Chapter 3.

Naturally Marianne was at her station for the first time in recent history when Evie got back to her desk. She hung up the phone and appeared at Evie's side in an instant, fake-comforting her. Marianne and Evie never liked each other. Marianne resented working for a girl half her age, and clearly thought Evie was an idiot every time she asked for help with the copy machine. Evie was confident being a good lawyer didn't require a Ph.D. in toner replacement. She also wanted to tell Marianne to stop talking to her neighbors on Staten Island for three hours a day about whether her husband, Mickey Jr., was cheating on her and prepare Evie's expense reports instead. It was a strained relationship, to say the least. Which made Marianne's faux concern that much worse.

"Poor thing. Did they fire you? I heard about that from Jamila in payroll. Let me get you a tissue to wipe your eye makeup. No sense in you leaving here with everyone remembering you looking like h.e.l.l."

That was the act of kindness that Marianne had decided to leave as Evie's lasting impression of her. At least Evie wouldn't have to see her anymore. It was a paper-thin silver lining.

Marianne was right to bring the tissues quickly, though. Baker Smith gave Evie four hours to vacate the building and turn in her ID pa.s.s. An e-mail waited for her with "departure instructions." Those motherf.u.c.kers in HR had simply been waiting to hit Send. Ten minutes later a burly man with MOM tattooed on his bicep dropped off twenty cardboard boxes. He was followed by a crusty woman from the Records Center who looked dangerously deficient in Vitamin D, thanks to her omnipresence in Baker Smith's bas.e.m.e.nt. She explained the methodical way that Evie was expected to label and package her old files. It was so typical of this place that she was expected to work until her last minute in the building. She was tempted to submit a recording of her remaining hours in the standard six-minute increments used for billing purposes: 2:022:08-cried while reading departure instructions; 2:082:14-glared at Marianne while she gossiped with the other secretaries about her boss getting canned; 2:142:20-cradled BlackBerry in her palm wondering how it was possible she had sent that many e-mails over the last eight years; 2:202:26-extended trip to bathroom to compose herself and plot impractical revenge on Baker Smith.

Evie's cabinets were overflowing with nearly a decade's worth of mergers, spin-offs, stock purchases, and leveraged buyouts. She briefly debated intentionally mixing up all of her papers and mislabeling the boxes but realized it would just create more work for her and n.o.body would even notice. When she was done, she made her way over to say good-bye to the few good friends she'd made over her tenure. She hugged Annie in front of the frozen yogurt machine in the cafeteria, their favorite spot to meet up during the workday. Annie made Evie swear to call her after the blind date with Mike Jones that she had orchestrated a while back. Since Evie had basically written off Luke Gla.s.sc.o.c.k, she knew she had no legitimate reason to put off meeting Mike. She was glad that Annie didn't probe her on the firing. Evie hoped the story would never come out-the partnership committee wouldn't want the whole episode to be public because it would look bad to clients, and she certainly didn't plan to divulge it when she'd soon be pounding the pavement looking for a job.

After finishing her last vanilla-chocolate swirl compliments of Baker Smith, Evie visited Julia, her workplace next-door neighbor for the past two years, a friendly a.s.sociate in the white-collar crime division who was fond of bringing in homemade cookies. She couldn't help notice that Hotmail was open on her friend's screen. Why was she not getting axed too?

Last she found Pierce, a sa.s.sy administrative a.s.sistant with whom Evie had built up a lively rapport based on making snide comments about other lawyers. They dished one last time about Harry, the grabby tax a.s.sociate with the lazy eye, and promised to stay in touch. There were others. Lawyers who'd listen to her grumble about her breakup with Jack at "Fat Al's," the dive bar across the street that regularly played host to Midtown's overworked and h.o.r.n.y professionals. Ladies in the printing room who listened to her complain while they expertly formatted her doc.u.ments. The dorky crew in IT who had saved her b.u.t.t countless times. She had genuine fondness for these people but was realistic about keeping in touch with them. She'd been on the other side for too long-taking down people's personal e-mails before they left the firm with empty promises to meet for coffee. Only Annie would be different. They were friends since the summer internship program at Baker Smith, had the same know-it-all partners belittle them, ate lunch together at least once a week, even shared Marianne as an a.s.sistant for a while.

Evie's last stop on her departure journey was Mitch.e.l.l Rhodes's office. She knew of all the partners he would be the most sympathetic, and the most likely to offer her a letter of recommendation. His door was slightly ajar when Evie approached and she could see through the crack that he was on the phone.

"Stop yelling at me. I'm at work. Stop yelling. I said stop yelling." She could hear Mitch.e.l.l barking quietly like a muzzled dog. "Loreen-I work sixteen hours a day. How the h.e.l.l was I supposed to notice she developed a drug problem? You're the one who's home all day doing G.o.d knows what. How about knocking on her door once in a while instead of another trip to Bloomingdale's?"

Mitch.e.l.l's tone was frosty. He was the kindest partner she knew at the firm, but now she was scared to even knock. He went on, enraged.

"No, I don't know what Twitter is. She tweeted that she was high? Loreen, you're not speaking English." He broke off momentarily. "No, I can't come home to talk to her. I have a client conference call in an hour, then a closing dinner, and then I have to come back to the office to speak to some partners in the Tokyo office. Someone has to pay for all of her drugs, right?"

Evie, still in turmoil, couldn't control the laugh that escaped her. She didn't know the always genteel Mitch.e.l.l Rhodes, king of the corner office and rainmaker extraordinaire, had it in him.

"Sorry, no, that wasn't meant to be a joke," Mitch.e.l.l pleaded. "I'll try my best to get home before eleven. And I promise we'll deal with this in the morning."

He hung up the phone. No love you, no miss you. Just a promise to deal with family drama, and then a click. No wonder Mitch.e.l.l had been so pleased to receive her x's and o's e-mail. From the sounds of his phone conversation, he wasn't getting too many hugs and kisses at home.

"Evie, you all right?" Mitch.e.l.l asked, after spotting her lurking in his doorway. "Why don't you come in?"

She sank into the same armchair she sat in just last week, taking orders from Mitch.e.l.l on how to revise an offering memorandum. Only this time she was slumped over instead of upright and perky with pen and paper in hand. She looked around for family photos, hoping for a glimpse of his wayward daughter. None could be found.

"Evie, I know you were surprised by how things went at the meeting. We all feel terrible. You are an excellent a.s.sociate. Frankly, we're all surprised how you managed to perform at all given how much time you spent on personal matters. It's actually rather impressive."

"So give me another chance. At my last review, I was led to believe I was on partnership track. My clients are going to be upset that I'm gone. Can't I just have a warning? I a.s.sure you I will not make the same mistake again."

Even as she said it, she wondered if it was true that she could control her urges for distraction during the day.

"Besides, I remember when the server was slow. That was at least six months ago. How long have you known about this? Why wait to get rid of me?" Evie remembered precisely when the Internet was moving at a glacial pace. It was just at the time of her breakup with Jack, and they were exchanging those last awkward e-mails-coordinating picking things up from each other's apartments and debating whether it was practical to remain friends (it wasn't).

"Well, Evie, it took some time for us to investigate the server problems, and then you got so entrenched running the Calico-Anson merger. It wasn't the right time. You're such a good a.s.sociate-we just didn't want to part with you any earlier than necessary."

This was like Tracy telling her that she was too good for Luke. If everyone loved her so d.a.m.n much, why the h.e.l.l were they putting her out to pasture?

"I do have some good news for you though. The compensation committee has agreed to a six-month severance package for you. Three months is standard but we are extending it in light of your service to the firm."

That was a relief. In her state of shock, she hadn't yet given thought to how she'd manage without her monthly paycheck.

"Thank you," Evie responded awkwardly.

"The truth is, I was holding out hope you would announce you were leaving and this wouldn't have had to happen." He paused and looked at her squarely. "A lot of female a.s.sociates around your age tend to leave at this point. Even younger."

So you were counting on losing me to attrition by marriage and kids, Evie thought bitterly. Sorry to disappoint.

"Obviously, that didn't happen," Mitch.e.l.l went on. "And in this case, well we don't really have a choice about giving you a second chance. You know, with the website." His voice trailed off.

"In this case what? What happened?"

Mitch.e.l.l rotated his computer screen toward Evie. "Oh-I guess you haven't seen this yet. They posted the article a few minutes before we met with you."

Evie rose from her seat and looked at the familiar homepage of BigLawSux, the wildly popular legal blog where disgruntled attorneys came to gripe and gossip about their jobs. It was started by two former attorneys and had a ma.s.sive following. The headline read: BAKER SMITH DUMPS E-MAILADDICTED a.s.sOCIATE-EIGHTH-YEAR EVIE ROSEN SAID TO HAVE CAUSED SERVER BREAKDOWN. To the right of the text was the picture of her from the firm's directory-that d.a.m.n photo she couldn't escape, with the greasy hair and the day-old makeup.

Evie knew then, for certain, what it would feel like to have a boxer land an uppercut to her cheek. She struggled to keep her knees from buckling.

"Evie," Mitch.e.l.l said, biting his lower lip and looking toward the corner of the room before refocusing his gaze on her. "I'm afraid with this kind of publicity there's nothing we can do. I know it all seems rather Draconian, and for that I'm sorry. I just wish for your sake the comments hadn't gotten so nasty."

Evie leaned in closer to see the smaller font beneath the headline, which was only one paragraph long. The article stated pretty much what she'd been told at the partners meeting and cited the source as an unnamed a.s.sociate "close" to someone on the management committee. What the h.e.l.l did "close" mean? Sleeping together? That a.s.sociate should get fired, not her! The comments below, three times as long as the article, sent her gasping for air.

The first comment, the one that set off the maelstrom, read: "I'm not surprised Evie Rosen didn't make partner. Every time I walked into her office she was playing online Scrabble or shopping on OneKingsLane. I heard she padded her billable hours too." It was signed by the rather unheroic "Anonymous."

"That's not true," Evie exclaimed, searching Mitch.e.l.l's face for signs that he believed her.

"Evie, maybe you've read enough," he said and gently patted her arm, almost like he was guiding her away from the screen.

"No, I need to see this."

Next came: "Evie Rosen thought she was better than everyone. She p.a.w.ned off the tough work on the junior a.s.sociates but took all the credit." That vitriol came from a girl who identified herself as Legal Biznatch.

At least several a.s.sociates came to her defense. LoonyLawyer wrote, "Evie was always nice to me. She was a pleasure to work with and I'm sad to see her go." Other commentators added that she was smart and capable and that Baker Smith dumping eighth-year a.s.sociates was total BS. Then the conversation rerouted, thanks to Legal Eagle NYC's remark: "Whatever, at least she was a nice piece of a.s.s at the office. Now all we're left with are the dogs."

Then came the clincher. The one that hit her like a sucker punch.

"Evie Rosen's not even that hot. Polly Yang in Bankruptcy is way hotter." Signed, Juris Dokta.

She was incensed. The Scrabble comment had to come from that third-year a.s.sociate who was always making disgusting smacking noises with his yogurt. She never should have asked him not to eat in her office. And who the h.e.l.l was Polly Yang?

Evie cringed thinking about Jack seeing this. It wasn't that he frequented legal blogs-she knew that-but if he ever looked her up from time to time (and she liked to think he did) this might be the first thing to come up. Negative press always had a way of floating to the top, like oil in a dressing.

She sank back into the chair across from Mitch.e.l.l's desk, speechless. He looked at her with what appeared to be genuine empathy before speaking.

"I'm sorry, Evie. We really just had no choice. Our clients actually read these blogs. Our services are expensive, and they want to make sure they are getting their money's worth. Now more than ever we have to be careful about our image. I'm not even sure how this blog got ahold of our internal partnership memos. Evie-you are a wonderful lawyer. I don't know if this is really your pa.s.sion, but you are d.a.m.n good at it. If the economy wasn't in the gutter, maybe we could have overcome this little setback," he said, gesturing once again at the screen. "But with the market conditions as they are, we're basically looking for any reason to keep new partners to a minimum. I'm not sure if that helps you feel better, but in some ways this decision had more to do with us than you."

Evie actually laughed. Baker Smith was breaking up with her and giving her the oldest line in the book-it's not you, it's me. Pathetic.

"Thank you, Mitch.e.l.l. For the record, I have never once padded my hours. That was actually me, working all the time, for this place." She stood up abruptly, offered her hand to him, and turned to leave before he could reply. Her watch read 4:11. Less than an hour until she'd be booted out of the building. In a daze, she made her way back down to her office. Seated in the chair whose vinyl seat had taken the permanent imprint of her b.u.t.t, she instinctively tried to log into her computer but was denied access. The words INVALID USER burned holes in her retinas. She swiveled around to take one last look at the view from the thirty-ninth floor-the one that used to make her feel triumphant, but now was making her queasy. It was a long way down from here.

Per firm protocol, a uniformed security guard came upstairs to escort her out of the building at five o'clock.

"Ready, miss?" he asked, hulking in the doorway to her office.

"As I'll ever be," Evie said, and rose from her chair. She gathered the few personal effects she had on her desk (an immortal orchid; a framed picture of her, Fran, and Bette taken at Thanksgiving a few years ago; a picture of her clad in a bridesmaid dress with her girlfriends at Tracy's wedding; and an Ansel Adams black-and-white print hanging on the wall). She debated leaving the picture of her and Jack in the file cabinet, where it would languish eternally in Records. That was probably where it belonged, but she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up at the last minute and threw it in her tote bag.

The office she left looked more bare than usual, but then again she had never taken the time to properly decorate it since, like all a.s.sociates, she was bounced among the firm's smaller offices every time the new hires started. She had been expecting to move into a partner suite, where she would have had the benefit of the firm's generous decorating stipend. She had so many ideas for the larger s.p.a.ce. A b.u.t.tery-leather couch in a rich shade of camel would go along one wall, opposite two wooden armchairs fabricated in a deep pink silk. Three oatmeal-colored cashmere pillows with cable braids would sit equally s.p.a.ced and perfectly upright on the sofa, and she'd place a matching cashmere throw over the back of her desk chair. Her desk would be curvy and modern, unlike the heavy mahogany models that the male partners favored. And she would hang draperies. n.o.body ever remembered that detail. But she would have. Gauzy taupe curtains trimmed in suede, with gray satin tiebacks. What a waste of good ideas.

She flipped the light switch. It was symbolic really. Someone from maintenance would be by shortly to sterilize the place, scrubbing her keyboard with disinfectant so that not even a trace of her essence remained.

She was about to leave the BlackBerry on her mouse pad, per the departure instructions, but instead she wrapped the outdated relic in a few paper towels and dropped it in the trash can. Striding beside the guard down the hallway, she felt like she was doing a perp walk. Her ears popped as the elevator shuttled between the twenty-second and twenty-first floors, but when she stepped onto the busy sidewalk at 5:00 P.M. she couldn't hear a thing.

Stasia called Evie two times on the day of Evie's date with Mike Jones to make sure she didn't bail. It was an exceptionally humid and rainy day in July, the kind that no amount of hair-styling product or waterproof makeup could combat.

"Maybe this is what you need to distract you from what happened at work," Stasia said. "Mike sounds like he could be promising."

In the background Evie heard Rick say, "If she doesn't want to go, then she shouldn't go."

"I'll go, because I trust Annie," Evie said. After a more aggressive search online, including using LexisNexis with her not-yet-terminated Baker Smith pa.s.scode, she had finally turned up some information on her date. A black-and-white photo revealed he was a handsome graduate of the University of Pennsylvania undergraduate and dental school. None of that would she admit to Stasia.

"I'm proud of you for putting yourself out there," Stasia said. "It's so important."

Evie wondered what life experience Stasia was drawing from. In college, she dated the hunky quarterback of the football team for two straight years and then broke his heart when she traded him in for the equally hot lacrosse team captain, who also happened to be the son of a famous actress and the grandson of the Post-it note inventor. Her love life was a seamless flow of enviable relationships. She didn't understand how difficult it was to be "out there." Nevertheless, Evie knew Stasia was just trying to be helpful, so she didn't challenge her with a snarky comment.

Later that night, Evie met Mike at Cafe Lalo, a coffee bar near her apartment famous for its appearance in the movie You've Got Mail, a rainy day favorite of hers. The place was half-full and Evie surmised by the nervous postures and din of throaty laughs that many of the patrons were on first dates.

"Evie?" the man lurking next to the hostess asked.

"You must be Mike," she said. He looked younger in person than in the picture she found online, with faded freckles across his nose. His hair was the unlikely, but pleasing, combination of white and red. What did that make him-salt and paprika? Dressed in a stylish checked b.u.t.ton-down and slim trousers, he was a far cry from Dr. Hamburger, the aptly named orthodontist who forced a dreaded palate expander on her when she was eight and slapped on braces a few years later.

"It's so nice to meet you in person," Mike said, and gave her a light peck on the cheek. He smelled like musky aftershave and powdered latex gloves. "You look great." She thought she saw relief in his eyes. He probably saw it in hers too. The first interaction was over. No hairy moles. No extra fingers. No need for either of them to feign a heart attack.

"Thanks. I'm glad we could meet too," Evie said, and actually meant it. Stasia had been right to make her go.

The hostess seated them at a corner table, but it only had one bench and they were forced to sit side by side. It reminded Evie of the way her parents would sit when they went for dinner at Hunan Garden every Sunday night, but it seemed so much more awkward to sit shoulder to shoulder with a stranger.

"So I had a crazy day today," Mike started, and Evie was grateful that he wasn't the quiet sort. "My practice is on the Upper East Side and my patients, well actually their parents, are a little high-strung. I had to beg a mother today to let me put braces on her son, but she refused because she thinks Avenue magazine is going to do a spread on her family."

"You're kidding?" she asked, with a casual hair flip. Avenue was one of those magazines given out for free in higher-end co-ops and condos-like the building that housed the one-bedroom apartment she'd wanted to scope after making partner. So much for that.

"Not at all," Mike said, taking a sip of his Irish coffee. "But that wasn't even the worst of it. I did oral surgery on a sixteen-year-old girl today and when I gave her a prescription for Percocet she just laughed and said she had plenty at home."

Evie relaxed as she swigged her drink. Mike was growing more entertaining by the minute as the alcohol slipped into her bloodstream. His face blurred when she looked at it through the bottom of her gla.s.s. She started to fill in his thinning hair in her mind and plucked a few strays between his eyebrows. She thought he had the sort of face that could be on a label for expensive toothpaste: "Dr. Jones's All-Natural Gingivitis-Fighting Whitening Toothpaste."

"What about you, Evie? Do you like your job at Baker Smith?" Mike asked at just the right moment, when he was teetering on the edge of talking too much about himself. Not that she was eager to have the spotlight shifted to her.

"Well," Evie said, with a deliberate head scratch, "I recently left. So I guess I'm not a lawyer anymore. Or at least not an employed one. But I am starting to think I didn't really like it that much anyway. It was just something I did. Does that make any sense?" It did to her, but it was probably the first time she'd ever articulated her feelings about her job so clearly out loud, or even to herself.

"It makes a ton of sense," Mike said, and she remembered that she was speaking to an orthodontist. Chances are he wasn't that pa.s.sionate about molding retainers either. She knew from Google that both of his parents were dentists, so he probably fell into his career rather than sought it out.

Over drinks and a shared slice of key lime pie (which Evie awkwardly split and jiggled onto separate plates), they chatted for almost two hours until the waitress started to hover.

"Well, I hope we can do this again," Mike said as he was paying the check. "I'll be away next weekend for an alumni council meeting at my college, but maybe the weekend after?" He looked up at Evie hopefully.

"Sounds great," she said, genuinely pleased. "That's so nice you're still involved with school. I guess you liked Penn?"

"I didn't go to Penn. Why did you think that?" he asked, seeming confused, maybe even put out.

Evie racked her brain. Why did she think he had gone there? Hadn't he mentioned it over the course of the evening? Obviously not. It dawned on her that she gathered that tidbit from the Internet. She flailed trying to cover.

"Um, I don't know, I think maybe Annie told me that," she hedged.

"I doubt it," he said. "I went to Arizona State with Annie's brother, Jordan."

Evie flushed even more.

"There's another orthodontist in Manhattan named Michael Jones. He went to Penn," Mike said. "We always get calls at my office from patients looking for him. Evie, did you Google me?" He didn't sign the credit card statement that was placed in front of him. Evie wondered if he was backing out of paying for the date.

Her only viable option was denial.

"No, no. I must just be getting confused. You know what? My friend was talking about Penn today. I'm just all mixed up from the rum in this drink. So we'll get together in two weeks?" Evie asked without making eye contact.

"I'll be in touch," Mike said in a tone that could best be described as noncommittal. He signed the bill and stood up abruptly.

"Nice to meet you," he said and did the unthinkable-put out his hand. When they first met, he kissed her on the cheek. Now all he wanted was a handshake. Evie had never been on a date that capsized so quickly.

Back home in her apartment, sprawled out in bed with a Seinfeld rerun in the background, Evie replayed the night. She was embarra.s.sed about what happened, even though in her heart she believed Googling a date was routine and necessary due diligence for dating in the digital age. It wasn't lost on her that generations of people prior had met and lived happily ever after without giving each other web colonoscopies before the first date. But things were different now. So much information was available online that it was irresponsible not to use it. Still, being outed as a Googler was another story. And that was how Evie knew she would not be hearing from Mike Jones again.

At least it was no great loss.

Evie stacked up everyone she met against Jack, creating Venn diagrams in her mind to a.s.sess areas of overlap. It wasn't that she never met men that matched, even surpa.s.sed, Jack in attractiveness, humor, and intelligence. But that je ne sais quoi factor, that "something extra," that part of the diagram was tougher for other men to fill.

During their time together Jack opened two more restaurants-Paris Spice, a formal French-Asian fusion restaurant on the Upper East Side, and a high-end dessert lounge in Tribeca called Eye Candy. Before Jack, she knew little to nothing about restaurants beyond where Time Out New York said she should eat and what new cuisines the New York Times announced had merged in the fusion craze. But soon she was talking "front-of-house" and "table turns" with restaurateurs and critics at culinary events and openings.

When she was on dates with guys who worked in finance, ubiquitous in Manhattan, she wasn't impressed by talk of currency hedging and derivative patents. Evie worked on those same deals, and they didn't interest her on a date any more than they did at work. Her mother once intimated that Evie liked Jack because he was a known ent.i.ty-a desirable plus-one at dinner parties. But he wasn't even really famous. He was only a household name among the rarefied circle in New York with enough disposable income to justify a twenty-three-dollar slice of cheesecake (the menu did claim the crust had actual gold flecks in it). For Evie, of course Jack was much more than a name to drop, though she never tired of the way diners looked at him in awe when he would emerge from the kitchen in his uniform. Besides being handsome and successful, Jack was self-made, ambitious, and pa.s.sionate about his profession. He was the whole package. What Evie couldn't readily say to her friends, and what she was even too embarra.s.sed to say to Fran, was that she was also the complete package. They matched.

Begrudgingly, she reached for her computer to send Annie an e-mail thanking her for the setup. She a.s.sumed Mike would tell Annie about the Google snafu, but there was nothing she could do about that. She simply said that she really appreciated the introduction to Mike but didn't think they had much of a "spark." Her grandmother always admonished her to be grateful for setups lest people get the wrong idea that she wasn't interested in meeting someone. Bette would be proud that she was remembering the bigger picture in her despair.

"Finally, my Evie is getting her priorities in order," she would say, while sipping lukewarm herbal tea with the gang of widows she played mah-jongg with in Florida.