The Boys' Club

by Erica Katz

  “Hi,” she breathed into the mirror in my direction. I glanced quickly at Gary’s hand to see if his wedding ring was on, and it was. The woman wasn’t wearing one.

  “I’ve asked this young lady to join us for a drink,” Gary said, his eyes still glued to me.

  “Fun!” The woman’s eyes lit up mischievously as she looked me up and down in the mirror. I smoothed my blouse, my stomach churning. Though the encounter was completely unlike any I had ever had, their intentions were obvious.

  “Oh. No thank you. I’m here with my family,” I stammered.

  Their faces fell. “Not fun,” the woman said with a pout.

  “Enjoy your night,” I said with an awkward wave, exiting without drying my hands. Back at the table, I plopped down and found myself in a trance, looking at my silverware, playing the scene over in my mind as my father discussed his and my mother’s February travel plans to Brazil.

  “You okay?” Sam leaned in to me quietly, touching my hand under the table as his annoyance seemed to yield to concern.

  “Yup! All good.” I smiled broadly at him and my parents, trying desperately to stop my skin from crawling. Gary Kaplan was a man who cheated on his wife, propositioned young women, infiltrated the wrong side of same-sex restrooms, and generally chilled my spine upon every interaction. But he was unarguably the firm’s best client. How could I build a career on representing such morally reprehensible characters? I supposed Stag River was the client, though. Not Gary. It wasn’t as bad as . . .

  “So, did you win the trial? Is it over?” my mother asked.

  “She does deals, not trials,” my father corrected her, probably not understanding the difference either but knowing enough to distinguish the two.

  “Okay, okay. Did you win your deal?” she asked. I was too tired to explain that everybody wins a deal when we do our jobs correctly, so I just smiled and nodded.

  “So how late have you had to stay at work? Seriously,” my father said.

  “She didn’t come home two nights in a row,” Sam answered flatly before I could. We all looked at him.

  “One night,” I said, rolling my eyes to indicate he was being dramatic.

  He looked at me fiercely for a moment, and then I saw something that looked like worry cross his face again. “Two,” he insisted.

  Six eyes turned to me.

  “Oh my gosh. Two. You’re right.” My mother’s shoulders relaxed. I sipped my wine, trying to uncover memories of the lost night. It was Friday. I slept in the office last night. I remembered the accounting call, late Wednesday. Didn’t I go home after that? I remembered sending emails from the apartment. Or was that Tuesday? I guess I can pull an all-nighter, I thought. Just not two in a row. That’s good!

  I felt a smile on my lips but wiped it away. Something had shifted in the energy at the table; the silence was pregnant with expectation.

  “What?”

  “Do you sleep at all when you stay in the office?” my father asked, for what I assumed was the second time.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yes,” I said, shaking my head though stating the affirmative.

  “No,” Sam said angrily. “A couple hours, tops, in what they call the ‘restoration room,’ which is just a place people catch a few hours when they’re working too much.”

  I looked over at him. “My Sammy baby misses me,” I teased. He tried to stay flat, but he cracked a smile.

  “It’s like your ER shifts back in med school,” my mom said, looking at my dad, who nodded.

  “But you’re happy, right?” my father asked, so hopeful that I had to avert my eyes.

  “Loving it,” I assured him.

  “It’s an actual crime for them to charge this much for chicken,” my mother said as she looked over the menu, clearly searching for a new topic.

  “It’s chicken for two,” I pointed out. Shit. This place was really expensive. It had been inconsiderate of me to make a reservation here. I hadn’t been out with nonwork people in so long, I’d forgotten to consider the prices.

  “I know!” my mother said. “Still!”

  “It has foie gras under the skin.” I defended the dish as though I’d made it myself as I scanned the room for Gary, who I hadn’t seen come out of the bathroom yet.

  “I’ll split it with you!” my dad offered.

  “Tell us about work, Sam. How is it? We don’t totally understand what it is,” my mother said, ignoring my dad’s suggestion.

  “It’s hard. Harder than I thought. And I have yet to pay myself, which is really hard.” I saw my mother straighten her spine, and my father looked slightly nervous.

  “Tell them again what it is,” I said as I leaned into him encouragingly. “It’s a brilliant concept.” Sam squeezed my knee gratefully under the table.

  “It’s basically a service—a website and an app—for sharing the cost and use of big-price-tag items. Like a time share, but for cars, parking spots, condos, bikes, and so on. We match customers based on location and do the credit checks, background checks, personality profiles. And our company is actually the one buying the item and leasing it indefinitely to both parties for a profit, but they’re splitting the cost of the lease with a stranger, so it works for everybody. Like, if you travel a lot for work, you share your car with a neighbor when you’re gone. Think, Rent the Runway, but . . . own the runway, and not for clothes.”

  “Wow!” my mother said, her voice rising with feigned enthusiasm. I knew she was skeptical about the idea, probably for the exact reasons I was—that people don’t like to share big items with strangers, and they’re okay with spending more not to. I took a long, thirsty sip of wine to drown out that voice in my head.

  “Yeah,” Sam said, and took my hand tenderly. “I think it’s going to be really great. And I couldn’t have done it without Alex. She was such a trooper while I was building the company in Cambridge. All while she was in law school.” I thought back to our cramped second-floor studio and found it hard to believe I had lived in it so happily. Sam had had no money to take me on dates or go on vacation, and so I learned to cook and pretended I had learned to love Boston in the dead of winter. I wondered if I could ever handle living like that again. I plastered a smile on my face and gently pulled my hand from his.

  “So, we hear you’re running the marathon,” my father’s voice piped in through my thoughts, and I took a long drink. The wine was so light, I could barely taste it.

  I swatted at the tickling feeling on my nose and hit Sam’s hand. I opened my eyes to see Sam sitting next to me on the bed, holding one of my makeup compacts in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” I asked groggily.

  Sam snapped the compact shut. “I was holding the mirror under your nose to see if you were breathing,” he said. I smiled. He didn’t.

  “I’m alive,” I sang, holding up my hands and wiggling my fingers, but he didn’t look amused.

  “It’s three in the afternoon,” he said, getting up. He was fully dressed. I peeked under the sheets to see that I was wearing my bra and underwear from the night before.

  “What happened?” I managed.

  Sam shrugged. “You got really fucking drunk.”

  I put my palm to my head. I didn’t feel hungover. Just groggy. “Did I?”

  “Yup!” Sam said, his voice dripping with derision. “Off of two and a half fucking glasses of wine. Your father guessed it was a mixture of alcohol, exhaustion, and Advil that did it.”

  Jesus. Why couldn’t I remember anything after we ordered? Why couldn’t I forget the look in Gary’s eyes, and that demented half grin on his face?

  “Don’t curse,” was all I managed to say before plopping my head back down on the pillow and shutting my eyes.

  “Sam!” I peeled my eyes open and sprang up. “We missed Lucas’s birthday!”

  “No, you missed Lucas’s birthday,” he said dryly. “I had a blast.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” I had promised Sam’s nephew I would be there, and I had sent Anna to
four different toy stores to pick out his present.

  “I assure you, I tried.” He looked at me. “I saved you a fucking slice of cake.” I had two choices, I realized then. I could ignore him and weather his mood for the next however many hours or days. Or I could change his mood entirely.

  My lips curled into a smile. “You think you’re the only one who can curse?” I asked. I bit my lower lip. He watched me, taking in my tone, his body tensing as he registered it. Even after all our years together, he always wanted me. Always. No matter how mad he was. I let the sheets fall farther down my body.

  “What are you talking about?” he said mechanically.

  “I can curse,” I said. I stood up on the bed, fanning my fingers out to steady myself and counterbalance the wooziness. I towered over him, and he looked up at me. My thighs didn’t touch each other now when I stood with my feet together. As much as I had him pegged as somebody who cared less about physical appearance than most men, Sam seemed to appreciate the view of my shrinking frame. He tugged at the inseam of his pants as he shifted his stance to make room.

  “I want you to fuck the shit out of me,” I said, and his jaw dropped slightly. I laughed from my belly, and before I knew it, he had tackled me onto the bed. He flipped me over in one fluid motion and tore my underwear down. He was on top of me before I figured out exactly where the ceiling and floor were.

  I embraced my luscious lightheadedness and the grogginess from the fifteen hours of sleep. It felt like drunk sex, the kind we had when we first met, and it was exactly what I wanted. He yanked at my hair and bit my upper back below my shoulder. As the shock of it dissolved, the pleasure returned, not in place of the pain but right alongside it. I whimpered, encouraging him, and he clamped his hand over my lips to silence me. When he lost his grip on my face to his own pleasure, I managed to get one of his fingers into my mouth. He moaned again despite himself.

  We stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavily, before I burst out laughing again.

  “Holy shit,” Sam breathed as he patted my thigh. I rolled into him and nuzzled into his neck.

  “I’m so mad I blacked out my chicken!” I said, staring at the ceiling.

  “Don’t be. You kept saying it tasted like nothing. You kept shaking your head and salting it and saying it had no flavor. You announced it to the people at the next table. You told the waiter it was a rip-off.”

  I searched his face to see if he was joking. He wasn’t.

  I arched my back and laughed again, and he joined me this time, letting go of our argument.

  My spine relaxed into the plush mattress. “Last night when I went to the bathroom I ran into a client,” I said, staring up at the ceiling. “He didn’t even recognize me. And he hit on me. It was so weird.”

  Sam turned to me, and I saw a flash of jealousy darken his eyes before he shrugged. “Can’t blame the guy.” He smiled and kissed my cheek. I shivered slightly at the memory of Gary’s face and turned into Sam, resting my head on his shoulder and my hand on his chest, relishing his warmth.

  “Let’s just stay here awhile,” he whispered.

  “Where?”

  “Here.” He looked over at me. “In bed.”

  As soon as he said it, I thought of everything I had to do, and my heart quickened. I have a job. I can’t spend entire days in bed anymore. I forced a smile back his way and nodded, trying to deny the tingling in my fingertips. I just closed a deal. It’s fine. It’s Saturday. Nobody is emailing me anything urgent today. My mind flashed with the thought of an email from Matt in my in-box going unanswered.

  “Babe?” I said, forcing sleepiness into my voice despite the tension in my throat. “I need coffee.”

  “I’ll make you some.” He kissed the top of my head and rolled away from me.

  As soon as he exited the room I lunged for my phone, which was mercifully next to the bed. It was on 2 percent battery, so I plugged it in and scanned my in-box frantically, knowing I didn’t have much time.

  None of them were urgent, but I chimed in on a chain with Matt and Jordan just to indicate that I was diligently checking in on a weekend. My phone was facedown by the time Sam handed me a cup of coffee, and I sipped slowly at the warm energy rush, light with the milk I knew he objected to, exactly how I wanted it.

  “How do you feel about my eating cake for breakfast?” I asked sheepishly.

  Sam smiled broadly as he drew his other hand from behind his back and revealed a plate of pillowy white cake with a thick brim of white frosting, dotted with something bright green and black with brown lines. He had gotten me a good piece even though he was mad. I put my coffee on the nightstand and reached for the plate.

  “Ninja Turtles?” I asked, shoving a large forkful of icing into my mouth.

  Sam slid back into bed beside me. “Yeah! I got you Donatello.”

  “Aw babe! You spoil me.”

  “Let me see your tongue,” he said, sounding serious.

  I stuck it out at him. “Green?” I managed and suddenly felt his tongue on mine. I put down the plate and fell into his kiss.

  Part III

  Indication of Interest (IOI)

  An expression showing conditional and nonbinding interest in engaging in the purchase or sale of a company.

  Q.I’d like to backtrack to your relationships with colleagues to get a sense of your working relationships more generally.

  A.I don’t see how my relationships with other people are relevant here. I already explained that at Klasko, socializing is common with both colleagues and clients. My colleagues at Klasko were also my friends.

  Q.You’re right that it wouldn’t be relevant at trial, but it’s helpful for us in figuring out what information to gather from whom.

  A.Fair enough. What do you want to know?

  Q.Please expound on both your professional and personal relationships with your colleagues Matt Jaskel, Jordan Sellar, Peter Dunn, and Vivienne White, as well as your client Didier Laurent. Please focus on encounters outside of the office, while observing your obligations of privilege, of course.

  A.Life as a young associate is all-consuming. Often my personal life bled into my professional life in the areas of client events and entertainment.

  Q.That’s precisely what we’re interested in.

  Chapter 10

  I walked through the parting automatic doors of the twenty-four-hour Duane Reade right next to my apartment, took a few steps onto the white linoleum floor, squinted into the fluorescent lights that stung the backs of my eyes, and stopped in my tracks. Why was I even there? I had headed there on a mission, but the errand I needed to do had left my brain entirely. It was already eleven at night, but it was my first time leaving the office before midnight in the past ten days.

  I walked up and down the aisles, trying to jog my memory, before buying a pack of gum and walking the fifty yards to my apartment building. Sam was already asleep when I crept into the bathroom, and as I plunked down on the toilet, the cool porcelain shocked the back of my thighs. I placed my elbows on my kneecaps and my head in my hands to rest for a moment, then reached for the toilet paper to find only an empty cardboard roll.

  Fuck.

  I found myself continually forgetting things like what I’d run to the drugstore to buy, whether I’d showered the previous morning, and any and all plans I made that weren’t reflected in a calendar invitation. I thought about running back to the drugstore, just to avoid Sam’s judgmental stare when he woke to realize I’d failed to run the one domestic errand he had asked me to do in over a month. But instead I put some takeout napkins on top of the cistern and crawled under the covers beside him, promising myself I would be more present in my personal life, beginning in the morning.

  When just a few nights later I woke up from a nap on the floor of my office to a string of angry texts from Sam that he was waiting at the restaurant, that he couldn’t believe how late I was, that he was irate that I wasn’t responding, and that he was eating alone and going home, I made the dec
ision to take a break from killing myself to get into M&A.

  Come mid-November, I’d stopped asking Matt and Peter for more work, I’d told the staffing partner I needed to lighten my load, and I found myself staffed on just one active M&A matter. I knew I’d soon have to fill my plate again to maintain my competitive position in the running for an M&A match, so I took full advantage of the downtime before it disappeared. I went to Bloomingdale’s with Carmen during a long lunch break, and for the very first time in my life, I didn’t head straight to the sale rack. I made dinner plans with Sam that I actually kept. I took his nephew Lucas on a date to Ninja—a subpar sushi restaurant in Tribeca with above-average prices where the waiters dress and act like ninjas. I gave him second and third birthday presents to apologize, and reapologize, for sleeping through his party. “You made his year,” Sam’s sister had told me. “Miss his birthday anytime.”

  The strangest part of working so hard the past few months was that long days had quickly become my baseline. I felt as though I was somehow cheating when I “only” worked from ten in the morning to eight at night. I began to remember the parts of myself that got lost in the endless markups and interminable exhibits to our agreements, like the physical grooming rituals in which many human women partake, such as eyebrow plucking and haircuts. But I also noticed that I quickly became present again during social interactions, and that I wasn’t nearly as forgetful.

  It seemed I wasn’t the only attorney in the office who was working at a slower-than-usual pace. Vivienne had rescheduled our mentor/mentee lunch—and this time she hadn’t canceled. I sipped my water as she put her personal phone facedown on the white tablecloth and turned her attention to her work phone. I stared at her phone case, which featured a photo of her and her very attractive husband and three boys at the beach. Their hair blew to the left and their smiles curved slightly right as they braced themselves against a breeze.