“Wow! Cool!” I took another sip of wine and moved thoughts of Sam’s company to the periphery of my consciousness. Alcohol always had a useful way of clearing mental space for more pleasant thoughts.
Chapter 3
From: Courtney Cantwell
To: Alexandra Vogel
Subject: First Assignment
Alexandra,
Pleased to meet you via email. As you might recall from orientation (though I’m sure all those sessions are a blur!) I will be your assigned staffing coordinator until you match. First assignments have begun rolling in, and I’m happy to report we’ve been able to accommodate your request to work with the real estate group. Your first assignment will be the review of leases in conjunction with an asset sale. Be in touch with Lara Maloney for details.
Best,
Courtney
I dabbed the sweat from my upper lip with my fingertips and knocked on the frame of Lara Maloney’s open door. She waved me into her office and stood, extending her arm to me and shaking my hand almost too firmly. She’d paired khaki trousers that were the business-casual equivalent of mom jeans with clunky black block heels and a black collared shirt, and her dark, frizzy hair was streaked with gray. She didn’t seem to wear makeup, but her bright blue eyes were alert and energetic.
I noticed that the beads of perspiration on my upper lip had replenished themselves immediately, and felt suddenly sick. I should have read up more on real estate transactions in M&A deals prior to this meeting, I thought. I knew that first-years weren’t expected to know much about the law itself, but I had the new and unwelcome feeling of being less than sufficiently prepared.
I scanned Lara’s office to see if I could engage her on a personal level and camouflage my professional shortcomings, but didn’t see many useful clues. A thinning brown ficus with crispy leaves blanketing its soil sat in a pot in the corner. Undergrad and law school diplomas, both from UPenn, were perched on the wall behind her guest chairs, virtually out of sight, but I spotted a painting of a turkey made out of a child’s handprint hanging on the wall. I couldn’t quite make sense of the woman before me. She clearly placed more value on her child’s work than her own academic achievements, and the folders on her desk were meticulously stacked and labeled even as her plant cried out for water and her appearance was just this side of unkempt. I could not think of a single piece of small talk, but fortunately, she didn’t seem to be one for idle chatter.
“Hi. We’re happy to have you on board! Please, sit!” She gestured to the chair on the opposite side of her desk. “So, we’re representing the buyer,” she began. I grabbed my legal pad and began to scribble notes. “Our client, Stag River, is acquiring TO’s Bakery . . . have you heard of them?”
I nodded, thinking of their delicious sticky buns.
“It’s disgusting. People always talk about their sticky buns, but that’s because most people have never had an actual good one. Still, I used to go to the one on Lex all the time. I used to be fat, but I got CoolSculpt. You basically freeze your fat cells and pee them out over a few weeks.” I stared at her, feeling my jaw slacken, and she waved away her own tangent. “Anyway, TO’s is objectively the shittiest bakery in the world, but they have about six hundred properties, and we need to make sure there are no encumbrances on any single property. It’s more grueling than difficult. Does this make sense?”
I nodded as my heart skipped two beats. I hadn’t written down a single thing after she’d uttered the words “fat cells.” I forced myself to focus and began to write again.
Lara continued with the logistics of where I could actually locate the leases (the virtual diligence room), how I should make note of potential issues (never in email or other written communication, except on paper, to be immediately shredded after the deal closed so that if something ever came up in litigation later, the only evidence would be that we had “diligenced the company completely and satisfactorily,” never that we had misjudged an issue).
“Did you ask to do real estate, or did they just give you this assignment randomly?” Lara asked suddenly.
I underlined shred and looked up. “No, I definitely listed it on my preference sheet,” I said, finishing my note on the seller’s finances as I spoke.
“What interests you about it?” she asked.
“On the most basic level, I like that there is a physical structure at the center of the deal—something to wrap my mind around.”
“Me too.” She nodded enthusiastically, indicating I had passed her test. “Also, real estate hours are more manageable compared to other transactional groups, but we work a lot with other groups, so you get a lot of exposure.”
I nodded at the elevator pitch with a relieved smile. All of the groups at the firm except M&A boasted the same perks: work/life balance, good exposure to deals at a junior level, a clear path to partnership. Based on what Derrick and Carmen had told me, the M&A attorneys seemed to pride themselves on not sleeping and not seeing their families. And they walked the halls of the firm more proudly and arrogantly than the members of what they referred to as “support” groups.
“Okay, I’ll get started on these leases right away. I’ll shout out any issues I see and just update you on the progress I’m making . . . daily?”
“COB daily works for me,” Lara said. “And I’ll send you a calendar invite to our monthly meeting, which is next week. If you’re going to be in real estate, you’ll learn a lot from it.”
Is that it? Am I in the real estate group now?
She dismissed me with a nod, and I went back to my desk and googled “COB.”
Close of business.
“Al?” Sam opened our front door.
“I’m in the kitchen!”
Sam slid his hands around my waist from behind as I stirred the liquid dotted with bits of toasted rice. I leaned my head back into him, my work heels bringing me closer to his height. “I’m making Parmesan and black truffle risotto. And I broiled some salmon.”
Sam smacked my butt. “It smells incredible.” I felt him eyeing the small dark nugget on the counter. “What happened to being on a budget until your first paycheck?”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. “But I walked home from work and passed Eataly, and there was a sign saying that Italian black truffle season is almost over!”
“Babe! You walked by Eataly? That’s like somebody in AA walking by a liquor store! You gotta take a different route.” He backed away from me and hung his coat in the closet. He would die if he knew what the truffle cost. Since we’d started dating, Sam had grown to appreciate good food. But he’d grown up in a warm and loving family of academics who lived frugally, and the most glowing praise I had ever heard him give to a meal was that it was a “bargain.”
“I know, I know! But it’s fine. Everything at work is free! The coffee, the cafeteria, the snacks,” I countered. “How was your day?”
“Good, I just finished up meetings with Skylark Capital, the guys who funded that company Uno I was telling you about. They seem really interested in us.” Sam sorted through the mail I had picked up.
“And? How did they go?” I added another ladleful of broth.