CHAPTER 1
He’s in my office again, bothering me. It bothers me just to look at him, but it particularly bothers me when he speaks, and Rob speaks a lot, plumped up on mediocre male confidence and throbbing, virile ego. He’s the partners’ favorite, so until I take care of him, I have to play it as nicely as I can. But when we’re alone, I don’t pretend. I turn dead eyes on him and stare as he prattles.
“Regardless of all that,” he says, continuing whatever train of thought I’ve blocked out, “you did a pretty good job with this one, Jane.”
“I did a great job,” I counter.
“Like I said, pretty good. I’ll turn over the final numbers to—”
“I already sent the final numbers to the partners, with appropriate credit where it was due. It’s all taken care of. Thanks, Robert. You can go.”
He blinks, spun into confusion by being casually dismissed. “Excuse me?”
“I took care of the details. Wasn’t that what you told me to do, Robert? ‘Take care of the details’? I sent the wrap-up email to the partners so you wouldn’t have to bother with it. You’re welcome.”
He shakes his head. “What? When?”
“Oh no, did I forget to cc you? I guess I was tired from all those late hours last week. I’ll be sure to forward it right now.” I smile and hit a few keys on my laptop. The original email wings its way to his account. I also forward the praise-filled responses from two of the founding partners of the law firm, along with my enthusiastic and upbeat thank-yous. Rob can respond now, of course, but he’ll still be the guy who stumbled up an hour after all the action, trying to get a leftover piece. A mere postscript. Poor Rob.
He’s staring at me. I cut my narrowed eyes toward him. “Is there something else you need?”
Rob has been outmaneuvered and he knows it, but he can’t reasonably assume it was anything but helpful gumption on my part. His stupid little lipless hole of a mouth bubbles open and closed like he’s a goldfish. Pop, pop.
The trill of my phone cuts off his shocked bubbling. “Oh, I’d better get this. Thank you so much for coming by, Robert. And hey, good job.”
His eyes widen at the indignity of being praised by someone lower on the ladder, as if I’ve snuck up the rungs and peed on his head in passing. “I’ll see you at the meeting later.” I wink as I say hello into the receiver.
“There’s a woman calling for you,” the receptionist intones in a voice that’s a strange combination of chirpy and depressed. She’s an odd, forlorn bird. “She says it’s about your niece.”
My niece? Luke has a niece, but I don’t. Well, I do, actually. Three of them. Could be four by now if my brother got even one moment out of jail between sentences last year, but I don’t know any of them.
“Send her to voice mail.”
“She says it’s important.”
“Voice mail is fine.” I hang up and find I am blessedly alone. A new email arrives. It’s Rob responding at long last to the partners’ praise. Tsk, tsk, Robert. Not very responsible.
Mid-grin, I realize it’s almost lunchtime, and I’m instantly famished. I woke up this morning craving the lobster ravioli at a restaurant two blocks from my downtown law office, and I hop up from my seat with a watering mouth and a simply fantastic idea.
“Robert!” I call across the hallway. His office faces mine, but we don’t face each other. He has his desk angled for privacy so he can look like he’s hard at work even when he’s trolling Tinder. I have mine near the door so I can watch every move in the hallway and eavesdrop on office gossip.
When I pop into his doorway, he’s scowling, still irritated with me. “Let me take you to lunch!” I exclaim, making bright eyes at him.
His gaze narrows at this shift. I smile wider. “As a thank-you for guiding me through this negotiation. What a bear, huh?”
The truth is this contract was nothing I haven’t managed before, and negotiations were made more difficult by Rob’s brotastic style. But now he’s blinking and off-balance. I lean back and wave at the receptionist, who’s glancing over her shoulder toward me. She waves in return.
“Come on,” I urge, sticking my head back into Rob’s office like we’re co-conspirators. “A celebration!”
“Uh, yeah,” he finally answers. “Yeah, sure.”
“I’ve been craving Camille’s all day. That time of month, you know.” He winces a little at the hint of bodily functions. I wink in return, which seems to help him recover. It’s a lie, of course. I control my body with ruthless efficiency with nonstop birth control pills.
“Camille’s sounds great,” he says tentatively. “Thanks for the offer.”
“Are you ready? We’d better not dawdle. We’ve got that meeting at two.”
“Let’s go.” He grabs a slim-cut peacoat and a tastefully masculine cashmere scarf to ward off the slight chill of the cool September afternoon, but then he just drapes the scarf over the lapels, which won’t ward off anything except dandruff. I snag my purse and a new red raincoat from my office and bounce happily toward the door. The receptionist, Amy, looks woefully cheerful at this scene of camaraderie.
I’m so hungry.
As we step into the elevator, I ask Rob about another case, and that flips the switch to get him talking again. So much talking. An embarrassment of talking, because he knows so much, our Rob. So much, and all I can do is soak it in and learn. I’ve been at the firm for a year now and I’ve become a crucial member of the team, the point man, so to speak, on international contract negotiations. But I’m a woman, so I will always still have so much to learn.
He begins to explain a complicated contract between an American car parts company and a Vietnamese manufacturer, because he’s forgotten that I helped the firm hammer out the details during my first month on the job. “These guys were unbelievable,” he says. “They were hoping the trade war meant they could—”
But I’m thinking about lobster ravioli and the restaurant’s famous warm bread, which they serve with salted butter. Mmm.
The day is colder than it looks; an early arctic front has dipped down from Canada to bring a shiver to the sunny day, and I love it. No more buzzing mosquitoes. And no buzzing lithe-limbed girls wearing tiny shorts as they try to flirt with my boyfriend. Try and fail.
I have the sex drive of a woman who’s unable to process shame or self-consciousness, so their buzzing is a mere annoyance. I keep him very busy. But I’ve never had a real boyfriend before, so I sometimes find it hard to control my temper when I see them trying to steal what’s mine. Mine. Those little girls are easy to scare off with an icy-eyed hiss, and if that doesn’t work, there’s always a well-timed foot to trip them up on their way past the table. Still, I’m satisfied that they’ll have to put their ass cheeks away for a few months now. Buttocks are a summer accessory this far north in the world.
We’re walking toward my condo—the restaurant is halfway between my office and the home I share with my cat—so I’m on familiar turf as Rob continues explaining shit I already know.
My place of work is biased toward men, as most law firms are. If I were still in my twenties, I’d have already slept with one of the married partners and leveraged that into a fast track, because why not? There’s only one female partner out of eight at this firm, and I’ve heard several of the men make secret, snide comments about her “time off.” Her time off was to have a baby and then recover from massive hemorrhaging during the birth, and that was three full years ago. They can’t seem to understand why she wasn’t smart enough to simply marry a woman and get that female to stay home and whelp progeny the way they did.