The Partner Track: A Novel (3 page)

Yes? Yes??
I realized I was actually holding my breath.

“
I hope you understand that I wouldn’t trust a deal of this magnitude to just
any
associate. You’ve impressed a lot of the right people around here, and we knew you’d be able to run with this.”

My heart gave a little leap. “I really appreciate that, Marty. Thank you.”

He fluttered his hand at me—
de nada.
As I turned to go, barely able to suppress the huge smile forming on my face, he added casually, “Oh, just one more thing, Ingrid. There’s a particular Corporate paralegal I’ve asked to assist on this deal. He just started here at the firm. Name’s Justin Keating.”

I’d never heard of him. “Oh, a newbie?” I said. “Wouldn’t it be better to get one of the senior M&A paralegals for this? I usually work with either Evelyn Griffiths or Joseph Cruz, and they’re both terrific. Really smart, and on top of everything.”

Adler looked up. Annoyance briefly crossed his face. “Justin Keating will be the paralegal on this deal,” he repeated. Then, just as suddenly, the grin was back. “From what I understand, he’s a very bright young man, eager to work hard and prove himself. In fact, Ingrid, I’d consider it a personal favor to me if you could show the kid the ropes. His father’s an old friend of mine, and a very good friend of the firm’s.” He looked at me significantly. “I’d love for you to take Justin under your wing. Really integrate him onto the deal team. I’d do it myself, of course, but, well, I’m looking incredibly busy this month.”

And
I
had just been tasked with taking a brand-new deal to announcement stage in less than five weeks’ time. No pressure, really.

“No problem, Marty,” I said. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Thanks, Ingrid. I knew the firm could count on you.” Adler sat back down behind his massive mahogany desk, signaling the end to our conversation.

TWO

“Margo, call Marty Adler and tell him I booked room 3201-A for the SunCorp meeting. And would you see if Justin’s around?”

Justin Keating had just graduated from college. Hardly the kind of paralegal usually assigned to work on a billion-dollar deal. But when Donald Keating—a Wall Street executive with a lot of pull—had casually mentioned to Adler that he hoped his son’s brief paralegal gig might turn into an interest in law school, Justin Keating became my problem.

I was dusting bronzing powder onto the bridge of my nose when Justin appeared. His tall frame in my doorway startled me.

“You rang?” He’d shaved and put on a suit today for our client meeting. I noticed without surprise that the suit looked expensive—a better cut and drape than you saw on many men twice his age. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he leaned against my doorjamb, grinning. It was an amused, deliberate smile. Almost a smirk.

“Hi, Justin. Yes, I rang,” I said. “Our friends are going to be here in forty-five minutes.”

Justin didn’t blink. “And?” He made a lazy rolling motion at me with one hand, as if to say,
Your point is?

“And,” I said evenly, “how does the conference room look?”

“All set up. I put everything in there yesterday.”

“Copies of the working group list?”

“In the room.”

“Coffee order?”

“Done.”

“Legal pads?”

“Yup.”

“Pens?”

“Yeah.”

“Both highlighter and ballpoint?”

He shot me a look.

“Okay, thanks,” I said. “Why don’t you just hang out in your office, then. I’ll call you when the oil barons get here. And tell Dining Services we might order up sandwiches later, unless the clients want to go out for lunch.”

“No problem.” Justin pushed himself off the doorjamb and sauntered off in the direction of his cubicle.

He’d only been here a few weeks, but I’d already overheard a bunch of female paralegals giggling in the coffee room over Justin Keating’s bedroom eyes. I didn’t see it. For one thing, he was only twenty-three, and I had a low tolerance for twenty-three-year-old boys, even when I was twenty-three.

Margo buzzed my intercom.

“Hi, Margo.”

“Your mother’s on line one.”

“Thanks.”

I hit the blinking red light for line one. “Hey, Mom.”

“Ingrid?” Her voice was tentative.

“Yeah, it’s me. Hi, Mom.”

My mother had a love-hate thing with calling me at the office. On the one hand, she loved that I had a secretary. On the other hand, Margo intimidated her. Even after living in the States for over thirty years, my mother still preferred to speak in Mandarin.

When I’d graduated from law school and started working at Parsons Valentine, my mother had called up every friend and relative she had and given them my new office number, so that if anyone tried to call, they’d hear my secretary pick up and say, “Ms. Yung’s office. May I help you?” For a few months at the start of my career I’d gotten a rash of anonymous calls, where someone would dial my office number, listen to my secretary answer, then hang up. My mother had never owned up to this.

“Ingrid-ah, are you busy now? Is this a good time?”

I sighed. “Not really, Mom, I have a meeting in a few minutes. With some
new clients.
I can’t talk long.” This was a good strategy to use with her. I’d cultivated it back in grade school. Whenever my mother wanted me to clean my room or practice the piano, I’d just peer at her over the top of a book and say, “Mom, I’m
reading.
For
school.
”

Even now, my mother remained terrified that I’d lose my job. My parents believed that Chinese American kids, especially girls, were better off in quiet, stable careers that relied on technical expertise instead of killer instinct. Doctor, yes. CPA, okay. Corporate shark, no. They knew I was up for partnership, and they were extremely proud of me. But sometimes my mother still asked if it was too late for me to apply to medical school.

“Okay, I’ll make it quick.” She began chattering in Mandarin. “I was just calling to remind you about Jenny Chang’s wedding invitation. Did you tell Auntie Chang yet if you can go?”

“Not yet, Mom. I’ve been really busy.
Hen mang.
” I repeated “really busy” in Mandarin, for emphasis. I spoke to my parents in a hybrid Mandarin and English mix, my own personal dialect of Chinglish.

“Two months from now.”

Two months! I couldn’t even predict what my schedule would look like in two
days,
much less two months. “Mom, I’ll try, but you know I can’t promise.”

She sighed. “I know, I know, you never can promise. But Ingrid-ah, you should come! Auntie and Uncle Chang invited over two hundred and fifty guests! Twenty-eight tables! I told you it was at the Potomac River Country Club, right?”

Only a dozen times. “Yes, you’d mentioned.”

I heard a low beep, and then the indicator light for my second line came on. I could hear Margo outside my door, saying pleasantly, “I’m sorry, she’s on another call at the moment.”

“The Fongs’ sons were invited, too,” my mother was saying. “Eddie Fong just bought a brand-new condo in D.C.! Not to live in, to rent out to
tenants
! He’s going to be—how you say—a slumlord!”

I laughed. “I think you mean a
landlord,
Mom.”

She ignored this. “Auntie Fong said that Eddie is a doctor, specializing in endo … endo-something.”

“Endocrinology,” I supplied.

“Yes, that,” my mother confirmed. She paused for a small, soft sigh. “And Vincent Lu is going to be there. Such a nice boy. You remember Vincent?”

“Of course,” I replied, and found myself smiling. My mother had been trying to interest me in Vincent Lu for as long as I could remember. From what I knew of him back when we’d been at Potomac Valley High School together, he was a nice enough guy, but precisely the kind of stereotypical Asian kid I had worked so hard
not
to be—Coke-bottle glasses, first-chair violin, Westinghouse science competition, tiger-mommed to within an inch of his life. Our senior year, I sat next to him at a dinner at the Washington Hilton honoring local National Merit Semifinalists, and I remembered how embarrassed I’d been when the mayor’s wife automatically assumed we were boyfriend and girlfriend.

“Oh, Cindy Bai and Susan Wu are going to be Jenny’s bridesmaids.” My mother paused and sighed again. “Ingrid-ah, Cindy and Susan are such
good
girls. So sweet, so nice. You could really learn something from them. They’re not like you, always working, working, no time to meet anyone, wasting your beautiful years.”

I’d grown up with Cindy Bai and Susan Wu in the suburbs of D.C. We’d gone to the same Chinese language school every Sunday afternoon from kindergarten through senior year. Cindy was an orthodontist with her own practice in a local strip mall, and Susan was a computer analyst at the Treasury Department. They were both married—not to each other, although that would have made them infinitely more interesting—and lived less than fifteen minutes from our old high school. My mother was right. Cindy and Susan probably
were
both sweeter and nicer than I was. But you didn’t make partner at one of the most powerful firms in the country by being sweet and nice. My parents did not understand this.

“Mom, I have to go. The clients will be here any minute.”

“And how’s your friend Rachel?” my mother continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. My mother adored Rachel Freedman, my best friend and former law school roommate from Columbia. Back in the day, when Rach and I had shared a small apartment in Morningside Heights, I’d been surprised when she and my mother had bonded over, of all things, my mother’s fiery
ma po tofu
recipe—which my mom showed Rachel how to make in our tiny law student kitchen. Rachel cooked. I didn’t.

After graduation, Rach and I had both started off as associates at large corporate law firms—me at Parsons Valentine, Rachel at Cleary Gottlieb. But Rachel had quit after just three years, when she married a hedge fund manager named Josh and moved to a charming house in the suburbs. Rachel had given up her prestigious law job to stay home with their two adorable kids. My mother approved.
Rachel
wasn’t wasting her beautiful years.

“Rachel’s doing just fine, as always,” I sighed. “Anything else, Mom?”

After a few beats of silence she said in a small voice, “Auntie Chang and Auntie Fong always asking how you’re doing up there in New York. Daddy tells them, ‘Doing very well!’ But I tell them you’re still working too hard, like always. They ask me, ‘Still no boyfriend, ah?’ I tell them no. Still no boyfriend.”

My mother really knew how to pick her times. “Okay!” I chirped. “Gotta go. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. She didn’t sound happy.

*   *   *

At ten twenty-five, Margo buzzed my intercom. “The SunCorp people are waiting in reception. Mr. Adler is finishing up a call and wants you to start without him. Shall I go down and get them?”

“Yes, please. Just bring them to conference room 3201-A. I’ll meet them up there.”

I smoothed my pencil skirt over my knees, retrieved a few business cards from the silver cardholder on my desk, and strolled down the corridor to the drab interior room where the paralegals lived.

Justin was in his cubicle, staring at an eBay bidding screen. “2 TIX, SPRINGSTEEN AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, 14th ROW!!!!!!” The current bid was $689.

I watched as he typed “$780” next to
YOUR MAXIMUM BID.

I cleared my throat. “Justin, the oil barons are here. Let’s go.”

“Hold on. In a sec.” He absently held up one finger as if to shush me.

Seriously?

“Actually, no. Not in a sec,” I said, with a little edge to my voice.
“
We don’t keep clients waiting.”

Justin looked up at me, one eyebrow slightly cocked in surprise. He let out a heavy sigh and then clicked the
SUBMIT
button. “You’re the boss,” he added sarcastically.

*   *   *

I had booked my favorite conference room, the one I used for all of my closings, meetings, and late-night work sessions, the one that afforded the best view of Manhattan, including all of Central Park. I could even make out the top of my apartment building if I looked hard enough. Sometimes, alone, poring over agreements and financial statements in the wee hours of the morning, I would stand against the windows, press the full length of my body up against the glass, and look down. The cool hardness on my forehead and the dizzying vertical effect left me breathless and exhilarated.

Justin had placed a legal pad with
PARSONS VALENTINE & HUNT LLP
printed in crisp block lettering, along with two new sharpened pencils, at every place. Sleek black trays containing paper clips, binder clips, and pens, sorted out by color—black, blue, and red—were evenly spaced along the length of the polished mahogany conference table. The room looked good, and I told him so. Justin shrugged, not bothering to look at me.

I could hear Margo’s voice floating down the hall, something about the unusually cool month of May we’d had. “Here we are,” she said, opening the door to the conference room. The oil barons stepped inside, and Margo retreated, quietly closing the door behind her.

They didn’t look so bad. Both men were tall and broad-shouldered and wore conservative navy business suits with just-off-the-plane wrinkles. One of them was in his late sixties, with a shock of snow white hair, laughing blue eyes, and a reddish complexion. He looked like Santa in cowboy boots. I suppressed a smile. All that was missing was a big old Stetson on his head. The other one was taller and a bit younger-looking than I’d expected. He even bordered on handsome, in a predictable all-American, aging-quarterback kind of way.

I’d purposely chosen the most conservative suit in my closet that morning. Now I realized I could have worn something a little slinkier.

“Welcome,” I said, directing my comments to them both. “Marty’s just on his way. He’ll be along in a moment.”

“Thank you,” Santa said politely, then crossed the room and offered his hand to Justin. “Ted Lassiter,” he introduced himself. Justin shook the client’s hand with a kind of bewildered expression, half-looking over at me. Ted Lassiter then turned back to me. “When you get a sec,” he said, “could we get some orange juice ordered up to the room?”