Ten Girls to Watch Read Online Free PDF

though, I saw fireflies, more and more of them every second, rising out of the grass with perfect blinking zips of gold.
    Just a few minutes later, I said my good-byes. Robert offered to drive me to the train. I said no. He didn’t insist. The walk to the train station was just under a mile, but with Regina’s card tucked in my wallet, it felt like just a few blocks.
    When I called her office Monday morning, she offered me Ten Girls to Watch.
    _________
    And like I said, I danced and power-pumped my fists the second I hung up. I wanted to sing. I did sing! But after the initial bright white surge of delight dimmed slightly, I saw a few other colors.
    A job you find online and apply for and get through your own shining résumé—no one can say anything about that except congratulations, you deserve it. A job you get because you met someone at a party in the Hamptons—it has the taint of privilege, as if Regina hadn’t chosen me because I’d wowed her but because I’d been vouched for by the right people. I knew “that was how the world worked,” and after a year of searching, it wasn’t like I was going to turn down the job. It was just that this was the sort of thing I’d resented most about Robert. When he wanted a summer job on Capitol Hill, his dad called some friends. When I wanted a summer job anywhere other than Oregon, my dad said good luck. Meaning, I was usually the person who got screwed by “that’s how the world works.” Just shrugging and taking advantage of it now made me feel a little like I was pocketing an envelope full of dirty money. Pocketing gratefully, but still.
    And then, of course, there was the fact that Lily had introduced me to Regina, which meant I now owed Lily. Lily, a woman I didn’t exactly wish bodily harm, but whose sudden disappearance from the world I would not mourn. I’d have to thank both Robert and Lily. Should I send one e-mail or e-mail them separately? Together felt like it solidified their status as a couple. Separately felt like I was attempting to further forge some sort of independent relationship with Lily. Bah, I’d figure it out later.
    I marched out of the house to buy an air conditioner on credit. A much sweeter celebration than any cake.
    That night, I sat on a blanket directly in front of the newly installed window unit and lapped up the cool while earning my day’s wages on LawnTalk.com . Even with the vague promise of a future Charm payday, I still desperately needed my eleven cents a word.
    After a solid chunk answering questions about grubs and crabgrass, I gave myself a little e-mail break. I’d gotten this:
     
Dawn, Regina asked me to e-mail you
please come in tomorrow at 10am with the following
     1) your resume
     2) your passport
     3) a working knowledge of excel
     4) a can-do attitude
XADI Crockett
Senior Editor
Charm magazine
     
    From this e-mail, I determined the following:
     
    1) Regina worked fast.
    2) Xadi was my new boss.
    3) Xadi liked lists.
    4) Xadi didn’t like punctuation.
    5) Xadi imagined that if I didn’t know how to use Excel, I would learn overnight.
    6) XADI expected others to capitalize her name too.
     
    I felt weird about all-caps names, so that was going to be an adjustment, but I was just the can-do girl she was looking for, so all caps it was. But those were the subtleties. What beamed out from the screen was this: I hadn’t made it up. The job was real.

Helen Thomas,
    Harvard University, 1972
    _________
    THE CAMPUS CRUSADER
This straight-A history major is one for the record books herself. As president of Harvard Earth Day, Helen led a march of more than three thousand students in support of the environment. Next up, she worked with a local union to organize university service workers in a successful campaign for higher wages and increased benefits. “When I see problems, I can’t just sit around and do nothing,” Helen says. We can’t wait to see what she’ll tackle