Just Friends With Benefits

by Schorr, Meredith

  I didn’t really want to be a boy. I’d probably be a girly man since I cried at commercials all the time and couldn’t program my remote control or change the bag on my vacuum cleaner, but I did like the idea of not thinking so much. And if I was a guy, I’d probably have fallen sleep already.

  Four

  When I arrived at work at 8:30 the next morning, I took the long way from the elevator bank to my office. Although the entrance to the right of the elevators was closer to my office, the entrance to the left was closer to Gerard’s and I wanted to make sure he was in. He was already sitting at his desk reading a paper, his John Lennon glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, while drinking what looked from the outside of the cup like coffee from one of the sidewalk vendors. After devising my plan of attack into the wee hours of the night, I couldn’t wait to talk to him, but I did. I hated being bothered first thing in the morning, before I finished my coffee or sometimes even took off my coat, so I refused to do that to Gerard. Instead, I drank my coffee and looked at my emails, stopping every few minutes to check the time on my phone. I decided to call him at 10:33 because it seemed more random than 10:30.

  It wasn’t even nine when I finished reading and printing my emails. As a senior corporate paralegal, I had my own office, so I took advantage of the time by practicing my speech out loud with my office door closed. I didn’t want it to sound too rehearsed, though, so I stopped at 9:45 and prepared a closing binder. At 10:32, I stared at my phone until 10:33 when I picked it up and dialed 7190, Gerard’s extension.

  Seemingly in good spirits, Gerard answered the phone and said, “Good morning, Stephanie.”

  “Good morning to you, too. How was your weekend?” I instantly wished I could take back the second part since, as nice as he was, Gerard and I didn’t really talk about non-business stuff. And besides, if he asked about my weekend, I couldn’t exactly tell him I got really drunk.

  “And how was yours?” Gerard was saying.

  “Very good, thanks.”

  “So, what can I help you with this morning?”

  Pulling a stray hair from the side of my ponytail and twisting it into a knot, I said, “Actually, I wondered if I could speak to you when you had a moment. No rush.” But please let’s do it now.

  “Sure. Why don’t you come by now?”

  “Great. I’ll be right there.” After hanging up, I removed my hair from the ponytail and brushed it straight. Then I checked my reflection in my metal letter opener. It was kind of blurry but clear enough to confirm I didn’t have lip gloss on my teeth. I grabbed my legal pad and a pen and headed to Gerard’s office.

  He was on the phone, but motioned for me to sit in his guest chair. “I love you, too” he whispered before hanging up and turning his attention to me. He smiled and said, “So, Steph, what did you want to see me about?”

  I felt my heart pulsating beneath my black sweater. I had chosen black in case I started sweating. “Well, in preparation for my annual review, I’ve been thinking about some goals I’d like to set for myself.” I paused and waited for Gerard’s reaction.

  “That’s great, Stephanie! Anything you’d like to share now?”

  “Actually, I’d really like your feedback.”

  His hands locked behind his head, Gerard said, “Shoot.”

  “Well, I’ve been working here for over six years now and I’ve definitely learned a lot. I really like working for Bartlett, Pinker and Wood and would like to continue my tenure here.”

  Gerard laughed and said, “Well, I’m pleased to hear that. You’re an asset to the department and I wouldn’t want you to leave us.”

  I didn’t feel I deserved the compliment, considering my current act of manipulation and I felt a pang of remorse. But I had to go on. “Well, since I’m not looking to go to law school, my concern is that I’ll stop learning new things. I need to be challenged to feel good about myself and my contribution to the firm. So, I’d really like your suggestions as to how I can prevent my job from getting stale and I’ve also come up with a few of my own.”

  “I’m sure I can think of some ways to keep things fresh, but let’s hear what you’ve got,” Gerard said.

  I looked at my legal pad on which I had made a list of goals. “I’d like, if possible, to increase my direct contact with clients. Obviously, it will depend on the subject matter but I really don’t think all contact needs to be through an attorney and since my billing rate is lower, the clients would probably appreciate it. And, it would show that the firm has confidence in my written and verbal communication abilities.”

  Gerard didn’t saying anything and so I continued. “And I’d be interested in mentoring some of the entry level paralegals. As an experienced paralegal and one who has worked at BP&W for awhile, I think it would be helpful to them and interesting for me as well.” I looked up at Gerard.

  Playing with the cap of his pen, he nodded and said, “Anything else?”

  “Just one more,” I said. I gripped the legal pad more firmly to keep my hands from trembling and licked my dry lips. Gerard was slouching in his chair and so I focused on his gangly legs which were stretched out under his desk and said, “I really enjoy working on closings. Being involved in so many aspects of a deal, it’s great to actually help close it. If possible, I’d like to attend more closings.” Almost finished, Stephanie. Don’t quit now. “I know most of our bigger deals close in the New York office and I wondered if you might consider sending me there again to help out. Traveling always keeps things fresh.”

  I let the legal pad drop into my lap and, feeling a rush of relief to be finished, said, “That’s it!”

  Gerard was beaming at me so brightly, I knew I had done good and wondered if my childhood aspiration to be an actress wasn’t something I should have taken more seriously. “Well, Stephanie, I’m very pleased that you’ve taken such initiative. I’ll keep everything you said in mind. I’m pretty certain all can be arranged.”

  I waited for him to go into details but he just looked at me with a shit-eating grin on his face. I took his silence as a sign that the meeting was over, stood up and said, “Okay. Thanks for listening to me, Gerard. I appreciate it.”

  “And I appreciate you and all you do. See you later.”

  As I walked out of his office and back to mine, I felt totally stupid for thinking he might actually send me to New York on the spot. I wondered what exactly I had accomplished as a result of our meeting. I’d probably wind up mentoring a bunch of teeny-boppers whose only prior employment experience was babysitting. And I’d start receiving phone calls from asshole clients who thought their shit smelled like cherry blossoms. But, with my luck, I’d never attend a closing in New York ever again.

  When I got back to my office, I closed the door and tried not to mope. My plan had totally tanked but there was really nothing I could do except proceed with Plan B. That meant I had to come up with a Plan B. I wished I could just insert “how can I see Hille again sooner rather than later?” into www.ask.com. For shits and giggles, I tried it. The first ten results were references to the phrase “sooner, not later.” I tried Google and got the same results. Giggling, I debated whether to try Dogpile or Yahoo next when I heard a knock on my door. I quickly maximized the window for Moodys.com, the ever-popular business information site, said, “Come in” and tried to look professional.

  It was Gerard and I prayed that three fresh-faced young paralegals were not standing behind him waiting to be mentored. I sat up straighter in my chair in an attempt to slickly see who he was with and said, “Hi, Gerard.”

  “Hi again. I wanted to talk to you about something.” He was alone.

  “Sure. Do you want to sit down?” I looked around, hoping he wouldn’t notice the obscene amounts of paperwork cluttering my office.

  Gerard sat in my guest chair and smiled at me before saying, “I see you’re keeping busy.”

  “Gotta keep those billables up!” I joked. I guessed he noticed the obscene amounts of paperwork cluttering my
office.

  “Well, hopefully, you’re not overwhelmed.”

  Paralegals were, by definition, supposed to be overwhelmed, but since it was an unspoken rule not to admit it, I swallowed down the truth and responded, “Not at all. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, coincidentally, I think we’ll be able to implement one of your new goals sooner rather than later.”

  I tried not to laugh at his mention of ‘sooner rather than later’ and said, “Great!” as enthusiastically as I could muster, nearly certain whatever it was did not involve a trip to New York.

  “How would you like to go to New York for a closing on Wednesday?”

  Practically leaping out of my chair, I said, “You serious?” My pitch was a little higher than I had intended and so I sat back in my chair, cleared my throat and added, “I mean, absolutely. For what case?”

  “The Franklin General deal. One of the paralegals on the case is on maternity leave and another is on her honeymoon. They were going to hire temps, but after we spoke this morning, I called and mentioned your willingness to travel. So, assuming your cases can lose you for a couple of days, you’re good to go.”

  I calmly responded, “Great. I just need to work out the logistics, but it shouldn’t be a problem.” Is two days enough notice for Hille? What if he already has plans?

  “The associate on the deal in New York is Adam Ginsberg. Call him for details.”

  “Will do. Anything else?” What should I wear at dinner?

  “Nope. You can use the firm’s travel agent to get a round trip ticket on the shuttle and a hotel room for a couple of nights.”

  “Great. I’ll do that right away.”

  Gerard stood up and said, “Well, that’s that. Thanks, Stephanie.”

  I was smiling so hard my face hurt. “Thank you! I’m so grateful for your support.”

  As soon as Gerard left, I stood up, closed the door and did a victory dance around my office. Then I called Adam from the New York office and got the details regarding the closing. After making my hotel and flight reservations, I went to call Hille. I scrolled through my phone’s address book for his number and realized I had never entered him into my phone. I considered getting his number from Paul but if he decided to spontaneously fly to New York to join us at dinner, I’d be pissed. I decided to call Eric instead, since he had a wife at home and was far less likely to pick up and travel to New York with two days notice.

  He picked up after one ring. “Yo.”

  “Hey, Eric. It’s Stephanie.”

  “I know that. If I didn’t have caller i.d., I wouldn’t answer the phone, ‘yo’.”

  “Gotcha. So, what’s going on?” I couldn’t believe I was actually nervous to ask Eric for Hille’s number but aimed to sound as casual as possible—just hoping to meet a friend for dinner—no big deal.

  “Not much. What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing, why?”

  “You sound weird. Nervous or something. What’s up?”

  I spit out the piece of finger nail I had just bitten off. “Not nervous. Just really busy at work. Found out I’m being sent to New York for a closing. Leaving late tomorrow. I wanted to call Hille and see if he’s available to go to dinner with me on Wednesday. Do you have his number?”

  “Sure I do. Hold on.”

  After Eric gave me Hille’s number, he laughed and said, “You think you have enough to talk about with Hille to take you through an entire dinner alone?”

  “Of course! Why would you say that?” I wasn’t entirely convinced either but alcohol always helped.

  “He’s as buttoned-up as his business shirts, that’s all. But then again, you never shut up so I guess it could work. Just keep the drinks flowing.”

  “Are you calling Hille boring, Eric?” I was surprised Eric would say anything bad about a fraternity brother.

  “No. He’s definitely not boring. He’s my brother and I love the guy. I just doubt he was watching ‘The Love Boat’ in his formative years, like you.”

  Eric had a point. We didn’t have much in common. But there was always baseball and I knew Hille was also a Yankee fan.

  “But there’s always baseball!” Eric said.

  “You scare me sometimes, Eric.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Never mind. I should go.”

  “Okay, have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Considering Eric was quite the wild child before meeting Jess, I grinned.

  “Which leaves your options wide open,” he said.

  Still grinning, I said, “Thanks, Eric. Talk to you soon.”

  “See ya.”

  Once I crossed ‘Call Eric’ off my ‘To do’ list, I went to the Zagats website to choose a place to eat dinner. I wanted the restaurant to be close to my hotel so Hille wouldn’t simply put me in a cab after dinner. I could spend more time with him if he walked me back to the hotel and I stood a much better chance of getting him inside my room. I didn’t want to waste a free dinner on Applebee’s, but since the firm would review my expense account, couldn’t exactly justify going to Per Se either. After much deliberation, I chose Del Friscos, men loved steak houses.

  Pleased with my decision, I started dialing Hille’s number and immediately felt my intestines in my throat and wondered how I was going to disguise my eagerness to hang out with him. I wished I could do a shot first but that would be really desperate, even for me. And, it could get me fired.

  After the phone rang three times, his voicemail picked up. I listened to his outgoing message. “You’ve reached Craig. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back.” It was exactly the same as Paul’s except that Paul included ‘maybe’ before ‘I’ll call you back.”

  “Hi Craig, it’s Stephanie. It’s Monday afternoon and I’m just calling to let you know I’m actually gonna be in New York this week for a closing. If you’re around, I thought we could get together for dinner on Wednesday— my treat, well, my firm’s treat. If you already have plans, no biggie, but it would be great to see you.” I concluded the message by leaving my phone number at work and my cell. I was pretty certain I sounded very casual and nonchalant about the whole thing.

  After I hung up, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to make an appointment for a mani/pedi and wax but would have felt much better if I knew for certain I’d see Hille. I scheduled the appointments anyway and forced myself to get some work done. I was resigned to having a very low billing day but had to account for at least eight hours of my time and there was no billing number for contemplating outfits, and getting up to date on current events so I could easily converse on Hille’s level. It also occurred to me that it might be a good idea to familiarize myself with the Franklin General deal.

  After two hours, I hadn’t heard back from Hille and I picked up the phone to cancel my appointments. But then I placed the phone back on the receiver. I was going to New York, the most amazing city in the world, or at least in the United States. The trip was worth the pain of an eyebrow wax whether or not I got to see Hille, even though the bikini wax was more likely to come in handy if I did. He was probably just really busy at work and hadn’t gotten my message yet. Back in school, Hille always thanked the driver before exiting the cross-town bus, even when he was drunk from free beer at the Towne Tavern’s happy hour. He was raised too well to simply blow off my call.

  Finally, as my day wound down and I was getting ready to log off my computer, my phone rang and it was a 201 number. Please be Hille, please be Hille, I said to myself.

  “This is Stephanie.” Please be Hille.

  “Hi, Steph, it’s Hille.”

  “Hey there! Did you get my message?” No, a guy who has never called me before just decided to call me out of the blue on the same day I left him a voicemail that I was going to be in his town. Sometimes I was such a dork. But at least I was very much in touch with my dorkiness.

  “So, does that work for you?” Hille asked.

  I realized I was so bu
sy berating my dorkiness I hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “Um, I’m sorry, Craig. My colleague was talking to me at the same time you were speaking. I missed what you said.”

  Hille chuckled and said, “Nice, Steph. I get ignored at work all the time. Didn’t expect it from you.”

  “Sorry. So, what’d you say? Will you be around on Wednesday night?” I held my breath.