“Maybe you need to eat more. You’re looking kind of thin,” she says, rolling a calculated compliment into her expression of concern. She stares deep into my eyes where tears begin to gather. But she knows me. Knows now’s not the time. “Good thing there are calories in wine,” she says with a smile.
We arrive at our destination, a vast midtown hotel. Young men wearing matching long black coats, maroon ties, and newsboy caps jog into the street and back again trying to hail cabs for a bulging line of bundled hotel guests. Frustration is plain on rosy red faces as traffic inches by, kicking up yellow slush in its slow-forming wake.
“Future actors of America,” Kayla quips.
“One of them could be the next Brad,” I say. Because this is true. Here, everyone has a dream, a talent, another self just below the surface. No one is just a bellhop or bartender.
The lobby carpet is deep purple and smells of stale smoke. I think of Paris. And Sage. And smile. Elevator music crackles over the sound system. Tired families with plastic bags from Niketown and Macy’s congregate on couches. In the far corner, a baby cries. A very old man in a wheelchair sleeps and snores. He wears a navy sweatshirt that says “New York” across the front in silver italics.
“Maybe he needs the shirt to remind him where he is,” Kayla says.
“Or maybe he likes this place and wanted a souvenir,” I say.
“Could be, Optimissus,” Kayla says, and links her arm in mine.
We ride to the hotel’s top floor. In the corner of the elevator, a tall blond woman in a magenta coat chats with a woman in short red leather skirt and fishnet stockings. The blond woman has impossibly long nails, with painted stars and rhinestones on the tips. The women are vaguely familiar. It takes me a minute, but I realize that they are secretaries from our firm.
As the large silver doors part, we hear music and muffled voices.
Tonight, the Winter Party is a time-out from the grind, a chance to celebrate for celebration’s sake. An all-personnel event, so everyone is here. We’re one big firm family tonight; lawyers and secretaries, catering staff and maintenance workers. Tonight, with a few top-shelf cocktails, the sharp hierarchy will go blurry. No, the party’s not a part of the executive committee’s plot to cut a fat check and make us forget. About our often miserable jobs. Or the fact that we rarely see our own families. Or about what happened a few short months ago.
Typically, this annual attempt at blending Whalen personnel is defeated by one thing: wardrobe. Partners arrive in freshly dry-cleaned pinstripes. We associates stick to the prudent palate of safe and boring shades—grays and blacks and navies and tans. Tonight, the nonlawyers among us are bold as ever, and we have a rainbow of leather, a sprinkling of short skirts, stacked heels, and blue eye shadow. The color is a welcome change, a sign that not everyone is obsessed with conformity, with convention. Not a blatant attempt to catch the wandering eye of partner.
Kayla and I hand our things—our coats and scarves and bags—to a man with a mustache hostage in the small coat check station.
“Keep your BlackBerry,” Kayla says, holding on to hers.
Dad’s wine-fueled words of wisdom find me now: Don’t become one of them. A Berry Baby.
“Not tonight,” I say, and this baby abandons her Berry, stuffing it in the inside pocket of my coat, feeling wonderfully rebellious. Now the man smiles.
“Let’s get you some pinot,” Kayla mumbles.
Kayla links her arm in mine. You know every man fanta-sizes about two girls, she’s said. Even old saggy lawyers.
Truth is, however lubricated one is at these events, awkwardness reigns. In the office, professionalism is the rule. Decorum disguises idiosyncrasies. When you add party dresses and alcohol to the mix, things get more interesting.
In the corner by the bar, a group of fifth-year litigation associates gather.
“Ahhh, the Little Gators,” Kayla says. “Waiting to bite.”
Each is dressed in a black pantsuit. These girls are always dressed in black pantsuits. Each balances a skinny flute of champagne in her right hand.
“Look at them,” Kayla says. “Hovering and gossiping, their skinny asses in their matching little suits. I bet they’re trying to get a good look, trying to estimate the wattage on your hand. They are the kind of chicks who are probably holding out for five carats, waiting for their prince investment banker to come along, so they can quit this bullshit. Those girls would give their pinky fingers to have a wedding announcement run in the Times,” she says.
“Is that the way you look at Sage? My i-banking prince?” I ask.
“No, of course not, Quinn. Sage a prince? Hardly,” Kayla says, and giggles.
At one point, I was hopeful that there would be no room for cattiness in the working world. But I learned. And fast. In this world, cattiness would only be more defined, and its perpetrators, only better dressed.
But tonight their faces are friendlier, the impasse between us silly, simply a matter of age and relative legal experience. The competition, the dirty looks, the sizing up—all natural, nothing more than good old Darwinian survival of the fittest.
I smile at them.
And, shocker: a chorus of smiles in return.
Nancy Finnerman raises her glass and walks over. She’s a Boston native, quite preppy, and refreshingly kind. She lives alone in a brownstone apartment in the West Village and writes poetry in her spare time. I worked with her on a recent case. On September tenth, the night before everything happened, Nancy and I spent hours holed up in a conference room, cocooned in a sea of cardboard boxes, delirious, laughing, bingeing on Mexican food, rifling through mind-numbing financial reports and e-mails looking for the smoking gun we knew we’d never find.
How quickly things can change.
I got taken off the case. Replaced by someone who would be more focused. I haven’t talked to her since.
“How are you?” she says softly, her voice condescension-and fakeness-free, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“Hanging in there,” I say. And pause. “I’m getting married.”
She smiles. “Good for you. That’s incredible news.”
Kayla returns and hands me an overflowing glass of pinot. “I made it a double,” she says.
Nancy clinks my glass with her flute and excuses herself.
“My family money radar is going crazy,” Kayla says. “Did you see those diamonds?”
“Nope, didn’t notice.”
“I want my friend back,” Kayla says. “Seriously, the bling, the brownstone, the easy-breezy attitude. It’s a no-brainer. She’s a trust fund baby.”
“Takes one to know one,” I say.
Kayla smiles. “Cheers,” she says, and clinks my glass. It’s half full.
The ice sculpture is massive. It’s shaped like a snowman and it must be five feet tall. It towers above us at the center of a long rectangular table dressed in cranberry silk. The table is covered in silver trays of miniature desserts; éclairs, cheesecake, individual soufflés in little white cups, and white chocolate–covered strawberries. Every time someone grabs something from the table, a waiter with a bow tie and a sandy-colored ponytail scurries by and replaces whatever has disappeared.
“That table,” I say, as we watch the feeding frenzy, “is just like our firm.”
“How so? Bad for the waistline and bad for the heart?” Kayla says. “Snow is magic. Law firm like a pastry table. What’s up with you?”
Whenever an associate leaves—for another firm, to soul search, to start a business—he or she is almost instantaneously replaced. Offices are refilled, cases are restaffed. Firm directories, updated. Associates, like party pastries, are fungible.
But tonight that’s a good thing. That I am a number, a cog in the big corporate machine, means that I can focus on other things. Leave early on a random night to have dinner with Sage. Even quit if I feel like it. Tonight, the firm is a lovely and golden revolving door. Not a chosen hell, a fire pit a human being can endure for only
a limited time.
I hear someone say: “They spent two hundred and fifty dollars per person this year.” She’s probably not that far off. Sure, they could’ve canceled this year’s party and given the money to the victims of 9/11. Or the fight against AIDS. But instead they chose to spend it on us. To tell us they appreciate our work and devotion.
The bartender is a handsome bookend to a mundane day. He manages to look grungy in a tuxedo. Impressive. Kayla has noticed him too; we share the same taste in men. She wastes no time flirting. She grabs a pen from her purse and jots her cell phone number on a green cocktail napkin and hands it to him as he passes us our refills. His name tag tells us his name’s Jake.
“Looks like you two are up to no good.” The voice is deep and male. It’s Fisher. He stands behind us, swinging an empty martini glass. Tonight, Fisher is an overgrown boy with a winning smile.
“Hi. Yeah, the party is fun,” I say. I feel my cheeks redden. The party is fun. The sentence is beautifully simple in a kindergarten kind of way.
I watch, half horrified and half awestruck, as Kayla places her right hand on Fisher’s shoulder and smiles. “Yeah, why not? You never know where you are going to meet someone these days. I prefer this to that online crap, you know? And I figure we young lawyers need to loosen up a bit. Agreed?”
Unbelievable. Tonight, her confidence is legendary, enviable. Tonight, she’s a spicy footnote in a boring book. Not the predictable ending to a formulaic story.
“Agreed. Have we met? You cannot be in the litigation department. I’d surely remember such a spitfire,” he says.
I’m mute.
“Kayla Waters,” she says, setting her wine on the bar and extending a manicured hand. “Unfortunately for you two…” she says, pointing at Fisher and me, “I’m in the department that actually brings in the dough so we can afford events like this.”
Fisher laughs. Not a cocktail party cackle, but a deep belly laugh. “Don’t count us litigators out. They call me Bill for a reason.”
Kayla has practiced mingling with powerful people since she was a little girl. Training for life as a Stepford Wife started early; her mom dressed her in party dresses and pigtails and made her carry around trays of egg salad sandwiches to her parents’ guests who drank hot toddies and mint juleps on their Connecticut porch. I doubt Mrs. Waters envisioned her little girl as an attorney at a big firm, flirting with a high-wattage career and a middle-aged man.
“Nice talking to you. Have a terrific evening,” Kayla says to Fisher, taking a delicate sip of wine, morphing back into the professional and polite associate she is by day. She walks away and leaves me standing with Fisher at the bar. I’m not moving at full speed; I think I’m still in shock.
Fisher looks up at me. I’m blocking the bar and I have nothing to say. He smiles, perhaps sensing my discomfort.
“Have a terrific evening,” I say. A sad copy of the original.
“These events require a three-martini minimum,” he says under his breath, to no one in particular. And, I think: This man is fun. The life of the party.
I find Kayla on the other side of the dance floor talking with Cameron Stone, a corporate associate in our class. Cameron’s a boys’ boy, a frat guy all the way, a Porter-in-training despite his good build. He went to UVA for undergrad and law school, and you can tell. His side-parted blond hair and caramel-smooth Southern accent have helped him with the ladies. I’m confident that he has bedded most of the paralegals in the corporate department.
“Hey guys,” I say.
“Hey girl,” Cameron says, and smiles, his Southern accent strong between sips of whiskey. “We were just talking about you.”
“Really?” I say, and look at Kayla. She smiles and shrugs her shoulders.
“I was just lamenting the fact that you’re off the market,” he says. “I guess congratulations are in order.”
“Yes, it’s a sad time for the male species,” Kayla says, looping her arm through Cameron’s.
The music is loud. Carlisla, the quiet lady who works the graveyard shift at the document center, is in the middle of the dance floor, really getting down. She is wearing a short red crushed velvet dress that’s very tight. As she shimmies to the music, she grabs the bottom of her dress and slides it up and down her thighs. She sings along to Chubby Checker.
We laugh. Good for her.
“Look at her go. Now that is impressive,” I say.
The crowd roars. Bill Frank, a real estate partner, now dances with Carlisla. He is easily two feet taller than she is. And not a very good dancer. Apparently, very limber though. He bends backwards, places his hands on the floor as if to do a back walkover, and then he thrusts his body up again. Beads of sweat line his forehead. Carlisla seems to love the attention. She grabs his waist and grinds up against his bony thigh.
“What do you say we give ’em a run for their money,” Cameron says, and takes my hand.
“I don’t dance,” I say, trying to pull my hand from his. “Not a talent I have.” I think of telling him how Sage calls me Jitterbug, but decide against it.
Cameron brings my hand up to look at my ring.
“Not too shabby,” he says, smiling.
He lets go.
So the party’s a success, a success in the most contrived and plotted way possible, but still. There they are: a forty-something partner—Wonder bread white—who probably commutes from Bedford in his Mercedes SUV, and a single mom of three (I’m guessing here, probably not so PC)—of the whole-grain variety—who probably makes only a bit more than minimum wage. They dance together, not a care in the world, against a backdrop of American flags and spirited colleagues. The picture is both superficial and lovely. It would make for a very good picture in a firm brochure if such a thing existed.
It’s getting late. I look around.
The party is winding down. The bartender has run out of Ketel One. The glorious snowman is melting.
For a moment, smiles outnumber frowns. Everyone appears happy. In my own haze, genuine optimism finds me and I smile.
I think of those little Towers, that little reminder in a random store window. I think of Sage at home in our bed, cuddling our cat, falling asleep to Conan. I smile. A real smile.
Everything will be okay.
“Let’s jet,” Kayla says, grabbing my arm, spilling wine. “The after party is at Swank. It should be decent. I hear they are going to open a tab.”
“I read somewhere that partying with colleagues helps the career. I like the theory,” Cameron says, draining his whiskey. “That and the one that says red wine is good for the heart.” He pounds on the wrong side of his chest.
And here I am laughing hard and drinking harder. Enjoying life. Like I should. And even as I stand here, smiling, flirting, I’m proud of myself for moving on. Because that’s what I’m doing; moving on, relishing the precarious and precious present moment. And maybe it’s the wine, but for the first time since everything happened, I can picture Dad, his vast and goofy smile, his yellow teeth. He always liked a good party. Never turned down an opportunity for just one more drink and a little Irish debauchery.
Tonight the image of Dad doesn’t make me cry, but smile. Tonight it fuels me, emboldens me. Because he’s not gone completely. Never will be.
And the thought is cheesy and trite and all of those things, but I feel it now: Dad’s part of me, part of this reluctant Berry Baby. I have his pale skin and stubbornness and love of late nights. I have his eyes and his irreverence.
I’m my father’s daughter.
“So, a few more drinks tonight might get me something more than a hangover?” I say, smiling.
“If you’re lucky, girl,” Cameron says, lingering on his last word, “grrrrrllllll,” looking into my eyes and staying there for a moment, wordlessly luring me into a staring contest I quickly lose.
Chapter 10
We’re among the last to leave. Abandoning subtlety, hotel employees in ill-fitting maroon tuxes herd us through the vast ball
room doors and tell us to have a good evening even though evening is long gone. Before those big doors slam shut, I see the lights snap on; people buzzing like bees, collapsing tables, stacking chairs, vacuuming carpet, getting ready for the next gala for disgruntled strangers.
A man starts hacking away at that ice sculpture, decapitating the cocktail hour’s robust snowman into flimsy chips and water. Easier to discard.
The coat check man waits for us, tonight’s variety of privileged stragglers that lengthen his nights. He hangs over his stable door, staring us down with bloodshot eyes, fingering his overgrown mustache. He stands as we get close and I hand him twin plastic tags—mine and Kayla’s—and in return he shoves a pile of black cashmere at me, leaving me hugging what seem to be our coats. I spot Hula hairs on one and hand Kayla the other and float two crumpled dollar bills into his little wicker basket, which is about as empty as this man’s eyes.
“Thank you,” I say. He looks at me, presumably another fungible face in the night’s endless string of lawyers, tugs one end of that mustache, but doesn’t respond. He removes the bills from the basket and smooths them out one by one, folds them down the center, and places them in his front pocket.
“Get a fucking razor,” Kayla mumbles as we walk away. “This isn’t the seventies.”
We pack onto a waiting elevator, ignoring the conspicuous fire marshal’s warning of a maximum capacity we vastly exceed. Bumping bodies, accidentally brushing fingers, we descend one floor at a time.
A centipede of lawyerly black, a parade of pinstripes, we troop through the lobby, quiet now but for saccharine swells of smooth jazz and empty but for clusters of boozed-up tourists and a single homeless man in the corner who tries to escape notice and stay warm.
We leave through the doors we entered hours before. Under the hotel’s soiled and wind-whipped canopy, I wait with other associates of assorted shapes and sizes and one-size-fits-all drunkenness for a legion of preordered Town Cars to pull up, funeral-style, to take us somewhere where we can continue our collective binge.
Life After Yes Page 10