PLUMMET: A Novel

by MICHAEL ZAROCOSTAS

  She looked surprised when she saw him. "Hey."

  Micah stood up. "Hey, I'm Micah, nice to meet you."

  "Sarah." She smiled, walked past the table and a sideboard of floral china. He watched her tan legs scissor into the kitchen. She mumbled to her mother, "Pretty flowers."

  He listened to their hushed conversation, realizing that Gabe hadn't told his daughter about the visit. Sarah came back to the dining table, sidled up to a chair across from him. She sat with one leg underneath her, played with a placemat.

  "Cute sweater, I feel like I've seen it before," Sarah said, eyes sifting him, then slyly turning to a window.

  "Thanks. I just got it." He followed Sarah's gaze, looked out the window where a black Lab was running around on a concrete patio. The dog was wearing a knitted navy blue sweater. "Is your dog wearing the same sweater I am?"

  "Looks like it." Sarah's eyes smiled.

  "Well, he's got good taste." He handed Sarah the bottle of wine. "I forgot to give you that. You want me to open it for you all?"

  "Your accent, where are you from?" She turned to the counter separating them from Mrs. Weiss. "Mom, are you making drinks, or should we open this wine?"

  "I'm making something. Just sit and talk to our guest."

  Sarah rolled her eyes. Mrs. Weiss mixed vodka martinis with jalapeño olives, and the three of them made small talk for a while at the table. Micah grew more comfortable with each sip from the heavy crystal glass and with each smile from the Weiss women. After a second martini, Mrs. Weiss brought out a plate of toast points, goat cheese, and cornichons. They wanted to hear more of his accent and how he came to New York, and his stories about law school and working at S & A.

  He said, "The associates compare the Firm to Star Wars. We even call the office building 'The Death Star,' and there's nicknames for every partner."

  "What's my dad's?"

  "Darth Vader."

  They laughed.

  "That's so funny," Sarah said. "So is Darth Vader making you work on New Year's?"

  "I don't know. I hope not."

  "You should go to the Loeb Boathouse party in Central Park. You'd love it."

  "I would but... I really don't know a lot of people here-"

  Mrs. Weiss said, "You don't have plans for New Year's? I don't believe you. You're too cute not to have a date." She nodded at her daughter. "Do you have a girlfriend, Micah?"

  "Well, I guess that depends. Define 'girlfriend.'"

  "Now you sound like a lawyer," Sarah said. "You so totally have girlfriend, and I bet she'd be pissed if she heard you now."

  "All right, I surrender. I have a girlfriend back home."

  Sarah and her mother exchanged looks.

  Mrs. Weiss said, "What's her name? How'd you meet her?"

  "Her name's Ashley. We met when I was in law school. My buddy and I would study constantly in the law library. But it was a depressing place that looked like a prison, and the girls in law school, well, let's just say they weren't winning any beauty pageants."

  Sarah and her mother smiled.

  "So my buddy and I decided to go study at King Library, which is where all the undergrads go." Micah grinned thinking about it. "This was actually my friend's idea, he's really clever. We camped out at a table in one of the main skywalks and laid out just about every law school text book we had. You know, like Criminal Law and Civil Procedure, and everyone who came in would have to walk through this skywalk. Any passing girl had to be blind to miss our display of law books. My buddy was a smooth talker especially with freshmen. We'd end up convincing girls to 'study' with us at this Irish pub called Lynagh's." Micah took another sip of his martini. "But then one night we're doing our regular dog and pony show in the library, and this knockout redhead walks in wearing a red hoodie-"

  "That's Ashley, gorgeous I bet," Mrs. Weiss said over her martini glass. She bit into an olive, waiting for more. "Go on."

  Micah noticed that Sarah seemed annoyed. "Yup, this girl walks past us, and the first thing I notice is her beautiful auburn hair. She catches me staring, walks up, and says, 'My, what big expensive law books you have.' And I said, 'The better to sue you with.'"

  Sarah faked a yawn, but Mrs. Weiss grinned from gold hoop earring to earring.

  "So?" Mrs. Weiss leaned forward, waived her hand to keep the story going. "You liked that she caught your scam and cut you to the quick. What did you say?"

  "She walked off, but I ran after her and said, 'Come back, Little Red Riding Hood. I promise not to eat you if you just sit with us.' She tried not to smile, but that's how it started."

  "I love it." Mrs. Weiss stood with an empty martini glass, winked at her daughter. "Sarah, what's wrong? I'm opening that bottle of wine he brought. You want a glass, bubula?"

  "No thanks." Sarah slid out of her chair. She picked up a beeping cell phone on the kitchen counter, walked out to the hall. Micah heard her footsteps fade up the stairs.

  Mrs. Weiss whispered, "Sorry. How about you? Will you have a glass if I open this bottle?" She displayed it like a sommelier.

  "I'm all right, thank you. Shouldn't we wait for Mr. Weiss?"

  "Oh please." Mrs. Weiss smirked. "Do you really think Gabe's coming for dinner? If he's home before midnight, I'll have a heart attack. I'll pour you a glass." She adjusted the neckline of her blouse, went toward the kitchen counter, looking for something. "You chose well, I love Bordeaux. Thank you."

  "It was nothing, really." The martinis had smoothed out the edges in the room, and he looked at himself in the glass table's reflection. He self-consciously patted down a cowlick.

  "Can you come in here and help me for a second?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  He walked into the kitchen beneath rows of hanging copperware and found Mrs. Weiss holding the bottle of Bordeaux between her thighs, her expensive jeans below her navel, her blouse falling open. She was yanking on the corkscrew at the top of the bottle.

  "I can't find our good opener," she said between breaths. "Gabe used to help me with this kind of thing. He's hopeless now." Her face was flushed, and Micah could see her breasts heaving as she bent over and gave another tug on the bottle between her legs. "He must really like you to invite you over here for dinner. The last time that happened was a while ago … who was it? I think it was Raphael Bianco?"

  "Can I open that for you? Here, let me give her a try."

  Micah held his hand out, and she gently passed the bottle to him. While he pulled up slowly, the cork rose above the mouth of the bottle. It got stuck at the top, and he yanked too hard, spilling red wine on the cream tile floor.

  "Oh shit, I'm so sorry."

  "Don't worry, I'll get it," she said, reaching for a towel and kneeling on the floor in front of him. She looked up, eyes at his waist level.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be silly. Just help me clean up."

  He grabbed a roll of paper towels, and they sat on the floor, cleaning and talking. Before he knew it, they had finished the Bordeaux, and Sarah came back downstairs in jeans and a turtleneck.

  "I'm meeting up with some friends," Sarah said, waving Micah over.

  He followed her into the entrance hallway.

  Sarah whispered, "Hey, I have to go. I don't like my parents knowing my business, but text me and we can go out with my friends some time."

  She gave him her number, and Micah said, "Cool. I guess I should be following you out, too. Your mom said your dad's not gonna be here for a while."

  "Do me a favor. Talk to her before you bail. She's crazy bored and alone all the time."

  "I should be… all right."

  They went back into the kitchen, and Sarah kissed her mother good-bye, took some keys from a hook on a bulletin board, and went out a door to the garage. When the sound of the electric garage door subsided, Mrs. Weiss stared through her long eyelashes across the dining table at him. He wanted to stare back at her soft brown eyes, made all the more lovely from the wine, but he was petrified.

  She said
, "I really hate this time of year."

  "Amen."

  "You know what? I just realized it's the night before New Year's Eve. That makes it New Year's Eve Eve, doesn't it?" She smiled, got up from the dining table, wobbled a bit. She moved gracefully to the bulletin board, grabbed a set of keys. "Let's get some champagne."

  "I'd really like to, but…" Micah stood and felt dizzy from the blood flowing down. "I should get going. I need to call a car service or something."

  "No, you'll be waiting forever. Let me give you a ride to the train station?"

  He looked around for his pea coat, thinking about it. "All right, Rachel."

  She moved behind him, putting the coat over his shoulders.

  They got into her convertible BMW and drove to the station. Neither of them said a word, but he looked over at her, watched her looking straight ahead and smiling. She stopped in a desolate parking lot overlooking a long arc of metal rail cutting through an empty train platform. The tracks curved far off into the night. The car was the only one in the lot, in a corner beneath an overhang of trees. She turned up the heater, and they waited for the train. He could hear it coming for a while before he could see it. A dot of white light hovered above the track miles away, flickering and growing larger.

  When the train approached, she said, "There's your ride home."

  He didn't say anything. The train hummed to a standstill, its cabin doors opening, no one getting out. Staying open for at least a minute. He could feel himself holding his breath. The train doors closed. When he exhaled, the train was gone.

  They looked at each other, and she reached over and held his hand on his lap.

  "I don't want to be alone."

  18 (8 months ago)

  * * *

  He was sitting outside Max Goldberg's office in the middle of the hallway, tapping his foot, staring at the Hanukkah and Christmas decorations on the walls, thinking about the differences between Max and Stu Greenbaum. At least Max had the pride to put his kid's finger-paintings and crayon drawings on his office door, which for most other partners like Stu was a gauche breach of business decorum. Raphael was looking at the blue crayon drawing of a dreidel on Max's door, trying to ignore the sign above it that made his already ulcerous stomach flip. Thirty-six point font in bold caps.

  REVIEW IN PROGRESS. DO NOT DISTURB.

  A violent burp escaped from his mouth. He grabbed his flabby stomach.

  Fucking breakfast burritos. Stay in there, not now.

  Raphael couldn't stop the urge. He lifted up his leg, and the air hissed out. He coughed from his own stink, giggled like a rotten kid in church. The first week in January was always the worst of the year because of Review Day, and he got sick every time. The night before, he slept fitfully because of a recent screw-up on Gabe's pro bono case. Gabe had asked him to call up Carlos Mavros's secretary because they had found more documents to send in response to the other side's discovery requests. But he'd been swamped with five other cases and forgot to call for weeks. Carlos's secretary had called Gabe directly and asked why no one arranged to pick up the extra boxes of documents. Gabe left an irritated voice mail, dressing him down for the lapse. Gabe told him not to worry about it in a curt message that ended with, "Just forget it. I'll have Grayson take care of it." The comment gnawed at Raphael. What if Gabe mentioned the screw-up on Raphael's annual review? The last person he needed as a detractor was Vader, especially when he was so close to being up for partner.

  He'd been awake since 5:00 a.m., brooding over the possibility of a negative review from Gabe. His anxiety was so bad that, when he showered in the morning, he saw clumps of hair between his fingers and swirling around his feet, clogging up the drain. He tried to erase the negative thoughts now, waiting for his review. He almost cleared his mind when Hannah Smythe exited Max Goldberg's office. Princess Lay-ya herself had been scheduled before him. What did that mean? Did the litigation partners favor her over him? Did Max like her better?

  "Hey, Hannah." Raphael stood up to enter the office, raked the thinning hair on his forehead, and brushed off his suit jacket.

  Hannah didn't have a speck of dust or lint on her suit. She looked like she'd just gotten her hair and make-up done at a salon, her freckled face smiling perfectly as if she were an unholy love child of Martha Stewart and Emily Post. He watched her come out of Max's office and wondered how he could have ever dated her.

  "Oh, hi Raphael," she said as if she were surprised to see him. "I guess you're next?"

  "Yeah. Hey, you remember when we started? We met in the cafeteria, and we talked about how everyone was crazy. Except us. We said we'd never work a weekend. Remember?"

  "That was a long time ago."

  "Yeah, I guess it was. We haven't talked in forever. We should get lunch sometime."

  "That's not going to happen, Raphael. Good luck in there."

  They exchanged phony smiles as she walked past, erect posture, chin up.

  He mimicked her soprano civility, "Good luck in there....Bite me."

  He took a deep breath, mustered up his confidence, and swaggered into Max's office. There wasn't much more than a birch desk facing two lumpy microsuede armchairs and a birch console with shelves and drawers behind a swivel chair. The focal point of the shelves was a collection of tacky snow globes that Max had collected as a joke over the years. Max had taken most of his twenty thousand dollar allowance for office furniture and donated it to his only kid's sports teams. Pictures of Max's pudgy son in various uniforms dotted the walls.

  The low static of talk radio came from the console behind Max as he was looking down over both of his chins, reviewing a thin stack of file folders in his hands. His fat fingers had obviously grown fatter at the Firm and Raphael thought his wedding band looked like a rubber band strangling a Polish sausage. Max glanced up, looking genuinely happy to see him.

  "Hey, have a seat, sport. Let me just find the folder of your reviews."

  "Take your time, Max. I've been here seven years. I can wait a few more minutes." Seven fucking years, he wanted to scream, and I still gotta have a performance review like some two-bit postal worker? "It's no problem. I actually like these reviews. Helps me get a sense of what I can do to improve as a Sullivan & Adler litigator."

  "Uh-huh." Max looked up from a folder, realizing something. "Hey, that's right. You're a Seventh Year, aren't you? Last review until the big dance, huh?"

  "Which reminds me, Max. Honestly. Just between you and me." Raphael paused, wondering whether he should ask. "I've paid my dues-"

  "Yes you have. One review calls you 'a real work-horse in the department.'"

  "Really? Who said that?"

  "Gabe Weiss put that in his review. He really likes you and that counts for a lot."

  Raphael heaved a sigh of relief. Now he was emboldened. "Well, that's good. I like Gabe, too. But I have to ask, Max, I mean, I've really invested a lot in the Firm over the past seven years and last year I billed-"

  "I know," Max said, one step ahead of him, "last year you billed thirty-six hundred hours. Which was near the top."

  "Near the top"? Raphael felt his stomach gurgling again. Who billed more than me? Her? He swallowed hard, resorting to the speech he'd practiced. "Look, Max, I have the highest, one of the highest billables, I do quality work, I'm staying the course. I just would like to get an indication, you know? I've never gotten one in seven years."

  "An indication?" Max rubbed his knuckles under his chins. "Look, Raph, you're a fine lawyer. Your reviews are largely stellar. I'll read another. 'Excellent writing and verbal skills, inspires client confidence, works hard. Only knock on this associate is maturity of judgment.'"

  "'Maturity of judgment'? Who wrote that, can I ask?"

  "That was Stu Greenbaum's review."

  Raphael dug his fingers into the armrest of his chair. Stu Greenbaum was Hannah's mentor. That son of a bitch. "Well, I can understand why he might say that. In some ways I'm still a little … I could be more grounded. I plan on getting
married soon, which would help. But I think my judgment as a lawyer is good though."

  "Look, that review may have to do with you entertaining summer associates at gentlemen's clubs. That may ruffle some other people's feathers. But me, I don't care about that. That's not gonna make or break you for partner."

  "That's what I'm asking, Max. What will make me?"

  "If it were up to me, you'd be in. I like you. You fight the good fight. But we can't give specifics for various reasons. The economy's shaky so we might not make any new partners. Then there's your competition. We need female partners." Max pointed at a picture on his desk of the litigation partners standing together at The Rainbow Room for a black-tie affair. "Look at us. Too many white Jewish men, frankly."

  "Hey, I'm Italian and Catholic at least. That counts for something, right?"

  Max smiled his big friendly smile and noted something in the folder, making Raphael wish he had X-ray vision. "Keep your nose to the grindstone, billing hours, and we'll see, Raph."

  Raphael smiled weakly, shook Max's chubby hand. At least Max was honest about the partnership gauntlet and something he'd said gave Raphael an idea about Hannah.

  $ $ $

  The thought was still bouncing around in his mind like an ADHD kindergartener off Ritalin. "Near the top? How does she have more billable hours than me? It's fucking impossible. No way!" He couldn't stop thinking about it as he paced in Micah Grayson's office. He stopped and looked at his reflection in the tall window, the lights from Broadway twinkling behind the glass in the winter sky. His face looked bloated and tired. "I look like shit, Mikey."

  The kid didn't disagree with him, didn't say much of anything. Micah was working on another document review or something for her.

  "So why are you so quiet tonight, Mikey?" He stopped pacing, examined the kid's face. His eyes looked puffy and sad. "Your eyes are all red. Dude, have you been crying?"

  "Hell no. I'm not feeling good, and I've been fighting with my girl." The kid rubbed his temples. "I shouldn't have cut my Christmas vacation short. I really screwed up, man."