The Partner Track: A Novel

by Wan, Helen

  I walked out of my office with my head held high, the security officer following closely behind. He frog-marched me out to the elevator bank, where we ran into Cameron Alexander and her sidekick, that Steinberg kid from the outing, who both stared at me with open curiosity.

  Down in the lobby, the security officer walked me out of the elevator, past the big granite receptionist desk emblazoned with PARSONS VALENTINE & HUNT LLP, past Ricardo, who was looking on openmouthed, and then out across the echoing marble floor to the revolving glass doors. Right before I exited Parsons Valentine & Hunt for the last time, the security officer held out his hand, into which I deposited my PV&H keycard, ID badge, and BlackBerry.

  “Have a nice life, miss” was all he said.

  EIGHTEEN

  For three whole days I just stayed in bed.

  I shut off my alarm when it started bleating at seven in the morning, crawled back under the covers, and slept like the dead til five in the afternoon. I got up only to stumble to the bathroom and get a glass of water. On my way back to bed, I glanced at my phone and saw four new messages from Rachel, three from Tyler, and two from Margo. And one blissfully ignorant one from my parents. I hadn’t told them yet. I couldn’t. This was going to kill them.

  I shut off my phone, stuck it in a drawer, and went back to bed.

  I fell into a feverish, anxious sleep, marked by so many vivid and unsettling nightmares—in one, I kept showing up late for a final exam being proctored by Marty Adler that everyone else had already finished the day before—that I only felt more exhausted and troubled upon waking.

  When I couldn’t sleep, I just lay there for hours, staring at the ceiling, or curled into a ball, feeling sweaty and itchy and fretful in the jumbled twist of warm and sour-smelling sheets, racked with worry, guilt, and anger, unable to imagine how I was ever going to get out of this. How exactly I would start all over.

  What bothered me most—the single worst thought that I kept turning over and over in my mind—was that I was the one who’d let this happen. I had no one to blame but myself. I had allowed myself to be duped. Me, Ingrid Sabrina Yung. Valedictorian. Most Likely to Succeed. Phi Beta Kappa. Law Review. Well, turns out I hadn’t been very smart after all. I had happily held out my hand and allowed myself to be led, like Hansel and Gretel, down the path, stupidly following the bread crumbs all these years, and now I had absolutely nothing to show for it.

  I had completely bought into the myth of a meritocracy.

  Somehow I’d actually been foolish enough to believe that if I simply kept my head down and worked hard, and did everything, everything, that was asked of me, I would be rewarded. What an idiot. Hadn’t Tyler tried to warn me? Hadn’t Rachel told me to watch my back? Hell, hadn’t even Isabel cautioned me to keep some things to myself? Hadn’t everyone else but me seen this coming?

  I wondered what Mrs. Saltzstein, the high school guidance counselor, would say if she could see me now. Or my mother. Oh, God, my mother.

  I was sure that I was already blackballed at all the other big firms in the city. I’d probably never work in this town again. Gossip of this kind spread fast, and I was certain I’d already been branded the Parsons Valentine Associate Who Had Made a Scene When She Didn’t Make Partner. I didn’t even need to flip open my laptop to know there was already some snarky, gossipy blog post about my firing up on Above the Law or Gawker, followed by a raft of gleeful comments, brimming with schadenfreude, shot through with vitriol, all written by a bunch of strangers who knew nothing about me or what had really gone down.

  I knew that no one would question the integrity of Parsons Valentine’s decision; at least, not anyone who could do anything about it. Hiring partners up and down the eastern seaboard, and all the way across from Boston to San Francisco, would have no choice but to assume I hadn’t been able to hack it, that I simply Hadn’t Been Partnership Material.

  Isn’t it a shame, people would cluck and tsk to each other. These firms invest so many resources. We give these people so many chances; she just couldn’t cut it.

  * * *

  I awoke to a persistent buzzing at my front door. Raising myself up onto an elbow, I looked at the clock. 6:07 P.M. I didn’t know what day it was. I didn’t care.

  The buzzing continued. I sat up, stumbled over to my mirror, and was not surprised to discover that I looked exactly as I felt, like hell. My eyes were red from crying, raw from lack of sleep. My skin was ashen. Sunken hollows shadowed my eyes, and my hair hung down around my face in lank strands. I was pitiful.

  There was more insistent buzzing at the door, followed now by loud pounding.

  “All right, all right. Coming.” I was wearing a decrepit gray Radiohead T-shirt and underwear. I found a crumpled pair of running shorts in the hamper, shoved my legs into them, and went to the door.

  Rachel muscled her way inside. “See? She’s fine! I’ll take it from here. Thanks for your help,” she trilled to Dennis, the doorman, whom I could see peering curiously inside my apartment in the split second before Rachel shut the door firmly behind her.

  Rachel dumped a large grocery bag and three old issues of the Times onto my hall table, pausing to glance at the double-digit tally of unlistened-to phone messages blinking on my machine. She did a double-take when she saw me up close. Her shoulders slumped so she could look me over. “Are you okay? I got your text, but then you didn’t respond to any of my calls or e-mails. I’ve been really worried. Your doorman was worried, so I talked him into letting me up. He said he hadn’t seen you in days and your Times was piling up at your door.”

  She took a step closer and touched my arm. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

  “I’m really not ready to talk about it right now, Rach, okay?” I turned around, padded down the hall, and crawled gratefully back into bed, pulling the top sheet over my head.

  Rachel followed me into my bedroom. “My God, Ingrid. It reeks in here.”

  I could hear her raising my window blinds partway, picking up and shaking out the duvet that I’d kicked into a heap on the floor. I felt her sit down at the foot of the bed. There was nowhere else to sit in my sparsely furnished bedroom.

  “Look, Ingrid, you can’t just hole yourself up in here and sleep all day. You’ve got to get up, get dressed, go outside, do something. Trust me. Living like the Unabomber is only going to make you feel worse.” She was speaking patiently and gently, as she would to a scared little kid. I felt for a moment like I could be Isabel. I wished I were Isabel, with everything to look forward to and all of those happy decisions still ahead of me to make.

  “I like living like the Unabomber,” I mumbled through the top sheet.

  She snorted. I heard her get up and open the window. A light breeze and some distant street noise wafted in. I had to admit that both were a relief.

  Rachel came back and sat down again. She patted my ankle. “So,” she said softly after a little while, “what do you think you’re going to do now?”

  I pulled the sheets off my head and sat upright, looking at her. “I really don’t know,” I said truthfully. “Start over, I guess.”

  Rachel studied me. “Wow. You look really horrible, Ingrid.”

  “Thanks, Rach. You always know just what to say.”

  “No, seriously. You’re a mess. You look all pale. Have you been outside the apartment since last week? Have you even showered? When’s the last time you had anything to eat?”

  I considered this. “I think I had a Cup Noodles yesterday.”

  Rachel sighed and shook her head. I lay back down and rolled over.

  A little while later, I awoke to the most delicious smell. Rachel stood over my bed, holding out a plate and wafting it under my nose like smelling salts. She had brought me a thick, golden brown grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.

  I sat up and gratefully accepted the grilled cheese. As I chewed and swallowed I realized I had been a lot hungrier than I’d thought. I would never find another friend like Rachel.

&nb
sp; She settled next to me on the bed and effortlessly drew her legs up toward her into a perfect lotus position, exactly the way she used to sit in our shared apartment back in law school. I was impressed she could still do this, all these years later.

  Rachel waited until I’d nearly polished off the sandwich before asking, “So, do you feel like telling me what happened? It’s not clear from all the stuff on the blogs. What exactly did they tell you?”

  I munched on the last crust of sandwich. “That my work was not quite up to ‘partnership caliber.’” I made air quotes with my fingers.

  Rachel shook her head angrily. “That’s exactly the same bullshit every firm tells its female lawyers everywhere. After years of glowing performance reviews. You know, ‘Just keep your head down and keep on doing exactly what you’re doing! You’re on track, don’t worry!’ Same old crap.”

  I nodded, not wanting to think too hard about this. Not yet. I reached down for my glass and took a big swallow of milk. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d actually drunk cold milk, as an actual beverage. It was delicious.

  “It’s always either that or the killer-instinct argument.” Rachel was on a tear now. “You know, ‘We worry you lack the killer instinct needed to bring in business. You need to be very aggressive in this line of work.’ Killer instinct, my ass. What they mean is, ‘We don’t know if enough men will be comfortable hiring a lawyer without balls.’”

  I polished off my milk and drew the back of my hand across my mouth. We sat there in silence for what felt like a long time.

  Rachel was staring off toward the open window, not looking at me. A breeze wafted in and rattled the blinds. “It’s always the same double standard,” Rachel murmured. “If a woman has to leave early to pick up a sick kid or go to a soccer game, everybody tsks and wonders about her ‘dedication.’ But when a man does the same thing, everyone applauds and gives him a freaking medal.”

  I nodded. “I know.” Even though I wasn’t a parent, I’d seen this happen to other women at the firm many times.

  “And what’s happened to the deal you were working on? Do you know?” Rachel asked.

  I nodded again. I knew that Murph had already been brought on to finish up the SunCorp deal. When I’d briefly logged on to my laptop, I’d spotted the brief Wall Street Journal report about SunCorp’s announcement of the Binney acquisition, which occurred right on schedule, at the close of the quarter. And when I saw that, I couldn’t help myself. I navigated to the firm website and clicked on the “Parsons Valentine in the News” tab. Sure enough, there was a link to the Wall Street Journal item, next to a “Meet Our Deal Team” box, with the attorney profiles and beaming firm photos of Martin J. Adler and Jeffrey D. Murphy displayed right next to each other. The sight of an affable, confident Murph grinning out at me from the screen was too much to bear. I switched off my laptop, and it had remained off since then.

  So. Murph had gotten part of what he’d wanted after all. I guess he’d made out okay. I needn’t have worried.

  After I finished telling her this, Rachel did not once say I told you so. Again I was grateful.

  “You know,” she said, “I was always so crazily jealous of you, Ingrid. After I left Cleary.”

  I blinked up at her. I thought about beautiful, happily married Rachel, safely ensconced in her Westchester suburb, raising two beautiful kids, genuinely in love with the one living investment banker with the soul of a poet. “You? Jealous of me? Why?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve always sort of wondered, what if I’d stayed on at the firm? What could I have accomplished? It always felt, somehow, like I’d sold myself short.”

  I didn’t know why Rachel would be telling me any of this now. What was she trying to prove? Maybe back when I’d had a chance to do something about it, this would’ve been one thing. Now it just seemed beside the point. Like we were both utterly defeated. Like neither of us had anything to show for ourselves. I suddenly felt sorry for the idealistic younger self I’d been in college.

  “Well, as it turns out, maybe I’ve sold myself short, too. I’ve wasted all this time.”

  “Don’t say that.” Rachel shook her head so fiercely she dislodged her hair from where it had been tucked behind her ear. “This hasn’t been wasted time. You’ve been someone, out in the world. You were out there doing things, making things happen.”

  We were both quiet for a while, thinking.

  I thought about the New Yorker cartoon I’d once cut out and taped to a corner of my computer monitor at work. It showed a plot of grass sitting on one side of a fence, looking at the other side, and musing to itself, I’m greener, yes. But am I happier?

  Rachel and I both had a lot to learn.

  She touched me on the shoulder. “There’s one part I don’t get. Is it true you had to get escorted out of the building? That part made no sense. What did they say to you?”

  I looked at her, embarrassed. “It’s not what they said to me. It’s what I said to them.”

  “It can’t be that bad. I mean, what did you say?”

  “Told him to go fuck himself.”

  “You said that to … Adler?”

  “To Adler.”

  Rachel’s eyes got big. “You did not.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, Ingrid,” she said. “Oh, honey.” Rachel was trying hard not to laugh, but not hard enough. And as long as I’d known her, whenever Rachel started to laugh like that—her great, big, gaspy, help me I am on the floor laugh—it was difficult for me not to join her. Impossible in this case.

  We laughed until we were both crying a little.

  Late that night, as Rach was leaving my apartment and making me promise to take a shower and eat the turkey pot pie, frittata, and homemade gazpacho that she had left in Tupperware tubs in my fridge, she hugged me and said, “This isn’t the end of the world, Ingrid. You’ll figure something else out, eventually. Trust me. You will.”

  I was already starting to believe her.

  NINETEEN

  Rachel was right, of course. Living like the Unabomber was not the answer. I had to get up sometime.

  The next morning, I forced myself into the shower; pulled on a favorite pair of jeans, a white V-neck tee, and flip-flops; slipped my hair into a low, loose knot; and took the elevator nineteen floors down to the lobby. Dennis was on duty. He grinned as soon as he saw me. “Well, look who it is!” He looked me up and down, taking in my ancient jeans, my flip-flops, my makeup-free face. “You got the day off or something?”

  I smiled sadly. “Or something, Dennis.”

  I took a deep breath, then pushed through the revolving door and out into the sunshine.

  The July day was hot but not sticky. It felt good to be outside and moving my arms and legs. But it felt odd, too—a little like sleepwalking. It was the most bizarre sensation, this idea that I was not expected anywhere. Margo wasn’t waiting for me to respond to a thick sheaf of yellow “While You Were Out” slips. Marty Adler wasn’t waiting on my revised, redlined draft of anything. Justin Keating wasn’t waiting for me to show up and generally make his life miserable.

  I had no conference calls. No meetings. No lunches. No appointments. No deadlines. No seminars. I had nothing.

  I could actually put on the same old pair of jeans and flip-flops every day if I wanted to. I had a useless wardrobe full of expensive suits, Bergdorf tags still dangling from the sleeves. I tried to remember if I’d kept any of the receipts. Could I return everything? Or maybe I’d have a garage sale. A “going out of business” sale! FIRE SALE! FORMER CORPORATE ATTORNEY OUT ON HER ASS. EVERYTHING MUST GO!

  I walked by a handsome young neighborhood dad wearing black Adidas track pants and a faded old Race for the Cure T-shirt, holding on to the hand of his son—his spitting image—as they crossed the street. The kid, about five, was toting a Wiffle bat. They were obviously headed to the park.

  A trim older woman with close-cropped hair power-walked past me in the opposite direction, humming along to
the song she was listening to on her headphones.

  So this was what the city looked like during the workweek, during all those lost hours I’d spent at the firm. I marveled at these lucky people who were roaming the neighborhood in the middle of a random Tuesday morning. What was their secret? What did they do? They couldn’t all be retired or have trust funds. Did they just work the night shift? Or maybe they were simply, as Dennis had assumed I was, taking a long-overdue day off.

  As I continued down the sidewalk, it dawned on me that I was starving. Maybe it was the grilled cheese sandwich Rachel had fed me yesterday that had startled my appetite out of hibernation. Or maybe it was the fact that I was out in the relatively fresh New York air for the first time in four days. Whatever it was, my body was telling me that I hadn’t been paying it enough attention. And my body was not happy about it.

  I headed back in the opposite direction, to the bagel place three blocks down. I was practically running, I was suddenly so hungry. It felt good to have a sense of purpose and destination, even if the destination was the Bagel Boat.

  “What can I get you?” asked the guy behind the counter, snapping on some plastic gloves. I’d never seen him before. I usually only came here amid the bustling weekend crowd, but this was a totally different staff and the place was quiet, nearly empty. So there really was this whole other Weekday Morning Nonoffice World that I knew nothing about.

  “I’ll have a toasted everything with cream cheese and lox, please.”

  “That be all?”

  “And this, too,” I said, picking up a copy of the Wall Street Journal from the wire rack. For old times’ sake. For the want ads, too. Wait—did they even have want ads in newspapers anymore?

  As the guy rang me up, the little bell above the door chimed, and three young women entered the store, chattering and laughing, each pushing a baby stroller. They were dressed alike, in T-shirts, jeans, and trainers or flip-flops. They parked the strollers and headed over to a little nook by the refrigerated drinks. Obviously, the bagel stop was part of their routine.