The Book of Jonah (29 page)

“I didn't,” Jonah insisted, actually offended by this—and for no good reason, he recognized, because this had been exactly what he'd planned to do.

“Like I said, we more or less believe you,” Scott Baker replied. “But sign that and we'll feel a lot better. And then the other document is a fairly standard severance: three months paid, never darken our doorway again, and so forth. From our end we'd be much happier to give you nothing, but you know how this works: It's all a little neater if it looks mutual. Juries do the damnedest things.”

“I'm not going to sue,” he muttered.

“We don't think you will, either, but it's signatures that help us sleep at night,” he replied. “Also, Jonah, this is one of those offers where we expect you to accept right now. Otherwise, well, let's just say this has gone to some of the very highest people in the firm, and those are always the last people you want jumping on you with both feet.”

Jonah noticed Doug Chen had stopped typing—was staring at him, his face passionless, inscrutable as ever. Jonah knew he ought to at least read the two documents. But he also knew that his best chance of getting out of the room without being the subject of a lawsuit he could neither win nor afford would be to sign these papers as fast as fucking possible. He took out a pen he found in his pocket—realized it was the uni-ball Vision (Micro) from Corcoran—allowed no further consideration, and signed the BBEC document. He flipped to the last page of the severance—couldn't stop himself from stopping. His eyes had again fallen on the blankness above the line on which he was supposed to write.

“If I sign this, I'll never work in a New York firm again, will I?”

“Nope!” said Scott Baker cheerily, and somehow without malice. “And I wouldn't get your hopes up for L.A. or Chicago, either.”

He lifted his hand, but it was trembling. This was it: his career, every one of 17,500 hours—of his life!—all his plans. “I can't do it,” he said.

“You really should,” Scott Baker responded.

He looked at the stark black line, the tip of the pen shaking weakly over it. He imagined this was the same difficulty he would have had if he'd been asked to sever one of his limbs with these pen strokes. “Can we…”

“Afraid not,” Scott Baker answered. “You sent the email.”

Again he made a motion to sign, but his hand was trembling embarrassingly. He tried to steady it with his other hand. This didn't help. He finally put the pen down and rested it on top of the paper. He saw that Doug Chen was still watching him.

“Bear in mind, the firm made a significant investment in you,” Doug Chen said, with all his usual emptiness of intonation. “Perhaps, while recognizing your promise, we paid insufficient attention to other of your qualities.” Jonah could only stare back uncomprehendingly.

“I think the idea is, we're sorry this happened, too,” Scott Baker said. “After all,” he continued, making a circle in the air with his finger, suggesting the outline of Jonah's face, “we had you sized up for partner.”

“Regardless, at this point it is in your best interest to sign,” Doug Chen told him. “It is in all of our best interests.”

Jonah knew he was right, and—in what he realized would likely be the last demonstration of his “promise” as an attorney who might one day ascend to partnership in an elite New York law firm—he understood the argument that was being made: He owed it to them. He took a deep breath—he chopped off his leg at the knee. He handed Scott Baker the documents and started to cry. The tears were so pure in their sadness, in their remorse: For the second time that day he felt like a child—now one crouching in the living room beside a broken lamp. To the humiliation of this was added the pain he felt in his nose with every sob. When he'd pulled himself together enough to look up, Doug Chen was typing again; Scott Baker had hopped back up on the sill, was swinging his legs. “Don't worry,” Scott Baker said. “We won't tell anyone. But out of curiosity. Were you going to try to sell the documents to the
Journal
? They don't really pay for that sort of thing, not enough to make it worth it, anyway. Or was it you imagined yourself testifying before Congress and going on
60 Minutes
? Some guys do get that when they're your age. They have to prove how much smarter they are than the rest of us.”

“I just … I was trying to do the right thing.”

“Conscience!?” Scott Baker cried, in parodic shock. “Didn't you have that removed in law school?” He glanced at Doug Chen, but he continued typing. Scott Baker looked almost disappointed that Doug Chen hadn't laughed. “In any event, Jonah,” he went on, “there's only one more thing. You know the scene in the movie where the cop has to turn in his badge and gun?”

“Yeah,” Jonah said, not getting it. Then he got it. Scott Baker nodded in confirmation. Jonah reached into his pocket and opened his wallet, took out his firm credit card and his building ID, put them on the spotless surface of Doug Chen's desk.

“There's nothing hinky on the card, right?” Scott Baker asked.

“No. I mean, no, my assistant does my receipts…”

“No one's accusing you, just curious. We'll check anyway.” There was a pause. “And the phone,” Scott Baker said. Jonah reached into his pocket and placed the iPhone on the desk—hesitated a moment, then removed his hand.

“So that's it!” Scott Baker said. “Now if you'll permit me a personal suggestion. What with the broken nose and the attempted illegal dissemination of documents and the getting fired, you seem like a man who could use a vacation. So take the three months, get out of Dodge, drink a few mai tais, and try to adjust yourself to the way things are, rather than how you'd like them to be. And when you have your head screwed on straight again, maybe take another run at a less ambitious law career. The feds are always hiring.”

Jonah was still looking at his phone. It was as if the amputation he'd imagined earlier had been made literal, and he was left to stare forlornly at the abandoned limb. “I'm really sorry,” Jonah said. “I'm really sorry.” And he had to fight off another bout of tears.

“Well,” Scott Baker said, “remember that the next time someone tells you to do the right thing.” Then he laughed, and maybe even Doug Chen's mouth moved a half inch.

*   *   *

When Jonah returned to his office, Dolores was still not there. He supposed this was for the best; he figured she was the one who'd called Scott Baker or whomever when he came in, and he couldn't help but see this as a kind of betrayal. But of course, she had only been doing her job—and what had they been to one another, really, besides two people doing their job in the same place, who had never liked each other very much?

Someone had placed on his desk a single Post-it note. On it, in handwriting he didn't recognize, was written, “People are waiting for you at reception.” This, he supposed, would be security. They might have spared themselves the trouble. After all, they'd already cleaned out his office; they already had his signature on the documents of castration, assigning to them anything of his career at Cunningham Wolf they could make assignable. Did they really think, after he'd signed that, he had it in him to make some sort of scene?

He went through his desk, didn't find anything worth salvaging, didn't see what good ostensibly lucky Knicks ticket stubs, an extra mouse pad, would be to him now. He glanced for a moment at his framed diploma (Columbia, '05)—decided it would be too pathetic to walk out with it under his arm. As he was about to leave, he noticed he had a new message on the phone on his desk, from Sylvia's work number. With an eagerness and hope he would find embarrassing later, he grabbed the phone and checked the message: “Hello, this is Linda in Ms. Quinn's office. Ms. Quinn asked me to make arrangements to pick up her personal effects from you. If you could call me back with a time that would be convenient, I'll send over—” He hung up. She'd had her assistant call. It was, undeniably, very Sylvia. From her, there would be no tearful voice messages, no late-night confessions of remorse or regret. Whatever tears or regrets there were, she would be, for better and worse, too prideful, too strong—too smart—to share them with him. And he suddenly had a powerful urge to call her, to tell her—that she was the strongest person he had ever met.

He got as far as lifting up the phone again before realizing this would be pointless. He would never get past her voice mail, would never get further than Linda. What would she care now, anyway, how strong he thought she was?

He tried not to meet anyone's eyes as he walked down the hallway to the elevators. He supposed everyone knew at this point, and he couldn't face whatever reactions to him they had, or had settled on: He didn't want to see embarrassment for his sake, he didn't want to see insincere sympathy, he didn't want to see barely disguised satisfaction that there was one less comer, one less rival to deal with. He didn't want to see them all naked again.

He came down the hall and pulled open the glass door to the reception area, wondering how the security guards might handle him (rudely? deferentially? He'd never been escorted out of anywhere by anyone before), and then saw that it was not security guards waiting for him but rather his cousin Becky, in an oversize sweatshirt with the hood up, her eyes covered with large black sunglasses; her fiancé, Danny, dressed in a neat black suit, his hands on his hips, as though to project Jonah doubted even Danny knew what; and Becky's roommate, Aimee, who had an arm around Becky and glared disdainfully at Jonah as he appeared. It was such a strange tableau that at first he had no clue what to say. The woman sitting at reception was taking curious, surreptitious glances at the group, at Jonah, apparently trying to figure out how all these people fit together.

But after his initial bewilderment, Jonah understood very well what they had come for—and rather than begin this conversation just yet, he turned to the receptionist and said, “Angelica, right?” She was a round-eyed, Hispanic young woman with black straight hair, dressed in a pink blouse. She nodded at his question with confusion, clearly surprised that, of all those gathered here, she was the one he had chosen to speak to. “Sorry about not putting in for your birthday.”

“That's okay,” she said quickly. She was now giving him a look that suggested she thought he might be deranged. He wondered what Dolores had told her—then he remembered about the bandage on his face.

He turned to the others. “So I understand congratulations are in order!” It was, he realized immediately, a heartless joke, and if he hadn't realized it, the looks on their faces (despondent, disgusted, wrathful, respectively) would have told him so. But it seemed to him that at best the situation was farcical, though evidently no one else was prepared to see it that way—and he couldn't blame them.

“Is that what this is to you? This is all a big joke to you?” Aimee started. “Don't you realize there are people's feelings—and I mean, like, this is your family? I mean, seriously? There are people like that in the world? Seriously? Wow. Y'know? Wow.”

“Jonah,” Danny began, in a voice that was stern but suggested he was prepared to be reasonable—Jonah would have found this impossible to take seriously even if Danny's hands had not remained steadfastly on his hips. “Maybe you had a good reason for telling the
lie you told,
” he said. “And maybe you didn't have a good reason for
lying
. But you need to realize how damaging your
lie
was.” If he was trying to communicate the line he expected Jonah to take, he was not being very subtle about being subtle.

“I mean, your cousin has been sobbing for hours,” Aimee said. “Does that even mean anything to you?” She still had her arm around Becky, who had her face, her covered eyes, toward the floor. Jonah had managed not to look closely at her until now. He noticed that she had on pajama pants. Seeing this, he suddenly understood how humiliating coming here like this must have been for her—how humiliating all of it must have been for her: getting the email, telling Aimee, talking to Danny. Obviously, as little as his attempts at goodness had done for him, they had done even less for his cousin. “Becky, can I talk to you alone for a minute?”

“I don't think that's a good idea,” said Danny.

“Really?” said Jonah, with open disgust. The tremendous remorse he felt had triggered commensurate contempt for Danny for his role in all of this.

“It looks like you've been injured,” Danny offered. “Maybe you have a
concussion
…?” he added helpfully.

“No, I don't have a concussion, my nose is broken.” He turned to Aimee. “Just give me five minutes.”

But evidently Aimee and Danny were coconspirators at this point—conspiring for the well-being of a girl who, Jonah could now readily believe from her ashen face and crumpled form, had indeed cut herself for a time—because Aimee immediately said, “No one wants to hear any more of your bullshit. I don't know if you're a sociopath or whatever, or you just have a really, really sick sense of humor, like, but all you get to do right now is admit that everything in that email was a lie.”

Jonah studied her face: cheeks flushed, eyes wrathful, determined. If it was an act, it was a good one. But no, he concluded, Danny had probably convinced her, too. Or rather, she hadn't needed convincing.It was simply that no one believed him.

“Look,” Danny said. “Maybe you were messed up on Friday night, or maybe there is something else going on with you, but you have to understand that doing things like what you did, out of the blue, whether you are joking or not, Jonah, that behavior is just really, really wrong.” He was actually meeting Jonah's eyes as he said this, and with a reasonable approximation of conviction, too. Jonah might have been impressed if he was not so appalled. “All we want—the only reason we're here,” he continued, “is for you to admit what you wrote in that email is not true, so Becky can hear it for herself, and we can put all of this behind us.”