The Partner Track: A Novel (15 page)

So one morning soon after arriving at the firm, I’d looked up Ellen Chu Sanderson in the firm’s online directory and mustered up the courage to stop by her office. I walked past the unfamiliar names on the brass nameplates—I hadn’t been up to the thirty-third floor yet, nor had I met many lawyers from the IP group—and paused in front of the one that read
ELLEN CHU SANDERSON.
The door was partially closed, and I could hear her on the phone inside. I hesitated.

“Help you with something, sweetie?” asked Ellen Chu Sanderson’s secretary, a young, pretty, heavily eyeshadowed woman sitting behind the counter across from me.

“Oh!” I whirled around. “I’m a new associate here, and I just wanted to say hello to Ellen.” Then I thought that might sound weird, so I said by way of explanation, “We—we both played tennis on the same college team.”

She smiled. “Well, I’m sure Ellen’d love to meet you.” She winked and lowered her voice. “Ellen’s a real sweetie. I lucked out, you know? You should have seen the guy they gave me when I first got here.”

I smiled and nodded. “Yeah.” And I welled up with pride that my future mentor was someone whom secretaries spoke kindly about.

“Oh, looks like she’s off the phone,” said Ellen’s secretary. “Quick. Better catch her before she gets on another call. Just knock and go on in.”

“Even though she has her door closed?”

“Oh yeah, she just does that when she’s having her breakfast or lunch in there.” Again she lowered her voice and whispered. “She doesn’t like it when people see her eat,” she informed me.

“Oh,” I said, stepping up to the door and giving it a firm knock.

“Come in,” said a sweet voice, lilting and warm.

I opened the door and walked into Ellen Chu Sanderson’s office. She looked younger than she did in her photo. She wore her hair in a short shiny bob and had cat’s-eye glasses and very white teeth.

She blinked up at me, and I swear her smile disappeared in about a split second.

“Can I help you?” she asked. Her tone wasn’t unfriendly (not quite), but it wasn’t welcoming, either. Undaunted, sort of, I put on my best interview smile and walked forward to her desk. “Hi,” I said brightly. “I’m Ingrid Yung.”

She remained where she was. “Ohh-kay. And I’m supposed to know you
how
?”

She might as well have slapped me. I wanted to turn and run, but I stood my ground. “Uh, you don’t know me, actually,” I heard myself say. “I’m a new associate in Corporate, and I just wanted to come and introduce myself. I understand you also played Yale Tennis when you were there.”

“And how would you know that?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

I suddenly felt incredibly stupid. This had been a very poor idea. How could I have been so presumptuous? Ellen Chu Sanderson had more important things to do than adopt some first-year as the little sister she’d never had.

“Oh, I, uh—”

“Listen,” she said with a fake half-smile. “I’m swamped. Now’s really not a good time.”

I looked at the half-eaten English muffin and the copy of
The Wall Street Journal
open on her desk.

“Okay. I—I’m sorry,” I said, backing out of her office.

“It was good of you to stop by,” she said, closing the door in my face.

That was the first and last time I ever spoke to Ellen Chu Sanderson. For years afterward, whenever we spotted each other at firm cocktail parties, we’d duck our heads and avoid each other. She seemed as reluctant to cross paths with me as I was to run into her. Maybe she figured there was only room for one Asian American, female, Yale Tennis alumna at the firm, and that was just fine with her. She left Parsons Valentine last year after being appointed to a high-ranking counsel position at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. I suspect we were both relieved.

Dr. Rossi was looking at me gravely. “And how does it make you feel, Ingrid, to know that it isn’t as easy for women to find willing mentors as it is for men?”

I flinched. Dr. Rossi was making my head hurt. I had neither the time nor the desire to help him perform his dramatic overhaul of the gender and race hierarchy in corporate America. If he thought he’d found his little Norma Rae, he was sorely mistaken.

“Sorry,” I said. I’d had enough. “I have a conference call in five minutes. Can we continue this conversation another time?”

He looked thoughtfully at me. “I look forward to it.”

EIGHT

“Come on, Yung, hurry it up.” Hunter poked his head inside my office. “Murph and the rest of the guys are all waiting downstairs. If we don’t show by seven fifteen, we forfeit the game!”

“I don’t know how you talked me into this,” I said from the other side of my office door. “Lawyers League softball isn’t exactly how I planned to spend my night.”

Hunter was wearing a blue and white Parsons Valentine baseball cap with the brim pulled down low. His left shoulder was weighted down with a huge duffel bag bearing the firm logo, and in his arms he carried three bats plus a catcher’s mitt. He lumbered around to the other side of my door, knocking over my neat piles of Lexis printouts, SEC filings, and Redwelds as he went.

“Hey, hey, hey. Careful with the wide load there.” I transferred sneakers, clean socks, and yoga pants from my cedar wardrobe into my gym bag. “Uh-oh. I don’t have a clean T-shirt.”

Hunter shook his head. “Nice try. But everyone has to wear the team jersey.” He jerked his chin toward the duffel. “We have tons. I’ll give you one when we get there. Let’s just
go.
”

“All right, all right, just give me a second to change. I’ll meet you guys down in the lobby.”

“Make it fast.” Hunter looked at his watch. “I really hate forfeiting to that Davis Polk guy, competitive prick.”

Hi, pot, meet kettle.

Hunter was absurdly competitive about Lawyers League softball. For someone who’d married into this job, knew no law, and regularly padded his hours, he played strictly by the book when it came to softball. The official rules of the Central Park Lawyers League required each law firm to field a team of at least eight players, of which at least one must be a woman. Otherwise, you had to forfeit. That morning, Hunter had panicked after finding out that Melissa McCabe from Trusts and Estates, the only woman on the team, was being sent to Boston to deal with a client emergency and wouldn’t be able to play. That had inspired his ridiculous e-mail plea.

TO: PARSONS_NY_OFFICE_ALL_ATTYS

FROM: Russell, Hunter F.

SUBJECT: DESPERATELY SEEKING FEMALE …

… TO PLAY IN TONIGHT’S SOFTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH VS. DAVIS POLK, THAT IS. CENTRAL PARK, EAST MEADOW, 7:00 PM SHARP!!!!!! IF INTERESTED, CONTACT HUNTER RUSSELL, x3146, ASAP!!!! FREE JERSEY!!!!!!!

I’d laughed out loud and said, “Yeah, right, good luck with that,” before hitting
DELETE.

Three hours later, Hunter showed up at my office.

“
Please.
I’m
begging
here.
”
Hunter—in his custom-tailored Paul Smith suit—dropped to the floor in the doorway of my office and, hands clasped as if in prayer, shuffled toward me on his knees. “Seriously, Yung, I can’t find
any
other female associate to play tonight. It’s the
championship
game! If we can’t field a regulation team we automatically forfeit! Please, Yung.
Please.
” He shuffled over to my swivel chair and clung to my leg.

“Hunter,” I said, looking down at him calmly.

He blinked up at me from the floor.

“Have some dignity, Hunter. You’re embarrassing us both.”

“
Please,
Yung!” he wailed.

“I’m not much of an athlete these days.”

He released his grip on my leg but remained on his knees. “Come on. You played women’s soccer in college, right? And tennis?”

I wondered how Hunter knew all this. “Those aren’t the same,” I said. “I don’t know the first thing about baseball.”

“Softball, Ingrid.
Softball.
And we don’t even use a regulation ball! Lawyers League uses a ball that’s even softer than regulation. It’s really easy to hit.” Hunter flashed me a hopeful smile.

I pretended to tap thoughtfully at my chin. “Okay, hmm, let’s see. How do you think this would look to the partners—I’m supposed to be running this billion-dollar megadeal for Adler’s client, yet I’m leaving the office at six forty-five to go play softball in Central Park?”

Hunter smiled smugly. “Actually,” he said, “Adler usually shows up to watch all our games. And Tim Hollister’s playing tonight.”

I frowned. “I didn’t know any of those guys came to your games.”

“Yeah, they do,” Hunter continued proudly. “We all go out for beers afterward at Paddy Maguire’s, and Adler picks up the tab at the end of the night. It’s great. You should totally come. Murph started up this tradition a while ago.”

“Huh.” Murph had never mentioned anything to me about going drinking with the partners. I thought about how Marty Adler had cornered me at the elevators about the Diversity Initiative, the impatient, vaguely hostile way he’d said,
I don’t have to tell you how much we value an associate’s nonlegal contributions to the firm.
I wondered if Murph organizing private little drinking outings with the senior partners counted as his
nonlegal
contribution.

“Come on, Yung. Be my hero.”

I looked at Hunter, still groveling on the floor beside my desk. Something about the way he’d said “hero” appealed to me—especially if Marty Adler was going to be there to see it.
You want nonlegal contributions? I’ll show you nonlegal contributions.

“All right, all right. I’m in. Jesus. I can’t stand to see a grown man beg.”

Hunter sprang out of the car as soon as we got to the Central Park playing fields. He bolted up the path, bag full of jerseys, three bats, and mitt in tow. Murph and I followed behind.

The Davis Polk team had already arrived. Their team captain was waiting by the bleachers, arms crossed over his chest, hands tucked into his armpits. “Nice of you guys to show,” he called over to us.

“Asshole,” Murph said under his breath. The rest of our team had also just arrived and were standing around stretching and doing warm-ups. Tim Hollister was indeed among them, and he smiled and waved when he saw me. I waved back. Tim had shed his glasses for the game; tonight he was looking a little less Clark Kent and more Superman. The other player I recognized right away was Link Forster—Mr. January from the firm outing. The team was rounded out by three first-year guys from Litigation whose names I didn’t know, who all had that arrogant, freshly shaven, self-congratulatory look about them, belonging singularly to young graduates dazzled to find themselves twenty-five years old, living in Manhattan, and suddenly making six figures a year.

I was surprised by the number of people who’d showed up to cheer us on. The crowd from Parsons Valentine was mostly nonlegal staff—even Margo said she’d attended one or two of the games—but I also recognized quite a few associates, and not just first-years, either. I spotted Tyler among a group of assorted Corporate associates. He was waving both arms over his head so I’d see him.
Bless you, Tyler.
I’d convinced him to come tonight for moral support. It was probably the first and only time Tyler Robinson would ever attend a firm softball game. I was touched.

I waved enthusiastically back at him, widening my eyes and giving him a sheepish
what did I get myself into
shrug. He smirked back at me.
No idea how you got talked into this, darling.

I scanned the rest of the crowd; no Marty Adler.

Now Murph was walking over to me with the bag full of jerseys. “All right, so you’re supposed to put this on,” he said, reaching in and tossing one to me.

I held up the white heavyweight cotton jersey with three-quarter-length navy blue sleeves. The firm logo was discreetly embossed in the upper left corner, like an alligator or a polo pony, and across the chest it read, in blue script slanting slightly upward,
THE PROSECUTORS
. It wasn’t the most creative name, but it was better than their original choice: the Well-Hung Jury. Fortunately, the firm’s Management Committee had intervened.

Legal humor was so lame. Back in law school, when I’d go out to dinner with a bunch of classmates, somebody would invariably say something like “Guess I’ll have the chocolate
torte,
” and everyone would crack up. It was painful.

I held the jersey up to my chest. On me, it was a dress. I checked the tag. “Murph, this is a size L. Isn’t there anything smaller?”

“Oh.” He looked taken aback. “Even smaller than
that
? Uh, yeah, let me look.” He pawed through the bag and finally came up with another jersey. “No smalls, but here’s the last medium,” he said, tossing it at me.

I pulled the jersey on over my camisole, and still I was swimming in it.

I went to a lot of firm outings and client retreats, and for some reason, no law firm, investment bank, or corporation ever ordered its company T-shirts in enough size smalls.

Hunter and the Davis Polk captain were busily conferring over by the stands, their heads bent over two clipboards. Then Hunter turned and pointed in my direction. The Davis Polk captain looked my way, nodded briefly at Hunter, and crossed something out on his clipboard.

After a few minutes Hunter jogged back over to us. “Okay, so here’s the deal,” he said. Tim Hollister, Link Forster, and the three first-year Litigation guys came over, and together we all huddled around Hunter’s clipboard. Link lifted his chin at me and said, “Hey, thanks for filling in for Melissa.” Man, he
was
adorable.

The three first-years looked me up and down but said nothing.

“Okay, guys, this is the lineup,” said Hunter. “Forster, you’re up first.” Everyone nodded quickly, unsurprised, and I looked over at Link’s athletic frame and realized he must be considered something of a powerhouse, at least for Lawyers League.

Hunter proceeded to rattle off six more names. Finally, he said, “Uh, so that means—Yung, you’re up last.”