The Partner Track: A Novel (7 page)

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Dr. Giles remarked cheerfully, as he poured four drinks into ornate crystal glasses. “That view’s what finally sold Nancy and me on this place.”

I could not stop looking and looking out that window, at the deep violet hue spreading across the sky. It felt as if the day’s humiliations were draining from my body, and I was waking up fresh. I had never wanted to belong to anything more than to that shimmering landscape of office towers lit up against the dark New York sky. Each individual glittering box of light—like gems strung along a necklace—seemed to me to be a tiny oblong window onto success, acceptance, respect, that is to say,
a place in the world.
Everything that must be good and great and worth striving for. I thought about how each glimmering box of light came with a telephone, a computer, a keyboard, a desk, diplomas on a wall, shelves full of books. I thought to myself that these must be the kinds of things anyone would want. I resolved at that moment to come back here and look at this city skyline someday after I was grown, and know that one of those millions of tiny, far-off, glittering boxes of light in the sky was mine.

I wasn’t big. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t tall. I wasn’t even a boy. But people said I was smart. So I simply willed myself to
succeed
—over and over and over again—because I had to. It was the only way I could think of to protect my parents and myself. It was how I would justify what my family was doing here. I didn’t see any other way.

FIVE

The morning of the firm outing dawned bright and beautiful. Of course it did. It was as if Parsons Valentine had ordered up the weather. I wouldn’t have been surprised. If anyone could do it, they could.

At nine o’clock on the dot, while the rest of the midtown commuters scrambled to clock in and get to their desks, I boarded one of the luxury charter coaches lined up on Fifty-first Street.

Tyler Robinson, another Corporate associate who worked in the Securities group, waved his arms above his head. “Seats back here, Ingrid.”

People were laughing and talking excitedly; golf bags were strewn across seats. The air was charged with the buzzy anticipation of a busload of kids going to summer camp. I made my way down the aisle toward Tyler, nodding to various partners and associates along the way.

Tyler Robinson was six foot four and gorgeous. The only African American associate in Corporate who’d stuck around past his third or fourth year, he was also one of a handful of openly gay attorneys at Parsons Valentine. In private, Tyler and I joked that together we made up the firm’s Diversity Dream Team. Between the two of us, the firm got to tick off four boxes on its National Association of Law Placement diversity questionnaire: black, gay, Asian, female. Four exotic birds with just two stones.

And we were, by far, the two most-photographed attorneys in the firm’s glossy recruiting brochure.
Look, here’s Tyler in a boardroom! There’s Ingrid in the law library! Here they both are interacting meaningfully with senior partners!
It was as hilarious as it was sad.

Tyler half-stood. “Window or aisle?” he asked.

“I’ll take the window.”

He stood up obligingly so I could slide in.

I sank into the seat and, glancing out the tinted window, spotted Murph looking for a bus to board. He was wearing a white golf shirt and khaki shorts, with a tennis racquet bag slung over his shoulder. I rapped once on the glass, and Murph looked up.

I waved.

Murph gave me a thumbs-up. In another second he was striding down the aisle.

Tyler shot me a look. “Really?”

“Come on, it’s just for an hour,” I said.

Murph and Tyler Robinson were
not
buddies. I wouldn’t say that they disliked each other, exactly; just that they were two extremely different kinds of men. Tyler wasn’t a “joiner” in firm activities, but if Murph ever left the firm, well, you got the feeling that social life at Parsons Valentine would simply grind to a halt. Not surprisingly, Tyler avoided Murph, Hunter, and the rest of the firm jocks whenever possible. For their part, Murph and Hunter thought that Tyler was “aloof” and “standoffish.”

But I had always been a pleaser. I wanted people to get along—with me and with each other. It was exhausting having friends who weren’t friends themselves.

“Hey,” Murph said breathlessly, flopping into the seat in front of me. “Did you have to find seats
all
the way in back?”

“The cool kids sit in the back of the bus,” I told him.

“Yeah, yeah.” He stowed his tennis racquet under the seat and then settled himself comfortably against the window, one tanned arm resting along the back of the seat in front of me. He glanced over at Tyler and nodded.

Tyler nodded back without a word.

“So,” I said, a little too loudly. “I see you’re signed up for tennis today, Murph?”

“Definitely. Hunter and I put in for some doubles. Who knows who we’ll get paired up with, though. Hopefully no losers.”

“Hopefully not,” said Tyler mildly.

Now I gave him a look.
Try harder.

Tyler rolled his eyes and turned away.

Murph looked at me and mouthed,
What’s with him?

I decided to change the subject. “Why doubles?”

Murph shrugged. “Easier to get court time. Ever since Trask took over.”

The Management Committee had discreetly asked Ann Trask, the firm’s director of special events, to take over the assigning of teams for golf and tennis. In recent years, the most jocklike male partners had excluded the less athletic lawyers from their golf carts, a practice the firm had deemed
unsporting.

For the rest of the ride, Murph and I placed bets on which partners would get the most shit-faced while Tyler pretended to nap.

An hour later, the coach turned onto Country Club Drive. We rolled past tall green hedges and a set of massive stone gates at the entrance, bearing a sign that read:

OAK HOLLOW COUNTRY CLUB

E
ST
. 1883

M
EMBER
AND
G
UEST
E
NTRANCE
O
NLY

The coach pulled up to the clubhouse, a once gracious manor that was now home to corporate events and political fund-raisers. Everybody stood up at once, gathering their stuff and crowding into the aisle. A boisterous clique of summer associates huddled at the front of the bus, joking and talking. “Let me at those pancakes,” said one, rubbing his hands together. “Forget the pancakes—let me at that open bar!” said another. “Not til noon, Steinberg,” said a third. “Remember, we’ve got to pace ourselves.”

“Oh my God, you guys aren’t going to start drinking before noon, are you?” shrieked one of the young women, zipping up a Louis Vuitton squash bag.

The other girls in the group laughed and tossed their long, straight hair as we filed off the bus and into the clubhouse.

Once inside, we walked down a long hallway, our footsteps echoing on the impeccably polished floors, passing a library and a large empty sitting room, until we reached a set of French doors that led out onto the vast stone terrace. Along one edge of the terrace stood a white-tablecloth buffet breakfast, complete with an outdoor grilling station staffed by men in white chef’s hats, flipping made-to-order omelets. The air smelled of sizzling bacon and freshly mown grass.

We stood for a moment and surveyed the Parsons Valentine crowd: men decked out in tennis whites or golf shirts and khakis; women wearing crisp sleeveless shirts and tailored shorts, or light-colored tennis skirts. And you’ve never seen so many people wearing visors.

“Let’s go sit over there,” suggested Murph, tilting his head toward a table where Marty Adler and Harold Rubinstein sat chatting with a group of summer associates.

“Sure,” I said. Tyler just shrugged. We threaded our way through the crowd, only to find Justin Keating sitting at the table, looking bored and complacent. I felt a flash of annoyance. No other paralegals had been invited to the outing. Then again, no other paralegals had Justin’s connections.

Adler looked up and half-stood, holding on to the napkin in his lap. “Well, well! The party can begin. Make yourselves at home.”

Murph, Tyler, and I pulled out chairs and sat down.

Adler introduced us to the summer associates at the table. Then he asked, “And you all of course know Justin?”

Tyler shook his head. “We haven’t met. Hi, Justin, I’m Tyler Robinson.”

Justin barely looked at him. “Hi.”

Then Murph leaned over, and he and Justin greeted each other with the white male fist-bump. “Hey, Keating.”

“Hey.”

Just when had
they
gotten so friendly? As far as I knew, I was the only Corporate associate who had the misfortune to have Justin assisting on a deal. Adler leaned toward me and said, “So what’s new, Slugger?”

I tried not to look too pleased.

Murph grinned. “Slugger? Who’s Slugger?”

“Ingrid. Ever since last week.” Adler winked at me, then turned to Harold Rubinstein. “Seems that Ted Lassiter witnessed our very own Ms. Yung here dressing down some jerk on the street. He called me personally to tell me how impressed he was with Ingrid’s ‘gumption.’ Now he’s taken to calling her Slugger.” Adler looked absolutely delighted.

Harold Rubinstein grinned at me and raised his coffee mug in a little toast. “Here’s to you, Slugger.”

Tyler and Murph seemed amused.

“Speaking of our friend Ted Lassiter,” said Adler, “what’s the latest on SunCorp?”

The three summer associates all turned to look at me.

“Well,” I began, “I served up the binding term sheet to Binney’s lawyers last week and just got a redline back. I’ll have my markup to you on Monday, which keeps us on track for an on-time announcement,” I said.

In unison, the three summers swiveled their heads back toward Adler, as if they were at a tennis match.

“Any red flags I should know about?” he asked.

“None so far. They marked up the seller’s reps and MAC clause pretty heavily, but I’ll let you know if I see any showstoppers.”

“Impeccable, as always, Ingrid,” said Adler. “Keep up the great work.”

One of the summers spoke up. “What’s a MAC clause?”

“I’ll let Ingrid take that.” Adler nodded at me.

“Sure.” I turned to the guy who’d asked the question. He’d impressed me. Back when I was a summer associate, I would have been too scared to ask a question like that in front of a partner. I would have been terrified to admit that there was so much I didn’t know. “So, a MAC is a material adverse change,” I told him. “It just means a change in circumstance that affects a bargain after the deal is signed but before it gets closed. If a MAC clause gets triggered, a party might be able to back out of a deal.”

“So, for example?” prompted Adler.

“For example,” I continued, “if an embargo suddenly went into effect that cut off a main import supply, or a new tax law passed that substantially impacted an industry’s bottom line, you could pay your breakup fee—and it might be hefty—but you could walk away from the deal.”

The three summers nodded in actual or feigned understanding.

“And there you have it,” said Adler.

Murph cleared his throat. “So anyway, Marty, you getting in any golf this year?”

Adler looked at his watch. “As a matter of fact, Justin and I have a ten-thirty tee time. We better get going.” He clapped his hands to his knees. “Enjoy the day, everybody. Have fun.”

With that, he and Justin stood up, placed their napkins on the table, and walked off into the clubhouse. Murph excused himself to join Hunter at the tennis courts. Tyler peeled off for his squash court reservation.

It was hard not to feel a little lonely as I headed to the deserted women’s locker room, stowed my duffel bag, and then wandered down to the pool by myself.

The scene by the pool was in full swing by the time I got down there. No one was swimming, but a line had already formed at the bar. Coolers packed with ice, Perrier, Gatorade, and bottled beer were positioned at convenient intervals across the spotless pool deck. I did what I always did—got a club soda with a wedge of lime and then stretched out on a green-and-white-striped lounge chair, crossing my ankles demurely, pasting a smile on my face, and trying to look like I was having a fantastic time.

The sun reflected off the glittering surface of the pool like tiny gemstones. It felt good on my face and shoulders. I leaned back and closed my eyes, relaxing a little.

Before long, I heard two loud splashes and some high-pitched giggles. I opened my eyes. It was the same group of chatty summer associates I’d seen on the bus. Two of the guys had cannonballed into the deep end of the pool. A third was making a beeline for the open bar—Steinberg, I presumed. The rest of the group were picking out deck chairs and moving them out of the shade, arranging them in a sprawling semicircle a few yards from me.

I put my sunglasses on so I could watch more carefully. I was curious, and more than a little nostalgic. There had been ninety-five of us in my class when we’d first started out, and over a third of us were women. Now, eight years later in Corporate, it was just me, Murph, Hunter, Tyler, and a handful of other guys left standing.

I was still friends with a lot of the women lawyers who’d left Parsons Valentine over the years. I knew they all rooted for me. Every Christmas, I received an enthusiastic chorus of messages:
Keep up the good fight! Looking forward to toasting the firm’s first female Corporate partner!!!! Go Ingrid!!

These messages typically came scrawled on the back of a holiday photo card featuring some impossibly cute two-year-old in a reindeer costume, or one of my former colleagues and her husband, both wearing elf hats and hugging an affable-looking Labrador retriever between them.

As I watched this latest crop of summer associates, shrieking and splashing each other in the pool, I thought about how much I missed that easy camaraderie—the freedom you felt when you were nowhere near up for partner, that blissful safety in numbers. It was so much harder to blend in when there was only one of you.