Big Law (18 page)

I reread the email twice, feeling myself grinning. It wasn’t the sparkly earrings waiting for me that was suddenly making me giddy. More
than anything, I was touched that he’d taken the time and effort. He may have been miles away, but Jason could still give me butterflies.

“I’m guessing that’s not work-related?” Alex inquired.

I shook my head. “Thankfully not.”

“Another bottle?” the waitress asked, pointing down at the champagne that, I noticed with slight shock, was nearly finished.

Alex met my eyes and raised his brows in question.

“Wish I could, but I need to get back to the office before I turn into a pumpkin.” I fished through my purse and handed my credit card to the waitress. “It’s on me.”

Alex protested, but I insisted. “I would’ve been stuck at the office all night if you hadn’t dragged me out. And besides, you deserve a drink. You’ve just broken poor Pammy’s heart.” Smiling, I signed the bill, gathered my BlackBerry and coat, and took one last swig of celebratory champagne.

“You go ahead,” Alex said, gesturing to his BlackBerry. “I texted my friend to meet me here before we head to the party.”

“Okay, enjoy. And Happy New Year!” I stood up to leave.

“Hey, Mac?” Alex said.

I turned around.

“You never answered the question.”

“What do I want out of life?”

He nodded.

“Just what every woman wants. A good foot massage. And world peace, of course.”

“I hope you get both,” he said, and smiled softly. “Happy New Year, Mac.”

Back in my office, watching the clock turn from 11:59 to 12:00, I thought about the little blue box waiting for me at home, Jason in La Jolla, and how much I wished I was with him.

T
HERE WAS NO REPRIEVE
after New Year’s. Ben had been right—the timelines were short and the pressure to sign the deal was intense. I did not leave for work and return home on the same day for the entire month of January. The hours were grueling and with work consuming more and more of my time, mere seconds in the day became precious. Everything I did, I did faster to preserve those valued seconds. I walked faster, talked faster, ate faster. I developed daily routines that depended on a split-second rhythm. I walked to the end of the subway platform to be on the car that stopped closest to the exit. I stood close to the door on the train to be one of the first out when it stopped. When anyone wasted one second of my time with what I perceived as careless inefficiency I felt cheated and annoyed: it meant one less second of sleep that night.

A week into the new year, just when I needed it, I got an unexpected treat. Jason surprised me in my office a day earlier than I thought he was supposed to return. When I walked in and saw him standing there behind my desk, I briefly wondered if I was having a sleep-deprived hallucination. “Jason!” I breathed. “You’re back.”

To my utter shock, without a word, he came around my desk, shut my office door, pulled me into his arms, and kissed me so deeply, so passionately, that I almost tilted right back onto my desk. It was so startling and raw and risky that it was all I could do not to lock my office door and rip his clothes off right there.

“I missed you,” he moaned, in between kisses. His hands were all over me, making a trail down my back, then along my hips and around my backside.

“I missed you too,” I managed, burying my head in his neck. We were both breathing more and more heavily. The air was so charged that the question was not
if
we were going to have sex, but
where
. I’d never needed it so badly in my life.

“Let’s …” Jason murmured, his eyes closed, kissing my ear in that way that sends a tingle all the way from my neck to my toes.

And then …
Bing!

My whole body stiffened as the ping of a new email suddenly filled the room.

Fuck
. And just like that, the surge of passion receded, like a wave washing back out to sea.

“I hate the sound of that chime.” I whimpered, running my fingers through the hair on the back of his head, trying desperately to reclaim the moment. I wanted his lips back where they were, doing what they were doing.

Jason shook his head, seemingly wiping clean the words he’d been about to use to finish his sentence. We were still embracing, but his body language was subdued.

“I’ve been wearing these, thinking about you.” I gestured to my ears, hoping to lighten the mood.

His face suddenly brightened as he gently brushed back my hair. “I have good taste, huh?”

“You sure do.” I wrapped my arms around him. I didn’t want to ask, but I wondered if he’d changed his stance on not accepting family money. Because if he hadn’t, I was probably wearing his entire bonus dangling from my ears, in the only real diamonds I’d ever owned. “They’re beautiful,” I whispered in his ear. “You didn’t need to buy me such an extravagant present, though.”

“I know. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you.” He kissed me on the head. “Oh, I almost forgot. I have something else for you.” There was a broad smile on his face as he passed me an envelope.

“What’s this?”

He shrugged, still smiling. “Open it.”

A gasp escaped my mouth when I pulled the check out of the envelope.

Jason rubbed my shoulders. “I know you said you wanted to wait for your lease to run out in April before we move in together, so I figured I’d buy out your lease.”

“But,” I said slowly. “This is for twenty thousand dollars.”

He shrugged. “I threw some money in for the vacation we’ll take when you land the StarCorp secondment.”

“Jason,” I hesitated. “You can’t just …” I trailed off, unsure how I wanted to finish the sentence. I pressed the check into his hand. “It’s so sweet and I appreciate the gesture, but I can’t take it.”

“Mackenzie!” My intercom blared with Rita’s voice. “They need you in the war room.”

“I’ll be right there,” I croaked, still staring into Jason’s eyes.

There was a heavy silence before Jason spoke. “Think about it. I know you’re busy on this deal, so I won’t bug you about it. Just think about it.” He put the check back into the envelope and dropped it in my inbox before heading out the door.

Sitting at my desk the next morning, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. It was Friday morning, time to send Ben the weekly status update on our due diligence. My stomach was tight as I pecked away at the keys, drafting an email detailing the impediment we were encountering as we continued our review. Highlander had yet to provide hundreds of necessary documents, including agreements they’d listed on the disclosure schedules of the purchase agreement. Documents that were listed on the disclosure schedules were exceptions to Highlander’s representations and warranties contained in the purchase agreement. We definitely needed to review them before our client could sign a binding agreement.

I hit send and braced myself, sensing a shit storm on the horizon.

Two minutes later Ben appeared at my door. He looked surprisingly fresh and well rested in a pressed, navy blue suit. I, on the other hand, was dazed and still dressed in the clothes I’d put on twenty-four hours ago.

“Let me understand this,” he started, breathing heavily. “Those fuckers have included documents on the disclosure schedules that they haven’t even PROVIDED?” His voice rose with each word, as he reached down and adjusted his testicles. This is the default posture of a Biglaw lawyer—the unconscious crotch grab. They all do it—whatever the time, place, or audience.

No matter how many times I see it, it still puzzles me. I mean, are they checking that they’re still there or do testicles really need to be readjusted that frequently? You don’t see me adjusting my boobs in public. And, yes, sometimes I’d like to, but I at least show some discretion. Why can’t men show the same discretion? More specifically, why couldn’t Ben? He was constantly rubbing his balls as if a genie would pop out.

“That’s correct,” I said, trying to avoid looking at him. He was going in for a real dig, even slightly lifting one of his legs.

“Fucking assholes!” He slapped my door frame. “They’re playing with us. Those fuckers are playing with us.” Ben always seemed to think everyone was “playing with him,” which probably stemmed from the fact that he was constantly playing with
himself
.

“We need an all-hands-on-deck call to discuss this shit with the client. Set it for noon today,” he barked, then whirled around and left.

“Will do,” I mumbled, conscious that the shit storm was picking up speed.

Three hours later, I was sitting at a conference room table with the firm’s top rainmakers. There was always something energizing about an all-hands-on-deck call, but my Biglaw spidey senses told me this one would not end well.

The others began to filter in. Vincent took his seat in front of the triangular speaker phone and turned off the mute button.

“You have F&D,” he boomed.

“Okay, Vince. Let’s hear what the fuck is going on,” Oren, one of the managing partners of Pegasus Partners, the potential buyer of Highlander, responded. “What the fuck is the problem now?”

Vincent took a deep breath and clenched his hands together. “Look, the last round of diligence is moving slower than expected.
We have the manpower to review the documents that are coming in, but the other side is barely dribbling them out to us. We still haven’t received what we consider to be the major documents and it’s really throwing a wrench in the process.”

There was a beat of silence before Oren responded. “Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously. Are you fucking kidding me? What the FUCK?”

“I think the problem is they’re running this out of LA and don’t have anyone on the ground here who knows what the fuck they’re doing.” Vincent’s voice remained calm.

I added another tick to the five already on my page. Sometimes I kept a running tally of the number of times “fuck” was said on conference calls to keep my mind from wandering, but I usually ended up losing count.

Oren could barely control his rage. “I want someone to get on the FUCKING phone with the fucking CEO and let him know that he needs to send a FUCKING team out to New York, with the documents fucking IN HAND,” Oren bellowed. “Documents fucking IN HAND,” he repeated. “If they need to rent planes to get their fucking guys to New York, then that’s what they need to do. I want those documents in our fucking hands and reviewed by Monday.”

The only thing more predictable than the swearing on conference calls is the blatant male posturing. It would have been so much more efficient if they all just put their dicks on the table to see whose was bigger so we could all move on. I looked down at my notes—thirteen ticks so far. Considering we were only a few minutes in, I was on pace to break a record.

“Oren …” Vincent started.

“Vince,” Oren interrupted. “Listen to me. I don’t give a fuck if people EAT, SLEEP, or SHIT before then—these documents will be reviewed by MONDAY. No excuses—life ain’t all motherhood and popsicles.”

I snickered silently. “Motherhood and popsicles”—that was a new one. It was somewhat entertaining to witness the roles change, with the partners being the ones yelled at. It reminded me of that Bob
Dylan song:
Well, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody
.

Vincent didn’t even flinch at Oren’s rant—a career spent dealing with these guys had made him immune. He took a deep breath and continued. “Just wanted to make sure you wanted us to take a hard line with these guys, Oren. We have our marching orders now.” He looked around the room, ensuring we all understood that this new timeline was a direct order from the client. The shit storm had become a full blown fecal hurricane.

I shook my head in disbelief. I was the lowest person on the totem pole, but it seemed like I was the only one in the room with any sense of reality. Clearly, fear of delivering a reasonable deadline to the client had triumphed over good sense. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be Oren. What would it feel like to be so confident about your place in the world, to feel like you should get whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it? No matter how you treated people. What gives someone that sense of entitlement? And what would I do if I had it?