“Okay,” Payton agreed. “Tell him to call me.”
“Good. Because I already gave him your number.”
Payton mulled things over. “Harvard Law, huh?” She couldn’t help it; she glanced across the hall to J.D.’s office. They hadn’t spoken since the night of the Gibson’s pitch.
Over the last few days, to the extent possible, she had avoided walking by J.D.’s office and had been using the internal stairwells for all trips under five flights (normally two up, three down was her limit in heels) in order to minimize the risk of being stuck in the elevator with him. Because as far as she was concerned, she was done with J.D.
Not to suggest that she had ever begun with J.D., of course.
The way she saw it, she had put herself out there the other night at the restaurant. She had made an attempt to be friendly and—to put it mildly—he had not reciprocated. She had allowed herself to be caught off guard, to be momentarily vulnerable in front of him, and she would not make that mistake again. And now she just wanted to forget the whole thing.
It had been a foolish thought, anyway, her thinking that they could ever get along. At least the Gibson’s pitch was over, putting an end, albeit perhaps temporarily, to their work together. And if the firm did indeed land Gibson’s as a client, she and J.D. would likely both be partner by the time they started working on the case and she would find some way to staff it so that they encountered each other as little as possible.
Of course, there was that small part of her, the teeniest, tiniest part of her, that was disappointed J.D. hadn’t apologized. If anything, he seemed to be avoiding her, too, and that Payton couldn’t understand. She may have had her faults, but at least she owned up to her mistakes. He apparently didn’t feel the same way. Unless he didn’t think he had made a mistake, in which case she had even bigger problems with him.
Not that she had spent any time thinking about these things.
Payton turned her attention back to Laney, who was already thinking ahead to where she and the Perfect Chase should first meet.
“It should be drinks, not coffee,” Laney was saying. “Too much caffeine makes you quippy.”
Payton looked over, offended by this. “Quippy?”
They were interrupted by a knock at her door, and Irma poked her head into the office. “Your mother’s on my line. Should I transfer her over to you?”
“Why is my mother on your line?”
Irma cleared her throat awkwardly. “She said she had been thinking about me and, um, wanted to discuss something before I transferred her over to you.”
“What did she want to talk to you about?” Payton asked.
“She wanted to ask whether I had ever considered trying to unionize the secretarial staff.”
Payton rolled her eyes. Her mother had done the Norma Rae routine on her a million times. Apparently Irma was her newest victim.
Payton waved to Laney, who was already on her way out, and told Irma to put her mother through. She picked up the phone, bracing herself. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, Sis,” came her mother’s familiar greeting. In Lex Kendall’s mind (formerly Alexandra, but that name was too bourgeois), all women were sisters under the same moon.
“How’s my girl?” Lex asked.
“Fine, Mom. I hear from Irma that you’re trying to rally the troops against The Man.”
“See, I knew you’d get all uptight if I called her.”
“Yet still, you did it.”
“I just thought that she and the other laborers at your firm might want to know that they have rights. Not everyone there makes a six-figure salary, Payton.”
Payton sighed. Her mother was the only person she knew who was disappointed that her child was financially successful. “Irma could get in a lot of trouble, if the wrong person overheard your conversation and misunderstood. You forget that I’m a labor and employment lawyer.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” her mother said, as if recalling some heinous crime her only child had committed years ago. And in Lex Kendall’s mind, Payton’s sin was egregious indeed.
She had become a yuppie.
Payton had been raised to “live and think freely”—a sentiment that sounded great in theory, but, as she discovered by a very young age, actually meant she was supposed to “live and think freely” exactly the way her mother told her to.
Barbie dolls were sexist. (“Look at her vacant expression, Payton—Barbie doesn’t care about anything other than shopping.”) Fairy tales—in fact, most of children’s literature—were also sexist. (“Look at the message in these picture books, Payton—that beauty is the only important quality of a woman.”) Even Disney movies were the enemy. (“I know that Lisa’s mother lets her watch Cinderella, Payton. Lisa’s mother obviously has no problem teaching her daughter that women must wait passively for a man to bring meaning to their pathetically lonely lives.”)
Yes, Lex Kendall had a reason to protest just about everything.
It wasn’t that Payton didn’t agree with her mother’s principles. She did agree with some of them, just not to the same degree. For example, she was absolutely against people wearing fur coats. Which meant that she personally did not wear one. It did not mean that she stood outside Gucci on Michigan Avenue throwing buckets of red paint on exiting shoppers. (Oh, yes, her mother had, several times, in fact, and had even twice gone to jail for her renegade artistic endeavors, necessitating several of young Payton’s many overnight stays with her grandparents.)
In her mother’s eyes, Payton knew, she had sold out. In fact, when Lex had found out that Payton planned to defend Corporate America as part of her law practice, she had refused to speak to her daughter for two straight weeks.
Ah . . . Payton still recalled those two weeks fondly. It had been the most peaceful 336 hours of her life.
“Can I call you back later this evening, when I get home?” she asked her mother. “I’m pretty busy at work these days.”
“With the partnership thing,” her mother stated in a tone that was, at best, disinterested.
“Yes, the partnership thing.” Payton bit back the urge to say anything further. Was it really that difficult for people to understand what she was going through? Did no one get the amount of stress she was under?
“You don’t need to call me back,” her mother told her. “I can hear the tension in your voice. Are you keeping up with your yoga practice? You probably need to liberate your chakras.”
Payton put her head on her desk. Yes, of course—the tension in her voice had nothing to do with the fact that she hadn’t taken a vacation in nearly four years. The problem was that her chakras were unliberated.
She could hear her mother rambling on through the receiver she held in her hand.
“. . . talk more when I come into town later this month—”
At this, Payton sprung back to life. “You’re coming to Chicago?”
“Steven plans to visit Sarah and Jess in L.A. for Father’s Day,” her mother said, referring to Payton’s two stepsisters. “I thought I’d come to Chicago so we could spend the weekend together.”
Payton peered over at her calendar. She had been so busy she’d completely forgotten about the upcoming holiday. And, despite the rocky start to their conversation, she suddenly felt a rush of affection toward her mother. Lex Kendall could be a difficult woman no doubt, but she had never once let Payton spend a Father’s Day alone, not even after she and her husband Steven had married and moved to San Francisco several years ago. Though they’d never discussed it openly, Payton knew it was her mother’s attempt to compensate for the fact that Payton hadn’t heard from her father in years.
“I’d like that, Mom,” Payton said. They discussed briefly what they might do that weekend. Keeping her fingers crossed, Payton hoped she might have some good news to share by then.
After a few moments of chatting, Payton saw her other line ringing. Through the glass door of her office, she watched as Irma intercepted the call, nodded,
then got up and signaled for her attention. Payton wrapped up the call with her mother, sensing it was something important.
“What is it?” she asked when Irma stepped into her doorway.
“That was Ben’s secretary, Marie. He wants to see you in his office.” Irma lowered her voice. “Marie says she heard him on the phone earlier this morning, with Tom Hillman from the Partnership Committee. She heard him tell Tom that he wanted to give you and J.D. the news early.”
Payton felt a thrill of excitement run through her.
This was it.
With a faint smile on her face, Payton got up from her desk and thanked Irma for the message.
Then she headed out the door to Ben’s office.
Eight
WHEN PAYTON GOT to Ben’s office, she found J.D., alone, sitting in front of the partner’s desk. He had his back to the door, unaware she stood there. She noticed that his leg bounced anxiously as he waited.
She cleared her throat. J.D. immediately stopped bouncing his leg and watched her take a seat in the chair next to him.
“Ben’s not here yet?” Payton asked coolly.
J.D. shook his head. “Marie said he should be in shortly.”
An awkward silence fell between them.
Payton glanced around the room. She suddenly was very aware of her hands; she tapped them against the arms of her chair, then stopped, then folded them in her lap.
More silence.
And then . . .
Still more silence.
“It’s this job, you know.”
Payton had been gazing out the window. She turned her head to J.D.
“We argue with people—that’s what we do. We strategize against them, we try to get the upper hand. Sometimes, I find it hard to break away from that.” He turned to face Payton and looked her straight in the eyes.
“I was very rude to you at the restaurant. I owe you an apology.”
Caught off guard, Payton said nothing at first. Direct and unwavering, J.D. held her gaze.
He really did have the most amazing blue eyes.
Payton had no idea why she just thought that.
She nodded. “Okay.”
J.D. seemed to have been bracing himself for something far worse. “Okay,” he said, and Payton thought she saw him exhale in relief. Then he smiled. Genuinely.
“So . . . do you know why we’re here?”
“I have a guess,” Payton said.
J.D. leaned forward in his chair, his eyes lit excitedly. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you make partner?”
Payton hesitated, still feeling superstitious. Then she thought—what the hell—why not enjoy the moment? They both knew why they had been called to Ben’s office.
“Sleep,” she said. “For a week.”
J.D. laughed. “And no voice mail.”
“Or email.”
“No BlackBerry.”
“No cell phone.”
“No laptop,” J.D. said with a wink, knowing there was no way she could top that.
Payton thought for a moment. “Actually, I think I’ll take a few weeks off. I’d like to travel.”
“Where?” J.D. asked.
“Bora-Bora,” she decided.
“Why Bora-Bora?”
Payton shrugged. “I don’t know. It just sounds like someplace I’d like to go.”
J.D. grinned, and it occurred to Payton that she was babbling on about Bora-Bora when someone like J.D. had probably vacationed in places like that his whole life. Hell, his servants probably vacationed in places like that. She must’ve sounded very unworldly to him.
But if he thought that, he didn’t say it.
“Bora-Bora sounds great,” he agreed, easing back in his chair. Then he snuck another glance at her. “You know, Payton, now that this is all over, I was hoping we could put aside our d—”
At that moment, Ben walked into his office.
He sat down at his desk. “Sorry to keep you guys waiting,” he said. “My lunch ran later than I had expected.”
Ben sat upright in his chair, hands resting firmly on his desk. “So. I have great news. Jasper Conroy called me earlier this morning. He’s chosen our firm to represent Gibson’s. He told me he was very impressed by you both. I knew you two would deliver.” He paused. “Which brings me to some other news.”
Payton held her breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw J.D. inch forward in his seat.
“It goes without saying that you’re both aware the firm makes its partnership decisions at the end of this month,” Ben said.
“The Partnership Committee’s policy has always been that no one is supposed to leak early information about its decisions. But, in light of your stellar performance in landing the Gibson’s case—and, in fact, the stellar work you’ve both done throughout your careers here—I think you’ve earned the right to a little advance notice. I know how eagerly you both have awaited this.”
Payton’s heart began to race. Holy shit—this really was it.
Ben cleared his throat. “Which is why what I’m about to say is going to come as a surprise.”
Payton blinked. Surprise? That wasn’t the word she wanted to hear right then.
“You both are aware of the EEOC’s age discrimination lawsuit against Gray and Dallas,” Ben said, referring to another of the top law firms in the city. “And as you know, one of the claims in that lawsuit is that the firm chases out older partners in favor of younger ones.”
Ben looked to Payton for help. “You’re an employment lawyer. You know how closely all the other firms in this city have been watching that case. Including us.”
Payton answered him cautiously. “I’m familiar with the case, Ben. What I’m trying to figure out is how it has anything to do with me and J.D.”
Ben chose his next words carefully. “The Partnership Committee has decided that we need to strategically leverage ourselves in order to avoid similar intrusions from the EEOC. We simply can’t afford to have too many partners under the age of forty. Now, we obviously aren’t going to take away the shares of anyone who already is a partner . . . so instead there will be cutbacks in the number of associates made partner this year.”
J.D.’s jaw was set tensely. “You still haven’t answered Payton’s question. What does this have to do with us?”
Ben paused to look at each of them. “We’ve decided to name only one litigation partner this year. Only one of you will make it.”
It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.
Only one of them.
Her or him.
Payton finally spoke. “Is this a joke?”
Ben shook his head. “I’m afraid not. You two are lucky you’re hearing this from me now.” He pointed to himself as if expecting gratitude. “I insisted on that. I wanted to give the one of you who won’t make it at least some warning.”
“The decision hasn’t been made yet?” J.D. asked, his tone incredulous.
Ben—the cocky bastard—actually had the audacity to laugh. He held his hands out before him. “What can I say? You’re both just so good. You have no idea how hard this is on us.”
Hard on you? Payton nearly leapt out of her chair and strangled him.
J.D. appeared no less furious. He stared Ben down coldly. “This is bullshit. Just last week you were practically promising that Payton and I were both locks.”
Ben shrugged this off, far too dismissively in Payton’s mind. After all, this was only her life—and J.D.’s—that they were talking about.
“So I embellished a bit . . .” Ben conceded with a self-satisfied grin. “We’re lawyers, that’s what we do.”
“How convenient that you tell us this after we land the Gibson’s case,” Payton said. “You used us, Ben.”
Ben held up a finger, point of fact. “Technically, I only used one of you. Because one of you is still going to make partner, and that person will lead the Gibson’s trial team as promised. As for the other of you, well . . .” h
e trailed off pointedly.
Payton didn’t need Ben to finish. She, like every other lawyer there, knew about the firm’s unwritten “up or out” policy. Associates who did not make partner were quickly transitioned off their cases and given a short grace period to “voluntarily” resign and find another job.
“I know this news probably comes as a shock to you both,” Ben said. “And it is extremely unfortunate that circumstances have caused things to end this way, but that is the Partnership Committee’s decision. I want to emphasize, however, that the choice between the two of you has not yet been made. It’s going to come right down to the wire. So for what it’s worth, I urge each of you to give it all you’ve got for these remaining couple of weeks.”
Payton resisted the urge to laugh bitterly at that. Give it all she’s got? What more could she give? A kidney? Her firstborn?
She glanced at J.D., sitting next to her. He looked over and met her gaze, and Payton could tell from the look in his eyes that they shared the same thought.
Only one of them would make it.
After eight years of practice, they were now truly adversaries.
J.D. MANAGED TO maintain an expression of unconcern the entire walk back.
When he got to his office, he stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and immediately began to pace. He was having trouble thinking straight. He took a seat at his desk, ignoring the blinking message light on his phone.
Merely ten minutes ago while sitting in Ben’s office and joking with Payton, he would’ve put his chances of making partner at about 99.99 percent.
Suddenly, those odds had plummeted. To 50 percent. At best.
He’d been torn, on the one hand wanting to yell at Ben, wanting to tell him what a chickenshit weasel he was, and on the other hand—cognizant of the fact that the decision had not yet been made and that he had not yet definitively lost out on making partner—he had felt pressed to continue playing along, to continue being the good little associate he was.