The Boys' Club

by Erica Katz

  The floor was still bare concrete, with tape outlining where the glass office walls would be installed, but the ceiling had been finished and the windows sealed and uncovered, allowing for a spectacular 360-degree view of Manhattan. “No Diggity” blared from a set of speakers as twenty or so associates, along with Matt and Peter, stood around a keg, and Jordan arranged red Solo cups into perfect triangles on either side of the Ping-Pong table. There was a draft, but it wasn’t nearly cold enough for my down coat, so I started to unzip my jacket.

  Suddenly I caught sight of Carmen in a full sprint toward me. As soon as she reached me, she wrapped me in a ferocious, tight hug as I stood, frozen, palms against my thighs. “Leave your coat on,” she ordered quietly, zipping me up as she backed away a few inches.

  I looked at her, slightly annoyed. “What is wrong with you?”

  She looked over her shoulder, then turned back to me and allowed a smile to spread across her face.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demanded again.

  “You’re not wearing a skirt,” she whispered, trying desperately to hold back laughter with a fist to her lips.

  I shoved my hands in the pockets of my coat and felt at my hips, grasping wildly to try to prove her wrong, but felt only the top of my stockings. She had started to cackle wildly, and I giggled too, then winced as I recalled the expression on the dry cleaner’s face and my short reaction to him.

  “Oh my god. I don’t have any other clothes! I just gave them all to dry cleaning.”

  Carmen wiped at the corners of her eyes. “My office,” she managed.

  I left Carmen, still doubled over, and headed for the elevator, where I held the call button down until the elevator doors opened.

  “Thank you!” I called back to her from the safety of the elevator cab, and she held up a palm to me, unable to respond further. I smiled to myself, impressed that girl code had trumped any sense of competition Carmen might have been feeling. I wondered momentarily whether I’d have done the same for her before convincing myself that I would have.

  The elevator doors opened on the thirtieth floor and Kevin entered, wearing his coat and looking done for the night.

  “Hey! Where are you off to?” he asked.

  “Just grabbing something from Carmen’s office. A bunch of M&A people are playing beer pong on the new fifty-sixth floor,” I told him, more than a little proud to have been included.

  Kevin snorted. “Drinking the Kool-Aid, I see.” I frowned at him as the elevator let me out on Carmen’s floor. “Take care of yourself, Alex.” He gave me a friendly wave good night, but his words felt like a warning.

  Five minutes later, I reemerged from the elevator on 56 wearing one of Carmen’s skirts. The hem hit my shins when I recalled it only hitting her knee, but otherwise it fit perfectly. I headed straight for the keg.

  “Beer?” The redheaded associate I’d seen asleep at the salad bar offered me a Solo cup.

  “Thanks. Cheers.” I extended my plastic cup to him.

  “Cheers,” he said, hands at his sides. “I’m not drinking. I have a call in thirty minutes.” I nodded at his responsible decision, then watched as he rolled a dollar bill into a tube and did a line of cocaine off the folding table. I scanned the room, but nobody else seemed to have noticed.

  “Skippy! It’s you and Peter against me and Carmen,” Jordan yelled over to me. I nodded, looking back at the redhead, who was now staring up at the ceiling and rubbing his lips together, before I made my way to Jordan.

  Carmen winked approvingly at my skirt. “You look fab.”

  “Winner gets the last office on 56 for the girl on his team,” Peter said to Jordan with a smirk. Was there really only one office left unclaimed on the M&A floor? And could a drinking game really determine who took it? Carmen and I stared at each other, our expressions morphing into competition mode. “I’m just kidding,” Peter said, and laughed. “You should see your faces.”

  Carmen and I smiled, attempting to ignore the looks we’d just given each other, as “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” blared from the speakers. Matt ambled to the middle of the table to serve as referee, his plastic cup dimpling slightly beneath his short, chubby fingers. I took my spot at the far side of the table next to Peter and glanced at the small orange cones running the length of the concrete floor behind me.

  “What’s with these?” I asked him, but Matt piped in before he could answer.

  “They were the only way Jordan could get me to agree to a party up here. I said no one could even get near the half of the floor with the exposed elevator shaft. Nobody crosses that line. Danger zone.” Matt shook his head in slow motion, already finished with the beer I’d just seen him refill. Past the cones, I saw an expanse of raw, industrially lit space, and in its center, a square hole in the floor with caution tape around it. Even though I was a few dozen yards from the shaft, the idea that a fifty-six-story drop was that close made me queasy.

  “I literally went to every single hardware store in the city to find the cones,” Jordan said.

  “Your admin went,” Peter corrected.

  “Whatever. I supervised via email, right?” Jordan laughed.

  Matt flipped a coin up in the air. “Heads or tails?”

  “Heads!” I shouted without thinking.

  Matt checked the coin on his palm and threw the Ping-Pong balls over to me.

  “My lucky charm,” Peter said and beamed, throwing his arm around my shoulder. Carmen glared at me, and I didn’t know if it was the competition over the office or the attention from a senior partner that had annoyed her, but her eyes threw darts at me as Peter handed me a Ping-Pong ball.

  Peter and I each hit our first shots, and I hit the third when we got our balls back.

  “Holy shit! This girl can play!” Peter yelled, finally missing and breaking our streak. We stood shoulder to shoulder, our sleeves touching, willing Jordan to miss his first shot, but he sunk it.

  “That’s okay. We got this,” Peter said to me. He leaned into me as a pulse of electricity transferred from his arm to mine. The combination of the beer in my veins and the high school anthems ringing in my ears amplified what was just a regular work crush when we were down on the forty-first floor. I forced myself to speak so I could focus on anything besides the energy between us.

  “This floor is huge. And it seems so much bigger with no walls dividing the offices.”

  “This floor is five hundred square feet smaller than Gary Kaplan’s apartment,” Peter said. I looked up to him to confirm that he was serious. He raised one eyebrow to let me know he was.

  Carmen’s face grew increasingly flushed, though I couldn’t determine if it was from frustration that she couldn’t hit a shot, or the fact that she couldn’t catch a break from drinking as we hit ours. I saw her teeth pressing down on her lower lip in a way that almost hurt to look at. She stared at my skirt, and I wondered if she felt any regret that she hadn’t let me embarrass myself. The game continued until Matt spilled a full beer on Jordan’s phone and the music cut out. I waited for the inevitable meltdown from Jordan, but he barely reacted, sinking one last shot before going to hook his old “spare phone” up to the music while Matt emailed tech support to have a new phone waiting on Jordan’s desk at 9:00 a.m. I picked up the cup Jordan’s ball had disappeared into, handing the ball in it to Peter, then looked up at him.

  “There’s too much foam,” I whined before plunging my index finger into the beer and scooping up the white froth. I knew my tone was flirtier than was remotely professional. But Peter grinned back at me, encouraging me to continue. Our eyes collided, and I heard the Ping-Pong ball drop out of his hand and bounce behind us. I smiled devilishly as I went to chase after it, the beer sloshing in my stomach.

  “I saw that!” Matt exclaimed. I whipped around to find him pointing at me. “You crossed the line.” He smirked. I couldn’t believe I’d been such an idiot. Flirting with a partner in public! A married partner! Then he pointed to my feet, and as I
looked down, I realized I was past the cones. I picked up Peter’s ball, exhaled deeply, and took a large swig of beer.

  As soon as the game ended, Matt and Peter started putting on their coats, both looking longingly at the scene they were about to leave. I noticed that each of them called a car home, even though I was fairly certain they lived in the same town in Westchester.

  “Take company cars home,” Peter yelled at us over the music. “And clean up after yourselves.”

  “And order some food, for god’s sake,” Matt added as they got into the elevator. With the partners gone, the bass got louder, the lights got softer, the senior associates began pulling tiny bags of white powder out of the breast pockets of their suits, and I started to feel sleepy. As Jordan politely formed a small line with his platinum Amex for Carmen on the Ping-Pong table, I noticed that she and I were the only women left—the two others had disappeared long before. She bent low to sniff it in and rose quickly, a contented look on her face.

  “I should text Derrick,” I said, mostly to myself, taking out my phone.

  “Do not invite him,” Jordan said, almost spitting the command. “I heard from litigation that he was beyond fucked up at a client dinner last night. Not a good look.”

  I nodded. Not a good look at all. I’d call him in the morning instead.

  “Want some?” the same associate who had offered me a beer asked me, as casually as boys used to offer me gum in middle school, holding out a baggie.

  I shook my head. “How’d your call go?”

  “It went. Want a beer?” he tried again. I shook my head again and looked at my phone in an effort to distract my brain from worrying about Derrick. I had a string of texts over the past two hours from Sam:

  How’s work?

  Are you okay?

  You are either getting crushed or you fell asleep.

  I miss you.

  I’m going to bed.

  I looked up from my phone. “Actually, sure,” I said to the associate. He shut his eyes and rubbed his finger on his upper gum.

  I thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard me, but a full fifteen seconds later, he said “Here” and handed me a rolled dollar bill as he carefully formed me a line. I paused for a moment, wondering if I should tell him I had never done cocaine before, wondering if I needed specific instructions. But instead, embarrassed by my naïveté, I bent low and put the bill in one nostril, sealing the opposite one with a press of my finger, and inhaled sharply, trying to mimic Carmen’s glamorous motions. It stung for a moment before tingling. I was too drunk to know if what I was feeling was the cocaine, but I felt suddenly sharper, soberer, sexier. I leaned back and smiled at the numb euphoria spreading from my nose up to my brain and down to the base of my skull. I righted my head and locked eyes with Jordan, who gave me a small, approving grin.

  “Let’s order Wolfgang’s! Steaks for everybody?” the associate who’d given me coke yelled.

  “This is my mother’s basement! Let’s order Domino’s!” Jordan yelled, and was met with resounding cheers and applause. Jordan sauntered over to me as he placed the order, squinting to read the menu on his spare phone’s cracked screen. “Slumming it is the best. Only when it’s a choice, of course,” he added seriously.

  Three hours later, I poured myself into one of the black Quality cars lined up for us on Fifth Avenue and spit my address out at the driver. My knees bounced in the back seat of the car as I grabbed for my phone and typed “Gray Kaplwe Sag Rider NYC apt” at record speed. Google politely asked me if I meant “Gary Kaplan Stag River NYC Apt.”

  I scanned the hits before clicking on the second, entitled “Where to Live When Money Is No Object.” In third place behind Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s Bahamian island and Elton John’s Beverly Hills estate was Gary R. Kaplan’s $38.4 million Manhattan penthouse. I clicked through picture after picture of the dark wood floors and modern art on the walls before pausing on a shot of the building’s facade, where a relatively unassuming navy-blue awning with the street numbers blurred jutted out onto the sidewalk. Something on the side caught my eye, and I spread the picture apart with my thumb and index finger to zoom in on the sign reading “Starlight Diner” just east of the awning. I stared for a moment at it, trying to figure out how the fuzzy puzzle pieces in my mind fit together, before leaning my head back on the black leather seat as the car sped through the empty streets.

  Q.Did you often have to travel for work?

  A.Not often. A few times a quarter.

  Q.Did you travel alone during your first year?

  A.Almost never. No. Never, actually.

  Q.Did the same levels of decorum exist when traveling outside of the office with clients and colleagues?

  A.Yes.

  Q.You behaved the same way when in different cities and countries as you did while you were in New York?

  A.Perhaps clothing is more casual. Yes, I would say because there is travel and leisure time spent with one another, the attire is more casual. But other than that, behavior was largely the same.

  Q.Can you please tell us about your first experience traveling in your capacity as an attorney at Klasko?

  Chapter 12

  When I entered Matt’s office, he was sitting at his desk and Jordan was holding a green marker up to the whiteboard. He’d called me there to discuss the annual Lionhead Mergers & Acquisitions Conference in Miami, held in mid-December, which was only two weeks away. Jordan had asked that I assume the classic first-year-associate position of drafting their slide presentation and remain in New York while they presented my materials as their own.

  “Deborah Tate?” Matt asked.

  “Ew. No.” Jordan shook his head.

  “Avery Klein?” Matt asked.

  Jordan leafed through the papers in his hand, then nodded and wrote her last name on a growing list on his whiteboard. “She’s hot,” he said.

  As I scanned the names, a sinking feeling forced me to sit down on the couch. I’d seen that list before, and thought it was a list of associates interested in M&A. It had never occurred to me that it was made up entirely of female first-years.

  I had been on that whiteboard list.

  “Almost done, Skip. We just need to choose which summer associates we want to try to recruit,” Matt said.

  I stared at the board. “I was on that list when you did it for associates.”

  “We’ve never had a girl here for the process!” Matt laughed, as though I should be flattered. “Feel free to pick a guy you want to work with, Skip.”

  “Why the fuck would I want to pick a guy to work with based on his picture?” I could hear my voice going into a shrill register, and touched my cheeks to confirm I was burning up.

  The two of them stared at me, utterly dumbfounded.

  “I didn’t realize . . .” Matt trailed off and thought for a moment. “You know, female partners do the same thing.” I gave him a skeptical look. “Or they would, if there were more of them. Power corrupts.”

  “I’m pretty sure power just gives you license to be whoever you really are,” I snapped.

  “Erase it,” Matt said to Jordan, to my surprise, and gave me a small wink that he might have meant as a half-assed apology. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  I nodded at him gratefully, even though I was pretty certain they’d have the list back up as soon as I left the room.

  “Didier will be there with us. He wants us to make the plans for Thursday night in Miami,” Matt said, seeming eager to move on.

  I forced calm into my voice. “I can handle that.”

  They exchanged skeptical looks.

  “What?” I asked defensively. “I know Miami.” They looked at each other again. “Ohh. I get it. You guys want to go to a strip club.”

  “You would never come to a strip club with us, would you?” Matt asked, looking nervous. “Even at Didier’s request?”

  Why does he even care whether I would go? This didn’t concern me. First-years were never invited to Miami. We di
d the slides, and that’s it. But still, I had to ask, “Am I invited to the strip club?”

  Matt looked at Jordan, who nodded at me.

  “You’re invited to the whole conference,” Matt said, and grinned. “We registered you. You deserve to be there with us. And Didier likes you. He never likes anybody.”

  A smile spread rapidly across my face, my cheeks pushing their way up into my eyes. All my banter with Didier had paid off, even if I’d felt slightly icky. And more importantly, it dawned on me, the invitation to Miami almost certainly meant I had secured a space in M&A.

  “Thank you! Thank you so much. I’ll be there! I’ll even be at the strip club, if you want me to be!” I heard my own words and paused. “But seriously, can I skip that part?”

  They burst out laughing. “Yes,” Matt assured me.

  “We don’t even want to go, Skip! It’s all Didier,” Jordan insisted.

  “No need to lie to me. I’m not your wife.” I winked.

  Matt clapped his hands together. “My admin is just grabbing Didier now. We can discuss more when he gets here.”

  “He’s in the office?” I asked Matt just as Didier burst in with a thunderous thanks to Matt’s admin who had brought him down from reception on the forty-fifth floor. He gracelessly slammed the door behind him and collapsed into the spare chair. Matt and Jordan fawned over him, chatting about the week of debauchery lying ahead, but then I saw Jordan check his phone and slump in his seat.

  “My wife is dying to co—” he muttered.

  “No wives,” Matt interrupted. Jordan nodded without looking up, and Matt looked at me. “Or boyfriends. My wife tries to come every year. It’s just the four of us.”

  “You’re in, Skippy?” Didier beamed at me.

  “I’m in,” I confirmed, allowing myself a moment to relish having earned a spot, wanting to share the news. Carmen was the one person who would understand just how big a deal the invitation was, but she was also the person who would be the most jealous that I was invited while she wasn’t. I paused. Maybe they hadn’t invited her because she would have never indulged the idea of a strip club. Maybe she was more professional than I was—more confident she could earn a spot in M&A on merit alone. A sense of embarrassment mingled with my excitement, but couldn’t quite hamper it.