She scans the room, and on seeing me at the counter, she strides across the room. A few people turn to stare. Jasmine always had presence, but now it’s increased tenfold.
“Hey,” I say, standing up from my stool.
“Hey.” She smells incredible, a heady mix of musk and amber.
“You look great,” I say.
“Thank you.” She sits on the stool beside me and signals Miles. “Do you have a French 75?”
Miles nods and starts mixing. Jasmine sets her bag on the bar, and for a few seconds neither of us says anything. The silence isn't uncomfortable, but it's full of things we want to say but don't know how to start.
Miles sets her cocktail down, and she takes a sip.
“You did it,” I finally say.
She looks at me. “Did what?”
“You said you were going to be a lawyer. You did it.”
“You remember?” The words come out a little stunned.
I nod. “We were sitting on the bleachers after one of my games, and you said you were going to law school, and I asked why, and you said because nobody argues with a lawyer.”
Her mouth curves. “I said that?”
“Word for word. And you did it.”
She grins. “Yeah, I did. It wasn't pretty, though.”
“Tell me.”
She tells me about undergrad at NYU, how she worked two jobs and studied at the same time, and managed to graduate with honors.
If things had been different, I would have been in the audience the day she walked across that stage. I would have been the idiot in the third row on his feet, clapping and yelling.
Lorraine must have been out of her mind with pride. Her only child, whom she raised alone on a retail salary, walked across a stage at NYU in a cap and gown.
Jasmine tells me about the LSAT, which she took twice because she wasn't satisfied with her first score, even though it was high enough for every school she applied to.
“Which was your first job?” I ask her. I want to know everything, plus I love the sound of her voice and how she talks while gesturing.
She might look different, but some things stayed the same, I guess.
“A small practice in Midtown. Three partners, six associates, and a coffee machine that broke every other week. The pay was terrible and the hours were worse, but I learned more there in two years than I did in three years of law school.”
“What made you leave?” I ask.
“I outgrew it. I needed a bigger pond.” She takes a sip of her cocktail. “Caldwell, Price & Associates hired me as a junior associate. My boss, Mabel Scott, is the managing partner. First meeting she ever had with me, she told me I had potential, and that potential was useless without direction. Then she gave me a stack of contracts and told me to come back when I'd found every error.”
“How many did you find?”
“All of them. Plus, two she didn't know about.” She tilts her glass toward me. “That's when she started taking me seriously.”
“And now you're going for partner?”
“Senior associate. Partnership is next.” She sets her glass down. “It's a grind. The hours are long, the expectations are higher every year, and there's always someone right behind you who wants it just as badly. But I'm good at it, and I'm close.”
“You'll get it,” I say.
