“Hi, I’m Nancy Duval.” Maura and I both turned to see a wide-eyed blonde picking at the fraying hem of her jacket. For a moment my heart sank to see that she was more formally dressed, but then I assured myself that my well-tailored skirt and top was just as appropriate as her well-worn suit. I wondered whether her interruption was the result of first-day jitters or a more general social awkwardness, the kind I’d become very familiar with in law school.
“Hi!” A tall, thin blonde appeared at Maura’s side and looked at Nancy. “I’m Robin, the other recruiting manager. I can take care of you over here.”
I thanked Maura for her help, slipping the folder into my tote.
She winked. “Love your bag.” I smiled back at her and made my way toward the elevator bank serving floors 35 to 45, where three women in suits waited. I prayed they weren’t going up to the forty-fifth floor. I should have worn a suit. I’m going to be the only one in business casual except Carmen. All the men will be in suits. Where is Carmen, anyway? I should stand next to her so I don’t stick out.
“Alex!” the tallest of the trio sang in my direction.
I stared at her. “Carmen! Hey!”
I felt the heat rise from my chest up to my cheeks as I took in her perfectly tailored navy-blue Theory suit—one I’d tried on but decided was too expensive.
She pulled me in for a hug as I stood with my hands awkwardly plastered to my sides.
“You went with a suit,” I said, forcing calm into my voice.
“I texted you! You look amazing though!” Carmen beamed. Her pale, almost clear, blue eyes scanned me up and down. I looked down at my phone and saw a text from her, from four minutes back. I guessed she’d sent it while I was in the subway. When it was already too late. I don’t know why I listen to my mother, I thought. She has no idea.
Before I could respond, Carmen turned to her friends. “This is Jennifer and Roxanne. We went to undergrad together.”
“Hi,” Jennifer said warmly, her large brown eyes seeming to betray a certain anxiety below her chunky blond bangs.
“Hey!” Roxanne said with a wave. “I’m so nervous for some reason!” She laughed as she brushed her auburn hair away from her eyes. She was petite and adorable—like the redheaded Cabbage Patch Kids doll that sat on my bed when I was a child.
“Me too!” My shoulders dropped, grateful for her admission. Two men in suits sporting Klasko name tags approached us, laughing with one another, and warm embraces between the other five ensued while I stood off to the side, watching the poised young professionals as they caught up with one another.
“Hey! I’m Kevin,” one of the guys said, turning to me as he extended his hand. I forced myself to maintain eye contact despite his prickly gelled hair. Do men really still spike their hair?
“Alex.” I smiled, but felt envious of the summer they had spent getting to know one another, and getting to know how things worked at Klasko, all the while earning six times what I had at my nonprofit internship.
Even though twelve years had passed since seventh grade, and I now had a healthy social life, a law degree, and reasonably toned arms, I felt the same way I had when I was forced to eat turkey sandwiches on a toilet seat every lunch hour for a week in seventh grade when Sandy Cranswell, our class’s queen bee, had decided she detested me because I had “man shoulders” from all of my swimming, so no one would sit with me in the cafeteria. It hadn’t lasted long, since Zach Schaeffer befriended me on the coed bus to state finals, and his eighth-grade posse had quickly followed suit, putting me back into Sandy’s good graces, but I still remembered the sting.
The six of us crowded into the elevator with a few others, and while the rest of them chatted excitedly, I stood in the back and allowed my eyes to close for a moment, desperately willing the bead of sweat dripping down my spine to evaporate before it bled through my blouse.
As soon as our elevator emptied onto the forty-fifth floor, we saw wide-planked oak floors supporting a modern marble reception desk surrounded by rich brown leather couches and armchairs. I remembered the space only vaguely from my callback interview almost a year before. But I had been too nervous that day to appreciate how beautiful the office space was. Two women and one man, all seemingly in their twenties, sat behind the desk, wearing headsets. They plastered smiles on their faces when they saw us, without pausing their choruses of “How may I direct your call?” and “One moment please.” A sign reading “First-Year Associate Orientation” directed us down a hallway lined with glass-walled conference rooms.
The doors to our meeting room had been propped open to welcome us, and the curtains had been pulled back to expose the south-facing view, which seemed to span all of Manhattan below Fifty-Fifth Street. The MetLife Building, front and center, relished the spotlight; the Freedom Tower stood reflective and resolute in the distance; the Empire State Building seemed to rush with impossible confidence skyward, as if challenging the Chrysler Building to a battle of wills; and off to the left, the Brooklyn Bridge yawned sleepily out over the silver waters of the East River.
A woman in a gray pantsuit stood at the podium, watching us with a small smirk as we took it all in. “Pretty impressive, right?” she announced into the microphone. Some of my fellow first-years took their seats, some chatting, and I realized that none of the others were marveling at the view. They must have become accustomed to it while they interned as summer associates. I relaxed slightly, though, as I noted with relief that several of my fifty-two new colleagues were wearing skirts with blouses, too. I surreptitiously slipped away from Carmen, Roxanne, and Jennifer so I wouldn’t stick out as underdressed and took a seat between Kevin and an African American man wearing a navy suit with a red bow tie speckled with little yellow flowers.
The guy in the bow tie leaned over me and pointed to Kevin’s tie, an orange number with little puppies tied in a double Windsor that made his neck appear even skinnier than it actually was. “Ferragamo?”
“I . . . um . . .” Kevin flipped over his tie and looked down at the label. “Yup! I guess I’m wearing the uniform!” He laughed and extended his hand. “I’m Kevin.”
The other man shook it with a wink. “I dig your spikes, man.” I cringed, though he didn’t appear to be making fun of Kevin at all. “I’m Derrick. I summered last year out of the LA office, so I’m the new guy,” Bow Tie explained, leaning back and putting his hand to his heart before extending it to me. He was handsome, with sharp cheekbones and a square jaw, but he also had style, and a broad smile that released the knot that had been forming between my shoulder blades.
“Alex,” I said, taking his hand. “I spent last summer at Sanctuary for Families.” He gave me a short nod, acknowledging our common ground as newcomers.
“Good morning, everybody.” The woman in the gray pantsuit at the front of the room spoke into the microphone, and we all quieted down obediently. “I’m Eileen Kasten. I’m a litigation partner and head of your first-year training program. For your first eight months at the firm, you will have a training each Monday morning on general firm practices. We hope you spend these first months learning as much as you can about as many different practice areas as you can so that you can make an educated decision about what you’d like to work on for the rest of your career. In eight months, you will match into a practice group which will be responsible for training you on the specifics of their practice. You rank them. They rank you. You match. Everybody, all fifty-two of you, ends up happy.”