“I—I didn’t know …” I stuttered, my brain fried from lack of sleep and, ironically, the F&D Holiday Cheer. “But you requested that research over the weekend …” I started to say in confusion, sounding more like I was asking a question than giving an answer.
“What the hell are you talking about, Mackenzie? What fucking research? The fucking deal died on a Friday. Friiiii-daaaay,” he repeated, drawing out each syllable condescendingly and I could feel his spittle spray on my face again. “Why the fuck would I ask you to do research on a Saturday?”
Um … that’s what I was wondering, but like most of Saul’s questions, I knew it was a rhetorical one.
He peered down at his empty glass, frowning. “Geez, is it this woman’s mission in life not to serve me?” He looked around the room incredulously and marched away towards the bar. I was left standing, mouth gaping open in disbelief, trying to absorb what he’d just said.
“Okay, now you’re just starting to sound paranoid, Mackenzie,” Jason said, removing his coat and collapsing on my couch. We had stayed at the party for about an hour after my run-in with Saul, enough time to down another much-needed drink and fill a plastic bag full of candy from the dessert room (also much needed). I didn’t tell Jason about the conversation until we were in the cab on our way back to my apartment, wanting to fully digest what Saul had said and figure out what it meant. “You really think that this girl, who doesn’t even really know you, wants to get you FIRED?” He grabbed a sour patch kid from the bag and popped it in his mouth. “Why would she do that? Why would she pick on YOU?”
“I know it sounds crazy!” I flopped down on the couch next to him and rummaged through the bag for a chocolate malt ball. “But you don’t know this girl.” My hazy mind suddenly flashed back to the party, and the sight of a hostile, pencil-thin silhouette that stuck out from the group. “Wait, was I having a vodka-fueled hallucination or was the she-devil in the group of associates you were talking to outside the bathroom?”
“Outside the bathroom?” He paused, as if running through mental images from the evening. “Maybe. I don’t really remember.”
“I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
“Yeah. We sat next to each other in a CLE a few weeks ago,” he added flippantly, tossing a peanut butter cup into his mouth.
I stared at him bewilderedly.
“Didn’t I tell you that?”
I shook my head.
“Oh, I thought I did.” He shrugged. “Hey, did you know she’s a Columbia alum? She actually chairs the women’s alumni association. The youngest woman ever to do that. I remember hearing about her in law school, but I didn’t put the pieces together that it was the same Sarah Clarke.” He said this with an impressed tone, and I felt my lip curl.
Sarah chaired an association dedicated to helping other women? Oh, right, I thought, rolling my eyes. How could I forget her obvious commitment to the whole women’s movement?
“Anyway, from the way you described her, I thought she’d have horns and a tail, but she actually ended up being pretty nice. Even lent me a pen.”
“Nice?” I repeated after a pause. “Have you not been listening? The woman torments me! Is that what you consider nice?”
“I just mean she didn’t seem as bad as you described her.” He shrugged.
I could feel a ball of frustration. Sarah tortures me for months, but she goes and lends him a pen and suddenly he thinks she’s nice? Even if I was being completely irrational in my revulsion for Sarah (which I wasn’t), isn’t it the job of a boyfriend to dislike everyone I dislike? Okay, maybe not everyone, but certainly the people that strive to make my life miserable.
“Jason, she just INVENTED this research! Saul had absolutely NO idea what I was talking about.” I threw my arms up dramatically.
“Mackenzie,” Jason started, in a tone that should be reserved for talking someone off the side of an office building. “I saw Saul—he was so drunk he probably had no idea what HE was talking about,” he reasoned. “Remember, in Saul’s world, days of the week don’t matter—to him Friday is interchangeable with Monday. They’re all working days, all days that are fit for abusing associates.”
He had a point. Hadn’t Saul always been wrong about the deadlines he imposed? He’d say Wednesday, but he meant Monday. I guess this didn’t have to be any different.
“Why do you always have to be so … logical,” I mumbled as Jason leaned in for a kiss. I melted into him and completely forgot about Sarah or Saul or anything else but us.
16
I SAT AT MY desk gazing out the window, basking in the last few minutes of peace as the buzz of a new day began outside my door. The view from my office never failed to put me in a good mood, but at daybreak it was really stunning. I loved the way the morning sun glinted off the skyscrapers, making them appear golden, like a gift from the New York City gods for coming into work so early.
“Mackenzie,” Rita hissed, padding into my office and closing the door. She looked rough, making me wonder if she was still feeling the effects of the holiday party.
“Morning, Rita.” I swiveled my chair towards her, giving her my full attention. “What’s up?”
She wrung her hands, looking like a child bringing home a terrible report card. “I gaw-ta ask ya’ something’.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Well, is this firm okay?” She crossed her arms over her chest, raising an accusatory eyebrow. “Because if you law-yahs are running some kinda Ponzi scheme, tell me now so I can get another job.”
I looked at her sideways.
She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “A guy came to see Vince today. A guy who looked just like Mr. Clean. You know the guy on the commercials?”
I nodded.
“Anyway, he even had the earring and everything. He said he was from the Securities and Exchange Enforcement Division.”
I raised my eyebrows. I have to admit I was somewhat impressed that Rita knew what that was.
“I just finished a book about that crook Bernie Madoff,” Rita explained, as if reading my mind. “I like that true crime stuff.” She shrugged. “So when I brought them their coffee I made sure I left the door open a crack so I could listen. It wasn’t easy with all the phones ringin’, but I heard enough.” She darted her eyes behind her, as if she was worried someone had followed her into the office. Then, in a voice as soft as she was capable of, she whispered, “Mackenzie, the firm’s bein’ investigated.”
“Investigated for what?” I was used to Rita’s tendency to exaggerate. She often read the National Enquirer at her desk, regaling me with stories about possible alien encounters and reincarnations. And in her mind, all weather reports were weather emergencies.
“He said somethin’ about unusual trading on deals F&D has negotiated. Are you guys awwwl gettin’ hauled outta here in handcuffs?” Her eyes widened fearfully.
For a moment I enjoyed the wonderful visual of Saul being handcuffed and dragged out of the building, but the worried look in Rita’s eyes snapped me back to reality. I mustered my calmest tone. “Rita, nobody is getting hauled out of here in handcuffs. Whenever there’s any unusual trading after a deal the SEC approaches everyone involved—all the law firms, the banks, the clients—and asks them to compile a list of people who worked on the deal. All they’re doing is generating a list of all the insiders and making sure none of those people did any trading.” I’d always thought these types of requests came in a letter rather than a personal visit from the SEC, but I could tell Rita needed to be talked off the ledge, so I didn’t mention that.
“So you knew about this visit from Mr. Clean?”
“No, but it’s standard practice,” I assured her.
She nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense. I did fig-yah if somethin’ shady was goin’ on you at least woulda cut me in on it.”
“You know I would,” I replied, still chuckling at the idea of every F&D lawyer being rounded up by the Feds.
“Good.” She grabbed a Diet Coke off of the shelf and popped it open. “You know, it’s beginning to look like you’re setting up house in here.” She gestured to my bookshelves, lined with sixteen cans of Diet Coke and seven bottles of Poland Spring water. My drawers were filled with packets of random condiments—soy sauce, salad dressing, ketchup, pepper. I had six pairs of shoes tucked under my desk and a clean, pressed suit hanging from the hook on the back of my door. Three tubes of lip balm and five handiwipes sat in my paperclip holder for the times during the day that I needed to look presentable, the handiwipes often being a substitute for a shower. If someone had closed the door and locked me in there I probably could have survived for days before I needed to call for help. Weeks if someone would slip a few fruit roll-ups under the door.
“If I roll a bed in here, call Hoarders.”
“You workin’ late again tonight?”
I nodded.
“How can ya get by on so little sleep, Mac?” I had once wondered the same thing when I’d watched the movie Wall Street. How do people keep working if they don’t sleep? At some point don’t you just tip over? The answer for me so far was no—I had yet to actually cease functioning. Somehow the body keeps going. Maybe it’s muscle memory. My body was just doing what it had done thousands of times before—walking, talking, reading. That’s the only way I could explain how I was still standing upright when I was this exhausted.
“It’ll get better soon,” I assured her. It’ll get better soon.
“Okay, how fast are we moving through the supply contracts?” I flipped the page of the due diligence checklist. It was 9 P.M.—dinner time in the war room—but I wanted to multitask, so I asked Patrick to give me a quick update on the due diligence while we waited for our Chinese food to arrive.
“Snail’s pace, but it’s not our fault,” Patrick replied. “They haven’t provided most of them yet. They’ve left placeholders where they should be, but when we click on it, no document.”
I nodded, making a note to follow up with the company on the timeframe of when they’d post the rest of the documents.
“Food’s here,” Gavin announced, lugging three large plastic bags into the war room. We tore into the bags, announcing the contents of each steaming aluminum container we opened as we distributed them across the conference room table. Then we divvied up the twenty cans of soda.
With forty dollars allotted to associates for dinner, we could order whatever type of food we desired and, if we allocated our dinner funds right, there was some left over to stock our office with snacks and drinks. Candy bars, soda, fruit, bags of nuts, boxes of cereal, cookies, granola bars, milk, crackers, cheese and even wine could all be purchased from Seamless. So, if your meal was only fifteen dollars, you threw in ten bottles of water for later. Everyone made sure to take full advantage of the perk, gathering granola bars and Gatorade like they were canned goods that might be needed in an apocalypse. Spend anything less than forty dollars and you were shortchanging yourself.
Of course, with so many Type A personalities in one place, it wasn’t long before someone took grocery shopping on Seamless up a notch. Michael Henderson, an entrepreneurial associate in the Finance department, found a way to make a profit from the perk. He would order the least expensive dinner and use the rest of the allocated money on various grocery items to stockpile in his office. Then he’d sell the stockpiled drinks and edibles to other associates for fifty cents apiece. His office became known as “Henderson’s Bodega” among the associates and was always open for business. Craving a Twix at 2 A.M.? You just headed down to Henderson’s Bodega and dropped fifty cents into the money jar. It was the honor system, but as far as I know, everyone always paid. We wouldn’t have ripped off one of our own. At the end of each month Michael would empty the jar and use the money to buy lottery tickets. “I like to refer to it as my ‘exit plan,’” he would proudly tell other associates. “One of these days I’m going to hit it big and then ‘fuck you, F&D,’” he’d say, sticking up his middle finger. Clearly a man with a dream.
“You know, this war room is like Las Vegas,” I observed, filling my plate with chicken and broccoli, steamed dumplings, pork fried rice, and beef chow mein. “There aren’t any windows, so you have no idea what time of day it is, and someone keeps bringing you food.” Patrick looked around, considering this.
“Nah, Vegas at least has booze. I think it looks more like an insane asylum. It smells like a mix of stale old food and body odor, and I think I see a puddle of drool over there.” He gestured to the corner of the mahogany table. “The only thing missing is someone babbling in the corner. Give it a couple hours and Gavin may be doing just that.” We all laughed, enjoying our first bites of another Highlander-sponsored dinner in our adopted dining room.
Staring down at my plate of greasy Chinese food, my mind drifted back to the weekend I’d visited Jason during winter break of our final year of law school. I’d taken the bus from D.C. right after my last exam, unable to wait another minute to see him. Jason had offered to pay for an Amtrak ticket, wanting me to have a more comfortable trip, but I declined. My small town sensibilities just couldn’t justify the additional hundred dollars for a train ticket when both take you to the same place. But after taking one look at the smelly, rundown bus without any bathroom or food, transporting passengers that looked like they’d escaped from a penitentiary, I would’ve paid double that amount for a seat that didn’t have a pointy spring poking directly into the small of my back. When I finally arrived in Chinatown after my seven hour ordeal at just after eleven in the evening, Jason was waiting for me. He took one look at my frazzled, hungry face and shepherded me to the nearest restaurant. It was just a tiny hole in the wall called Prosperity Dumpling, but I dug into that dim sum with the enthusiasm of someone who’d been adrift at sea for days. We curled up in the corner booth for a couple hours, feasting on dumplings and drinking Tsingtao, joking about making dim sum a weekly ritual when I lived in New York. “Maybe we’ll both quit our jobs and write a travel book,” Jason teased. “We’ll call it Adventures in Dim Sum.”
I poked at a piece of steamed broccoli, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be at home, snuggled next to Jason. Kim didn’t know what she was talking about. Of course I wanted to move in with Jason. I was just being practical about it.
“Did you hear the Wondermart deal died?” Patrick asked, wolfing down his sweet and sour pork and interrupting my thoughts. “Ben was working on that one, so looks like he’ll have more time now to micromanage us.”
My heart did a little leap. I knew from Sadir’s latest that Sarah was working on that deal too.
“Looks like Sarah will have to find another ass to kiss then,” Gavin replied in between bites. “She’s been stuck to him like gum on the bottom of his shoe.”
I could feel my shoulders tense. Gavin was never in the loop with firm gossip. If he was thinking Sarah was sucking up to Ben, he must have witnessed it himself.
“I’ve got a feeling she’s kissing more than just his ass,” Patrick snorted.
I choked on my mouthful of chow mein.
“You okay, Mac?”
I nodded, before pounding my chest and taking a swig of Diet Coke. “Fine,” I croaked. Visions of Sarah sauntering into Ben’s office in her red stilettos filled my mind. Would she really be trying to sleep her way to the top? I rubbed my temples in an attempt to purge the thought from my mind and forced myself to think about it rationally. Ben had entrusted me with the biggest deal in the firm for a reason. I was busting my butt to close that deal. I refused to let Sarah get inside my head and make me doubt myself.
“Hey, where’s Sheldon been today?” I asked, seizing the opportunity to change the subject. Sheldon usually didn’t eat dinner with us. We’d asked him a few times and he politely declined before confiding in Patrick that he preferred to eat alone. He explained that as a Mormon he believed that mealtime was a time to build up the body, improve endurance, and enhance intellect. A time to treat your bo
dy like a temple. I guess seeing us chow down on greasy Chinese food somehow interfered with this goal. But I hadn’t seen him since yesterday, which was unusual.
“The computer he was working on is having issues, so he’s working back in his office today until IT can come and fix it,” Patrick answered, between munches.
Knowing that Sheldon needed constant supervision to make sure he stayed on the right track, I headed down to his office after dinner. We had a lot of documents to slog through and the last thing I wanted was him spending all night reviewing one document and getting bogged down in too much detail. I didn’t have time for another summary of the grammatical errors in a contract.
“Hey, Sheldon.” I tapped on the door of the office he shared with another junior associate, realizing I’d never actually been in his office. His desk was immaculately clean—not one messy stack of paper. In fact, there wasn’t any paper on it. Just a cup full of pens and one of those huge ink-blotter desk calendars in the leather holder in the center of his desk. Next to his desk was a large cardboard cut-out of what appeared to be a person.
“Oh!” He popped up from his desk like a jack-in-the-box. “Hi … Ma … Mackenzie,” he stuttered nervously. His face flushed to such a dark shade of red that you would have thought I caught him looking at porn on his computer or something. Which I was sure Sheldon didn’t do because I happened to know that his Church forbids it. He told Patrick that all married men at his Church are required to record any sexual urge they have in a diary and meet with a support group weekly to discuss their diary entries. I kid you not. I didn’t even want to think about that meeting.
“Ummm … what’s that?” I asked, pointing to the mysterious cardboard cutout looming beside his desk, praying it wasn’t some life-size stripper that would have to be recorded in his diary.
“This? It’s a life-size cutout of Abe Lincoln!” he answered excitedly, turning the figure around so I could see. Okaaay … this guy was even kookier than I thought. Had I underestimated Sheldon? Was he the type of guy you see on CNN that brings a gun to work and unleashes a spray of bullets on all of us sinners? I could just imagine the interview: Were there any signs that Sheldon was crazy? Well, let’s see, you mean other than the masturbation journal and the giant cardboard Abe Lincoln in his office?
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