He laughs. “I’ve never brought a woman home for Thanksgiving. And you sound jealous.”
“You wish.”
“Yeah,” he says, “I guess I do.”
I don’t know how to reply to that, so I tell him Keeley is waiting. The office feels even emptier after we hang up.
I work for several hours, enjoying a pathetic little Thanksgiving feast of coffee and cereal bars, and head home after dark. I’m climbing into my cold, lonely bed when my mother calls.
She’s on her way home from the bar. Something dies inside me at the exhaustion in her voice.
“Did you have a good day?” she asks, struggling to sound cheerful.
“I’m so stuffed,” I reply. The lie about going to Keeley’s dad’s house has worked out well for me this year. “They made two kinds of turkey. How was the bar?”
“Very festive. Lots of drinkers on Thanksgiving, it seems. And the owner brought in Thanksgiving dinner for all of us, and it was a thousand times better than cooking it myself.”
She’s trying so hard to convince me she’s happy, and I’m doing the same. I wonder what would happen if we just put that effort into making it true.
Ben texts on Sunday morning.
Ben: Coming back early because I miss you. And I haven’t slept since I left. Please tell me you’re not going into the office.
I lean against the door of my apartment, which has just swung shut behind me because I was, indeed, going to the office. I read those words again: Coming back early because I miss you. They make me feel like a balloon is expanding in my lungs—I’m delighted, lighter than air, and terrified at the same time of the moment that balloon will pop.
I can’t help it, though. Today, delight wins out. I unlock my door and kick off my shoes.
Me: I can be persuaded not to go in.
Oh, so casual, when my heart is beating like a drum.
I listen for his knock, and when it finally comes I want to leap over the couch to reach him faster.
I open the door, and he takes me in, wearing next to nothing before him. His eyes go from pleased to feral in a second flat.
“Undress,” I command as the door shuts behind him.
“You first,” he growls, closing the distance between us.
We don’t make it out of the kitchen for the first round. The minute we’re done I pull him to the bedroom and position him exactly how I want him.
“You’re not done,” I warn as he collapses on the pillow beside me twenty minutes later. “So don’t get any ideas about sleep.”
His nose burrows into my neck, then his lips press a sweet kiss to my skin. “What’s up with you today?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, already defensive.
He raises his head to look at me, mouth turned up in a quizzical smile. “You’re…affectionate.”
“Is that a euphemism for horny? Are we suddenly being delicate with each other? Because I’ve got your cum all over my chest, so it’s a little late for delicacy.”
He laughs. “No. I meant affectionate. It’s almost like you missed me.”
My eyes flicker to his and away. “I guess crazier things have happened.”
30
At the next meeting of partners and senior associates, Fields announces that Natalie Brenner and her husband are dissolving both their marriage and multimillion-dollar production company. She is looking for a firm that can handle the divorce and financial proceedings, and FMG is one of several she wants to interview.
My spine straightens, as if electrified. Representing a critically acclaimed actress in her divorce would make my career. I’d need help with the dissolution of the production company, but it’s too much work for one lawyer anyway. My first thought, to be honest, is Ben: he oversaw Drew’s fight with her managers and record company a while ago. He’s got a lot more experience than I do with the business side of things.
Our gaze meets for a half second, and I can see he’s thinking what I am: we’d crush this, together. Fiducia will likely settle once they see how much dirt we have on them—I’d like to share another case with Ben when it’s done.
“I’d be very interested in getting in on that,” I tell Fields.
His gaze cuts to me without turning his head, as if I’m a small child distracting him and the other grown-ups with my noise.
“Craig,” he says, “I’d like you to meet with her.”
It’s a slap in the face. If Fields had yelled at me to shut the fuck up, it couldn’t be more cutting than it is. Everyone looks away, aside from Ben, who turns toward Fields with narrowed eyes.
“With all due respect, Arvin,” Ben says, his mouth a grim line, “Gemma’s got more family law experience than the rest of us combined. It would help to have her in on this too.”
“Gemma was given two shots at a very lucrative job, which has now gone to another firm,” he says. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to assist Craig if necessary.”
There is no chance Natalie Brenner will hire Craig. None. Which means Fields figured she wasn’t going to hire us anyway, and is simply doing this to humiliate me, to let me know I’m not forgiven for what happened with Webber.
What exactly did I do wrong, aside from refusing to sleep my way into a job? Nothing, but that’s all it takes. Men will vilify you for enjoying sex, and they’ll vilify you for using it to get ahead…but they’ll punish you if you don’t enjoy it, if you don't use it to get ahead.
There should be more choices left to me than either slut or prude. And I wonder if I’m going to have to leave this firm entirely to be allowed to choose one.
Ben is angrier about the situation than I am.
“I don’t understand why you stay,” he says the minute he walks into my apartment that night. “This is hardly the first time he’s been an asshole to you.”
“I want to make partner,” I say, dousing my pad Thai in siracha. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Why do you want it so badly?” He looks around us. “You don’t seem to spend much, aside from the shoes.”
“Because of bullshit like today,” I reply, my voice sharp as a new wave of anger rolls over me. “There was nothing you could have done, but there needs to be a woman in the room to keep this stuff from happening in the first place. If there’d been a single female partner at FMG, I’d probably have told her about the first incident with Webber. And I’m tired of having to listen to Fields when he tells me I can’t do pro bono work or tries to whore me out to a client. I want a say, and nothing else can matter until I get it.”
I see a glimmer of doubt in his eyes, as if he suspects there’s more to the story—which there is, of course. I’m relieved he doesn’t persist. “If we’re going to keep doing this,” he says instead, “we should probably go to HR.”
Technically, we are supposed to sign a consensual relationship agreement, indemnifying FMG from any issues that arise because we, as colleagues, are dating.
Technically, the failure to do this is also why I lost my last job.
Except this thing with Ben is temporary. “Is that really necessary?” I ask.