Girl Walks Out of a Bar (10 page)

“Yeah, OK. Come by my office at two o'clock. I might have ten minutes.” He hung up. Oh great. And in ten minutes I
might
learn enough to not embarrass both of us.

My phone rang. Jessica popped up on the caller ID. Thank God. “Hey!” I said.

“Hey!” she said. “Wanna meet for lunch?”

“Yeah, definitely,” I said. “Dining room at twelve-thirty?”

“Perfect. See you there.”

With its twenty-foot ceiling and huge windows, the firm's formal dining room made young lawyers feel that they had truly arrived. Male attorneys were required to wear jackets because lawyers often took clients to lunch there. Jessica and I had already been regulars, whenever we could get away from our desks long enough to run across the street and eat. And because the firm heavily subsidized what we paid for the fancy, all-you-can-eat lunch, the dining room was packed daily with associates.

“There's the Dining Room Hottie!” I said to Jessica as soon as I sat down. For months, I'd been watching a yummy guy with wavy black hair, a white-toothed smile, and tailored suits. I imagined that he'd been the star of a tennis team at some high school in Westchester—a Pied Piper of beautiful preppy girls as he swaggered around in tennis whites. He and I had first
checked each other out across the buffet table months before, salad tongs in hand, filling our plates. Intra-office dating was as common at the firm as working past five o'clock, so I was hopeful.

“Let's go up! Let's get food before he sits down!” Jessica said.

“No! I look like garbage. You go first. My head's not in the game today.”

“Your head is
always
in the game!” She threw her white linen napkin on the table.

I rubbed my temples. My throat burned. “I can't handle any of this,” I moaned.

“Hey, c'mon,” Jessica said. “You're going to be fine. At least you're going to Florida. I heard some deal just started up in
North Dakota
. Just pack your bathing suit and hope for the best.”

Instead of skipping dessert as usual, I consoled myself with three chocolate chip cookies. I knew I'd punish myself for it later at the gym.

At two o'clock, I wasn't any closer to understanding what I'd be doing in Florida, but I headed to Steve's office carrying the documents, a pad, and a pen. There was a professional hush around these offices that hadn't existed across the street; even the secretaries seemed more elegant on this side of the street, not engaging in gossip or spilling their personal business all over the hallways.

I got to Steve's door and gasped. He was the Dining Room Hottie! He was on the phone with his back toward me, but there was no mistaking that hair, those shoulders, that suit. What kind of sick joke was the universe pulling? Right there, about to turn around, was the sexy guy I'd been silently seducing for months, and our first conversation was going to begin with,
“Hi, I'm Lisa. I don't know shit about fuck.” I thought I was going to lose my three cookies.

Steve hadn't noticed me standing there, so when he hung up the phone I knocked on his door. He turned around nonchalantly and then flinched with recognition. After that, he acted as if he'd never seen me before. Fuck, what I would have given for a flask full of Ketel One.

“Steve Kingston, good to meet you,” he said standing up from behind his desk and shaking my hand.

“Lisa Smith.” He motioned for me to sit down. On his desk was a silver-framed picture of his wife and baby. Douche bag. Well, at least my incompetence wouldn't be the reason I wasn't going to see this guy naked.

“OK. You've worked on deals before, right?” he asked.

“Um, no, not really. I've done environmental due diligence and worked on environmental representations and warranties, but that's all.” I heard my voice crack. Steve's face was tough to read, but at least he didn't shake his head or breathe any heavy sighs.

“OK, OK. Read what you can of the registration statement. Try to get familiar with the company.” He eyed the red voicemail light now blinking on his phone, and added quickly, “I'll see you at the airport and we can talk more on the way down,”

“Wait, you're going to Orlando, too?”

“Well, yeah. You didn't think we'd send you down there alone? Some other associate, James, is going down, too. I think he's a second year. I'll stay down for a day, get you guys started.”

“OK, great. See you at the airport,” I said standing up.

Steve sat next to me in the first-class cabin. Shortly after takeoff, he pulled out
Forbes
. I reached past the
Rolling Stone
in my bag and pulled out a securities law handbook. How fast could I reverse the fact that I was embarrassingly uneducated in the business I was being flown a thousand miles to execute?

“
What
are you doing?” he asked as if I were trying to clean my ear canal with a fork.

I tried to sound defiant, “I'm trying to learn about what we're going to do in Florida?” The Valley Girl had reappeared.

Steve let out a sigh. “Put that away.” He paused for a second and asked, “Do you drink martinis?”

Halle-fuckin-lujah. Not only did he speak my language, we were about to start drinking. “Of course,” I answered.

“Excuse me, ma'am?” he held up his index finger toward the first-class cabin flight attendant. Did he have a manicure? “Can we please have two vodka martinis? If you have Absolut, that would be great.”

That would have been my order exactly. Why did this guy have to be married? It doesn't matter, I thought. Vodka is on its way.

“Of course, sir,” she answered and promptly returned with the drinks.

“OK,” he said to me, holding up his glass to clink. “You don't need that book. Here's what you need to know about working on this side of the street . . . ”

By the time we finished our first martinis, I had learned that in Florida we'd be painstakingly reviewing thousands of documents, looking for “red flags,” that our investment bank client would want to know about. By the time we finished our second martinis, Steve had taken off his tie and I had kicked off my high heels. I had also learned the important facts about the Corporate Finance group, as in, who was good to work with,
who couldn't be trusted, and who was incompetent. I longed to reach for my legal pad to take notes, maybe even create a diagram, but I resisted. Steve would have shut that down right along with my handbook.

After the three-martini flight, we reconvened with James at baggage claim and headed to the hotel. With a bloodstream full of alcohol, I was able to fall right to sleep. It was the first night since Friday that I hadn't cried before passing out.

Catering to type A business travelers, the hotel gym opened at 5:00 a.m., and on Tuesday morning I was the first person to climb aboard an elliptical machine. I was obsessive about exercise, and there was no moderation in sight. Forty-five minutes of cardio followed by thirty minutes of weights was my version of slacking, which I did only if I got to the gym late. And Gina, my personal trainer-by-day, stripper-by-night, had told me once that toxins from drinking would “sweat right out of my body” if I pushed hard enough, so I pushed hard.

Afterward, I met Steve and James in the lobby. James was a standard-issue corporate junior associate with his sharp suit, slick hair, and the nervous excitement of a spaniel. Briefcases in hand and looking as serious as CIA agents carrying state secrets, we set off.

At 8:30, we arrived at the client's offices, which were housed in a little white box of a building off a busy highway. Two lawyers from the company's firm in New York were already waiting. Beth was an unkempt woman with stringy blonde hair and Daniel was a guy about my age with curly red hair and a straight-backed formality. She seemed to be the older of the two, likely Steve's counterpart.

After introductions, we went inside the bleak structure that appeared to have been designed to thwart all evidence of the bright light and fresh air just outside its walls. A square-jawed
woman with a permed, brown mullet and floral pants set us up. She smelled like cigarette smoke, and I was sure she went somewhere dark at lunch for strong cocktails and a game of darts. I wished I could grab her for lunch as soon as possible, but she soon disappeared and I was relegated to the document room.

Steve left late on the first afternoon while the rest of us worked long days all week. At around 9:00 p.m., Perky Beth would say, “Let's just see if we can get through these four boxes before we call it a night.” She sounded like a second grade teacher trying to excite her class about clean up time.
Let's not
, I thought. Those four boxes were keeping me from the strong drink I needed badly. Then James would add, “That sounds great! We can grab a late dinner after!”
Jesus. I'd rather down a six of Miller Lite and two Slim Jims at the mini-mart than spend two hours in a Bennigans.

“I think I'll skip dinner,” I'd say, visions of my room's minibar sloshing through my mind. Maybe I could call ahead and have housekeeping swap out the gins for extra vodka. “I have an early wakeup call for the gym.” At least that wasn't a lie.

Document review complete, the others left on Saturday morning, but the hotel had a rooftop pool with a bar, so I changed my return flight to Sunday morning and yanked my bikini out of the suitcase. The setting was about as sexy as a strip mall Starbucks, but a full day of poolside drinking in front of me meant relief.

From behind my sunglasses, I watched the other hotel guests come and go. Families, couples, and single people—they all seemed relaxed and content, just drinking sodas and iced teas. It made no sense. There was a bar ten yards away—why wouldn't they choose to work on a buzz in the afternoon sunshine? In my striped bikini, sipping from icy cold bottles topped with limes, I felt sexy and sophisticated by comparison.
Except for the fact that I was alone, mission drinking at two o'clock on a roof in corporate Florida.

At 5:00 p.m. I was sunburned, woozy, and ready to go back to my room, so I packed up my unopened book, my suntan oil, and an almost empty pack of cigarettes. “Can I close out my tab?” I asked the bartender, who seemed to have gotten better looking over the course of the day.

“You sure you don't want to tell me once more about your miserable week reviewing documents?” he sniffed, tallying up the damage.

Shut up, buddy and just give me the bill
. “Ha, no, that's ok,” I said. I opened the leatherette billfold and did a double take. Twelve Corona Lights and a Caesar salad.
Holy shit. Did he pad this?
I would have guessed, say seven, maybe eight at most. “Um, let's not put this on the room,” I said, handing him my American Express card. I'd happily stick the firm with the room-service bill for the dinner and wine I planned to order that night, but I didn't want to set off any alarms with an all-day bar bill. People could be so judgmental.

After the Florida trip, I began drinking every day and went far beyond slamming just two beers at night in front of my refrigerator. I might start with the beers, but those were followed by wine and more wine. I always preferred getting together with a friend or two to provide the cover of “social drinking,” but that wasn't always possible.

My cocktail hours at home were nothing like those of my parents when I was growing up. There were two of them, so that took care of any need to drink alone. Also, there was ritual attached to their drinking. The state courts closed at four o'clock, but after my father got off the bench he usually played tennis
with friends, spent extra time in his chambers, or stopped after work for a drink with the other judges before getting home around six or six-thirty each night.

After my brother and I attacked him at the door, Dad headed straight upstairs to change out of his suit, and this was Mom's cue to prepare cocktails. No matter where she had been in the house, she would soon appear at the bottom of the stairs and call up, “Harv! What are you drinking?” Most of the time his answer was, “Scotch!” Then she'd retrieve the huge green jug of J&B from the liquor cabinet. The booze cabinet was home not only to the frequently tapped standards, J&B scotch and Smirnoff vodka, but also to obscure libations like Galliano, the yellow liqueur in its long-necked bottle. Galliano was a key ingredient in one of my father's specialty cocktails, the Harvey Wallbanger. I knew this by the time I could read because there was a full-size poster hanging in our garage that included the recipe for the drink below a cartoon version of its namesake descending to Earth in a parachute that read, “HARVEY WALLBANGER IS THE NAME AND I CAN BE MADE.”