by Erica Katz
“So glad you talked me into renter’s insurance,” he whispered.
* * *
I scanned the chafing dish, full of sorry-looking breakfast burritos oozing limp bacon and hardened cheese, in the monthly real estate group meeting. I had never been much of a breakfast person, but the smell of overheated meat and cheese made me particularly queasy. Lara and another real estate partner, Michelle O’Reilly, each took a glass of orange juice and an overstuffed burrito. Michelle was younger than Lara, taller than Lara, and more intimidating than Lara. I grabbed a black coffee.
“I envy your willpower!” Michelle glared at me, seeming to mean the opposite, and took a bite of her burrito. “Mmmm. So good.”
“I woke up so early for some reason. Already ate,” I lied.
“So what have you been working on besides my deal?” Lara asked, making small talk until the rest of the real estate attorneys arrived.
I smiled. “Just real estate so far!”
“What did you say you were interested in?” Michelle asked through a mouthful of burrito.
“Only real estate. I tried to learn as much about the groups at the firm as I could when they asked me to list up to three areas of interest.” I paused. “But real estate was the one that appealed most to me. Maybe I should diversify my experience. I have two more weeks to add areas of interest. I’m thinking of adding M&A as well.” I hadn’t thought of it until that moment.
“Diversity of experience is a good idea. But M&A guys are the worst. They’re a bunch of frat boys who walk around like they own this place because they have clients like Gary Kaplan.” Michelle took in my lack of reaction. “You know who he is, right?” I shook my head. “He runs the private equity M&A world. He founded Stag River, which is the firm’s biggest client by far. He gives us about a hundred million dollars of business each year. And he’s a scumbag. Peter Dunn is his go-to guy—which makes Peter think he’s God’s gift to the world. Peter’s an asshole. So are all the other M&A partners. And associates. They fail to realize they couldn’t do anything without the rest of us.” Michelle’s nerves seemed to be fraying audibly.
“Yeah, and they don’t let women in,” Lara added. “I mean, they say they try to promote women, and that it’s the hours that weed the women out. But it’s their attitudes. Misogynists, all of them.” She leaned back in her chair, resting her case along with her spine.
“Got it. No M&A,” I said, though the challenge of a group where few women had succeeded oddly appealed to me. “Who’s real estate’s biggest client?” I asked, attempting to change the topic.
I noticed a sideways glance between the two women. “Stag River,” Michelle answered. “Because we do all the real estate for the M&A and capital markets teams.”
I sipped at my coffee as I listened to the other attorneys who’d trickled in discussing their deals. Doing work for somebody else’s clients all the time would certainly explain the rather large chips on their shoulders. I smoothed the flyaway strands of hair that framed my face behind my ears and wondered if they noticed what I did during that meeting: that I didn’t really seem to fit in with them.
“You missed a great happy hour last night,” Carmen told me, staring at the tomatoes as we stood pensively at the cafeteria salad bar. The day after the breakfast, I’d been staffed on another real estate portion of an M&A deal, this time with Michelle, and I started to fill my days at a decently busy pace. While I didn’t find the work particularly interesting, I was gratified by the thought that I was earning the same salary as the M&A associates who were emailing us about the deal at all hours of the night.
I spooned green peas over my bed of romaine. “I know. I got staffed on this new real estate deal, and I worked late. Who was there?” The truth was, real estate work never kept me much past six, and I’d gone to see a movie with Sam, but I didn’t feel great admitting that out loud.
“Monochromatic salads are so last-season,” Derrick interrupted, ducking in between me and Carmen. “Saving you seats!” he declared before taking off toward the tables.
“So who went?” I turned back to Carmen.
“Usual crew—Derrick and Kevin—but then some older M&A associates,” she said casually as she contemplated the protein options. I pushed down the fear that friendships and cliques were already forming without me, and that Carmen was getting a leg up.
As we made our way down the salad bar, we had to pause behind a redheaded associate who had been standing there since we got our plates. He stared ahead, unmoving, at the containers of vegetables nestled into the ice. Carmen and I glanced at each other and then back at him.
“Sorry, can I just . . .” I reached over him for the tongs in the chickpeas. He blinked and snapped back to life.
“Sorry.” He looked back at me with eyes that looked bloodshot and bleary. “I just fell asleep.” He looked back at the salad bar, curled his lip, and turned on his heel, leaving his empty tray on the rack.
“That guy’s in M&A,” Carmen said in a low voice.
I nodded but kept my eyes on him until he disappeared out of the cafeteria. There was something almost honorable about his level of exhaustion.
We took our trays into the seating area, where I followed Carmen to the table where Derrick sat with Roxanne and Jennifer. After greeting them, we placed our phones faceup on the table with all the others and took our seats. I quickly surveyed the other tables in the dining room to see that each and every attorney sat with a phone positioned just as we had ours.
“Did you guys see on Below the Belt that the chairman of McAllister resigned because he was sending dick pics to all the young associates?” Derrick asked.
The others nodded, but I had no idea what he was talking about. “What’s Below the Belt?”
“You don’t know it? I read it every morning—it’s like Gawker for law firms,” Carmen explained.
“It’s so entertaining. Here, I’m sending you the link,” Jennifer said as she reached for her phone.
“It’s so nice that they give us phones so we don’t need to be chained to our desks,” Roxanne commented, pushing her bangs back from her eyes and scrolling through her messages.
“They don’t do it to be nice.” Derrick snorted. “They do it so we officially have no excuse not to work every second of the day now.”
I picked up my own phone and frowned as I spotted the most recent message. “My partner mentor canceled our lunch tomorrow,” I announced. “Again.”
“Who is your partner mentor?” Roxanne asked.
“Vivienne White,” I said.
“Wow,” Carmen said, her brow raised. “She’s a big deal. You must have impressed them in your interview. Somebody wants you taken care of.”
“Really? I haven’t laid eyes on her yet.”
Derrick looked down at his phone and burst out laughing. “Check out the email Noah Gellman sent to the whole firm.”
We refreshed our in-boxes.
From: Noah Gellman
To: FIRM-ALL
Subject: URGENT! DOES ANYBODY HAVE CHAPSTICK!!!!
“Somebody must have gotten to his phone or computer before it locked,” Derrick explained. “All the M&A associates mess with each other like that.”
Carmen didn’t seem all that amused. “So, are you going to do international arbitration?” she asked Derrick, then turned to us. “Derrick was telling me last night at happy hour that his father is the Ghanaian ambassador to the US.”
“Probably. What about you?” he asked Carmen.
“I put down real estate and M&A,” she said.
“Shit!” Roxanne announced as she stood and, eyes still on her phone, left the table and her food behind. Nobody reacted besides Carmen, who stole a grape from Roxanne’s untouched fruit cup. In the past few weeks we had become accustomed to work emergencies trumping social niceties.
“I put real estate, but I’m going to request M&A too before our deadline. I hope that we’ll be working on similar stuff. I need somebody to answer all my dumb
questions!” I said, turning to Carmen.
A cloud seemed to pass over Carmen’s face, and her spine slumped slightly forward. Her expression remained completely placid, but her eyes grayed over. I coughed and took a sip of my water. When I looked back up at Carmen, her eyes were soft blue again. What the hell was that? Did I imagine it?
“Great minds.” She tapped her temple. “There’s more than enough work for both of us to be in real estate if we want,” she went on. “If we’re both trying to join M&A, we might have a problem.” She wasn’t lying about the competitive streak. It rang like a bit of a warning to me.
“No desire, really,” I assured her. “Just want a bit of diversity in my experience.” I pulled on the hem of my skirt, suppressing the urge to accept her words as a challenge. “I’m only doing real estate now. Might just stick with it.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I’d try to get onto M&A deals as well. I never could turn down a challenge.
Derrick’s head ping-ponged between Carmen and me, a smirk playing on his lips as he watched the sparring we were desperately attempting to conceal as idle chitchat.
That evening I shut down my computer at five thirty, changed into my workout clothes in the bathroom, and ducked into the elevator, praying I could make it out into the lobby without being seen. Even though I’d finished all my work for the day, I still didn’t want anyone thinking I wasn’t working hard—or that I had enough time to be staffed on more real estate deals. The elevator paused on the thirty-fifth floor, and the anxious blonde I’d encountered on the first day of work entered, looking me up and down. To be fair, I did the same to her. She looked pure, somehow younger than the rest of us, with large eyes. She wore no makeup, and her long hair was pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She wore a pearl necklace, pearl earrings, and a neat white cotton cardigan, but when she turned to push the button to her floor, I saw that her black pencil skirt had a long thread hanging down the back like a tail. As she turned to me, we locked eyes.
“Hey,” I said, forcing my voice up an octave.
She stared back at me, looking puzzled. “The employee handbook says we need to wear business casual attire when we’re in the office, meeting clients, or otherwise representing Klasko in an environment where business casual attire is appropriate,” she recited. I examined her expression for any sign of cattiness, but came up empty.
“I know, I’m just running to the gym,” I told her, shrugging. “Sometimes you have to bend a rule to stay sane.”
She nodded, looking serious. “But how do you know which ones you can bend?”
I shrugged again and gave her a friendly good-night wave as the elevator opened to her floor. She exited reluctantly, as though not wanting to let me go until I answered her question.
I made it to my gym’s 6:00 p.m. spin class just as it was starting, throwing my Klasko-branded bag in a locker and slipping onto my bike as the warmup was concluding. When the lights dimmed and the instructor asked us to focus on our breathing, I allowed a smile to spread across my face, a moment of private pride. See? I’m a lawyer. And I have a life.
Q.Miss Vogel? Are you all right?
A.Yes. Yes. Can you please repeat the question?
Q.Had you heard of Gary Kaplan prior to meeting him?
A.I had heard his name, yes.
Q.What did you hear about him? Did you have any impression of him professionally, personally, or any other way before you actually met him?
A.I’m not . . . I don’t recall the specifics of my impression prior to meeting him.
Q.Do you recall the first time you heard the name Gary Kaplan? Do you recall who said it? Do you recall what they said about him?
A.I can’t be certain this was the first time anybody said his name to me, but the first time I recall anybody saying his name was at the beginning of my first year. When one of the real estate partners asked me if I knew who he was, I remember them being shocked that I didn’t because he was such a big name at the firm and in the finance world. But that was definitely the first time I remember hearing Gary Kaplan’s name.
Q.Would you say that you first came to know Gary Kaplan through third-party accounts from the real estate lawyers you mentioned?
A.No, I wouldn’t say that. You asked me the first time I heard Gary Kaplan’s name, so I explained my recollection. I came to know him firsthand soon after that through working with him.
Q.How did you come to know him professionally? Is it common for real estate attorneys on a deal to develop relationships with the M&A folks at private equity firms?
A.I actually don’t know what’s common for them. I would assume sometimes, if real estate is a big enough component of the transaction, then yes.
Q.Let me be more direct: as only a junior associate in the real estate group, how did you come to know Gary Kaplan personally?
A.I only worked briefly in the real estate group before transitioning to working exclusively with the M&A team. Gary was the biggest client of the group.
Q.Who introduced you to Gary Kaplan?
A.Peter Dunn.
Q.Who is Peter Dunn?
Chapter 4
A few days after my early escape from work, I was sitting in Lara’s office, as she debriefed the M&A team that was on the phone about the real estate portion of their deal before the closing. I watched her curiously as she stiffly responded to the rapid-fire questions emanating from the speaker phone from the senior associate on the M&A team, nervously pulling at a strand of her hair. It was odd to see a partner act deferentially to an associate, to somebody her junior.
“Yes. No problem in change of control,” she confirmed. I furrowed my brow, wondering why she wasn’t mentioning the recapture rights I had found in the leases and bolded and underlined in two separate emails I’d sent.
“Good,” said the associate, who’d introduced himself as Jordan Sellar. He then paused as though he was making a note. Should I assume that Lara didn’t think the recapture rights were an issue? Or should I just play it safe and . . .
“Oh, um, hi,” I said. “Sorry. This is Alex. I don’t know if this is relevant, but two of the properties have recapture rights for the landlord. And they actually stipulate that the right remains with a change of control. Sorry. I don’t know if that’s relevant.” I winced as I heard myself repeat the apology.
There was silence on the other end of the line. I cursed myself for thinking I could say anything remotely intelligent aloud in my third week of work.
“Who was that?” Jordan’s voice came through the speaker again.
“Oh, sorry. Alex Vogel. I’m a first-year—”
“That is relevant. We’ll need to get that waived, Lara. Or worst case, we can structure around it.” He sounded unruffled, and I allowed myself to appreciate a small victory in adding value to the call.
“Of course, Jordan. I’ve already begun the process. Was just getting to that. Will keep you posted,” Lara responded quickly. I looked up to see her glowering at me. Should I not have said that? Or waited until Jordan was off the phone to tell her?
When the call ended, Lara took a prolonged inhale. “Alex, when you disagree with somebody here at Klasko, you should do so only within the team.”
“I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “I thought Jordan was on our team.” Should I remind her that I did flag the issue for her? Twice? “It won’t happen again.”
She nodded slowly. “Can you please resend me the information on the properties that have those clauses? I need to make some calls.” She had already turned away from me and back to her computer. Apparently I was dismissed.
I walked back to my office, cringing as I replayed the encounter in my mind.
Anna looked up at me from above the top of her cubicle wall as I came in. “One moment, please. I have Jordan Sellar for you. Would you like to take it or return?”
My breaths grew shallow, but delaying the pain wasn’t going to help. “I’ll take it.” I walked briskly into my office and closed my door, s
teeling myself for a takedown.
“Hey, Alex. I’ve been meaning to introduce myself. I’m not sure if you’re at all interested in M&A, but I’m getting lunch with another first-year associate next Tuesday to talk about our group. Care to join?”
“Sure!” I was so relieved not to be in trouble that I answered even before checking my calendar. As soon as we hung up, I went to the firm’s internal Facebook and pulled up Jordan’s profile to see the tanned, attractive, dapper young man I’d spotted in the conference room and at the bar on my first day. Jordan Sellar. All-star M&A associate.
* * *
The nervous blond girl whose name I could never remember sat next to me, in the same white cardigan and black skirt she’d had on last week. I might have broken the dress code, I thought uncharitably, but at least I change my clothes. There was an awkward silence as we scanned the restaurant, willing our food to come. Our waiter approached the table, carrying only two plates. As soon as he placed her Caesar salad in front of her, she picked up her fork and stabbed a crouton, plopping it into her mouth. Jordan watched her carefully, his lips tight but his expression otherwise blank as his steak sat untouched before him.
I had asked around before our lunch, and it seemed that everybody at the firm knew who Jordan Sellar was. My guess was that this was due in equal parts to his attractiveness and his legal talents. He wasn’t just handsome compared to Klasko’s pallid pool of lawyers—he was unarguably handsome, J.Crew-model handsome, good-genes handsome, with broad shoulders and thick black hair he wore just long enough to tuck behind his ears. And he was known to be one of the most promising associates at the firm, one who exuded calm and control in a setting where others seemed to always be panicking into phone receivers and scrambling into their next meetings. And for some reason, even though I hadn’t yet listed M&A as an area of interest, he had asked me to lunch.