Derrick snorted and rolled his eyes. “At least half of us will be disappointed,” he whispered to me. “There’s not enough space for everybody in the best practice groups.” I hadn’t realized that any of the practice groups were considered better than others, only that M&A was considered more intense.
She went on. “For today, I want you to take note of one another. Look to your right.” I looked at the shiny, gelled back of Kevin’s head. “That person was in the top fifteen percent of one of the top fifteen law schools in the country. Look to your left.” I turned to see Derrick, his eyes crossed and his tongue stuck out just inches from my nose, and covered my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “That person was in the top ten percent of one of the top ten law schools in the country.” She gave a dramatic pause. “How do I know that to be true?”
“We’re all in the top ten percent of the top ten law schools,” Derrick shouted up toward the podium.
“What’s your name?” the woman asked.
“Derrick Stockton,” he said with a confidence I envied.
“That’s exactly right, Derrick Stockton. This is not meant to intimidate any of you. Quite the contrary, it’s meant to put you at ease. You belong here. But it is also a warning that you will not be differentiating yourself here on intelligence alone. Not easily, at least.”
I swallowed hard and picked at my cuticle.
“What a load of horseshit. So cliché,” Derrick muttered under his breath. He took a mint out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. “Want one?”
“Oh god.” I cupped my hand over my lips. “Do I need one?” Derrick stared at me for a moment and then narrowed his eyes playfully.
“You’re a little nuts, huh? I like it,” he whispered. “Your breath is fine. I was just being polite.”
“I’m nervous,” I admitted, taking the mint.
“Who’s not?” He grinned, instantaneously calming me.
“. . . we will be looking for you to demonstrate work ethic. Drive.” The woman at the podium moved her head mechanically from one side of the room to the other. “Tenacity. We’re looking for you to be sponges. You’re here because you’re the best the American law school system has to offer us. The same holds true, by the way, for the local law school systems in the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, and Australia that have educated your international colleagues. By the way, you’ll have the opportunity to meet all of your fellow first-years at First-Year Academy in LA in early February. As you might know, we’re not only the largest, but we’re arguably the best law firm in the world. We are twenty-five hundred lawyers strong in thirty-seven offices across the globe. Our litigation chair was the former director of enforcement of the SEC. We took Facebook public. We are the firm that defended affirmative action for the University of Michigan. We . . .”
“They fucking love to tell everybody they defended affirmative action. Like it makes them not racist or something,” Derrick whispered as he leaned into me.
As Eileen droned on at the podium, I glanced around the room, feeling the nervous energy of my new colleagues despite their placid faces. I marveled at their new ties and well-tailored suits, their shiny heels and pressed collars—the adult equivalents of sparkling white sneakers on the first day of kindergarten. I looked ahead at the Columbia girls sandwiching Carmen in their subtly different suits and instinctively smoothed my blouse in response.
I caught Derrick eyeing me knowingly. “You’re lucky,” he said quietly.
“Hmm?”
“Nobody really knows what ‘business casual’ means for girls. You can wear whatever you want. For all anybody knows, it’s a fashion statement.” He paused for a moment. “But for the record, you’re right. Suits are business attire. You’re in business casual.”
“You’re in a suit!”
“I’m all business all the time, baby.” He winked; another laugh slipped out of my closed lips. I didn’t hear the end of the simultaneously intimidating and motivational speech, but we were suddenly dismissed to the fortieth floor for technology training. As we shuffled en masse down the hallway to the elevator, we passed a glass-enclosed conference room where six white men in dark suits sat around a glossy, hulking wood table.
“Those guys are probably in M&A,” Derrick said with a cock of his head.
“How can you tell?” I asked, staring through the glass.
“The way they sit. What they wear. How they look.” I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Like total douchebags. The highest-paid, most well-respected douchebags at Klasko. It’s the most competitive group to match into. It was the same in the LA office. And everywhere else, I think. What groups did you say you were interested in on the questionnaire they sent around?”
“I put real estate,” I muttered, hoping that would pass muster. I looked back at the men in the conference room and the intermittent strobes of light thrown off their wrists by their watches and cuff links. They were all well groomed and well dressed. Their gazes were focused, and they seemed to be playing a part in the exact scene one might picture when asked to imagine a meeting taking place in corporate America. Perhaps because of this, they made me feel slightly starstruck.
One of them, who seemed younger than the others, still had an expertly cut suit, shiny hair, and perfectly tanned skin. I saw then that Derrick was right. It wasn’t just their attire or just the intensity in their eyes or just the way their knees spread confidently apart under the table. It was the combination of it all. They somehow seemed more important than the rest of us—than me. I struggled to peel my eyes away from them as Derrick and I drifted down the hall, my neck rotating to keep them in my sightline. When I finally turned my head forward, I reminded myself of the rumored astronomical hours they billed and demanding clients they catered to. As I continued to our next session, their sheen dulled in my memory.
Chapter 2
The technology training room we were led into was a dimly lit interior space with at least a hundred computers and phones lined up in neat rows. Frigid air blasted down on us from overhead vents, keeping the machines cool and our bodies shivering. Derrick pulled a seat out next to his for me, and I gratefully plunked myself down into it.
A woman with a long, frizzy braid down to her waist paced the front of the room, then cleared her throat to speak. “The computers and phones at your stations are designed to look just the way the ones in your offices do. We’re going to start with the phone . . .”
“Ten bucks says no other living thing has been inside her apartment this decade,” Derrick whispered.
“Harsh!” I whispered through a laugh. “You’re on.”
“. . . and believe it or not, the most common mistake people make with the phone is not hanging it up. You’ve been warned.” She smiled broadly. “Let’s start with how to place a call. It’s the easiest thing we’ll do today, but let’s get in the habit of practicing absolutely everything. I’ve turned off my cell phone, and written my number on the board behind me. You dial nine for an outside line and a one, so to call me it’s 9-1-9-1-7-6-1-2-3-1-4-2. Everybody practice calling it now, but do me a favor and don’t leave a voice mail.”