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One
Iglanced over the top of my cubicle toward a window about ten feet away. Snow was coming down hard, in big, fat flakes that shone white against the black night and stuck to the pane whenever a sudden gust of wind slammed into the building. I looked at the clock on the opposite wall and sighed. You’d never know by the hum of the office that it was almost 9 p.m.
“The Pit,” as everyone called the group of cubicles that housed temps and interns, included a pod of hopeful, over-achieving, third-year law students like myself. The four of us still had one week left on the job. After working the standard summer internship at Sterling Grove’s full-service firm, I had been asked, along with the other three interns, to stay on when the firm took on a major trial case. The trial had finished up last week, and the firm had won, with some thanks due to the countless hours Steve, Cherie, Eric, and I had put in over the last four months. Our hard work paid off when we were offered full-time positions after we finished school and passed the bar exam. It was no small carrot—the firm was one of the largest in Boston, and the positions some of the most coveted for any new grad.
But unlike the other interns, I wasn’t actually sure I wanted to work at Sterling Grove. It wasn’t that it wasn’t a good firm (despite the first-year associate hours that would be undoubtedly hellacious). There was simply something missing. Two and a half years ago, I had left a job in investment banking for law school, hoping to find a career that would make me feel, well, complete. Law had seemed like a good idea. It was lucrative, analytical, and I had the potential to do more for the world than just stockpiling money. And upon starting my classes, I quickly learned that I loved the philosophical side of justice just as much as the practical. Law school was a practice of existing somewhere in the middle.
The difficulty was in choosing a focus. Two and a half years later, when most of my classmates already had jobs locked for the following year, I still had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do with my degree. I had excelled in my classes and attracted three job offers already, but had turned down all of them. Although I was interested in almost everything I had participated in, nothing made me feel that “oomph,” that one hundred percent knowledge thatthiswas what I was supposed to do. Two and a half years later, I was still looking.
“I see you watching for a cab, Crosby.”
A pair of thick black glasses, bright white teeth, and a mop of curly black hair popped over the cubicle barrier. I smiled, careful to avoid my co-intern’s eyes.
“I’m not watching for anything, Steve,” I said. “Anyway, I’m not sure I’m going either.”
“What?!”
Steve Kramer, a student at Boston College, made sure none of our supervising associates were in the common room before skittering around to sit on my desk, disregarding the legal pad under his butt. The two temps who shared my cubicle glanced up with mild annoyance before leaning back to their work.
“Dude,” Steve said as he grabbed the arms of my desk chair and rolled me to face him. “You gotta come. The trial is finally over. It’s our last drunken hurrah as interns together.” He didn’t seem to notice when I immediately rolled back to my original position.
“I know,” I said. “But it’s already so late. Plus, the weather is turning to shit, and I really need to finish this brief tonight.”
“Finishing a brief” was the legal equivalent of telling someone you needed to wash your hair or walk your dog. Unfortunately, for all the promise Steve showed as a cutthroat attorney, he never seemed to clue into basic social cues from women.
“Come on, Crosby,” he cajoled, again pulling my chair close. “I’m not letting you go until you say yes. It’s our only opportunity to celebrate the end of this insane internship. You don’t even have to pay—Cherie knows the owner at Manny’s and can get us comp’d pitchers.”
It wasn’t really the end yet—we still had a whole week. But considering the fact that classes were starting on Monday, it was more fitting to celebrate the end now instead of next Friday, when most of us would be more interested in getting ahead on our reading than tipping back shots.
Manny’s was a well-known bar in Chinatown and just a short cab ride away from the office. I wasn’t much of a drinker, which made me less than excited about going. Nor was I particularly interested in fending off the odious advances of Steve, who had been trying to talk me into a date since September. He was okay-looking, but, like most of the men I’d been out with, just didn’t quite do it for me. Apparently, I seemed to have the same problem with men that I did with choosing a job.
I sighed.
“You know he’s not going to leave you alone until you say yes.”
Eric, my classmate and neighboring intern, hadn’t even looked up from his work to make the dry comment. Steve waggled his prominent eyebrows.
I sighed again. “Fine!” I turned back to my desk. “I’m going, I’m going. Can I get back to work now?”
* * *
We arrivedat the tail end of happy hour while the band was finishing their sound check. We weren’t alone—Manny’s attracted the twenty-something young professional crowd of Boston, most of whom consisted of lawyers, bankers, and grad students working around Beacon Hill. The men wore a standard after-work uniform of suit pants and striped, button-down shirts, matching jackets tossed over the backs of chairs and ties loosened as they tossed back cheap beer. The women were dressed much like myself, in pencil skirts or pantsuits, their blouses undone one extra button to make it clear this wasn’t an interview. I kept my buttons where they were.
I filed into the small booth that had been claimed by my cohort and allowed Steve to hang my coat on the hooks next to us. Steve and Cherie jetted off to the bar and returned shortly with a tray full of tequila shots and a pitcher of PBR. Everyone eagerly took one of the shot glasses and the accompanying limes. I was the last to take one after Steve looked pointedly at me. With a quick eye roll, I raised my shot along with everyone else.
“This is the end,” Steve intoned, mimicking the words of Jim Morrison. “My only friend, the end.”
“Shut up and drink,” jeered Cherie.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Steve protested, stopping everyone from drinking. “I bought the shots, I get to toast. Okay. It’s been a pleasure working with you all, and I’d just like to say: may you finish the year without flunking out of law school in your last semester. May you all succeed and get filthy rich like I know you want to with these overpriced degrees. May you all make name partner within five years. Except not at Sterling, because that’s going to be me.”
We all yelled and threw balled-up napkins and cardboard coasters at him before gulping down the harsh liquor. It was the cheap stuff, of course, but it would no doubt get everyone trashed while liquor was half price. Steve began to dole out PBR-filled pint glasses.
“Thanks, but I’m good,” I said, slipping out of the booth to his obvious disappointment. “Don’t worry, I’m just going to get my own drink.”
“Too good for the blue ribbon, huh?” Steve teased.
“Everyone’s too good for that horse piss,” I retorted with a grin before making my way over to the bar, where I ordered a whiskey with a splash of water.
