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Margo
Ten measly pages sat between me and freedom. Tap, tap, tap.Tap, tap, tap.My head snapped up. “Can you not, Cynthia? Please, I just need to finish this agreement before I wither away and die.” I was so tired and so close to finishing. Just ten more pages to review and then we’d be able to get this frustrating deal signed.
“Sorry.” Cynthia grimaced and put her pen down. “The revisions to this agreement are killing me. Of course the partner asked for this to be completed a week faster than the client requested. I swear these people choose deadlines solely to torture me.” She waved her hand in the air like “these people” were all around us. I sighed and raised my mug.
“Hear hear.”
It was like this every year. Every year we assumed it would be better. Every December first I got frantic emails from clients trying to finish out the year. The lawyers were always last to cross the finish line. I pictured my clients toasting each other with glasses of bourbon around a roaring fire and punched my computer keys a little harder.
“Jeez Margo. You’re going to break the damn thing. Be careful or you’ll be hand writing comments and faxing them like Gerald does.”
I couldn't help but laugh. Gerald was the most senior partner in our group and my primary boss, and his handwriting was notoriously terrible. Every associate had been put through the wringer with him at one point. Luckily I had graduated from that circle of hell years ago, and into this one.
Cynthia and I were still associates, not partners, but we were at least two of the three most senior associates at the firm. Instead of turning handwritten comments to documents and taking notes on client calls, we ran deals, did all the major negotiation, came up with creative strategies to win and generally kicked ass and got rich while doing it. It was a pretty awesome gig when the hours were manageable and the clients were pleasant. But something about December made clients crazed and deadline-oriented, even more so than usual. So here we were, Christmas deadlines looming, bags under our eyes and our hair in messy buns, tapping away at our keyboards.
“Maybe this will be the last holiday we spend being tormented.” Cynthia sounded hopeful.
I raised my head. “I don’t think so, Cynth. Neither of us is getting fired any time soon.”
She grimaced. Every year at this time, the prospect of being fired became freeing. We had both fantasized about doing something so insane that we would be fired on the spot. She favored a “fuck you” email to opposing counsel. I favored gluing Andrew Markman’s office door shut with superglue. We’d never do it, though. It was a well-worn fantasy for when work was too much to bear.
“Do you think Andrew is here, or already home in Connecticut?”
“Speak of the devil. I was just daydreaming about throwing his computer off the roof.”
Cynthia giggled. “He is truly heinous. I cannot believe how he just demanded to be staffed on the Aggregate Shipping deal, like he is god’s gift to private equity.”
“Not only that, but he goteverysecretary a massive gift basket, even mine. He’s trying to steal her from me. Over my dead body.” I narrowed my eyes in displeasure at the thought of enemy number one. Andrew Markman. He was the third remaining associate from our class and my competition for partner. Cynthia was just here to make money while she figured out her life, but Andrew wanted what I wanted. And unfortunately for us, only one of us could make partner.
The firm had never made two partners in a year. Profits per partner hovered around three million dollars per partner, annually, and they kept that number high by keeping the ranks thin. Like most firms of this size, our firm operated on an up-or-out model. You either made partner or you got fired, no in between. Andrew, Cynthia and I had been here since law school, for eight long years. For associates who had started at our firm, that eight year mark meant partner decisions. The committee typically announced their decisions right after the billable hours and performance reviews were in for year end. We would know by the end of January which one us would make it, maybe even sooner.
I knew the firm was contemplating a switch to the dreaded dual-partner track system, and I was determined to make it in before I was a partner in name only, earning slightly more than I did now but with a huge marketing load and more responsibility than ever. No, I wanted to be sitting there at the table, with an equal vote to the other partners and earning seven figures, an unthinkable amount of money for anyone in the Clarke family.
Meanwhile, Andrew probably pulled that much out of his couch cushions. I assumed he was trying to make partner out of some deep-seated daddy issues or an unreasonable love of competition. You got lots of legacy lawyers and rich kids in corporate law. They had grown up seeing their parents in their corporate rat race and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It was one of the reasons Cynthia and I had bonded and stuck together for so long. We had both grown up living modestly and had payed for our education with loans and summer jobs, and by slinging drinks (in my case, coffees, and in hers, beers) for minimum wage.
It might sound like we were in it only for the money, but we both felt the same way about being lawyer: we liked to be sharks. There was nothing better than winning. I was an expert in something that only a few thousand people knew how to do and it was great. No, the hours weren’t ideal, but the adrenaline of closing a deal was a super drug.
And I wanted to make partner with a desperate urgency that I had never felt for anything before. I wanted to be partner more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. Making partner was a seal of approval and a gateway into a world to which I had never belonged. A world in which Andrew had grown up. If I didn’t make partner, I had no backup plan.
Cynthia cut into my thoughts. “I bet you he’s here. He’s across from Jason at Covingly on that deal. That guy is a jerk. I’m pretty sure he created a Christmas Eve deadline last year just to torture me. He’s a psychopath.” She scowled and I smiled.
Cynthia was nothing if not dramatic, and five feet and two inches of hell on four-inch stilettos.
“Well he and Andrew should get along then. Andrew certainly has no soul to speak of.” I raised my mug. “I’m going for a refill. You want?”
“Nope. I’m way over-caffeinated and I actually want to sleep tonight.”
I made my way down the hall, which was already emptying out for the holidays. The partners had smartly seated Andrew and I on exact opposite sides of the floor, with the kitchen and the bathrooms as neutral ground. The junior associates he worked with sat near him, and my minions sat near me. I had little reason to ever stray to that side of the floor. The battle lines were drawn.
It was for the best. Everyone knew Andrew and I hated each other. Last year at this time, he’d somehow tricked Gerald into moving up a deal deadline from January 15 to Christmas Eve. I’d worked three days with no sleep to get it done. And, as always, my retaliation had been pitiful compared to his. I had volunteered him to prepare marketing presentations for the firm’s big conference. He had gotten a new client out of all the schmoozing he’d done. Somehow, for Andrew, everything came up roses. He was a good ol’ boy in the making. His family had so much money that he didn’t even need to work. He cracked jokes at my expense, undermined me to the partners, kissed ass, and generally tried to outdo me at everything.
Never mind that we had been friends for one glorious year, at least until he had realized I would never truly belong in his world. I was too country. I hadn’t known how to use chopsticks at the firm lunches. I’d never flown internationally. The list went on and on. Slowly, I had polished and changed and primped until I could tell you exactly which sushi bars had their fish flown in from Tokyo every day, where the best places to get your nails done were in London, which of the latest plays were coming highly reviewed. And now, I was untouchable. Well, to most of the world. To Andrew I was still that country girl from Vermont who would never be good enough for him.
And the worst part about it was that when I was around him, I felt every inch the bumbling girl who had shared an office with him at 25, instead of a kick-ass female attorney who loved to win and wonoften. That was going to change when I made partner though. Finally, the world would recognize that Ibelonged.
I stood over the coffee machine and tried to focus on the last few points in my deal docs, instead of how very tired I was. There were vanishingly few perks to being to effectively living in your office, but a shiny new espresso maker was one of them. I sighed wistfully at the thought of another cappuccino, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight with that much caffeine singing through my veins.
