think that they are, by their very nature, much more delicate than those regular pens.
Six o’clock and at last, I got a different story from the gate-keeper. Douglas was (finally!) not in another meeting. He had left for the day. I threw a Bic across my office, hitting the door. (It didn’t break. I told you so.)
One more nonbillable hour later, at 7:00 p.m., I decided to call him at home. That was it! I would leave him a sweet, sexy message saying that I forgave him, and suggest that to celebrate, we should go to California for Trip’s wedding. Perfect. I shut the door to my office and practiced what I would say to the answering machine.
I dialed the number — my old phone number — and waited for the answering machine to pick up. I knew that he wouldn’t be home since he usually met up with clients for drinks after work. He didn’t have a cell phone that I could call because he didn’t own one. Douglas considered using cell phones rude. Now, I can’t help but laugh — apparently for Douglas, speaking on a cell phone in public is rude, but sleeping with another woman when you’re living with someone else is, on the other hand, perfectly acceptable in polite society.
“Hello?” a female voice answered. Who the hell was picking up our telephone? Someone had broken into our apartment. I had to call the police! “Police, a cat burglar has broken into my old apartment, and is answering the phone!”
“Gilson Hecht?” the cat burglar asked into the phone. How did she know where I was calling from? My goodness, the burglar was psychic! “Police, a
Using my superlitigator powers of deduction, I soon realized that the firm’s name and number must have come up on caller ID. I quickly hung up the phone as Beryl was still saying “Hello? Hello?” (Yes, my super litigator skills told me that, too.)
Beryl. Is that woman using my phone? The very phone I bought for Douglas? Well, didn’t exactly buy for him, but the phone I totally used when I lived there! Has she moved in already? God, that man moves fast! He and I at least waited a month!
By 7:30 p.m., I had plan B in effect: I would reconvene a special court session at our local watering hole to discuss the matter further and figure out a plan C. Yes, plan B consisted solely of gathering the troops — Vanessa and Jack — but give me a break! I was under a lot of stress here!
After picking Vanessa up at her office, we sneaked down the back stairwell so as to avoid any partners who might catch us leaving before we had actually collapsed from exhaustion. We got to the gym at Public School 142 just in time to slip in for the last few minutes of the firm intramural basketball game against the lawyers from Arby Schweitzer.
The bleachers were completely empty, so Vanessa and I took front-row seats. The gym floor was scattered with briefcases and Redwelds full of documents with a row of BlackBerries lined up perfectly on the front-row bench. Jack’s BlackBerry stood out in the crowd since one of his nieces had decorated it with Strawberry Shortcake stickers so that he would never lose it.
Vanessa sat down on the bleachers quietly and tucked her bag underneath her legs. I, on the other hand, sat down and knocked over the entire row of BlackBerries, which fell tumbling to the gymnasium floor like a set of very expensive dominoes. None of the Gilson Hecht associates seemed to care, since our firm pays for its unfettered 24/7 access to its associates, but judging from the looks on the Arby Schweitzer team’s faces, I got the feeling that their firm did not. As I crawled on the floor picking them up as subtly as I could, I saw Jack give me a tiny smile and a slight wave. He was wearing a Gilson Hecht T-shirt with a long sleeve T-shirt underneath and had the sleeves pushed all the way up to his elbows. Jack had a million freckles covering his arms, but barely any on his face.
The score was tied and there were just a few minutes left on the clock. I puzzled over Jack’s choice of crunch-time lineup: rounding out his usual starters (the two other attorneys in our department who were over six feet tall), he had Billie Cooper, a fourth-year corporate associate and Bob Frohman, a second-year tax associate, on the court.
While Billie Cooper was the tallest girl in the entire corporate department standing at five foot nine, I knew that she frequented the nail place around the corner from our office almost as often as I did. Now, I’m no basketball player, but I’m pretty sure that you need to use your hands to do it. Although I did meet Michael Jordan once and he had lovely hands. But, I digress.
Bob Frohman from tax was so timid, I could swear that I’d never actually heard him speak. And I had a sneaking suspicion that half of the tax department hadn’t, either. At five foot four, even Billie was taller than him. When I would pass him in the hallways at work, he always looked as if he was terrified of his own shadow. At a large law firm, that sort of thing could be considered normal what with how stressful the work is, but Bob looked that way all the time. I once saw him at another tax associate’s birthday party and there he stood, in a corner all night, looking downright scared, speaking to no one the entire time. I imagined that if you ever did speak to him, no sound would come out of his mouth. Or, if it did, he would have nothing else to discuss but the Internal Revenue Code. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why Jack had put him in the game at such a crucial moment.
The ball was in play, and I sat forward on my seat, anxious for a Gilson Hecht victory.
Two minutes left on the clock.
I called out, “Defense,” and Vanessa shot me a dirty look. (Even though everyone knows that when you have courtside seats, you simply
Vanessa and I sat forward in our seats, ready for Jack’s big slam dunk. He got all the way down the court and paused for a moment. The breath was caught in my chest as I puzzled over just what Jack was doing. He dribbled and then passed the ball. Passed the ball to Bob Frohman. To Bob Frohman? What on earth was he doing? Was he losing the game on purpose? Was he trying to lose a bet?
Thirty seconds left on the clock.
Bob looked just as confused as everyone else as he caught the ball (barely).
“You got it, Bob,” Jack said with a nod, as he looked on and threw his long arms out to block an opposing player.
Bob bounced the ball down once and then went for it. He threw it up toward the basket and everyone whipped their heads around to see if it would go in or not. The ball circled the rim, slowly, taking its time, like the tiny silver ball on a roulette wheel. The clock buzzer rang, signifying the end of the game, and everyone looked on, watching the ball go round and round. Everyone was frozen, heads tilted up, waiting for the final verdict.
The room stayed silent until, finally, the ball fell through the hoop with a tiny whoosh and the Gilson Hecht team erupted into a chorus of screams and yells. Everyone was screaming, jumping (myself included, and even Vanessa) — everyone except Bob. He stood frozen, still looking at the basket, not registering that it had actually gone in. The team dove into a huge group hug, and Jack grabbed Bob to get him in on it. At first tentative, Bob quickly fell into it, smiling and laughing. Jack directed the team to all put their hands into the center of the circle as he counted down from three.
“Three, two, one,” he called out as the team joined him in screaming, “Gilson Hecht!”
Jack led the team in shaking the hands of the Arby Schweitzer players and then off the court. Bob looked like a kid in a candy store as he lined up to shake the other players’ hands.
Vanessa and I rushed up to congratulate Jack.
“How did you know he would make it?” I asked Jack as he threw a towel onto his head.
“I didn’t,” he said, as he disappeared into the men’s locker room. Ten minutes later, he reemerged with a wet head and we were off to our local watering hole.
This being New York, our local watering hole was actually the bar of a fabulously trendy new midtown hotel. It boasted views of the Empire State Building and Central Park, but New Yorkers are far too cool to act as if they care about such things. After all, someone might — gasp! — mistake you for a tourist.
For a mere eighteen dollars, you can have a martini so fancy, it even comes with a little orchid floating on