Partners, p.1
Partners, page 1
Harrison Young
PARTNERS
LOVE IS A LAW UNTO ITSELF
Partners by Harrison Young
This edition published in 2013 by
Storyworks, a division of Jane Curry Publishing (Wentworth Concepts Pty Ltd)
PO Box 780 Edgecliff NSW 2027 Australia
www.storyworks.com.au
www.janecurrypublishing.com.au
Copyright © Harrison Young, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Young, Harrison.
Title: Partners: love is a law unto itself / Harrison Young.
ISBN: 978-1-922190-66-6 (print edition)
ISBN: 978-1-922190-67-3 (Epub edition)
ISBN: 978-1-922190-68-0 (Kindle edition)
Dewey Number: A823.4
Cover images:
NYC skyline – Getty images © George Marks
Naked woman – Fotolia Photo Library © Maksim Šmeljov
Cover design: Cheryl Collins Design
Editorial: Siobhan Cantrill and Barbara McClenahan
Production: Karen Young
Typeset and eBook conversion: Midland Typesetters, Australia
CONTENTS
Alice in Wonderland
Conquest
Tutorial
The Angel Host
Improvisation
Millie’s Career
Enhancements
Youthful Adventure
“Such Wilt Thou Be To Me”
Alice Who Runs the Place
Alice in Wonderland
The firm had a gym, and one day Alice, who they’d made a partner because there was no way not to, came in and took her clothes off. The men were frightened. They wanted to kill her.
Alice knew this. Her mother was a politician in a small way, and she liked to quote Lyndon Johnson to the effect that if you couldn’t walk into a room and know by instinct who your enemies were, you had no business in Washington. Alice lived in New York, but she was good at walking into rooms. “Very self-possessed” was a phrase that was sometimes used.
The gym had been constructed on the (perhaps unconscious) principle that, as they shared liability, partners of a law firm should have no secrets from each other, might share offices or even desks. So it was just one big room, with exercise equipment in the middle, doorless wooden lockers and benches around the sides, and a large door into a big open shower room. When they made Alice a partner they just assumed she’d “understand” and never even stick her head in.
And the other women partners? Well, the short answer is they didn’t go to the gym. Neither did a majority of their male counterparts, in fact. There wasn’t any explicit rule that said who could use the gym. But working in a high-caste New York law firm is a form of self-mutilation. At some level most of the partners assumed they weren’t supposed to be healthy, or have time for exercise. The three dozen or so who did use the gym on a regular basis were the powerful ones—the alpha males. There weren’t any alpha females.
As word began to get around about Alice, some of the men who’d never spent much time in the gym developed a sudden interest in personal fitness, but most evidently decided it would have been a bit obvious to do so. Or maybe they were too modest. In any case, the firm’s existing pecking order was largely preserved—except for the presence of Alice.
The first way the alpha males tried to get rid of Alice was to recommend her for a job in Washington. “Assistant Secretary of Something,” said Oscar. “Or ambassador to a small country.”
“Far away,” said Henry, who was senior partner.
“What’s your problem?” said Charles. “Good-looking woman on the next stairmaster. I personally find it quite motivating.”
“Charles, it’s awkward and you know it,” said Henry.
There was a new President in residence in the White House. Several of the firm’s partners had been important donors and, therefore, had “access.” And being political junkies they knew that the appointment and confirmation process now underway often uncovered secrets. They sensed that Alice had some. Probably a lesbian, they said. Serve her right, behaving the way she had. And if she did get confirmed, she’d have to move to Washington, which would get her out of the gym.
When Alice heard about the plan to have her nominated she put a stop to it. “I couldn’t stand the scrutiny,” she said a trifle loudly as she dried off after her shower, facing the middle of the room to give everyone a good look. “And I know what you’re up to” was the subtext, though she didn’t have to say it. The plotters gave each other meaningful looks.
Alice was hiding something, but it wouldn’t have caused a problem with a Democratic Senate. Her family was working class. She hadn’t exactly specifically kept it a secret that her father had been an ironworker, up in the sky with the Iroquois who don’t mind heights, or that her brothers were both firemen, or that her mother had been one too until she temporarily became a local celebrity for saving a little kid on television and someone powerful persuaded her to let her name go on the ballot—but a fair-minded person might have described her reticence that way.
Some improbable strand of DNA had given Alice a skinny upper-class body, with breasts that when she was naked were quietly perfect, rich black hair, pale skin and an aristocratic capacity for self-deception—whereas the rest of the O’Malleys were red-haired and freckled and as forthright as fire plugs—and she’d accepted the role destiny seemed to have designed her for. When she was fourteen, Alice’s voice began of its own accord to acquire the neutral accent of a television newsreader, and she decided to become a lawyer. She’d seen lady lawyers in television shows and they seemed to live their lives in Armani.
No one at the firm knew Alice’s “come-from,” as Charles put it—or about her younger brother’s decoration for bravery, or her mother’s victory over the bureaucrats in keeping open an effective if old-fashioned high school in an unfashionable part of town. All her partners knew was that clients liked her, and asked for her, that she billed two thousand hours a year (which was a lot) and didn’t make mistakes. Alice was proud of her family, but silently proud. And if her last name excited curiosity, she would respond that “all O’Malleys are related.” That probably wasn’t a mortal sin.
The next thing that happened to Mrs. O’Malley’s daughter was that a partner she didn’t know very well, named William, sat down beside her in the gym and said very quietly, “I know what you mean about scrutiny.” Alice didn’t know where he was headed, so she just kept on tying her gym shoes. The man had finished his shower and had nothing on but a towel, which added to the confessional quality of the situation. “I have a problem,” he said finally, in a carefully non-alpha tone.
If a partner of a high-caste law firm has a problem that relates to his professional expertise, the firm has a problem. William was a tax partner and he’d cheated on his taxes. Well, not cheated exactly—taken an aggressive position. So as to improve his cash flow at the time of his divorce. And maybe simultaneously had been ultra-conservative about the value of his illiquid assets, which the State of New York would have expected him to share with his former wife. These two (in retrospect) errors of judgment interacted in subtle ways that reminded Alice why she had not become a tax lawyer, but the net result was that if he was unable to deliver some cash to his former wife within two weeks, she would make a fuss that would probably provoke scrutiny of his returns. And he continued to be short of cash. All this while gripping the towel and looking down at Alice’s shoes. Most of all, he was mortified to be putting the firm’s good name at risk.
Alice knew—and William knew she would know—what he was saying. If William’s partners didn’t help him, they would regret it. It wasn’t a threat—just a reminder of the realities. The firm could beat up on him if they wanted to, and he was prepared to act embarrassed and grateful, but his former wife was a ticking time bomb and they better get on with it. He needed about seven million dollars.
Alice felt within her a flicker of alpha anger. She didn’t look forward to telling her partners that each of them needed to kick in fifty thousand dollars to bail out someone who billed a lot but wasn’t very popular. She didn’t want to part with that kind of money herself. But most of all she resented William’s assumption that she would be “good about it”—would be sympathetic and efficient and discreet, the way girls who joined high-caste firms were supposed to be, the way even former wives were supposed to be.
“Stand up, William,” she said quietly. “Drop the towel and show us your dick.”
William obeyed.
“And stay out of the gym for a while.”
Alice got right to work, starting with known curmudgeons, which made it harder for the rest to waste time being outraged. She made William sign a loan agreement that obliged him to live on an associate’s pay until the seven million dollars was repaid. She negotiated a settlement with William’s former wife, staying professional and distant despite her curiosity about the woman. She got another tax partner to review William’s back-year returns, the conclusion being that, well, he hadn’t broken the law. And when William, whose sense of entitlement was nothing if not resilient, happened to return to the gym at the precise moment Alice emerged dripping from the shower, she just looked at him, and he back ed out of the door. “Part goddess, part border collie,” said Charles—just loud enough for Alice to hear him.
But along with this brutal triumph, something soft and spooky was going on. As she went around from office to office, soliciting checks from her partners, Alice realized that being clothed made her gym companions shy. And not being gym-goers made the rest uncertain. It was as if they all now knew that the selves they presented in suits and ties (or in her case a skirt and blouse and very expensive cardigan) were fraudulent. I know that you have clumps of hair on your back, she found herself thinking as she settled into the chair Frank offered her. I know that you have a pretty impressive body, Oscar, even if having been bullied as a little boy or guilt about something has forced bad posture on you. And you both have proof that I am a woman. It has become impossible any longer to see me as a sexless striver, which was such a safe and comfortable arrangement.
As the weeks passed, more and more of Alice’s partners made cautious visits to the gym, but not to spy on Alice. As far as she could figure out, they wanted her to have seen them. They liked it. Their shoulders relaxed. The stress of self-presentation dissolved. It was like having been to confession at the age of nine.
Alice liked it too. Examining and being examined constituted acceptance. You have a sunburn, Paul. I have a bruise, Peter. Count my moles, George, if you like. There are six on my front and two on my back. I would gladly let you touch them, but lightning would strike you dead. And yes, Henry-pretending-not-to-look, when I stand up straight, you can see that my quietly perfect breasts are very slightly asymmetrical. Same as your wobbly bits.
Alice knew that there was endless speculation about what she was up to, what had given her the idea of walking into the gym and stripping. “She thinks she’s being modern,” said Frank. “She thinks she’s being clever,” said Andrew. Charles composed a haiku: “Alice be a frog. Work here twelve years, and never blink. One day she jump.”
Alice adopted a strategy of not thinking about it, which was presumably how her father had coped with working fifty stories above the sidewalk. She pushed her own questions aside with words like “thrill” or “mischief.”
The answer was ambition, of course. But what settled over her was calm. She had control. She liked that.
She began talking to Sandra, who’d made partner four years ahead of her, and whom she’d made a point of not getting to know, on the theory that it would be politically unwise. A woman had to make it on her own, really. Somehow that didn’t matter any more.
“Come to the gym some time,” said Alice when they ran into each other in an empty corridor. And I don’t care if you’re a lesbian, she added silently. I want to know where you buy those fabulous suits you wear.
“So the boys can look at me?” said Sandra.
“It isn’t what you expect. It’s . . . freeing. It’s like being baptized.”
“The sin of being a woman washed away?”
“Up to you how you think about it,” said Alice.
Sandra did come, briefly, though on a day Alice happened to be seeing a client in Chicago. “Sandra peak in and Sandra run away,” Charles told her with perfect political incorrectness. He spoke “fluent black person” (his phrase) as well as “oriental” when he thought he could get away with it. Sandra wasn’t exactly African-American in appearance, but there was general agreement that it was hard to say what she was. Other than a scarily good litigator, that is.
Charles was a problem, Alice knew. She probably had a crush on him, though she’d kept that admission at bay for many years. He came from Nebraska, which he told you immediately. “I should have been a Southerner,” he’d tell clients, “but I didn’t have the poetry.” What he did have was the body of a man who had worked on a farm as a boy. He liked to roll his sleeves up, and the muscles on his forearms were poetry. When he was in a drafting session, intensely concentrating on the task at hand, he made Alice imagine young Abe Lincoln straightening up from his rail-splitting and letting his eyes rest on the horizon—an Abe Lincoln who looked like Gary Cooper, that is.
Charles never hit on the female associates. He dated women in more glamorous professions like fashion and the theater. Armani wasn’t the half of it. Alice had seen pictures of him in magazines she flipped through at the hairdresser. He had never even sniffed at Alice, though they’d worked on some long, complicated deals together. But he engaged her right away when she started coming to the gym. She’d be mostly undressed and he’d sit down beside her, straddling the bench with his (so to speak) manhood between them and start chatting away about nothing, studying every square inch of Alice that was available for study. The other men, Alice learned later, dubbed this “the battle of not being embarrassed.”
Long, complicated deals could also be a problem. Alice knew this instinctively, but some of the firm’s children evidently did not. So an associate named Mary had stepped out of the hotel elevator on the wrong floor, and a partner named Fred had mistaken her intent. They were coming back from dinner after an unexpectedly successful day of negotiations. He’d kissed her right there in the corridor, and Mary had thought—or so she claimed—this is cool. And now, she was pregnant.
Fred asked Alice to talk to Mary. He suspected she was pregnant but she wouldn’t talk to him. “I don’t know what to do,” said Fred. “It was an accident. I didn’t have a condom. I never take them on business trips.”
“Too much information,” said Alice.
Alice wasn’t ready to admit she’d intended to acquire power but she seemed to be doing so. She had supplicants. As her mother would have said—maybe it was another of Lyndon Johnson’s principles—she kept putting favors in the favor bank. She said she’d talk to Mary.
“Thirty-five days,” said Mary.
“Everyone misses a period from time to time,” said Alice.
“I’ve been to the doctor,” said Mary.
Mary didn’t want an abortion, and she didn’t want to make any trouble for Fred, who thank God wasn’t married. She just wanted to keep her job and maybe get a raise so she could employ a live-in baby-carer. She had a friend whose Ecuadorian had a cousin who was looking for work . . .
Alice didn’t know what the answer was. She needed someone to talk it over with, so she made an appointment to see Charles in his office. She figured he could talk about sex without getting flustered.
“Just look at them,” said Charles. “Individually and when they happen to pass each other in the hall.”
“And?” Alice was lost.
“They’re in love,” said Charles, “and if they didn’t have the misfortune to work in this cathedral of virtue and over-achievement, they would have started dating three years ago. They’ve avoided working on anything together until this last deal, even though they both have public utilities experience. You got eyes, girl?”
Alice didn’t answer. “Evidently not,” said Charles, eventually. He’d turned in his chair to watch the stream of well-dressed lawyers flowing past the glass wall of his office.
“Thanks,” said Alice. “I know what to do.”
Fred and Mary were married in City Hall as soon as the results of their blood tests came in. She kept her last name, and announced she would work until she had to leave for the hospital. Fred was so pleased he blushed any time someone looked at him. Since he was a partner, and hadn’t fiddled his taxes, money was not a problem. It was agreed that Mary should probably move to another firm, but that could wait. Alice’s one condition was that Fred and Mary both take some maternity/paternity leave. “This being in love is fine, but you ought to get to know each other,” she said.
Alice was not a virgin. Climbing the skyscraper of her ambition included dating presentable men—required it, sometimes, when you needed to take an escort to a black-tie dinner raising money for a client CEO’s wife’s pet charity—and in order to do that you had to be responsive to their needs. But nothing had ever clicked. So the ballad of Mary and Fred, as Charles called it, made her a bit unsteady, some evenings, when she got back to her apartment. It was a small but attractive apartment, with a view of sorts. She’d used a decorator, and she kept the place immaculate—almost as if she expected a visitor.
