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comfortable committing run-of-the-mill screwups, blowing the chance at bringing in another hundred thousand dollars a year to the family business was not a screwup I or my parents could afford. I tore through random male’s apartment, gathering my clothes and dressing as if it were an Olympic sport. I was already contemplating a professional career when I realized that I couldn’t find my other shoe—the match to the blue sneaker already on my right foot.
    I limped down Mission Street like Ratso Rizzo. As I staggered along, I tried to come up with a plan, one that involved me showing up at the meeting with two shoes and freshly showered. But it’s hard to find new footwear before 9:00 A.M . and I was running out of time. I checked my wallet and found a three-dollar BART ticket. I trod carefully down the piss-stained stairs of the Twenty-fourth and Mission station and began rehearsing my apologies to David.
    I arrived on the twelfth floor of 311 Sutter Street thirty minutes after my initial conversation with my brother and fifteen minutes late for my meeting with Mulberg. I should mention that David, at this point, was an associate at the law firm of Fincher, Grayson, Stillman & Morris. After high school, he attended Berkeley, graduated magna cum laude with a double major in business and English, and then went on to Stanford Law. I believe it was law school that destroyed David’s sympathetic patience. By the time he was recruited by Fincher, Grayson in his second year, David had learned that not all families were like ours and that being perfect was nothing to feel guilty about. In essence, David discovered that I was not his fault and abruptly ceased his habit of compensating for me.
    I entered the Fincher offices through a back entrance to avoid detection. I was hoping David had kept Mulberg in the reception area, so I could have a chance to clean myself up before I was seen. I wove through the mazelike hallway, trying to remember precisely where David’s office was located. He spotted me first and yanked me into a conference room.
    “I can’t believe you go to cafés looking like that,” David said.
    I realized I probably looked worse than I thought and decided to come clean. “I wasn’t in a café.”
    “No kidding. What was his name?”
    “Don’t remember. Where’s Mulberg?”
    “He’s running late.”
    “Late enough for me to go home and take a shower?”
    “No,” David replied, looking down at my feet. He then stated the obvious with sullen disappointment. “You’re wearing only one shoe.”
    “I need a Coke” was my only response. The nausea was kicking in again.
    David was silent.
    “Or a Pepsi,” I offered.
    David grabbed me by the arm and led me down the hallway, through the main corridor, and into the men’s restroom.
    “I can’t go in there,” I protested.
    “Why not?”
    “Because I’m a girl, David.”
    “At the moment, it’s not even clear that you are human,” David smartly replied as he dragged me inside. A suited man was standing at the urinal, overhearing the last bit of our conversation as he finished up.
    David turned to the suited man, who was zipping his fly. “Excuse the interruption, Mark. I need to teach my twenty-three-year-old sister how to wash her face.”
    Mark smiled uncomfortably and exited the bathroom. David placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me squarely toward the mirror.
    “This is not how you show up for a business meeting.”
    Finding the courage to look at my reflection, I saw that my eye makeup had migrated halfway down my face and my hair, stringy and tangled, was bunched up on one side. The buttons on my shirt were askew and it looked like I had slept in it. Because I had. Then there was the problem with my wearing only one shoe.
    “Clean yourself up. I’ll be right back,” David said.
    Rather than request a transfer to the women’s restroom, I stayed put and did as I was told. Once I finished scrubbing the dirt and makeup off my