computer screen to find Rosalyn Ford leaning in the door frame of my office with a smile.
“Rosalyn,” I say, almost out of breath. “Hi.”
“Burning the midnight oil,” she says, “I’m impressed.”
“It’s not like I really have a choice,” I say, lifting up the discovery request to demonstrate my point, and attempting a lame smile. “These privilege logs don’t exactly write themselves.”
“Well,” she says, “you always have a choice. You know that. But, you look busy. So, I’ll just leave you to your work.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I don’t mean to be so cranky. It’s just that I’m a bit stressed out right now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “We’ve all been there. You’ll figure it out. How about I take you to lunch tomorrow?”
I want to tell Rosalyn no, that I have too much work to take a lunch break tomorrow, but it’s never a good idea to say no to a partner. Especially one like Rosalyn, who’s consistently been supportive of my work and my career here at SGR.
“Great,” I say. “Thanks.” I try to keep smiling, but I can’t help but think about what my mother would say about taking a lunch, but making no time for dress shopping.
“Have a good night,” Rosalyn says as she walks out. I draft a quick e-mail to my assistant to tell her that if my mother calls tomorrow between the hours of twelve noon and 2:00 o’clock, she should be told that I am in a meeting. Then I get back to my work.
Four hours later, I’ve got my documents back in my office and boxed up, my privilege log drafted and everything proofread. With my head so heavy, it’s about to hit the keyboard, I quickly draft a cover letter, print it and sign it. As I place the letter in the box of documents, I feel like something is missing. I pick the letter back up and walk with it over to my desk.
My mother is right. What’s important is life, not work. So, I should be focusing on my life. But I am such a woman of the millennium that I can inject a little bit of life
With a smile, I put the cover letter back in the box, tape it up and then call Federal Express to pick it up.
13
As I cab across town to meet Jack at a loft on 37th Street to hear a wedding band play, all I can think about is Jack’s reaction to the big lipstick kiss I planted on my cover letter.
When the cab stops at the building, so far west that it’s almost on the West Side Highway, at first, I think that the cab driver’s made a mistake. There is just no way possible that there is a big fancy black-tie wedding going on inside this building. The entranceway is bordering on industrial—classic nondescript 1970s-style construction with just a single door entrance. As I walk in, I announce myself to the security guard, who really looks as if he couldn’t care less who is coming or going. I get into the elevator and try to figure out which button is for the penthouse. Most of the buttons have their numbers worn away from use, so I just hit the one for the last floor in the lineup and hope that it takes me to my destination.
I look down at the silk organza gown and open-toe satin shoes I’m wearing and feel a bit overdressed as I look around at my surroundings. But as the elevator lets me off on the seventeenth floor, I realize that I’m in the right place.
The elevator doors open into a beautiful entranceway, elegantly decorated with an antique armoire and rug. I walk through to the area where the reception is being held and it is a vast space—fourteen-foot ceilings if they’re an inch—with white-lace-tableclothed tables set up around the perimeter and a medium-sized dance floor in the middle. Enormous crystal chandeliers hang from up above, and the floor-to-ceiling windows are dressed with delicate white fabric which pools at the bottom, flowing onto the floor.
Why didn’t Jack and I think about having a wedding like this? A hidden Manhattan space, big enough to fit both of our families (and just our families and closest friends, mind you) that’s nestled in a tiny corner of the city. It occurs to me that we never once tried to figure out what we wanted as a couple. Instead, we just deferred to what our parents wanted—Jack’s parents, a big New York City hotel wedding, and mine, a traditional Long Island temple wedding—to disastrous results. I wonder what we would have chosen, if we had made the decision all on our own.
“Come here often?” a low voice behind me asks.
“Well, no,” I say, spinning around. “But maybe I should.”
“Can I kiss you hello or are you still wearing that awful flashy lipstick?” Jack says, with a sly smile.
“Oh,” I say, giving him a kiss on the lips, “just admit that you loved it.”
“I loved it,” he says, taking my hand and leading me into the room where the reception’s being held. I take a glance over at the band, Moore Music. They’re playing an old big band number that is exactly the type of thing that I want for our wedding. The band is absolutely perfect.
“Did you really love it?” I ask. “Or are you just saying that because that’s what I want to hear?”
“I thought it was adorable,” he says, “I love it when my woman stakes her claim on me.”
“What?” I say, putting my hand on my chest for dramatic effect. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Let’s see,” he says, “you were the junior associate on all of my matters five years running, so I’m pretty sure you knew that Miranda would be opening the documents for me and would be the first to see your grand declaration of love.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I say, “I must have forgotten. Now that I’m at a law firm where I have tons of responsibility, I must have forgotten about big firm bureaucracy entirely. I hope that Miranda didn’t mind.”
“To the contrary,” Jack says. “She told me to ask you what shade of lipstick that was. She’s thinking of buying herself the same one.”
“Cute,” I say. It takes all of my energy not to say something catty about Miranda and how she probably has her own stash of loud, flashy lipsticks to choose from. But saying something like that would make me seem jealous. Or threatened. Which I most certainly am not. Because Jack’s not like my last serious boyfriend who left me for a loud, flashy man stealer. So what’s there to be jealous of?
“Well, I try,” Jack says, pulling on the lapels of his tuxedo. We’d decided that, since we were coming to see the wedding band at a black-tie affair, we should dress up so as to blend in with all of the other wedding guests. “How did I do?”
“Very well,” I say, putting my hand on his chest and leaning in for a kiss. I smell his aftershave and it goes down my spine. I keep my eyes closed for a moment longer than I should.
“What do you think of the band?” Jack asks, with his arms still around me.
“I love them,” I say, “you?”
“Same,” he says, “That was easy enough. See, I told you planning our wedding would be a breeze.”
I hold my tongue.
The band announces the happy couple, for the first time as husband and wife, and the groom grabs his bride’s hand to begin their first dance.
“So, how was your day?” Jack says as we watch the bride and groom dance in the middle of the dance floor. Her white tulle gown becomes a huge blur to my tired eyes as she spins around and around.
“Great!” I answer a bit too quickly. One thing that Jack always taught me—never let your adversary know where your head is at in a litigation. I certainly don’t want him to know that I was in any way fazed by his incredibly rude litigation tactic. Yes, rude! It’s one thing to use that tactic on
