Rivka Tadjer
Elana Diamond's 35th birthday isn't much to celebrate. She's still alone and depressed, so this year the make-a-wish-candles can do you-know-what with themselves. And her arch rival at work, who thanks to her flawless judgment also happens to be her ex-fiancé, is being groomed to fire her.
Fighting to keep her job, she can't afford to pay attention to her non-existent personal life, much less the sudden rash of suicides going on in Manhattan?all professional women, all just like her.
Then someone closely connected to Elana becomes the next suicide. She can no longer ignore the dying women, or anything else. An intense, secretive reporter surfaces, claims to be a friend, but he's a little too knowledgeable, a little too curious. Reluctantly, Elana tries to figure out why the suicide happened, and if this reporter is involved. She finds herself lured into a consuming world of shame and dieting, where going under a medically induced vanity coma to lose weight makes sense.
A kind neurologist tries to help, but when Elana finds out what really happened with the suicide, she's in so deep she might not survive it. Anyone who tries to help her won't either. And no one seems interested in facing the truth. Racing against time, and fighting her own demons, Elana must try to find enough evidence for the truth to be heard, whether or not she makes it.
Rivka Tadjer is a sign-of-the-times writer. She specializes in the sociological implications of the techno-centric era--how our behavior is changing. She has devoted a lot of ink to the issues of privacy, security, and identity.
Tadjer has written for newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times Op Ed page, as well as many business papers, magazines and online outlets, including: The Wall Street Journal Interactive, Business Week, Red Herring, and Working Woman, and CBS MarketWatch. She has been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal Interactive, as well as for several tech magazines. She has written for TV news, including doing on-air appearances for Internet privacy issues, and authored a non-fiction book for Microsoft Press, called Small Business Solutions for Financial Management, to help entrepreneurs compete with large corporations.
After they started trying to dose the New York press corps with Anthrax, Tadjer started writing novels.
Tadjer also does consulting work for select high-tech companies, marketing firms, and non-profit organizations in the arts and education. Projects include: Working toward making the voting system in this country less hackable and able to provide voters with a receipt; and marketing for a natural medicine/nutrition practitioner who specializes in Eastern methods applied to Western principles, and creating sustainable agriculture. She is the Secretary of the Board of Trustees at Woodstock Day School, a progressive, independent private school.
Tadjer's hometown is Washington, D.C. She went to Boston University and then University of Maryland, studying philosophy and journalism, when those two things weren't mutually exclusive. She is a first-generation American who lived in L.A. briefly, Manhattan for most of her adult life, until she scurried to live on high ground in Woodstock, NY.
Pam Connor is dying to lose some weight. Standing in front of her full length mirror, she can see her charcoal grey suit jacket pulling across her chest, her upper back bulging out from the bra strap. Ten pounds isn’t enough. She needs to shed 20 at least. Not eating for two solid weeks is the only way. They say it’s as easy as falling asleep.
It can’t be soon enough. In profile, her arms look sausagy in the tight sleeves. She searches the closet, her head pounding, but there’s nothing else. This is her biggest suit, and there’s no getting away with casual today. She’s finally being allowed to present her product proposal at the executive meeting. She hates presenting on even her best day, but this proposal is a winner, and for once she’s going to get credit. And then, once she’s thin, she’ll get a promotion to go with that credit.
Pam leaves her brownstone apartment, head down, pace fast, so even the corner deli guy won’t smile at her. She just can’t cope with niceties this morning, still mortified from being stood up last night, for what would have been her first date since her fiancé Phil disappeared a year ago. Why she ever risked a humiliating event the night before the most important meeting of her career is beyond her.
Pam lifts her head only when she reaches the Millennian Springs office building, home of premier bottled water and "Your Lifestyle Company for the Next 1,000 Years". It’s nestled in the heart of ADD Central, otherwise known as Times Square. She takes a deep breath and tries to don the smile of a rising-star marketer.
When the elevator opens on her floor, Pam stops short. So preoccupied, she’s forgotten about the dreaded new clear-walled cube awaiting her. The place smells like Scotchguard, and the newly installed technological marvel is a true cube, including a ceiling and a floor, made of soundproofed, highly durable plastic.
Once she steps inside, Pam’s first goal is to see if she can move at all, or if she’s just dead weight now. How is it possible? This thing is actually smaller than her old, low-rent cube. It’s more like a tollbooth. To leave the cube, she has to swivel away from the desk, face the door, hit the door-open button, and kind of hop out. It should be noted this is not a task for heels.
Pam sprays perfume, hoping for some double action that might also dissipate the sense of claustrophobia. Karen, the one person at work she used to chat with over the old cube dividers, waves from her own hermetically sealed desk, and holds her nose in solidarity. They share a smile, but that’s it. Now Pam is all alone.
The mission of the new cubes is to offer sound privacy to sales people who are constantly on the phone, and quiet for their neighbors. They couldn’t make them with solid walls, or it would feel like you’re sitting in an outhouse – so the logic goes.
Pam looks up to see Karen singing in her cube, tapping away at her keyboard. Guilted by her instant acclimation, Pam swivels to assume the position of a safe and productive employee, hands poised, eyes locked and loaded on the computer.
A deaf person once told her that his other senses were heightened by his lack of hearing. A quick calculation tells Pam that means everyone really is watching now. One of Pam’s many shrinks – number four, or maybe it was number five – explained to Pam that constantly feeling watched is a sign of depression. She asked the good doctor what it meant if you’re feeling watched because you are being watched, but she did not receive an answer.
