Love and Miss Communication (3 page)

“You’ll get there, sweetie. Please congratulate Paul for me. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, but I just had the most aggravating conversation with Grandma.” Evie relayed the details.

“Evie, you know how she is. She’s a woman of a different generation. She wants you to get married, have kids. She never had the chance to pursue a real profession. It’s foreign to her.”

“What about you? Is that what you want too?” Evie asked. “I assume you’re excited that your daughter might be a partner at Baker Smith in a matter of months. There are only like twenty female partners total.” Twenty-two to be precise, but Evie didn’t want to show that she’d counted.

Before having Evie, Fran was an advertising executive at Ogilvy in their D.C. office. After becoming a mom, Fran parlayed her experience into consulting work for local businesses, still finding time to devote considerable attention to her real passion—third-tier regional theater.

“You know I’m proud,” Fran said. Evie noticed her mother didn’t answer the first part of her question.

“Good. Because it’s a really big deal. I wish someone would acknowledge how prestigious this is. Or at least pretend.”

“I do realize. Remember the ‘Yale Mom’ hat I wanted to wear on Parents’ Weekend but you wouldn’t let me? I’m very proud. But these are your accomplishments, not mine. You don’t need my validation. Or Bette’s.”

Don’t I? Evie wondered. It certainly seemed at times that she did.

“I know that.”

“Listen, honey, you have a great time at the wedding. We’re meeting a colleague of Winston’s in town for dinner, so I have to jet.”

Winston was Evie’s ultra-WASPy stepfather, who Fran married two years after Evie’s dad passed away unexpectedly. Winston was tall and built like a boxcar. His face was perpetually tan. Not in an artificial orange way—more like a worn-in leather couch. Pink polos and Nantucket red pants with embroidered whales made up a good chunk of his wardrobe.

“Oh, and don’t forget that April and May are also coming for brunch tomorrow,” Fran added, referring to Evie’s stepsisters. “It’s at eleven because they have so much school shopping to do. It’d be great if you could get here early to help out. I have an early morning rehearsal that I can’t miss. I swear this is the trickiest production of
Godspell
I’ve ever done. If you get here early enough I can drive you over to see the sets.”

“Yes, I’ll be there. Love you,” Evie said, but just as she was about to hang up the phone, Fran cut in with, “Did you hear Lauren Moskovitz is engaged? She was an odd little girl, wasn’t she? I guess there’s someone for everyone.” Then click, the phone went dead, and Evie was still entrenched in horrendous Midtown traffic and not one bit calmer.

She turned her attention back to the ticker tape of e-mails on
her phone, several of which were from Bill Black, the supervising partner on the Calico deal. Bill’s awareness of the division between weekdays and weekends was negligible at best. Evie dashed off some quick responses that she hoped would pacify him for at least an hour and checked her Gmail. She subtly returned her phone to its ridiculous spot, wondering when her next point of access would be. It occurred to her then that she could have brought a blazer to stash her phone in, but it was too late to turn back, especially now that she was a few blocks away from the tunnel entrance and her car was finally about to move.

Out of the window, from Ninth Avenue, she spotted the office tower that housed Cravath, Swaine & Moore, arguably the city’s most prestigious firm and the only one of the seven she applied to from which she didn’t receive an offer after law school. She had burned at the time—receiving the thin envelope in the mail with its form-letter text:
We appreciate your interest in a position at our firm. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you employment at this time. Have a nice life.
Well, it was their loss.

From Columbia Law School, she joined another white-shoe firm that represented more than half of the major investment banks and a sizable percentage of the Fortune 500. Baker Smith had even stolen away several of Cravath’s biggest clients since she’d joined (having nothing to do with her work—but it was still satisfying). For the past eight years, she had pored over contracts, revised purchase agreements, blacklined merger documents, and sat in on conference calls ad nauseam. She gave her life to the firm, canceling dates and weekend brunches with friends and at times abandoning what most would consider basic hygienic practices. Around the time of a deal closing, her bikini line was the stuff of horror films. When things got really crazy, the only way she could see friends was if they were willing to meet for a twenty-minute lunch in the office cafeteria—and even that could be cut
short if her BlackBerry buzzed with something urgent. The work could be very stimulating, but with each new project that landed on her desk, she still felt like an anxious freshman unsure if she was up to the task. Luckily, with fourteen-hour workdays a regular occurrence, she had little time left for contemplation.

Finally it seemed her dedication was going to pay off. Her department, Mergers and Acquisitions, had no female partners, and all the existing partners were around the same age—sixty—and would be retiring soon enough, to finally start enjoying their lives and their nest eggs. She’d never received anything less than a stellar review. Her assignments were usually among the most high profile and complicated in the firm’s portfolio. Woefully, she accepted the fact that the partnership committee likely considered having no family responsibilities a plus. She was never running off to do anything foolish like taking her kids to Disney World or the pediatrician. If things with Jack had worked out, she might be in an entirely different place now. But they didn’t “work out,” and unlike the reorganizations and liquidations she witnessed in the firm’s bankruptcy unit, there was no orderly division of assets or mitigation of emotional damage after she and Jack split. Just two jagged halves of a former whole left to fend for themselves.

So this is where she was.

Single, but on the brink of partnership, and actually pretty damn proud of her efforts. She was looking forward to having a bigger office, and the impressive title would certainly be nice, but mostly it was the fatter paycheck that excited her. The salary jump from eighth-year associate to junior partner was enormous. She’d be more than doubling her earnings next year, meaning she could finally afford to buy her own apartment instead of renting. A charming, prewar one-bedroom near Lincoln Center that was only ten blocks from her current apartment on West
Seventy-Sixth Street had been bookmarked on her computer for the last three months. She stared at the pictures of the listing so long she had practically memorized every detail, from the working fireplace with the intricately carved gray-veined white marble mantel to the six-over-six oversize windows that framed the southern wall of the living room and looked out onto a lovely tree-lined side street. She knew where she would put her beloved tufted couch and could precisely imagine the tall lacquered bookcases she would buy to flank it.

As her town car glided to the entrance of her destination, Evie promised herself she’d e-mail the listing broker the same day she made partner to arrange an appointment to see it. Living next door to Avery Fisher Hall and the Metropolitan Opera, maybe she’d actually take advantage of everything New York had to offer. She could finally see her first opera. It was embarrassing that she’d never seen the one about the butterfly.

# # #

The reception was in full swing by the time she arrived. Through the gaggle of attractive gay boys doing an ironic nod to the Electric Slide, Evie spotted her friends seated together in a booth at the back of the room. She reached them just as they were toasting. The brilliance of their ring fingers, each boasting a sparkling engagement ring, beamed at her like flashlights. The weight of what rested on their hands, perhaps a combined total of eight carats (most of which came from just
one
of those stones), told the world that her best friends were spoken for—loved—part of a team. Evie wondered if her own naked hand, adorned only with nail polish chipped from rampant typing, signaled the opposite.

“Evie, finally!” Stasia shouted over the music. “You are so late. I told Paul your taxi hit one of those food delivery guys on
bikes. So just go with that. Anyway, let’s get you a drink.” She motioned to her husband, Rick, to go to the bar.

“Evie, you look great,” Rick said, giving her a warm hug. “What can I get for you?”

“I’d love a white wine.”

“Actually, I’ll help get refills for everyone,” Stasia said and popped up from the banquette to follow her husband, moving through the crowd with the elasticity of a Slinky. Evie admired the back of the conservative white shift that her friend wore so effortlessly it managed to look sexy. Evie had almost chosen a white dress but decided against it, thinking it was inappropriate for a wedding. Now she felt like a fool, realizing that rule only applied if a bride was present. Her friends returned a few minutes later with beverages for all.

This was hardly the first time Evie had compared herself to the manor-born Stasia. She hailed from San Francisco, where she was raised in a double-wide town house by her father, a successful venture capitalist turned congressman, and her mother, a pencil-thin blonde who could trace her roots to the
Mayflower
and acted, with Locust Valley lockjaw intonation and a general haughtiness, like that was the only respectable means of arriving in the United States. Evie’s family was more Ellis Island. Stasia reached New Haven as a freshman sans her mother’s attitude, but with pedigree to spare. (She was fluent in boating vernacular; Evie knew one word—seasick.) Stasia would be so easy to hate if she didn’t possess a remarkable amount of patience for Evie’s occasional bouts of neurotic behavior.

“How are you feeling?” Evie asked, turning to face Tracy, who was digging her hands into a bowl filled with monogrammed M&Ms.

“Fat,” Tracy responded, the word spewing from her mouth.
“I’m just pregnant enough to look chubby and not far enough along to make it clear there’s a baby inside. And don’t try to bullshit me and tell me I’m glowing.”

“You look beautiful, honey,” Tracy’s husband, Jake, interjected, resting his hand on his wife’s belly. Today, Jake’s tenderness didn’t make Evie swell with envy like Rick’s often did. Burdened by the Calico closing and still smarting from the call with Bette, it was making her skin crawl.

“You look great, Trace. And you’re having a baby. It’s worth it,” Evie said in what she hoped was a reassuring tone, though she always felt like a fraud when she tried to talk to her friends about marriage and babies. After all, she was basing her comments on nothing but guesswork.

“You’re going to have to tell me what it’s like—motherhood, that is. I think we’re getting ready to try,” Stasia said, leaning in closely so that Rick and the other men couldn’t hear. It wasn’t surprising to Evie, really, that Rick and Stasia were planning to start a family. But for some reason, it stung, even though it shouldn’t have.

“That’s great news! I’ll be happy to pass down any and all information,” Tracy said excitedly. “Oh, and guess what? Jake put the crib together today. I know it’s early, but he finally got a break from work, so we figured why not?”

Evie resisted asking where said crib was going. In Jake and Tracy Loo’s Hell’s Kitchen studio apartment, the only plausible space to accommodate their new baby was the entry closet. Jake’s latest professional venture—producing children’s music about the environment—was not exactly lucrative. Evie worried it was only a matter of time before they were suburbia-bound. Tracy had an edge to her that Evie’s other friends didn’t have and was especially prone to eye rolling whenever Stasia discussed her father’s political office or Caroline, the fourth in their quartet, mentioned
an extravagant purchase. If she left the city, maybe to go back to Pittsburgh where Jake was raised, Evie would miss her dearly. Tracy swore she’d never go to Pitt. “You know Asian mothers—she’d welcome Jake back in the womb if he’d fit.”

“Trace, you’ll lose all the weight within three months after having the baby,” Caroline said. “You just need to see my trainer. She’s a miracle worker.” She flexed her muscles, drawing out surprisingly ample biceps from inside spaghetti-thin arms.

“You’ll have to give me her number then,” Tracy said, and then muttered under her breath to Evie, “I think the tummy tucks in the recovery room were the real miracle.”

“Shh.” Evie nudged Tracy. “We don’t know that.”

It was true Tracy had put on some baby weight, but the hormones had managed to add some color to her ivory complexion and sheen to her reddish locks. Caroline was now a better version of her college self—Pilates-toned, airbrush-tanned, and designer-clad. And Stasia was just riding a continuous trajectory of genetic supremacy since birth: oval face, turquoise eyes, wheat-blond hair, and a sweet cleft in her chin. They were all well preserved from college, if not improved upon. Certainly their fashion choices were more sound.

Looking at her friends tonight, Evie was struck again by how cohesive their group had remained. True, it helped that they’d all chosen to settle in New York City (Stasia after medical school out west; Tracy after a two-year stint with Teach for America in New Orleans), but geography couldn’t be the only reason they’d all stayed close. In a bustling city where work could often threaten to swallow her up whole, Evie cherished that she had her girls to count on.

But why they had all managed to find their
b’sherts,
as Bette would say, and she remained the seventh wheel, baffled Evie. Lifting the cool wine to her lips, she thought maybe just for the night
she could find a suitable answer to that puzzle at the bottom of her Chardonnay glass.

“So, Evie, you’ve been with us for an entire five minutes without checking your BlackBerry,” Tracy said with mock admiration. “Did your office burn down?”

“Unfortunately not. The Baker Smith fortress remains,” Evie said. What would her friends say if they knew her phone was wedged in her underwear at this very moment?