“Even though you don’t want to leave it alone.”
“No I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’ll interfere.”
“I…” Evie began.
“No,” Natalie interrupted. “No, I’m sorry, but please stop this now. I’ve told you I don’t know, and haven’t tried to find out, so please just stop this and believe me.”
Evie’s face changed. She seemed to hear Natalie’s tone, and realize what she was implying about trust, and suddenly to feel almost guilty that she had. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked like that. You’re right, and I’m sorry I did.”
“I promise I haven’t tried to find out.”
Evie nodded.
“Do you believe me?” Natalie said.
“Of course I do.”
Natalie hesitated, distrustful herself now, unsure if Evie was only saying that because Natalie had asked.
“I believe you,” Evie said. “Stop doubting me.”
Natalie wanted to grin. Evie was smart and perceptive, she thought. Of course she’d noticed Natalie’s concern.
“Are you?” Evie said. “Doubting?”
“No.”
“Well, good. So we’re okay?”
“Of course we are,” Natalie said, and smiled, relieved.
*
Evie switched on the extractor fan, and lit a cigarette, and slid herself up onto the kitchen counter. “Okay,” she said. “So tell me something useful, something to make them want to interview me.”
“I wish I could,” Natalie said, not knowing what to say. She didn’t know anything useful. Not like Evie meant, not from personal experience. She’d been at the same firm since she finished university, and that interview had been one of the first she’d gone to. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Everything’s changed since when I did this. I want to help, but I’m really not sure how much use I’ll be.”
“Oh,” Evie said. “Yeah, fair enough. Well then, tell me what you’d look for if you were on a selection committee.”
“But I’m not. So I have no idea.”
“You must know something useful…”
“I really don’t,” Natalie said, uncomfortably. She didn’t like the idea of being made to criticise Evie, even gently, and with good intentions. It hadn’t ended well a moment ago, and it probably wouldn’t again.
“Anything?” Evie said. “Anything at all?”
“Not really,” Natalie said. “I’ve never been on one, so I simply don’t know. I avoid them, remember?”
“Oh,” Evie said, sounding disappointed. “Yeah, of course.”
“I’m sorry,” Natalie said, feeling a little guilty. “But I told you that a long time ago. It’s the one thing I can’t really help with.”
Evie nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“In fact,” Natalie said, trying to remember. “I’m fairly sure I told you that the first day we met. That I’m never on selection committees, so I’m not actually useful to know.”
“Yeah,” Evie said. “I think you did too. Weirdly enough.” She thought for a moment, watching smoke drift into the fan. “You never actually told me why?”
“I wanted to be a partner. I want to stay one. So I don’t do anything, ever, that takes time away from my billable hours.”
“Oh, right.”
“It’s true,” Natalie said. “That’s how I got my partnership.”
“Yep,” Evie said. “I believe you.”
“Do,” Natalie said, thinking. “Please. Because that I’ve got some useful advice about.”
“I’ll bet,” Evie said, then grinned. “You don’t think it might be just a little premature, though, telling me about partnerships right now…?”
“Maybe,” Natalie said. “I suppose so, yes.”
Evie kept grinning.
“I’m sorry,” Natalie said. “I’m not being much help to you right now.”
“You’re helping.”
“I’m not. If you’d let me call someone, I could probably find out something useful. But since you won’t…”
“You could guess.”
“I can’t. I simply don’t know.”
“Please?” Evie said. “Just pretend you do. Say anything. Tell me what you’d look for if you had to pick a graduate.”
“What I’d look for?”
“Yeah. Or whatever. Tell me what I’d have to do to impress you if we’d just met right now.”
“Honestly?” Natalie said, thinking. “I think I’d hire you on the spot.”
Evie sighed. “Yep,” she said. “Of course you would. That’s kind of the whole point of why I have to do this without you.”
“What?” Natalie said, surprised.
“Of course you’d hire me, you already like me…”
“Actually, no,” Natalie said. “That wasn’t what I meant. I’d hire you after I’d talked to everyone else, and been through the whole process, and done everything right. After all that, I think I’d pick you, not someone else.”
“Because you wanted to fuck me.”
Natalie sighed.
“It’s true,” Evie said.
“Not it isn’t.”
“Really?” Evie said. “So you don’t want to fuck me? Because I honestly hadn’t noticed you changing your mind about that…”
“Oh stop it,” Natalie said. “You know exactly what I mean. You’re just being difficult now. Everything you are to me, everything I feel about you, that’s because of who you are. So if somehow we’d happened to meet at a job interview rather than as we did, I’m fairly sure I’d still have still seen all those things anyway, and liked you for those things, and then hired you.”
Evie didn’t seem quite ready to give up. “What things?” she said. “Fuckability?”
Natalie sighed. “Argumentativeness. Cleverness. Pedanticness too, actually. Making up stupid rules like me not being able to help you properly, and then insisting we stick to them.”
Evie grinned. She’d been teasing, Natalie realized, and felt a little silly. Evie sat there, smoking, looking at Natalie. Looking tenderly, Natalie thought.
“Thank you,” Evie said, after a moment. “I think.”
“No problem.”
“It’s good to know what you like about me. That I’m argumentative and stubborn.”
“Stop it,” Natalie said. “There’s a great deal more, and you know that perfectly well.”
“I know,” Evie said, and grinned again. “Not that it really helps, though.”
“What doesn’t help?”
“Everything. Since apparently I only work on you. So none of that’s actually going to help get me a job with anyone else.”
“Then let me help properly.”
“Nope.”
“Please?”
“Definitely nope. And please don’t go on, and make me say it over and over again.”
Natalie shrugged, and went quiet, wondering if she should give up. She wasn’t sure how far to press Evie about this. Evie was so worried by the idea of Natalie’s help that she was overreacting, and not seeing the situation clearly. Natalie wasn’t trying to do anything that Evie didn’t deserve, but Evie didn’t seem to realize that.
Evie was good at law. She worked hard, and was ambitious, and knew what she was doing. Natalie had been watching, not entirely indifferently, and whenever she glanced at Evie’s notes or essays, or talked to Evie about some point of law, she was impressed by what Evie knew, and how clearly Evie argued. A solicitor main skills, Natalie felt, were paraphrasing and condensing, asking the right questions, and answering them concisely. Evie did both very well. Evie was capable enough that if Natalie had known her some other way, she would have called in favours and tried to have Evie hired. She would have passed on a card, or mentioned Evie to someone in recruitment, and the silliness of all this was that now she couldn’t. Evie was actually disadvantaging herself for no real reason. She was actually worse off than the waitress she’d been the first night they met, because that waitress was someone who Natalie would
have helped, but Evie as she was now wasn’t. Evie now, Natalie couldn’t do a thing for, because of Evie’s own stubbornness, and that just seemed impossibly wrong.
Natalie wasn’t offering anything unfair or undeserved, but Evie didn’t seem to understand that, and Natalie didn’t know how to explain, so in the end she didn’t bother. She was fairly sure Evie wouldn’t listen, and would dismiss Natalie’s opinion of her abilities as biased. Natalie understood that, and understood why. Evie needed to hear that praise from a stranger, from someone who didn’t know her, not from Natalie. Natalie would probably have felt the same way.
Natalie thought for a moment, and decided she needed a different approach. If she couldn’t convince Evie that way, she might have to scare her. Or at least warn her, and make sure she knew what she was turning down.
“There’s about to be a recession,” Natalie said. “Have you thought about that? The big firms are going to be badly affected. We’ll lose business from our biggest clients, as they run into problems. Things are going to get tricky.”
“Yep,” Evie said. “I know. I’m graduating at the wrong time. Go me.”
“So you need all the help you can get.”
Evie looked up. She seemed to be thinking.
“Can I at least give your CV to a few people?” Natalie said.
Evie didn’t answer. She was wavering, Natalie thought. “Just give?” Evie said. “Not endorse? Or ask favours?”
“Just give. I promise.”
“I’m trusting you.”
“I know.”
“I’m just saying that, so we both know. I’m trusting you. And that’s a thing. So if you do anything clever in the background and I find out, there’ll be trouble.”
Natalie looked at her for a moment.
“I mean it,” Evie said. “Trouble.” She seemed quite sincere.
“I know,” Natalie said. “And I said I wouldn’t, so…”
Evie nodded.
“Just give,” Natalie said. “I promise. Nothing more.”
Evie sat there for a moment, deciding. “Then yes,” she said. “Okay. And thank you. And I know I’m complaining a lot and probably being ungrateful too.”
“You’re not.”
Evie leaned forward and kissed her. “You’re sweet to say that, but it’s so, so completely untrue.”
“Don’t worry,” Natalie said. She glanced at Evie’s computer. “Are you writing it now?”
“Um, I’m trying to, yep.”
“Can I see?”
Evie pointed to her laptop, on the table, so Natalie turned it around to see. She read for a moment, then said, “Can I suggest something?”
“Oh fuck.”
“What?” Natalie looked up, a little surprised.
“There’s something wrong with it, isn’t there? And I’ve already sent a whole lot of them out.”
“Not wrong,” Natalie said, trying to be reassuring. “Honestly, not wrong. This is completely fine.”
“Except…”
“No except.”
“There’s an except,” Evie said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Natalie sighed. “It’s not an except. Nothing like that. It’s just that mine’s laid out a little differently, that’s all. If you care.”
“I care.”
“It probably isn’t important.”
“I bet it is. And I still care. Can I see yours?”
“Are you sure? It won’t…?” Natalie stopped. She had no idea what it might do. “You’re sure you want to?” she said.
Evie nodded.
*
Natalie went and got her computer from the office. She brought it back to the kitchen, put it down on the counter beside Evie, and switched it on. She clicked around for a while, looking for the right file, then found it, opened it, and turned the computer around so Evie could see the screen.
“They make these to show to prospective clients,” Natalie said. “That’s the closest thing I have to an actual CV, and it’s not really the same, but I’m just noticing that it makes much more of a fuss of specialisation and career development than you’ve done in yours.”
“Yeah,” Evie said, looking. “Shit.”
“Yours is fine,” Natalie said quickly. “I’m sure it is. Yours is a CV, mine’s more like a set of professional qualifications.”
“And yours makes people give you huge amounts of money, so I need one like yours. Can I copy it?”
“Of course,” Natalie said, then hesitated, unsure if she should actually tease right then. “But, um…”
“I’m a total hypocrite since apparently plagiarism is okay but phone calls aren’t?”
Natalie couldn’t tell if Evie was joking. “I wasn’t going to be quite that blunt…” she said.
Evie grinned. “Well, I am. And since that’s exactly how it is, you might as well just say so.”
Natalie smiled back.
“Can I email this to myself?” Evie said.
“Of course. It’s in the…”
“Yep, I see.”
Evie clicked for a moment, sending the email, and then sat there and read. She kept using Natalie’s computer rather than her own because Natalie’s was already right there, Natalie assumed.
“I don’t have any specialisation yet,” Evie said, without looking up. “Do you think that matters?”
“You have particular courses,” Natalie said. “And interests. Same thing.”
“I suppose.”
“It tells someone what you want to do,” Natalie said. “And what you’re good at. I imagine that’s all they’re after.”
“Yeah,” Evie said, still thinking. “I guess.”
“Are you still interested in tax?”
“I think so,” Evie said, still reading.
Natalie stood there for a moment, thinking about how tricky it could be to get a first job. She thought about Evie, and Evie’s ability, and how much Evie deserved help. Even without everything there was between them, she felt that Evie was worth recruiting. She ought to ask, Natalie decided, even if Evie said no.
“Come and work with me,” Natalie said suddenly. “Work at the firm.”
“Yeah right,” Evie said, and didn’t look up. “No way.”
“I’m serious.”
“Sure you are. But nope.”
“I am.”
Evie looked up. “You’re what, serious?”
“Yes. Didn’t you realize…?”
Evie sighed. “Um, yeah, I knew. I was just pretending you weren’t because that seemed less awkward than out-and-out saying no.”
“Oh,” Natalie said, unsure quite what to make of that. “Really?”
Evie grinned. “Yep. So no. Now you insist.”
“Could you at least listen to what I have to say?”
“Nope, because there’s no point. We can’t. You can’t. I can’t. Not like this. I told you, no special treatment and no favours.”
“It’s not special treatment. I promise it isn’t. We’d be lucky to have you.”
“And you go round making offers like that to all sorts of other people, do you?”
“I don’t know. Someone might. I’m not on…”
“Selection committees, I know.”
“We recruit from other firms. And from the crown solicitor’s office.”
“Recruit?” Evie said, grinning. “Really?”
Natalie looked at her for a moment. “Well, headhunt, I suppose.”
“I’d suppose too. And when someone tries to headhunt me, like someone whose job that actually is, then I’ll happily talk to them.”
Natalie sighed.
“And also,” Evie said. “You know you can’t actually make me a job offer anyway, don’t you? I mean, not to nitpick, but all you’re really doing is offering favours again, not an actual job…”
Natalie hesitated. “I’m not sure. I could probably hire someone directly if I wanted to…”
“You can’t,” Evie said.
“Really?” Na
talie said. “Are you sure?”
“Well I don’t know. Maybe. If you have the world’s weirdest partnership agreement or something. But otherwise, since I just spent months reading textbooks on contracts and partnership law, then I’m reasonably sure, yes, since kind of the point of a selection committee is that its been delegated the authority from all the partners collectively to contract…”
“Oh shut up,” Natalie said.
Evie grinned. She kept grinning for an unreasonably long time, Natalie thought.
“Stop that too,” Natalie said, and looked around for something to do. She decided to put the kettle on, since she was just standing there. She might as well make tea, she thought, while they argued.
“I think you’re being too stubborn,” Natalie said, as she ran water into the kettle.
“I know you do.”
“This isn’t some kind of special favour because I care about you,” Natalie said. “I promise it isn’t. It’s only the help you deserve.”
“Still no,” Evie said.
“You’re good. You’re a good solicitor.”
“You have no actual idea about that.”
“I’ve been watching…”
“No, I mean, no-one actually knows. I might potentially be a good solicitor, maybe. But until I get a job…”
“Yes,” Natalie said. “All right. Fine. I just meant it’s going to be tough, doing this the way you want to…”
“Still no.”
“I just want to help…”
“And no.”
Natalie stopped. She was feeling ignored, and frustrated, almost angry. “You’re being completely unreasonable,” she said.
Evie closed Natalie’s laptop’s lid, and put it on the bench beside herself. “Yep,” she said. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
Natalie looked at Evie. Evie was obviously trying not to grin.
“What?” Natalie said suspiciously.
“It’s too late for all this anyway. I already put in an application in at your firm.”
Natalie was surprised. Evie hadn’t mentioned that she was even considering it. “Oh,” was all Natalie could manage.
“Yeah oh,” Evie said. “So I guess we’ll see if this selection committee agrees with you about how wonderful I am.”
“I suppose we will.”
Evie's Job Page 47
