*POPSUGAR’S Best 2016 Books for Women
*One of Roxane Gay’s 2016 “Fun Books That Were Fun”
*Vulture's 20 Fun Novels to Read at the Beach
*Refinery29's Best Books of 2016 So Far
*Glamour's Best Reads of Summer 2016
*Vogue.com's 24 Summer Reads to Pack for your Next Beach Trip
*One of Huffington Post's 21 Recommendations For Anyone Who Wants To Read Books And Chill
*Money.com's 7 Money Books You’ll Actually Want to Read This Summer
*The Knot's Hot New Summer Books for 2016
*Hello Giggles' #1 Beach Read for 2016
*Cosmo.com's 15 Perfect Beach Reads for 2016