The Partner Track: A Novel

by Wan, Helen

I edged closer to her. “What’s up?”

  She jerked her head down the long conference table toward an arrangement of glittery midnight blue gift bags imprinted with the firm name and logo, and stuffed with silvery tissue paper peeking out the tops. “Make sure you pick up a swag bag on the way out. This one’s to die for.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “A Parsons Valentine fleece and a ceramic ‘We Love Diversity!’ mug?”

  She laughed. “Try a pair of Knicks tickets, an Apple Store giftcard, a free week at Equinox, a massage at Bliss, and a Bobbi Brown lipstick.”

  “Wow. Nice work.”

  “Thanks.”

  I looked around at the quickly filling room. “Well, guess I better go mingle, huh?”

  She shooed me away. “Go. Schmooze, schmooze. That’s what you’re here for.”

  A waiter stopped in front of me with a heavily loaded tray. “Hors d’oeuvre, miss?” He was already perspiring through his shirt, and the cocktail hour had just started. I felt bad for him.

  “Thank you.” I smiled. I selected a skewer of grilled zucchini and shrimp and accepted the cocktail napkin he offered me, then wandered off to the far side of the room to look out over midtown and Central Park. I wanted to put off meeting and greeting people as long as possible. If I could just waste enough time until the seated dinner, I was home free.

  These networking cocktail hours were pure torture for two reasons: I was a young single woman, and I was short. It was miserable to attempt to sidle into a conversation already under way between some CEO thirty years my senior, his wife who was about my age, and some hungry midlevel asshole trying to chat up the CEO. Add to this the fact that, even in three-and-a-half-inch heels, I still stood at eye level with most of the men’s armpits, so they all had to twist down awkwardly in order to hear what I had to say. Either they didn’t bother or, when they did, it was to look down my dress or check my hand for a wedding ring.

  It was a perpetual challenge for young, non-wedding-banded female professionals to telegraph our intentions at these networking cocktail receptions. I remembered a conference for M&A practitioners that I’d attended in Tampa, where I’d spent forty minutes in a stuffy hotel ballroom nursing a single lime seltzer and talking up the firm’s white-collar defense practice to the general counsel of some securities brokerage. He’d been on his third gin and tonic, but he was asking all the right questions and hanging on my every word. I’d already begun to imagine the glorious coup it was going to be back at the office, when I told the partners about this new client I’d just reeled in. Everything had gone swimmingly until the end of our chat, when he’d slipped me a business card with his hotel room number scrawled on the back.

  As I stood now at the window with my back to the cocktail reception, gazing down at the view—the little yellow cabs tiny as LEGOs, the web of treetops in Central Park—I heard a low male voice behind me. “Ingrid? Ingrid Yung?”

  I sighed softly, just once, before spinning around, preparing to paste a fake smile onto my face and make stilted conversation with some half-remembered client. I almost laughed in relief when I recognized who it was.

  “Marcus!” I said.

  “Hey, how’ve you been?” Marcus Reese, a classmate from law school, leaned down toward me. I reached up toward him with my half-eaten shrimp on a stick and we embraced awkwardly, laughing.

  “Good, good. So, what are you up to these days?” I asked. “You went to White and Case, right?”

  “Yeah, but I quit the law firm thing two years ago. I’m in-house at MTV now,” he said.

  “Oh yeah? That must be pretty exciting.”

  He smiled ruefully. “It’s not any better or worse than a firm, just different. Politics as usual. You know what I mean,” he said.

  I nodded.

  Popular and funny, Marcus Reese had been something of a star in our Columbia Law School class. He’d played football at Michigan before deciding on law school, then became notes editor of the Law Review and served as president of the African American Law Student Association for two years. Universally liked and affable as he was, a perfect diplomat with a winning smile and ready laugh, Marcus was another Minority Darling—a favorite of the law school administration. He was thoroughly and utterly presentable. Marcus Reese and I had this much in common.

  I had always discerned a certain humbleness about Marcus Reese. Despite his popularity, he wasn’t a showboating asshole. Many of our classmates from law school would have printed out flyers announcing their in-house counsel job at MTV. Often, when I bumped into law school classmates on the street or subway, they fell over themselves gushing about how fabulously everything was going for them, how wonderful their lives had been since our graduation. They’d go on for so long it was like they were trying to convince themselves, rather than trying to impress me. So I appreciated Marcus’s honesty about “politics as usual.” It was refreshing.

  “Anyway, what about you? You’re doing well at Parsons, I take it,” he said, nodding toward the huge flat-screen monitor set up along one wall that read PARSONS VALENTINE & HUNT LLP WELCOMES YOU. “I mean, I’m sure they didn’t invite every associate at the firm to come carry the flag here tonight, huh?”

  I fixed him with a sober, penetrating gaze. “Oh, yes. Didn’t you hear? They’ve determined that I possess the keenest legal mind of our generation, Marcus. That’s the only reason I was asked to come out tonight and represent.”

  At this we both burst out laughing. Marcus gestured at his tuxedo. “Look, I’m just glad our CEO didn’t make me put on a dashiki.”

  Right then we heard three cloying notes. “Attention, ladies and gentlemen,” an announcer said, between chimes. “If you would please start making your way to your tables, the dinner program is about to begin. Thank you.”

  I watched as, slowly, about half of the crowd drifted into the ballroom while the other half chased down final hors d’oeuvres, lingered over half-finished conversations, and got in line at the open bars for last cocktails before dinner.

  “Well,” said Marcus, as he set his empty champagne flute down on a passing service tray, “I better go find the Viacom table. Great seeing you again, Ingrid. You got a business card on you?”

  “Don’t we get disbarred for coming to one of these things without them?” I unsnapped my evening clutch and handed him a card. I kept a stash in each of my handbags.

  Marcus glanced at it. “Great. Hey, I’ll e-mail or call you at the office sometime, we’ll set up a lunch?”

  “Definitely.”

  I gave Marcus a final wave before he disappeared into the crowd. As I watched his handsome figure retreating, I wondered exactly when Marcus Reese and I had turned into people who no longer simply met for lunch. Instead, we met for a lunch.

  In this city, especially in my line of work, the casual business lunch invitation was issued so often, to so many people, and rarely did any of these proposed lunches actually take place. I knew with as much certainty as I knew my own name that Marcus would not be calling my office to schedule a lunch anytime soon. Not because we didn’t genuinely like each other, and not because he hadn’t truly meant the invitation. He simply wouldn’t have the time, and neither would I.

  Sighing, I moved away from the window and followed the crowd into the main ballroom. Here we go, I thought, looking around. I checked my watch once again. Where the hell was Tyler?

  I paused at the threshold of the ballroom.

  The Rainbow Room always took my breath away. New Yorkers were supposed to have perfected the art of looking perpetually unimpressed by places and things, but here, people’s carefully disguised awe did not fool me. I noticed more than a few surreptitious glances at the exquisite candles and stunning floral centerpieces, the elaborate china and crystal settings, the spectacular glass chandelier lowered from the ceiling, and of course that billion-dollar view.

  The round dining tables were set up on what was usually the sunken dance floor in the center of the room. A podium and a long VIP table had bee
n set up on a raised dais in the front, underneath an enormous screen that, for now, displayed a simple blue background with the firm name and logo projected onto it.

  Numbered black and white placards, printed with the names of corporate clients and friends of the firm, had been placed at the center of every table. Citigroup. MetLife. Time Warner. American Express. General Electric. JPMorgan Chase. Google. And so on. I was very aware of Marcus Reese standing across the ballroom with a bunch of older white men, laughing and talking loudly and finally pulling their chairs out from around the Viacom table. Marcus stood a head taller than most of his colleagues. Well, that had to help, I thought, with unmitigated envy.

  Parsons Valentine had designated a separate table on the floor for those of us attending from the firm. But Marty Adler and Harold Rubinstein, as partners on the Diversity Committee and co-chairs of the planning committee for this event, were to be seated in special places of honor at the long table at the head of the room. Again, fine with me.

  I finally located the firm’s table, in a clearly visible and yet modestly off-center spot three rows in from the front. I was the first to arrive. I sat down, then immediately wished I hadn’t; most people were still standing and chatting. Well, it was too late for me to get up now and stand—that would look foolish and indecisive, to anyone who might have been watching. No, better to remain seated. I whipped out my BlackBerry and pretended to be engrossed in important e-mail correspondence.

  When I had taken as much time as a reasonable person could reasonably take reading through her messages, still no one had shown up at my table. I looked down and peered at the elegant appetizer plate already arranged in front of me—some sort of round, delicate, quichelike thing. I pretended to examine the ivory menu card propped artfully beside my plate.

  Parsons Valentine & Hunt LLP proudly presents

  “A Celebration of Diversity in the Profession:

  Breaking Barriers, Bridging Gaps”

  The Rainbow Room

  Red & Yellow Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart Drizzled with Parmesan Vinaigrette

  Atlantic Salmon Stuffed with Spinach, White Beans, and Pinenuts Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

  Dark Chocolate Truffle Cake

  Well, the meal was certainly diverse. I glanced again at my watch, and looked again around the Rainbow Room. Still no Tyler, I observed, annoyed. And I continued to bristle over the fact that Murph begrudged me this—this dubious honor of being paraded around as the Diversity Poster Girl.

  “Hey, Ingrid,” said a voice, finally. I looked up. Tim Hollister was pulling out the chair next to mine. I was relieved to no longer be sitting alone. I was more than relieved to be sitting next to Tim.

  “So how’s our secret weapon on the softball team?”

  I laughed. “Doing just fine, Tim. Thanks.”

  “Everything’s still going well with SunCorp, I hear.”

  “So far, so good,” I confirmed.

  “I’m happy to hear it.” He smiled at me. And I decided that intelligent women would not have to debate the matter, after all. Tim Hollister was handsome.

  “Good evening, everyone,” said another warm, familiar voice from behind us. Tim and I turned to see Dr. Rossi. He looked different tonight, handsome in his well-cut suit and freshly trimmed beard.

  Dr. Rossi shook hands with Tim. Then he turned to me, nodded, and actually gave me a quick wink. It caught me by surprise. It was such an oddly intimate, oddly conspiratorial gesture that I was taken aback. Let’s not get carried away, I thought. I said I’d help, and I have. But let’s not pretend for a moment that any of this is my show. I’ll be thrilled when tonight is over with.

  “Plenty of seats,” Tim said. “Join us.”

  Dr. Rossi shook his head. “Thanks, but Marty and Harold have asked that I join them up there.” He tilted his head toward a long VIP table on a raised platform at the head of the room. I was relieved.

  “Okay, then,” I said brightly. “See you later.”

  “See you. Enjoy the evening,” Dr. Rossi said, then turned and made his way over to the raised platform.

  Adler and Harold Rubinstein were taking their seats on the stage. I saw Adler shuffle through a small sheaf of notes, adjust his bow tie, check his watch. Then he looked off to the side of the stage and nodded toward someone in the wings.

  A frosted-blond woman, wearing a fastidious black dinner suit and bright red lipstick, picked up a microphone and tapped on it twice, producing a loud squawk of feedback. “Good evening, everyone.” Her voice bounced above the noisy din of the crowd. “If I could invite all of you to kindly find your seats as quickly as possible, we’d like to get the evening’s festivities under way.”

  There arose in the ballroom a convivial last wave of chatter and air-kisses, invitations to lunch and cocktails, a flurry of business cards changing hands, the clink of highball glasses being set down or sent away, and chairs being pulled out from tables, as this carefully handpicked assembly of the luminaries of New York—politicians and professors, prosecutors and judges, CEOs, CFOs, COOs—took their assigned places and then looked casually around for their first pours of wine.

  I placed my tiny evening bag onto the seat next to me, saving it for Tyler, when he ever bothered to show up.

  Two others puffed up to our table and sat down on either side of Tim Hollister. Pamela Karnow and Sid Cantrell. I hadn’t seen Pam Karnow since the outing, and I’d never spoken to Sid Cantrell before. Sid was a powerful Litigation partner, a brilliant closer at trial, an infamous workaholic and screamer. He’d once created a small stir by making some poor associate spend a late night of billable time writing a memorandum comparing the relative merits and flaws of the eight pizza delivery joints near the office, complete with footnotes. The infamous “Pizza Memo” had, predictably, been forwarded to associates, partners, and paralegals at every major law firm in the country.

  Pamela Karnow looked over at me and smiled. “Hi there. Ingrid, right? We met at the summer outing.” As she shook my hand I felt a swell of pride. It was definitely a booster shot to my ego that Pam Karnow knew who I was. The firm was so big that most partners never bothered learning the names of the associates outside their own departments. No point. Most of us were gone by our third year.

  Oh yes, there was definitely scuttlebutt about me, that was for sure. I smiled and took another sip of water.

  Sid Cantrell leaned over and shook my hand, too. “Good to meet you. Mildred, is it?”

  “Ingrid,” I corrected.

  Here was the thing about ego—easy come, easy go.

  “And you practice in our … ah … Intellectual Property group?”

  “Actually, no. I’m in M&A,” I said. Ellen Chu Sanderson had been the one in IP, I wanted to tell him.

  “Ah,” said Sid Cantrell. “Very good. And you’re”—he waved a hand at me questioningly—“what? A third-year? Fourth-year?”

  This time my voice came out louder than I’d expected. “This is my eighth year with the firm, actually.”

  He nodded, not the least bit embarrassed by his mistake.

  A tuxedoed waiter approached our table with an open bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, a crisp white napkin collared around its neck, and deftly filled all of our red wine goblets.

  After another authoritative screech from the microphone, we all directed our attention to the stage. Adler was at the podium, his hand on the mike.

  I angled my chair to get a better view of the podium and accidentally bumped into the empty chair next to me. My evening bag slid onto the floor—beaded satin will do that—and as I leaned over to pick it up, someone tapped me gently on the shoulder.

  “Is this seat taken, dear?” Jack Hanover asked in a stage whisper, pointing to the chair I’d been saving for Tyler.

  “Uh, no,” I blurted. “It’s not taken.” I had to swallow the word “sir.”

  I wondered if Jack Hanover even remembered me from that evening in his office, if he ever could have imagined how much humiliation and grief
that single brief encounter had caused me, how much it had cost.

  “Thank you, dear,” he said, and sank into his chair just as Adler began to speak.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Adler boomed. The lingering din died down, and all eyes focused toward the front of the room. At the same time, almost imperceptibly, by slow, expert degrees, the ambient lighting in the room dimmed, and Marty Adler was bathed in a subtle spotlight up at the podium. It gave him an old and wizened look, and I thought again of the Wizard of Oz—this time, of the man behind the curtain.

  “On behalf of everyone at Parsons Valentine and Hunt, I’d like to welcome you all to what promises to be a wonderful evening,” Adler said proudly. He gazed out at the assembled crowd, beaming a confident smile, and I marveled at how he managed to look both arrogant and kind at once.

  “We are very honored tonight to have all of you with us for our inaugural Diversity Dinner,” Adler continued, “which we hope will become an annual tradition. I want you all to know that my colleagues on the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and I thought long and hard about what to title tonight’s event.” Here he furrowed his brow and scrunched up his mouth a bit, as if to dramatize for us just how long and hard they had had to think about it. “Finally, we decided it was most appropriate to call it ‘A Celebration of Diversity in the Profession.’” He paused to let this sink in.

  I scanned the room. It was a pretty white crowd for a celebration of diversity.

  “Now, some of you may ask, why call it a celebration? Don’t we still have a long way to go to achieve true equality in the workplace? Isn’t there much more hard work that lies ahead?”

  Across the table, Pam Karnow tilted her head at a thoughtful angle, as if considering answers to Adler’s rhetorical questions. Sid Cantrell was shredding a cocktail napkin into a thousand tiny pieces. Jack Hanover had crossed his arms lightly across his chest. His eyes were closed.

  “The answer to each of these important questions is a resounding yes,” Adler informed us. “However”—he slapped his palm onto the podium for emphasis—“we at Parsons Valentine feel strongly that it’s important to celebrate all the gains we have made thus far, and all of the legal and cultural barriers that have already been broken, in this, our shared struggle toward achieving professional equality for all men and women, regardless of race, color, or sexual orientation.”