Even beyond the Miami invitation, and the steady staffing on their deals, this was the moment when I felt completely accepted into their group. Already a little buzzed, I threw my arms around Jordan’s neck, completely unconcerned with the propriety of the gesture.
He patted me on the back. “Easy, Skip. Let’s go get me drunk.”
“Drunkest,” I said with a wink.
The morning light filtered into the bedroom, even though I’d asked Sam to install blackout shades months ago, rousing me painfully from sleep. I winced before I even opened my eyes and then popped them open.
Sam stirred slightly next to me, but I lay perfectly still, my eyes glued to the ceiling, for a few moments before starting my day, a trick I had learned to help combat a hangover.
“What’s going on in there?” Sam asked as I felt him watching me.
“Just thinking,” I said.
“About what?”
My hangover. My colleague’s adulterous relationship. How I’m pathetically obsessed with a man I cheated on you with, who clearly has forgotten I’m alive. “That my head hurts,” I said, and laughed.
“Well, maybe you should drink less.” He turned away from me and pulled up the covers. He’d seemed annoyed after our time together over Christmas had come to an end, but it wasn’t realistic that I could continue working from home, cooking dinner every night, and sleeping with him more than usual to try to deflect my guilt.
“It has nothing to do with how much I drink,” I snapped. “It has to do with the fact that I don’t sleep because the ONE thing I have asked you to do around our apartment has not been done!”
He turned back to me. “What are you talking about?”
“I asked you to install blackout shades months ago!” How could he not find the time to do that? What did he even do all day?
“You mentioned once, at brunch, that we should research brands of blackout shades. That was you asking me to order them and hire somebody to install them?” Sam sat up in bed. “Maybe if you stopped waking up so hungover, you could sleep through the slightest bit of sunlight creeping through.”
He threw off the covers, slid out of bed, and stalked into the bathroom.
“I don’t have a headache because I’m hungover!” As I stared up at the ceiling, though, I knew he was right. I shut my eyes, trying to escape the feeling that I was spinning out of control.
Part V
Breakup
The termination of a deal without closing; typically, a fee is paid by the party failing to follow through with agreed-upon closing terms.
Q.You stated earlier that the nonsexual relationships you described with colleagues evolved from your initial friendly encounters. How, when, and why did these relationships change?
A.Should I focus on my relationship with Gary Kaplan?
Q.No, we’d like to hear a fuller account of the weeks before you matched with a practice group.
Chapter 18
I sat cross-legged on the plush beige textured carpet in my room at the Beverly Hills Hotel, refolding the clothes from my suitcase and putting them in drawers. Carmen lay belly-down on my bed, her elbows pressing into the luxurious mattress as she typed on her phone. Her nails were painted a vibrant pink, and her hair was glossy and full.
“You are looking extra good these days at work, miss,” I told her. She stopped typing and looked over at me, her head cocked to the side, looking slightly confused. “Thank you.”
I took a beat before continuing.
“Are you like . . . seeing somebody at work? Just wondering what’s inspiring you to look so hot lately.”
She blinked twice, gave me a small smile, and looked away. “Nope,” she said, then looked down at her screen and then back at me. “Leave me alone!” she said, laughing, before averting her eyes yet again.
“Shaaaaady,” I sang.
Carmen moved her phone closer to her face. “Derrick missed his flight. He only landed an hour ago.” I glanced at the agenda to see that we had three hours before our welcome meeting. He wouldn’t miss anything. “He’s really out of control these days.”
“Really? How do you know?”
She ignored me. Derrick had been looking increasingly worn since starting work, though it was no surprise, given that he’d assumed the role of client entertainer and seemed to be out with clients at least four nights a week. Jordan had told me a rumor that he was on track to have the largest client development spend at the firm that year, which was absolutely unheard of and totally inappropriate at our level.
“How do you know about Derrick?” I pressed.
“Information just comes to me,” she said. “Like with Derrick’s ex in Bergdorf’s. Like, what are the chances that we met that guy?”
“You didn’t tell anybody about that, right? About Derrick being gay?” I prodded, hoping that word of the private life he kept very close to the vest hadn’t slipped out and somehow caused him to unravel.
“No way. Information is power, but only if not everybody has it,” she said dismissively, eyes still on her phone. I stared at the creature before me, alarmed by her Machiavellian comment, but opted to appreciate her rare display of transparency rather than analyze what it said about her. She finally looked up. “Kevin was just on his way to the pool and saw Derrick checking in. He was upgrading to the presidential suite.”
I knew this was completely out of line for him to do, but I couldn’t help but be curious. “I want to see the suite! Should I text Derrick to see if we can stop by?”
“Kevin just said they’re all at the pool. Let’s go!”
“You go,” I insisted, turning to my closet. “I didn’t bring a suit.”
Vivienne’s words echoed in my head: Don’t wear a bikini.
“You can borrow one of mine,” Carmen offered.
“Nah, thanks though. But I’ll get a drink and put my feet in.”
As we approached the crowded pool, it was obvious who the Klasko first-years were. It was almost comforting to see that first-years from all the offices around the world looked similarly stressed-out and sleep-deprived, in stark contrast to the tanned and beautiful tourists in the pool. Kevin introduced us to three male associates from LA, who stood in the pool with their elbows resting on the ledge, typing furiously into their phones, two women from Hamburg, and another from our Tokyo office. Ten or so others smiled at us with no introduction.
I took a seat on a lounge chair while Carmen pulled off her gauzy cover-up. Everybody stared at her. The LA boys stopped typing. Her breasts spilled out to the sides of her tiny black bikini top before she submerged them underwater, at which point the guys turned back to their phones.
Derrick made his way over to me. “You’re begging to get tossed in,” he said, eyeing my shorts and T-shirt.
“You wouldn’t dare.” I narrowed my eyes at him. Though he was smiling, there was something different about him, a darkness in his mood. I held my hand up to the glare of the sun to see him more clearly, but he turned to a waitress, ordered another drink, and dove into the water.
“This firm was founded in 1918 on the principles that unparalleled excellence and creative thought are paramount in the practice of law . . .” At our introductory meeting in the late afternoon, a young black female partner who was head of Klasko’s Diversity Initiative spoke passionately while a photograph of the two dead white male founders was projected onto the screen behind her. I looked around the dark hotel ballroom, which was filled with roughly four hundred first-year associates trying to stay awake. One of the double doors in the back of the room opened. Derrick sauntered in and took the only free seat, which happened to be at my table. He didn’t acknowledge me, his eyes never leaving the screen.