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Chapter 29
I passed. I knew it. There was just no other way that test could have gone.
When I walked out of the Convention Center on a sunny Friday morning in late July, I felt like one of the people in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," blinded by the bright summer sun after spending so long in the dark. Except my dark cave was prep classes and the last two days of testing.
I squinted in the late afternoon sun triumphantly. I wouldn't find out the official results of my exam for eight more weeks, but I knew I had done well. And now a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, the last step toward becoming a licensed attorney, ready to start my real life in the real world.
"Time for a motherfucking drink," Eric pronounced as he followed me out of the Boston Convention Center, where we had just spent the last two days in one of the enormous rooms with the other hundreds of new law grads in the Boston area.
Eric looked more than a little worse for wear. His T-shirt was rumpled, and his hair on one side was sticking out on the side, like he'd spent the last six hours pulling at it while he wrote the second-day series of essay responses on Massachusetts state law. His eyes drooped with dark circles, and despite the summer weather, he looked even paler than normal.
I probably looked just as terrible. Like most of the test-takers, I was exhausted and had forgone things like makeup or jewelry. I'd dressed comfortably, in layers of jeans and a hoodie to withstand the air-conditioned rooms. Outside, however, in the sticky, late-July heat, I quickly stripped down to my white tank top and pulled my messy hair into a loose braid, eager to get the sweaty strands off my neck.
"That guy with the cell phone during the third essay," Eric said. "I wanted to kill him. If I fail, I'm suing his ass, I swear it."
Several other classmates from our Andover and Harvard classes were also filtering out of the building. Most had the same bleary, dazed expressions that come from two straight days of testing.
"Woohoo! Time to get messed up!"
Shouts of relief started to pepper the air as more and more people emerged. If there was ever a day to let loose, this was it. Most of us were taking two weeks off for the vacation we hadn't gotten after graduating from law school in May. It was fairly typical for most firms to negotiate their associates' start dates a few weeks after the exam; no one needed a burned-out associate when they expected us to hit the ground running.
For my part, I was thrilled to have some time off. While the dramas of the spring hadn't completely disappeared, they were all basically in a holding pattern. The security team in Brooklyn confirmed that my dad was continuing with his rehabilitation and therapy regimen without any more interference from Victor Messina or Katie Corleone. Miranda had, predictably, continued to delay divorce proceedings, but had not caused any additional headaches once Brandon and I had started seeing each other more openly.
Maurice and Janette had remained in New York (presumably with her family) since the Fourth, and although Maurice continued to pester Brandon with occasional phone calls and sometimes even messengered proposals, there was no more than a few distant suggestions that we socialize with them until they returned to Boston in August. The gifts had stopped. Janette was as silent as she had ever been.
The official word from BNP was that Maurice was working at the New York office for the time being. Margie, Brandon's assistant, couldn't get any other information about why he was there. It could have been any number of things: a deal gone bad, some kind of scheme the company was trying to hide. Maurice was a large enough figure that any malfeasance could cause a scandal that would affect stock prices. My best bet was that he was being given a shot at a mea culpa.
He didn't talk to me much about it, but I knew that the DNC was also pressuring Brandon to make a decision about a mayoral run. The election wasn't until the following year, but they likely wanted to start fundraising. The local papers continued to speculate about his interest in politics, and a few PACs had already been started for him. I didn't miss the clench of his jaw whenever he saw a new headline. What I didn't know was what he was going to do. I wondered if he was waiting for me to make that decision first.
Like a herd of escaped livestock, close to fifty of us overtook the nearest bar, aptly named The Drunk Monk, as we'd all felt like secluded monks with our study guides for the last month.
Eric and I sat at the bar with Steve Kramer, one of our classmates, and quickly ordered several plates of bar grub along with drinks, the boys opting for a pitcher of PBR while I took my preferred drink of whiskey and soda.
"And a round of tequila shots!" Steve called out as the bartender walked away to put in our order.
"Come on, Crosby," Eric prodded when I made a face. "If there was ever a day to drink cheap liquor, this is it."
"You seem pretty sure of yourself."
Jared appeared next to us, looking only slightly less groomed than normal. The collar of his polo shirt was still starched, and the only sign that he'd also been testing for the last two days was that his khaki shorts were creased from sitting for too long. He flagged the bartender and ordered a beer, then looked down at me with a bright smile. I couldn't help but smile back as the bartender delivered everyone's drinks along with a tray full of shots.
"Onwards and upwards, counselors," Steve crowed as he reached between us and delivered shot glasses to me, Jared, and several other classmates crowding the bar.
I held up my shot along with everyone else as the adrenaline of finishing this chapter rushed through the room. We all tipped them back with howls and hoots and gleefully ordered another round.
"Keep 'em coming!" Steve shouted before throwing back a second tequila and sucking on a lime.
"And some water," I called before following suit.
I held a hand to my forehead while I sucked on my lime. Two shots in, and I was already feeling lightheaded.
"I need some food," I croaked to Eric while Jared calmly sipped his beer. "Didn't we order potato skins?"
As if on cue, the skins arrived, along with a plate of fried mozzarella and clam strips. We dug in. Fried food had never tasted so good.
"I wish Jane were here," I said to Eric after scarfing my second skin. "It isn't the same, celebrating without her."
"She'll be here on Friday," Eric said, as if it were completely normal that he would know that in the first place. Suddenly he found a scratch in the bar top extremely interesting.
