No one had told her it would feel like this. She’d gotten so much advice about her first year at a law firm, but no one had ever said, “You wil be constantly afraid.” And that’s what she was. She was afraid that someone would come to her with work to do, and she was afraid that no one would come to her with work to do. She was scared that she was missing something in her research. She went over each assignment she was given, and then she was terrified that they would al think she was slow. Whenever someone said “case law” or “document review,” her first instinct was to hide underneath her desk.
Sometimes, just as she was finishing up one project, feeling like she’d accomplished one thing, someone would come to her office to give her a new task. She was sure she was failing.
At night, Mary would take breaks and leave her office to go to the roof for a cigarette. It was wrong, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. She only smoked at night. During the day, there were too many people around and she didn’t want them to think that she was actual y a smoker. She looked forward al day to standing outside and lighting her cigarette. She loved those five minutes of quiet, standing and blowing smoke. She breathed in and out, and told herself that smoking, for her, was a little bit like meditation. It was keeping her sane.
There was a lot to worry about those first few months, but one of the biggest things was this: Mary was afraid that she was getting fat. Each night that she ate dinner at the office, she felt her ass getting bigger. When it came time to order, she would look through the menus in disbelief that she was staying for dinner again. Sometimes, in a fit, she would order lobster or two different entrees. “They want me to stay, they can pay for it,” she would think as she clicked in her order on her computer. Other times she’d order from the diner, cheeseburgers and fries, and a milkshake for good measure. After these giant meals, she would go up to the roof and smoke. Breathe in and out, she would repeat. Breathe in and out.
In the bathroom, she examined her butt, turning to the side and running her hands over it, trying to measure how much bigger it was than the day before. She’d seen her cousin Col een gain fifty pounds during her first year at a law firm. Col een went from normal to almost obese in a matter of months, and she grabbed the weight and held on to it. “It’s worse than having a baby,” she’d said last Thanksgiving. “It’s just part of the job,” she’d told Mary. And then she’d eaten two pieces of pecan pie.
Mary had sworn that it wouldn’t happen to her, but she hadn’t known it would be so hard. She always wanted to leave the office and she always wanted to stay. She wanted al of the partners to like her, to praise her. She lived for one of them to say, “Nice job” or “Thanks for the help.” It didn’t come often, but when it did, it felt like getting an A. Or at least a B. And there was nothing that Mary loved more than getting good grades. Maybe that made her pitiful, but she couldn’t help it. And so she stayed, and she sat in her chair for fifteen hours at a time, eating Chinese food, popping dumplings into her mouth, slurping up sesame noodles, and hoping for someone to notice her work. And then she would go home and look at herself in the ful -length mirror, studying the bulge that was threatening to explode, wondering how long it would be before she erupted into a truly giant person.
Each time she bought a pack of cigarettes, she said, “Last pack,” as she unwrapped the plastic at the top. She was basical y done smoking, she told herself. It was real y just a formality until she was an official nonsmoker. And so when Isabel a came over to her apartment, sniffed the air, and said, “Were you smoking in here?” Mary said, “No, I quit.”
She knew she’d gone too far. Once she started lying about it, there was no going back. “I don’t care if you smoke,” Isabel a said. She gave Mary a strange look. “I was just asking.” But stil , Mary denied it. She hid her cigarettes in her bedside table, tucked in the back of the drawer, wrapped in an old bandanna. Each time after she smoked, she wrapped up the pack of cigarettes with the lighter, folding them in the cloth, and careful y placing them back where nobody could find them.
Brian Sul ivan was made a junior partner at thirty-three. He was the one al of the first years wanted to be, the one they al talked about. He was handsome in a prep school way and looked like every cute boy that Mary had a crush on in high school. He was the first person to ask Mary to write a memo, and she was flattered. “Real y,” she asked. “A memo?” She sounded like a parrot.
He laughed and leaned on her desk. “Look,” he said. “I know it feels impossible now, but it’l get better. I promise.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and Mary almost turned her head and leaned down to kiss it. It was the first time in a week anyone had touched her, not counting the toothless woman who’d pul ed on her leg as she was going down to the subway. Her face got hot, as though she had actual y leaned over and placed her lips there. Brian removed his hand before she could think much more, and she was left in her office with her embarrassing thoughts.
Mary had always been scared of her imagination. When she was younger, she used to think, “What if I stood up in the middle of class and told Mrs. Sugar to go to hel ?” Then her cheeks would flush at the thought and her heart would start pounding, as if she was real y going to stand up and scream. “I’m not going to do it,” she would tel herself. She would try to calm down, but then she would think of it again, how she could have just screamed, how no one would have stopped her, and she would get nervous again. It was the potential of what could happen, the possibility that she could do something so reckless. That’s what scared her.
Brian Sul ivan brought al of that back. Every time he came into her office and stood next to her desk, Mary imagined what would happen if she put her hands on his belt buckle and started to take off his pants. Her blood pounded in her ears, and she tried to reassure herself that she wasn’t going to do any such thing. But then she’d pass him in the hal , and she’d think, “What would happen if I just went up to him and said, ‘Let’s have sex right now’?” She tried to tel herself that she was in charge of her actions, that her brain couldn’t take over. And then she thought, “This is what happens to people right before they go insane.”
Brian found Mary on the roof one night, sitting on one of the stone benches, her head leaning back as she smoked her Marlboro Light very slowly, letting the smoke trickle out of her mouth and escape into the air. “Hey,” he said. “So, you’re a smoker.”
Mary snapped her head up quickly, causing her to cough and choke for a few seconds before she could speak. “No,” she final y said. “I’m not a smoker. I’m quitting.”
“Oh,” he said. “Okay.” He pul ed out an unopened pack of cigarettes and hit them against the heel of his hand, then unwrapped the plastic and crumpled it into a bal , never looking away from her. “I’ve been quitting for years.” He raised his eyebrows and took a cigarette out of his pack, held it in his teeth, and smiled.
Mary gave a weak laugh and held her cigarette low. “I real y thought I would’ve quit by now,” she said. “But it’s been a harder adjustment than I planned on.”
“Because I make you nervous?” Brian asked.
“What? No!” Mary said. She sounded too forceful. She’d meant to sound calm, but it came out in a little yel
