The Partner Track: A Novel (4 page)

When you’re the only woman, with the darkest skin, the weirdest name, and the softest voice, in a roomful of Big Swaggering Suits, you have to learn to pick your battles. This barely registered on my comparative sliding scale of slights. It was the racial-bias equivalent of finding a hair floating in your soup—annoying, but not worth making a big fuss.

“Of course,” I said smoothly, turning to a slightly reddened Justin Keating. “Justin, would you please call Dining Services and let them know?”

Justin scurried over to the phone to call in our order. For his part, Ted Lassiter didn’t look the least bit embarrassed by his mistake.

“Hello, Ted,” I said as I held out my hand. “I’m Ingrid Yung. It’s great to meet you.” I smiled warmly and looked directly into his eyes.

This was a habit I’d developed my first year at the firm, when the partners had made all of us attend a one-hour seminar entitled “Effective Networking Strategies for Lawyers.” “Always,
always
repeat the person’s name aloud after you’ve been introduced,” urged Valerie, our effective networking expert. “And always look
directly
into the person’s eyes when shaking his or her hand. Remember to look
directly
into their eyes.”

Murph and Hunter, who’d sat next to me at the seminar, had found both Valerie and her advice hilarious. They’d sniggered through her entire presentation. For days afterward, if I ran into one of them in the hall, they’d giddily pump my hand up and down and whisper menacingly, “Nice to meet you,
Ingrid Yung,
” boring into my eyes with a serial-killer death stare. I agreed there was something cheesy about a class on how to network; still, I’d gone straight into my office right after Valerie’s seminar, closed the door, and scribbled down as much of her advice as I could remember.

“
So
you’re
Ingrid Yung,” repeated the cowboy Santa, looking me up and down with a mildly bemused expression. His voice somehow exuded both gruffness and warmth. “I’m Ted Lassiter.” He shook my hand, then gestured toward his companion. “This is our general counsel, Mark Traynor.”

The quarterback’s handshake was pleasantly warm. “Nice to meet you, Ingrid,” he said. He smelled lightly of a good aftershave.

Justin had reappeared by my side, and I gestured toward him. “This is Justin Keating, one of our Corporate paralegals, who’ll be helping out with the acquisition,” I said. Justin quickly stepped in front of me. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, with a toothpaste-commercial smile, and shook hands with both men.

“Keating, eh?” said Lassiter. “Where’d you go to school, son?”

“Colby, sir,” said Justin, grinning from ear to ear.

“Fine school,” said Lassiter. “Fiiine school. My son almost went there himself. Finally got off the wait list at Dartmouth, though.”

I suppressed a small smile. It amused me how certain men were able to turn every conversation into a pissing match. This was especially true when it came to billable hours. At Parsons Valentine, it was a twisted form of bragging right to say you’d spent all night in the office. It was an even better badge of honor to miss a scheduled vacation due to work. The firm paid out thousands of dollars each year to reimburse its attorneys for missed flights and lost deposits on hotels, spas, and rented villas. One guy up for partner in Litigation had recently upped the ante for all of us by skipping the birth of his first child in order to take a deposition.

There was a swift knock at the door, and Marty Adler, without waiting for an answer, strode in. You always knew when and where Adler was in the room. Though short in stature, he had an unmistakably commanding presence. Some associates—especially the ones Adler routinely passed over when staffing his deals—called it his Napoleonic complex. I thought of it as genuine leadership quality.

“Morning, gentlemen,” Adler said. Ted Lassiter shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulder familiarly. “I’m Marty Adler. Good to see you here. I believe you’ve already met Ingrid Yung, my associate?”

“We have, and I’ve gotta ask you one question,” said Lassiter in a mock-stern voice. “What the hell kind of show are you running here? You promised to put your best associate on this deal and then you trot out this little lady who can’t be a day older than eighteen!” Lassiter gave a short, barking laugh.

Okay, now this guy was testing my patience. I pressed my lips together.

Adler shot me a warning look that said,
Don’t worry. I’ve got this.

“Listen, Ted, I told you we put together our A-team for this deal. Ingrid’s one of the best associates this firm has ever had, and she’s been running the show on some of our biggest transactions for a while now. Personally, I wouldn’t trust your deal to anyone else.”

“Of course!” Lassiter chortled. “I’m just pulling your leg, Marty. Relax.”

Adler threw an appraising glance in my direction, with a lift of the eyebrows.
Are we good?

I gave him a nod and half-shrug.
We’re fine. Let’s get on with this.
In fact, even though my heart was pounding and I kind of hated Lassiter already, I felt genuinely touched by what Adler had said, defending me so passionately to the client.

Mark Traynor cleared his throat. “Why don’t we get started? We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

“Yes.” Adler nodded at Traynor. “Yes, that’s an excellent idea. Gentlemen?” He gestured toward the conference table.

Lassiter pulled out the leather swivel chair closest to him, which was at the head of the table. Traynor quickly settled into a chair to Lassiter’s right, and Adler sat directly across from Traynor, angling his chair so that he could face both of the clients at the same time.

I drew up my shoulders, took a deep, calming breath, and squeezed into a chair to Adler’s left, leaving me off to the side. Avoiding eye contact, I reached across to the supply tray closest to me and pretended to give careful consideration to the selection of ballpoint pens as I struggled to regain my emotional bearings.

Justin hesitated a moment, then took a seat at my left elbow. At this Adler looked annoyed, but it only registered on his face for a moment. Paralegals were expected to sit in one of the chairs lining the perimeter of the room during client conferences, for ease of getting out if something needed to be fetched, faxed, or copied. No career paralegal would have made this kind of gaffe. Typical, though, for Justin to assume he should have a
literal
place at the table.

Ted Lassiter didn’t seem to notice. He tented his fingers and rested his elbows on the dark gleaming wood of the conference table.

“Now, let me preface this meeting by saying that this deal is still highly confidential.”

Adler cleared his throat. “That goes without saying, Ted.”

Lassiter nodded approvingly. “There’s already been some media speculation, of course, and our PR office keeps fending off calls, but no one’s gotten anything specific. We only shook hands with Binney on this about a week ago. We don’t even have a preliminary deal sheet yet.”

“But the purchase price is settled at nine ninety in cash and stock?” asked Adler.

“That’s right. And we’re anxious to seal this deal. That’s bargain-basement pricing.”

I jotted on the legal pad in front of me:
$990MM. Cash/stock.

Justin looked over my shoulder as I did this. I resisted the urge to shield the notepad with my arm.

“Now, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the purchase price has to be kept under wraps til we can get this binding term sheet signed,” Lassiter continued, talking only to Adler.

“Of course.” Adler nodded and turned quickly to me. “Make a note to send Ted a quick-and-dirty NDA to look at. Let’s get that signed up before we even get to a draft of the term sheet.”

I scribbled rapidly on my notepad.

“What’s happening to the top executives over there?” Adler asked. “Anyone staying on, or are they all parachuting out?”

“A bunch of top guys are going out on parachutes,” Lassiter replied, “but we’re mainly interested in keeping Jack Barstow on.” He leaned toward Adler conspiratorially. “That’s Fred Binney’s right-hand man. Youngest COO in the history of the company.”

The name rang a bell. “Barstow,” I repeated. “That’s the guy who gets credit for bringing Binney’s revenues up forty percent over the last four years, isn’t he?”

You could practically hear every head in the room swiveling in my direction. From the corner of my eye I was aware of Marty Adler blinking furiously at me.

“That’s right,” Lassiter said slowly. He was looking straight at me now, as if seeing me for the first time.

I pressed on. “Word on the street is he’s pissed that he spent four years slaving away to get their offshore drilling operations up and running, only to learn old man Binney’s looking to sell. He’s probably talking to a bunch of headhunters already. We’ll definitely want a key-man provision in the term sheet.”

No one spoke for a few seconds. Then Lassiter cleared his throat. “That’s very impressive,” he said, grinning. “Now how’d you know that about Barstow?”

“Oil and Gas Investor,”
I shot back, with my first real smile since this meeting had started.

“You read
Oil and Gas Investor
?” He sat back in his chair, folding his hands across the formidable expanse of his belly.

“I read a lot of things,” I said sweetly. My chin was up. I met Lassiter’s gaze directly and held it.
I’m glad we finally understand each other.

Lassiter turned toward Adler. “Very impressive, Marty. I gotta hand it to you.”

Adler’s expression changed back from alarm to casual confidence. “What did I tell you?” Then, clearing his throat, “Now, getting back to the term sheet—”

“That’s terrific,” Lassiter continued. He laughed and cocked his head back toward Adler. “Beautiful, with brains, too. Now, Marty, when you told me on the phone that
Ingrid Yung
would be handling our deal, I expected some sour-faced old fräulein. Believe me, I’d rather work with a pretty little Asian gal any day.”

*   *   *

“He said
what
?”

Murph sat crossways in one of the armchairs opposite my desk, his long legs dangling over the side. We’d just gone to Starbucks for our morning coffee run. I was spreading cream cheese onto my whole-wheat everything bagel, and Murph was balancing a tiny paper football on his knee, aiming it at me.

“I swear, that’s a direct quote,” I said. “You should have seen Adler’s face.”

Murph burst out laughing.

Jeff Murphy had a distinctive laugh. It was sort of halfway between a hyena and a rooster. On anyone else, it would be obnoxious. On Murph, it was endearing.

“And
then,
” I continued, “as Lassiter’s leaving, he turns to me and says, ‘I’m glad my wife won’t be meeting you. She’d never believe you were our
lawyer
!’”

Murph hooted. We were both laughing now. I somehow felt reassured by his reaction.

“Actually, though, he kind of has a point,” said Murph. “How
did
two Chinese immigrants decide to name their kid Ingrid?”

I got this question a lot.

Asian parents often name their American kids in a complete cultural vacuum. That’s why you see so many hapless Normans and Eugenes, why there’d been a Eunice Kim, a Florence Liu,
and
an Elvis Chang in my graduating class at Yale. As a kid, I’d longed to be a Jennifer. I’d gotten off lucky, though. It could have been worse. Much worse.

“My parents went to see
Casablanca
when they were dating back in Taipei,” I explained. “I was named after Ingrid Bergman.”

“Nice.” Murph nodded. “Well, think of it this way, Yung. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company thinks you’re hot. You
are
hot. What’s so bad about that?”

I rolled my eyes. But a tiny, agreeable thrill went through me.

“Anyway, did Adler have anything to say about it?”

“He came into my office after the meeting to go over some points for the term sheet. On his way out, he apologized for Lassiter’s ‘politically incorrect’ remarks.”

Murph turned up his palms. “See that? Even Adler recognizes the guy’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, but he’s a paying asshole,” I shot back. “What if Lassiter does something even worse, and I end up having to beg off the deal? What’s that going to look like at my partnership review?”

Murph shook his head. “You’re being dramatic. Trust me, you’re going to do just fine at your partnership review. For fuck’s sake, Marty Adler just handpicked you to run the biggest deal in the office! I’d quit worrying if I were you.”

He had a point.

For a moment neither of us spoke. Murph drained the last of his Frappuccino.

“So, anyway, what’s going on with you?” I said quickly, dabbing at a dollop of cream cheese at the corner of my mouth. “What are you up to this week?”

He looked at me and grinned. “Anna Jergensen.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Who’s Anna Jergensen?”

“Paralegal at Debevoise.”

I shook my head.

I had a theory about why every reasonably well-groomed thirtysomething male in New York with an apartment and a college degree appeared to have his pick of women, while so many successful, intelligent single women couldn’t find a date to save our lives. It was this: For better or worse, women in this town only wanted to date up, or at least laterally. Men, however, were free to date up and down and over and under the age, education, and career gradients with reckless abandon and no one ever batted an eye. This was why twenty-four-year-old Debevoise paralegals, forty-eight-year-old MILFs, cute belly-pierced bartenders, Croatian au pairs, Hooters waitresses, and NYU undergrads were all fair game for guys like Murph. Yet my single women friends—doctors, lawyers, professors, consultants—always seemed to limit themselves to men who matched or exceeded their own age, education, and income level. It was a completely self-defeating strategy.

“And? What’s she like?” I asked.

He shrugged. “We’ll see. I think she was a gorgeous girl, but there was something that kept her from being a complete ten. You know, like when a pretty girl can’t walk in heels or something.”