The Partner Track: A Novel (10 page)

Now I’m the kinda guy the little homies wanna be like

Dinner at Luger’s, weekend house at the seaside

But ninety-hour weeks they go down kind of hard

They never told us any of this back in Harvard Yard!

Now Matt took a step backward to join Hunter and Kyle and, still swaying in unison and waving their arms in the air, the three of them launched into the chorus, singing at the top of their lungs:

Been spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise

Been spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise

Been spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise

We’ll keep spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise

Oh my God.

The tent felt like it was closing in on itself; the air around me was still and very close. Slowly, taking care to have a neutral expression on my face—as neutral as possible—I glanced around the table. Gavin Dunlop was grinning and nodding his head in time to the beat. Andrea Carr’s forehead was furrowed. She looked grim. I knew I liked that Andrea Carr. Caleb and Nate, meanwhile, just looked bored.

I snuck a look at Murph. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he had a quiet, thoughtful look on his face, but it was impossible to read. I couldn’t tell if Murph looked thoughtful because—like me—he was contemplating the idiocy of three incredibly privileged lawyers spoofing a song that was a lament to the destructive cycle of gangster violence in the inner city, or because he was thinking that he could have come up with way funnier lyrics.

As casually as I could, I looked around at the neighboring tables. Many of the senior partners were laughing and actually tapping their toes and slapping their thighs in time to the throbbing bass beat. Most of them didn’t seem aware that anything unusual was happening. A few younger lawyers did look uncomfortable, though, and just offstage, Pam Karnow looked downright pissed.

I finally spotted Tyler. He was seated a couple of tables behind me, with his arms hanging limply at his sides, making no eye contact with anyone at his table. The summer associate sitting next to him looked mortified. Tyler looked both sad and utterly unsurprised. I willed him to look over at me, but he didn’t.

I turned back toward the stage. I watched helplessly as Hunter, Kyle, and Matt anchored their arms about each other’s shoulders and belted out the next verse:

Power and the money, money and the power

Minute after minute, hour after hour

You accumulate your riches

Grab your hos and your bitches

Now that me and my homies got made

And so our wives get younger

Our cars get bigger

Gotta run a lot faster

To catch up with this n
____
!

Except they didn’t say “
N
____
.” I couldn’t believe it. They actually sang the word that rhymes with “bigger.”

I gasped. And I was not alone. There was a collective sucking in of breath from the tables near us.

Murph glanced over, caught my eye, and shot me a look.
Holy shit.

I twisted around just in time to see Tyler Robinson walk out of the tent. I pushed back my chair, murmured, “Excuse me,” to no one in particular, and hurried after him.

“Tyler?” I ran out into the deepening dusk, peering across the shadowy, gently sloping lawn. “Tyler?” The evening had turned cool, and I rubbed my bare arms, shivering, not sure which way to go. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Tyler! Where are you?”

“Hey,” he said, much closer than I’d expected.

I whirled around. He was a few yards away from me, leaning against the thick gnarled trunk of an old oak tree.

I walked over to him.

“Hey.” I stood beside him, against the oak, which smelled mossy and damp. We were silent for several long moments.

I slid down along the base of the tree and settled onto one of its ancient, twisted roots, surprised at how solid and steady it felt beneath my weight. I tilted my face up, staring up through the wizened old branches at the stars, which stood out in sharp relief against the clear night sky. You never saw stars like this in the city, and I thought about how incongruous all this beauty was with everything that was going on underneath the tent.

I felt like I should say something to let Tyler know he wasn’t the only one in the world who ever felt like this. As long as I lived, I would not learn to leave a quiet moment alone.

“Tyler, I don’t know what those guys were thinking—” I began.

“Stop.” He held a hand up like a traffic cop. “Don’t. You don’t have to. Let’s not talk about it.”

“Okay,” I practically whispered.

“Damn.” Tyler pounded his fist against the tree. I jumped. “Nothing surprises me around here anymore. You know that?” He broke away and started striding up the hill toward the clubhouse.

I followed him. “Wait, where are you going? The first buses back to the city don’t leave for at least another hour.”

“You stay if you want. I’m calling a fucking cab.”

I sped up after him, struggling to keep up as the heels of my strappy sandals sank into the soft, moist sod. “But Tyler, what if someone asks where you went?”

He stopped. He laughed once and spun around. I realized I’d just asked an incredibly stupid question.

“Ingrid,” he said, and both his hands were clenched in fists, “I’m done. I’ve already spent an entire day faking conversation with people I can’t stand, and I’ll be damned if I let myself just sit here and smile through another second of their fucking
dinner entertainment.
”

“Listen, Tyler, what if we just—”

“No. I’m not doing this anymore.” He shook his head. “I’ve stayed too long as it is.” And he wasn’t just talking about the outing.

“Tyler, wait.” I reached out and touched his arm.

“No.” He shook me off. Then he looked pointedly at me. “You stay, then.”

His words stung me.

He broke into a fast run, up the hill. In another moment, he rounded the corner of the clubhouse and disappeared entirely.

I felt completely and utterly alone, more alone than I had ever felt in the nearly ten years since I’d been at Parsons Valentine. Because Tyler had just planted a nagging, bitter little seed of doubt. About what we were both still doing here.

I shivered, noticing again the chill in the evening air. I wished I’d brought a wrap. Slowly, carefully, trying not to slip on the grass moist with evening dew, I made my way back across the lawn to the tent and slipped back inside.

As I slid back into my seat, Gavin Dunlop leaned over and whispered, “Everything okay?”

I nodded.

Everything was
not
okay. I felt sick. Incredibly, the crazy skit was still going on. Onstage, Matt McCallum was still “rapping.” Hunter and Kyle were rhythmically bending their knees and arcing their arms around wildly.

Been spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise

We’ll keep spending most our lives, working in a partner’s paradise

I couldn’t stand to look at them. I tried staring down at the table instead, but the streaks of raspberry ganache left on my dessert plate suddenly looked garish and obscene—pornographic, even—and made me feel more nauseous. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Across from me, Harold Rubinstein shifted uneasily in his seat. Just outside the tent, Pamela Karnow and Dave Cavender appeared to be arguing, she gesticulating at the three men on the stage, Dave’s shoulders up in a permanent shrug, as if to say,
I know, but what exactly do you want me to do?

The space around me was spinning, and a stifling hush fell over the crowd; I had the weird sensation that we were all underwater. It felt almost like I was drowning. And every other sound underneath that tent was muffled to my ears except for those three clear voices—bright, drunk, gleeful, a little off-key—coming from the stage.

The song went on for another two verses. No one made a move to stop the performance.

When they had finished, and the throbbing bass beat finally faded out, I could still feel a hammering in my throat and in my chest and, seemingly, in the ground beneath our table. An edgy silence fell over the tent, followed by some uneven applause. About half the audience was clapping. How was that even happening? A few partners actually seemed amused by the skit. Most people looked baffled and uncomfortable. Some were absolutely livid and were whispering and gesturing toward the stage.

I looked back around toward Tyler’s empty seat.
I don’t blame you,
I thought.

“Jesus H. Christ, doesn’t anyone ever vet these things before the outing?” I heard Harold Rubinstein grumble in a low voice, more to Gavin Dunlop than to anyone else at the table. “We’re gonna hear about
that
again, believe me.”

Gavin shrugged. “Come on, it’s called satire! No harm, no foul. Just a bunch of drunk guys having some fun. Tasteless, maybe, but no one’ll even remember this by Monday.”

Harold gave Gavin a disbelieving look. “I’m not so sure about that, Gavin.”

Gavin ignored this.

“Well,” he said brightly to the rest of us. It seemed like he was looking directly at me. “
That
was certainly—interesting, huh?”

“Interesting’s not quite the word,” said Murph.

I could not will myself to say anything. I didn’t trust myself to sound as breezy and blasé as I felt I needed to at that moment. I looked away and noticed a uniformed waiter calmly clearing dessert plates from a nearby table. He was the only African American man underneath the whole tent, and, aside from me, the only person of color in sight. He was older than my father.

I picked up my wineglass, which had just been refilled, and downed the whole thing in a couple of swallows.

Murph leaned over and whispered, “Hey, whoa. Take it easy. What’s wrong with you?”

What was wrong with me? My head was swimming, my ears were pounding, and I just wanted the night to be over so I could get away from this crowd, as quickly as possible.

A few tables away, Marty Adler gestured toward Harold Rubinstein. “Excuse me,” Harold said, pushing his chair away from the table. He and Adler walked out of the tent and conferred quietly in the darkness. Rubinstein was nodding his head and rubbing his temples while Adler appeared to be telling him something very serious.

Pam Karnow was back up onstage. She looked flustered and angry, but she grabbed the mike and said, “Okay, folks, we’re gonna keep things rolling here. Next up, we have…”

But the air had been sucked out of the place, the mood had irrevocably changed, and a few more senior partners from the Management Committee were walking over to join the huddle of partners talking quietly just outside the light of the tent.

“I don’t feel so good,” I suddenly leaned over and whispered to Murph. “It feels like the room’s kind of, um, spinning.”

Murph looked at me and quickly handed me his glass. “Here, have some water.” I took great big thirsty gulps. The water felt good and cool going down.

“Jesus, how many margaritas did you have by the pool today?” Murph said, in a low voice only I was close enough to hear.

“I don’t know.” I held up three fingers. “Four? Five? I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

“We need to get you home,” Murph said. He glanced at his watch. “Listen, the first buses back should be boarding pretty soon. I’ll walk you out of here. Do you think you can stand?”

I nodded, but my head felt light.

Murph and I quickly bade good night to the rest of the table. He discreetly kept a firm steadying hand on the small of my back as we made our way back up the terraced path to the clubhouse.

As soon as we got inside the cool, darkened hallway of the old stone building, our footsteps echoing on the polished floors, I started to feel better. It felt so good to be away from the din of the tent and that incredibly stupid song, and Hunter, Kyle, and Matt seemed very far away from here.

Also, it felt good to be alone with Murph.

As we walked down the corridor, Murph glanced out a window toward the long, winding driveway. “See? Looks like two of the coaches are already boarding. Come on, let’s go. You’ll feel better after you’ve gotten some sleep on the ride home.”

But I wasn’t ready to leave the cool stillness of the clubhouse, not yet.

“Can’t we just sit somewhere for a minute?” I said. “Please. Just for a minute.” I reached down and took hold of Murph’s hand.

Murph looked at my hand, then back up at me. “You okay, Yung? Do you still feel sick?”

“I’ll feel better if I just sit here for a minute.” I led him a few tentative steps out of the corridor and into an empty parlor room.

He didn’t argue.

I peered around in the semidarkness, spotted a plush, inviting divan in the corner, and steered us both toward it.

We sat.

Then—because it felt natural, and before I realized I was going to do it—I leaned my head against Murph’s shoulder, nestled myself against him, and closed my eyes. He smelled nice—he had that scrubbed young bachelor smell of shaving cream and deodorant soap and laundry dryer sheets—and I took in a long, deep breath, trying to fill my lungs with it.

The room had stopped spinning, and I felt very close to sleep.

“This is nice,” I heard myself murmur.

Murph said nothing. But I could hear his calm, measured breathing, could feel the reassuring rise and fall of his chest beside me. When I raised my head slightly to look at him, he had tilted his head back along the top of the couch, and his eyes were closed. He had extremely long, sandy eyelashes. I had never noticed that before.

“Murph,” I said sleepily.

Pause.

“Huh.”

“Why were you so nice to that Caleb kid tonight?”

Murph didn’t answer, and for a moment I thought it was because he didn’t know what I was talking about, or maybe he’d fallen asleep. But then he said in a low voice, “Because I would hope that someone would do something like that for me.”