Page 19 of Partner Pursuit
Feeling betrayed, she hadn’t been nice then. She’d told him that she was sick of his whining about not making partner. His shocked, hurt face still haunted her. It hadn’t made her feel better to tell him that. Just guilty that she’d hurt him. Even if he had just hurt her. And then they’d broken up and that was the note it had ended on. So, her mother was right that it was better to benice.
“Tim’s never shown that he would be like that,” Audrey said. But then, Kevin hadn’t shown that initially either. She needed a boyfriend who fully supported her career.
Eve suddenly noticed Audrey’s packed bag. “You’re not off to work,areyou?”
“Yes.”
“I prefer your cookie craziness to your work craziness.”
As if on cue, Audrey’s work phone buzzed. Eve waved goodbye. “See youtonight.”
Chapter Seven
Audrey had already emailed the updated memo to Malaburn around noon after spending the morning writing it. She was making good progress. She’d be on time to meet her friends at eight for a movie. On the whiteboard on her office wall, she drew a green line in a flow chart detailing her proposed strategy for the Rothman case. Green for yes. The alcohol smell ofdry-erasemarkers charged the air. Figuring out how to win cases was like athought-provokingpuzzle withreal-lifeconsequences. She studied the pros and cons of starting with Rothman as the first witness. Lists were always her first tool to figure things out. The final picture was emerging. She nodded crisply. Once she was finished brainstorming, she’d write a memo for Hunter proposing her case strategy. Her phone beeped.
Eve:Saw Jake. Alone.
Audrey:That could mean she slept over, he made scrumptious breakfast, and she left because she had other plans.
Eve:If you’ve just slept with Jake, you cancel those plans.
Audrey:I’ll keep that advice in mind. Doubt I’ll need it.
Eve:Conservative lawyers = dating slump. Still on for movie tonight?
Audrey:Think so.
She almost typed yes, she was so sure she’d make it, but she had learned not to make that promise.
Audrey continued working. She ate a sandwich she’d brought from home for dinner. She hadn’t wanted to go out and wastethattime.
When it was almost seven and time to leave, her phone rang. As she picked it up, Malaburn’s raspy voice said, “Thanks for the updated memo. I have some separate ideas to research for the pitch slide deck. I’ll send that to you to work on.” She quickly wrote down his thoughts as he rattledthemoff.
She slumped deep into her chair after he hung up. That would take her a few more hours. She would have to cancel on her friends, again. It was so like Malaburn to call on a Sunday night too. She could feel her blood boiling. She focused on a poster of a Rothko blue painting she had hung on her wall, trying to let its deep hues relax her. It was just a movie. She could catch up with her friends another time. She called Eve to tell her she couldn’t go. Luckily, Eve was going with Pete and Max, so she wasn’t stranded, but she sounded disappointed. Disappointed with her, her unreliable best friend. Audrey sighed and turned to research the new points.
Her phone beeped. The car service was waiting downstairs. Law firms paid for a car service on weekends after a certain number of hours worked and on weekdays if you worked past 8 p.m. She’d forgotten she’d arranged for it. She’d finish this at home. Her footsteps were hushed on the plush carpet as she passed by the closed doors of the other offices and waved good night to the cleaning lady. Leaving the building, she entered a waiting black sedan that smelled of peppermint air freshener. She opened the window. This was her chance to feel the warm night breeze onherskin.
As the black sedan sped up Madison Avenue, she looked up from her iPhone out the car window. The shops were closed, but theirbrightly-litwindows beckoned. The restaurants were packed, the tables spilling out onto the sidewalk, with couples sitting and chatting over candlelit dinners, enjoying the balmy night. She wondered what they did for a living. Most of her friends worked similar hours tohers.
The car stopped at a red light, and her attention was caught by one couple. The woman, her hair in a sleek, dark bob, was talking animatedly, while the man was listening intently, staring straight in the woman’s eyes. They seemed very in love. She stared out the window at them, craning her head to see them even as the car turned the corner.
Her phone flashed red in the dark interior. She tensed before clicking on the email, but it wasn’t from Malaburn. The car turned left to go across Central Park towards the Upper West Side. She and Eve joked that the Upper West Side must be filled with single women based on the types of stores: cupcakes, cookies, and clothing. It seemed contradictory: who could fit into the clothes after eating the cupcakes and cookies?
The car dropped her off in front of her building. As she entered the foyer, she saw a long rectangular moving box on the table with AUDREY handwritten on it in black capital letters. That was weird. It was tightly taped. Maybe she should put on her cleaning gloves and open it outside in her yard. She picked it up gingerly. It was light for its size. She left the package outside her apartment door as she went inside to get gloves from under the kitchen sink—if she had any. Her cleaner came every two weeks with her own supplies, but Audrey had bought some when she’d first moved in. She’d had visions of domesticity, dinner parties galore—before she’d started her job as a lawyer and realized her apartment was mostly a place to sleep. Luckily, Eve periodically threw impromptu gatherings anchored by delicious food, all of which she made look effortless. But one day, she would have dinner parties too, with witty conversation. Maybe when she was an established partner.
She found the gloves, still in their package, and put them on. Grabbing scissors, she carried the box to her yard, and sitting on her chaise lounge, she opened the package. Red, yellow and pink tulips greeted her (flowers!), and a pile of papers tied up with string. Afolded-overnote was taped to the flowers. She carefullyun-tapedthe note and read it:
Sunday,NYC
Dear Audrey,
Thanks for your warm welcome to the neighborhood—those cookies definitely helped fuel me through the unpacking process! They were amazing—you should give up being a lawyer and make your fortune selling cookies.
I can never have enoughtake-outmenus.
So here you go: legal disclosures for your leisurely reading and this small bouquet of flowers as athankyou.
Cheers,
