I woke up in the middle of the night. Kevin had rolled over and I studied his muscular back and wide shoulders. If he had decided to kill me instead of fuck me, I might have already been dumped in the Hudson River. What would my parents do as the crew dragged my bloated body ashore? I pictured my mother weeping into my father’s chest while my friends gathered around, wondering if they should tell Mom and Dad about the drunken party tramp their daughter had become.
Still naked, I slipped out of the bed and over to the dresser where I grabbed my beer and chugged the rest of it along with what was left in Kevin’s bottle. Then I climbed back into bed and passed back out.
5
“What was our first mistake?” my friend Jane asked me one day at work after we’d both pulled all-nighters on separate projects. “Getting good grades?” We laughed the laughs of women digesting an unpleasant reality on too little sleep. I laid my head on my desk.
“You know what they say,” I answered. “If we don’t want these jobs, there’s a whole line of law school grads out there happy to take them.”
It was 1991, and I was twenty-five years old, straight out of Rutgers Law School. It never occurred to me to shoot for anything less than the best grades, a coveted spot on the Rutgers Law Review, and a job with a New York City megafirm. To be offered a well-paying job by one of the big-name firms was the ultimate stamp of approval for a law school grad. And there was nothing more consistent in my life than my need for other people’s approval. Wouldn’t I love for those little camp fuckers to see me now.
Big law firms were partnerships, and becoming a partner meant everything. To get there, an attorney had to begin as I did, as a “junior” associate, the lowest life form on the lawyer food chain. Those who lasted beyond three years became “midlevel” associates, and if they made it to their seventh year, they became “senior” associates, eligible for partnership consideration. Some who didn’t become partners but were exceptional lawyers stayed with the firm as “counsel,” often for the rest of their careers.
I was in the Environmental Group, and our offices were on a midlevel floor of a skyscraper on the east side of Midtown Manhattan. The firm had about eight hundred lawyers, five hundred of them in New York and about half of those in our building. The firm’s elite corporate teams were in a building directly across East 53rd Street, in newer, nicer offices.
Several people in my starting “class” of about ninety lawyers, with the ink still drying on their law school diplomas, became hyper-competitive in their quest for the most prestigious work for the highest-ranking partners. Inevitably, at around seven o’clock each night, one of these masochists would stroll into my shared office waving the giant binder full of menus for restaurants that delivered. “Well, it looks like I’ll be here until at least midnight,” he or she would say with a fake eye roll. “Who else is in for ordering dinner? It’s going to be a late one.”
“Not me,” I’d answer with optimism. “I’m going to plow through and hopefully get out of here in the next two hours.” If I was lucky, I’d be able to have a few drinks with some of my friends who worked normal hours. If not, I’d go straight home and pound a couple of beers in front of the open refrigerator. Beer was the only thing guaranteed to be in my refrigerator, and I found the choice easy to justify. First, I really did need to be able to fall asleep quickly so I could get up and exercise. Exercise was nonnegotiable. Second, any normal person would have had a couple of beers or glasses of wine over dinner, so this was no different. And third, fuck you, I’ve had a long day and I want beer.
My work friend Jessica and I bonded quickly. She was a University of Chicago Law graduate and a year ahead of me; both facts made her infinitely wiser in my eyes. When I was at Northwestern, I had seen the intensity of the University of Chicago and its students. They spent Saturday nights solving complex math problems and making scientific discoveries while my friends and I played Trivial Pursuit for shots before bouncing between frat parties. I imagined the University of Chicago’s Law School to be equally intimidating. I never would have made it out of there. Or in, for that matter. My law degree from Rutgers felt embarrassingly inferior, but if Jessica shared this opinion she never let on. She and I laughed at the same jokes, liked the same people, had similar taste in clothes, and even sounded so alike that her father confused me for her when I answered her phone.
While Jessica didn’t drink the way I did, she and her husband Russell liked to go out and run around New York City on weekend nights. Neither of them judged me when I got drunk and did stupid things, like leave my wallet in a cab or wave my arms and knock over a full round of martinis. Still, I was somewhat aware that the “STOP, you’ve had enough” mechanism in my brain was faulty because not even after extraordinary amounts of drinking did I ever tell a waitress, “No more, thanks, just water for me.” I wanted another, I needed another, and I was always going to have another. As a result, there was no place in my life for anyone who criticized or even questioned my drinking. If someone dared to speak their concern, I simply changed the subject and then cut them from my life. My universe shrank as a result, but I didn’t mind. During my nonworking hours, all I wanted to do was relax, and for me relaxing meant drinking as much as I wanted as often as I could.
One Friday afternoon late in the winter of my first year as an associate, I sat in Jessica’s office making plans for the night. “So, I brought my play clothes. I’ll change here. We can take off around seven for your place, right?” I asked, fidgeting with the fake gold buttons on my Ann Taylor jacket.
“Yeah, I spoke to Russell. He’s going to be late, so you and I can stop at Food Emporium and pick up a munch. We have cocktail stuff at home.” Russell, also a Chicago Law graduate, was slogging it out at another major firm in their Corporate Finance group. All I knew about Corporate Finance was that it was stock market stuff and that associates in those groups worked harder than anyone else in a law firm.
Jessica’s phone rang and she sat up rail straight. She looked at the caller ID and we both saw that it was Doug, the head partner in our group. She cleared her throat and picked up the phone, suddenly sounding cheery. “Hi Doug. Yes, of course, I’ll be right there.” She hung up.
“Doug wants to see me. Why does he always come up with new assignments at five o’clock on Friday?” she said, reaching into her desk drawer for her purse. She pulled out a small lipstick case for a quick reapplication. “Do I look OK? Anything in my teeth?” she asked, baring her teeth at me.
I squinted close to examine her mouth. “Nope, you’re good.” She straightened her funky, square glasses and smoothed her pin-straight blonde bob. As she got up, she grabbed a legal pad and a Cross pen.
“Let me know what’s up when you get back. I’ll be in my office,” I said getting up with her as she left, resenting the fact that this call could jeopardize my weekend.
All week I had been looking forward to my Friday night drinking, but since about ten o’clock that morning I’d been obsessing over it. How many more hours? Where would we go first? What should my first drink be? Should I go wine or booze? Should I stick with one alcohol? Where should we end up? Doug’s call threatened all of that. Now I might get pulled in on whatever project was about to appear. Selfish friend that I was, I thought that if Jessica got hit up with work and I didn’t, I could still meet other friends and salvage the night.
“Lisa, oh my God.” It was about fifteen minutes later when Jessica appeared in my doorway. “You’re not going to believe this.” She dropped into a chair in front of my desk.
“What?” I asked, assuming that she’d been fired and I was next. I felt faint.
“They’re moving us. They’re moving us to Corporate Finance,” she said, stunned.
“What are you talking about?”
“For real,” she said. “Starting Monday, this coming Monday, you and I are going to the Corporate Finance group. They’re going to tell you any minute.”
“What? No way! I don’t even know what Corpora
te Finance lawyers do!”
Mike, my officemate and a badly overworked antitrust lawyer, stopped pretending he wasn’t listening. “They do securities offerings, mostly representing underwriters. You know, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs,” he said. “Those guys work like animals! You’re screwed. I’m so sorry.” Coming from a guy who hadn’t had a full weekend off since joining the firm six months ago, this was particularly brutal.
“Thanks, Mike. That’s helpful,” I said, sounding meaner than I intended.
I turned back to Jessica. “They’re not even in our building. I don’t want to go over to the corporate side!” In that second, I shifted from anticipating after-work drinks to needing booze immediately. Could I leave right now and go drinking? Pretend I had already left the building?
My phone rang just then and Doug’s number came up. “Motherfucker,” I said before straightening up and taking a breath. “Hi Doug,” I chirped. “Sure, I can come by. I’ll be right there.”
“It might not be so bad,” Jessica offered as I gathered up a pen and pad. What was wrong with her? This was horrible news. Only getting fired would be worse. “Russell will help us. He knows everything,” she said.
My everyday drizzle of fear about being discovered as a fraud who knew nothing took on the intensity of a summer downpour when I considered life across the street. I had no corporate law training at all, having avoided those classes like infectious diseases. I couldn’t even balance my own checkbook, let alone understand a corporate balance sheet. And the corporate lawyers were just obnoxious, all hair gel, Italian leather loafers, and summer-share houses in the Hamptons.
As I neared Doug’s office, I put my hand to my forehead like a headache sufferer on an aspirin commercial. As a first-year associate, I knew I was trapped if a final decision had been made about my transfer. No other firm would hire me for an environmental group with less than a year of experience. My plan had been to spend two years at the firm getting serious environmental law experience from the point of view of the big-money corporations. Then I would defect, hopefully to a nonprofit, pro-conservation organization that would find me an invaluable weapon against big companies. If I had to transfer now to Corporate Finance, my whole strategy would be blown. The sweat beaded around my hairline as I got to the door of Doug’s office. A drink. A drink. I really needed a drink.
Doug was in his early forties with a slight build, a thick head of black hair, and black-rimmed Elvis Costello glasses. He had an engaging smile that put people at ease. His spacious corner office was strewn with expensive area rugs and other mementos from trips around the world.
Partners seemed to believe that the more exotica they had on display, the more sophisticated they appeared to be. “Wow, that’s a really interesting mask,” I had remarked once to a partner as I examined a deep-red clay piece on his credenza.
“Do you know where that’s from?” he asked blankly.
“No, I’m sorry, actually I don’t,” I answered. Apologies were expected when you didn’t have an answer to a partner’s question. And it didn’t matter what kind of question; I would have apologized just as quickly if he’d asked me if I knew his mother’s maiden name.
“Well, you should know about that mask,” he said, as he arched his back and puffed his chest. “Top Brazilian government officials presented me with that rare Amazon tribal mask when we completed the debt-for-nature swap transaction. As I’m sure you do know, that was a major deal for the firm.”
After that, I learned not to comment on partners’ office decor. In Doug’s office, I knew about his wife and two kids only because of their silver-framed snapshots from clambakes on the beach and ski trips in the mountains.
In one of the two sturdy leather wingback chairs opposite his desk, sat Penny, the other partner in our group and the one for whom I did most of my work. Penny was about forty years old, a human firecracker with lots of red-brown hair and the body of a Rockette. She had worked her way up the ladder in a decidedly male-dominated field, and I wondered if that’s why she had such a toughness to her personality or whether she had brought it with her. Penny was always clear about what she wanted which was a relief from the senior attorneys who regularly expected juniors to be mind readers. To add to our all-day stress, we young lawyers feared both getting it wrong and looking stupid by asking the senior lawyers for clarification.
Seeing Penny sitting there that afternoon, smiling with Doug, I felt as if I’d been punched in the windpipe. Don’t cry, I told myself. Keep a straight face, keep a straight face. Just get through this and then you can drink… . and drink and drink.
Doug spoke first. “So, you probably think we called you here on a Friday evening to fire you.” He looked at Penny and they both laughed, her head rocking back a little. Ha ha. Fucking hilarious.
“No, of course that’s not it,” Penny said quickly. “Quite the opposite. We have a great opportunity for you, and we hope that you’re going to be as excited about it as we are.” She sounded like a parent about to tell her delinquent teenager just how great life was going to be at that work camp four hundred miles away. “Please, sit down,” she said gesturing to the empty wingback chair next to her.
“OK,” I said, parking myself across from Doug. I sat up telephone pole straight in an attempt to mimic Penny’s good posture. It felt like I’d been plugged into a socket flowing with anger and fear, mostly fear. Only an immediate infusion of straight vodka might have calmed me down.
“We’re sure you’ve noticed that our group just isn’t as busy as usual right now,” Doug said. He let Penny finish their rehearsed speech.
“Now, I’m sure you know that our friends in the Corporate Finance group are very busy,” she said, “with all the technology deals, IPOs, and Latin American financings going on. They can use all the help they can get and, well, we’ve agreed that for the next year, you and Jessica will move over there to work with them.” There was a pause while they waited for me to say something. I was silent, busy making a mental note to find out whatever the hell an IPO was.
Penny looked intently at me, as if thinking that I was slower than she’d guessed. “We know this is a lot to swallow right away. But know that we’re doing this because you two are very bright and can have great futures here at the firm—with the right experience. This is a truly fantastic opportunity for you.”
Unbelievable. I’m “bright” with a “great future” and my reward is a one-way ticket to a Siberian work camp. My God, people on the corporate side worked so hard that they probably devolved into nondrinkers. They were the ones always going back to the office after the firm’s happy hours, regularly working until midnight, and pulling more all-nighters than anyone else. I can’t go to the corporate side, I thought. I won’t be able to drink the way I need to drink: martini-soaked weekend nights, Bloody Mary brunches, and wine on weeknights. Sure, I could still pound beers in front of my refrigerator, but my social life would be dead.
Both Doug and Penny were quiet, indicating that it was time for me to respond. “Well, thank you. I really appreciate the vote of confidence and the opportunity to go over to the corporate side, but I want you both to know that I’m very happy here in the Environmental Group. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I don’t have any interest in corporate law or the Corporate Finance group. If it’s at all possible not to make this move, I’d like to stay here. Very much, I’d like to stay here.” It wasn’t perfect, but at least I took a shot.
The air in the room thickened as Doug and Penny forced smiles that quickly disappeared. I felt like the punk in a gangster movie with two guys in fedoras telling me that we could do this the easy way or the hard way. They looked at each other and then looked back at me.
“Listen, Lisa. I’ll be straight,” Penny said. “This is the best move for you. We can’t keep you busy right now. They can. If you aren’t willing to go over to that group, I’m not sure what your options will be. We can revisit this in a year, but we both strongly advise you to
take the firm up on this opportunity.” She had shifted from mildly sympathetic colleague to mother forcing peas on her screaming toddler.
I remembered that the litigators were having their traditional Friday evening happy hour in a conference room down the hall. I wished that I could make a quick break for it and at least slam a couple of Heinekens before swallowing my peas.
The adding machine in my head started doing the math on the full-year lease I had signed on my apartment and the Club Med vacation I had just charged on my American Express. Then I had a vision of all the people I knew from law school who were unemployed. “OK. I’ll do it. What happens next?”
At that point nobody pretended to be enthused. The decision was made and now it was all a matter of details and execution. I felt like a hooker in training who’s told, “Buck up, Trixie. At least you don’t have to kiss on the mouth.” It was time to grab Jessica, and get as drunk as possible.
“Your new office will be set up for you by first thing Monday morning,” Doug said.
“This Monday?” I gasped, even though Jessica had warned me about how quickly this was to happen. “The next time I come to work, I go across the street?”
“Yes. You have all weekend to get your office here packed up. The building people will move it across the street whenever you’re ready,” he said.
I mumbled some grossly insincere thanks to Doug and Penny as I left, too numb to cry. I wasn’t going to be able to cut it over there. The firm’s Corporate Finance group was the elite. They were the top students from Ivy League law schools who got off by reading about their deals on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. That wasn’t me.
Walking back down the hall to Jessica’s office after leaving Doug and Penny, I thought of the obese wife of a tax partner who had tried to make small talk with me at a cocktail party when I was a summer associate at the firm. We were standing in the living room of the firm’s senior partner’s palatial apartment in Midtown. I was on my third glass of wine, but it hadn’t been enough to make me feel comfortable in this uniformed-elevator-man-and-precious-objects setting with the Central Park backyard. I couldn’t wait for the party to be over. The harder-drinking associates had promised to take us to an Irish bar across town afterward, where the real evening could begin.
Girl Walks Out of a Bar Page 7