J'adore New York (24 page)

About halfway there, Nathan cracks open a can of beer.

“Isn’t it a bit early to start drinking?”

“Nah. Are you kidding? This is just the right time of day.”

It’s the first time I’ve seen Nathan let his hair down and it’s kind of endearing. He’s obviously letting off steam from a high-pressure practice and the upcoming stress of becoming a father.

“We’re competing with Clifford Chance and Baker Mackenzie for first place in the international rankings,” Scott says to Nathan, sharing his bench seat.

“Is that right?” Nathan replies, visibly uninterested, while ogling a young female lawyer from the Prague office sitting across the aisle from him.

“This retreat will be great to get everybody psyched up so we can crush them next year.”

“Yeah, hmm. Wonderful idea,” Nathan concurs, still staring at the eastern European beauty.

A few minutes later, I notice two stunning, well-dressed associates with British accents sitting a few rows behind us. God, I need to change the topic,
fast.

I stare at one of the two men; he is impeccably dressed, has tousled hair, and deep, penetrating green eyes. When he catches me staring, he walks over and takes a seat in front of us.

“Hello, I’m James. Which office are you from?”

“I started in Paris, but I work in New York now.”

“Lucky you.” He smiles and reveals dimples the size of the Grand Canyon.

“How about you? London, I assume?”

“Yes. You’re very perceptive,” he adds jokingly. “I like that in a woman.”

My face begins to redden.

“Welcome to the United States.”

“Thanks, I’m very happy to be here. So I hear there’s a big gala this evening.”

“Yes, I believe so,” I add nonchalantly.

Who am I kidding? Of course there’s a big to-do tonight. I puked all over the evening’s opening remarks.

“Could I have the pleasure of your company for dinner?” the Brit asks, now in major flirting mode.

Listening to our conversation, Scott chimes in.

“We’d love to have you at our table tonight.”

You can say that again. We’d love to have you
period.
Maybe Lisa was right about finding someone here to take my mind off Jeffrey.

We arrive at the conference centre, where Antoine is waiting in line to take his seat. He is dressed in a sharp khaki linen suit with a blue checked shirt and is tie-less. He even has a bit of a tan that makes him look a lot healthier than when I last saw him. He walks over as soon as he sees me and I feel a slight pinch in my stomach, given that our last conversation was more than heated.

“Hello, Catherine, how are you?” His friendly tone makes me relax.

“Antoine! I didn’t think you would make it. I heard that you’re spearheading a major privatization for the French government.”

“Things have slowed down a bit, thank god…”

He smiles warmly and my eyes are drawn to his light blue Hermès pocket scarf, his graceful gestures, and his broad smile. It’s clear that the move to Paris has been good to him.

“It’s taking a bit longer than expected to get the transaction started.”

“Enjoying Paris, I hope?”

“Absolutely. Everyone in the office really misses you.”

“Really?”

I’m thrilled. Ever since I moved to New York, it’s been difficult staying in touch with my former colleagues and I thought that they might have forgotten about me.

“Are you attending the dinner tonight?”

“Mais oui.”

“I’ll see you there. I’m sitting at your table. Scott saved me a seat.” He winks.

I’ve changed my mind; this corporate retreat is going to be highly enjoyable after all.

“I can’t believe you asked him to sit at our table,” Bonnie whispers loudly to Scott with pursed red lips. “He doesn’t work with us anymore. He should be sitting at the Paris
table.” She’s clutching her evening bag so tightly it looks like a leather ball.

“What’s the big deal? He did a tremendous amount of work for me and I happen to like the guy,” he shoots back.

She turns away and doesn’t respond. It’s obvious that Scott failed to consult with her before inviting Antoine to join us. I just hope this doesn’t turn into World War III at our table.

“Hello, Catherine.” James stands next to our table looking dashing in a tailored suit and light pink tie.

“Ah yes, hello, James.”

“Is this seat taken?” he asks, pointing at the empty seat next to me.

“No, please go ahead.”

“I wouldn’t want to risk taking a seat from a New Yorker. Could get my head chewed off,” he says, positioning his serviette on his lap.

“I’m not a native New Yorker. I’m French, remember?”

“Ah, yes. Sorry. A French woman, just my luck.”

We engage in a long conversation under the watchful gaze of my office colleagues. Antoine is now sitting across the table next to Bonnie, who has exaggeratedly moved her chair away from his and completely turned her back to him while talking to Scott. As soon as Nathan finishes his glass, he gives me the thumbs-up while signalling for the waitress to bring more wine. As she comes closer to the table, he whispers something in her ear and she stares back at him, flushed. He puts his arm on the small of her her back as she refills his glass for
the fourth time. This evening is about to get
very
interesting.

After I’ve been speaking with James for about twenty minutes, Antoine interrupts our conversation.

“Catherine, can you please introduce your guest? I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Of course, sorry about that. Everyone, this is James from the London office. He specializes in structured finance.”

“Shtructured finanche?”
Nathan remarks. “I was in the
shtructured finanche
department at my last firm. That’s really b-o-r-i-n-g stuff. I had to drink about twenty coffees a day just to stay awake. You couldn’t pay me enough money to do that type of work again.”

“I don’t see anyone waiting in line to make you any offers, Nathan. James, how many lawyers are in your office these days?” Scott asks, attempting to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“Even if I did receive an offer, I wouldn’t accept it. I hated it,” Nathan says, his voice getting increasingly louder. “To top it all off, I worked for the biggest asshole on the island of Manhattan.
Josh Green,
a loser with a capital L.”

“Nathan, he’s hardly a loser,” Antoine replies politely. “He’s the top-ranked American lawyer in the field.”

“Yeah? Well he’s also the top jerk in America.”

Scott stands from his chair and signals to Nathan to follow him. Poor Nathan is about to have a little chat.

“Please excuse my colleague. He’s had a bit too much to drink today.”

“Oh, no worries. I didn’t take it personally. Besides, he’s
quite right. I’d much rather be a DJ in a nightclub, but my parents would probably disown me.”

After Scott and Nathan leave the table, Bonnie chimes in.

“Can you believe Nathan’s behaviour?”

“It’s no big deal. I mean, this is only an internal dinner,” Antoine responds.

“No big deal? You’ve got to be kidding. Did you hear what he said? We’re damn lucky it’s only an internal dinner. He should be fired.”

“You can’t be serious. He’s the top billing associate in the office and his wife is expecting. We can’t do that,” I chime in.

“What do you mean by
we,
Catherine? I’m afraid you’re not involved in any decision-making for the department.”

“Okay, then
you
shouldn’t do it. He’s had too much to drink. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Do you think I’m going to follow employment recommendations made by someone who flaunts herself half-naked at low-brow parties in the Hamptons?”

The tension at our table is so palpable that it could be cut with a knife. I think long and hard before responding to her nonsense but having Harry’s offer in my back pocket gives me the courage to push back.

“Being half-naked at a Hamptons party is more appropriate than half-naked at client meetings, don’t you think?”

Antoine and James turn my way, dumbstruck. I smile back triumphantly at Bonnie, whose face is now the same colour as the soles on her Louboutin sandals. She tries to change the subject by bringing up an important acquistion she’s working on.

After my blood pressure returns to normal, I feel a bit remorseful for snapping at Bonnie. Despite her ludicrous behaviour, I know she’s fought against sexism and the old boys’ club rules to get to where she is today. What woman can silently tolerate years of relentless backstabbing, aggression, and raw competitiveness without losing a bit of her soul in the process? And there’s the old double standard: if a professional woman acts consistently with female stereotypes, she’s considered a pushover. If she goes against it and is overly aggressive, she’s considered a bitch. No matter how you cut it, it’s a tough place to be.

After dessert, Scott has returned to the table but Nathan is nowhere to be seen. As we sip our coffee, Harry Traum addresses the heavily liquored crowd with his (puke-covered) opening remarks. Tipsy, I start to lean into James and I can feel him doing the same.

“Good evening, dear colleagues,” Harry’s voice silences the crowd. “We would like to begin this evening by saluting some great talent at our firm.”

James stares into my eyes and I shake with that titillating feeling you get from flirting with an attractive stranger. The immediate physical attraction has every blood cell in my body racing furiously to my heart. My thoughts are interrupted by the applause of the crowd.

Harry calls a few senior partners to join him on stage to announce that they will hand out fifteen lifetime achievement awards. A projector provides pictures of each recipient as their
names are called out. It takes me a few minutes to awaken from my lustful stupor to realize that, of the fifteen people recognized this evening, not one is a woman. I feel a profound sadness swell up inside at the thought of all those extremely dedicated and talented women who have contributed so much of their lives to the firm. These are women who made it to the top of a male-dominated firm, who’ve made innumerable personal sacrifices, who haven’t had the benefit of having a “wife” taking care of them at home, and who are obviously invisible to those handing out the awards. What message is the firm sending to the women filling up half the room? Will this motivate them to put on a smile and a suit every morning and to fight one for the old boys? My body stiffens and my head spins. Will things be any different if I accept a job with Harry Traum? The reality is: probably not.

“Now, I’d like to take this opportunity to let all of you know that we’ve beat a new record on the number of deals we’ve taken on at the firm: a mind-blowing six billion dollars’ worth of transactions. Congratulations to all of you for this incredible achievement.”

A collective moan that borders on the orgasmic emanates from the crowd. Bonnie’s face lights up as though this message was directed at her. She throws her head back, removes the shawl from her shoulders à la Dita Von Teese, and glances up at Harry with her naughtiest bedroom eyes.

“Before I begin with my speech, I just want to thank somebody in the room for altering the direction of my opening
remarks.” He presses his reading glasses on the tip of his nose. “I had the pleasure to share my flight to California with a woman from our office who was recently transferred from Paris.”

Ah, non, c’est pas vrai!
I feel more than two thousand eyeballs turn toward me and I want to die.

“Yes, many of you know Catherine Lambert from her outstanding work in corporate law, but what you don’t know is that she hurled her breakfast all over my speech on our way down here and I was forced to rewrite what I was going to say.”

Loud laughs come from the other side of the room. I recognize my former French boss’s voice.
“Bravo, Catherine, Bravo!”
Bonnie and Scott glare at me in disbelief. I want to crawl under the table.

“I have to say that she was a really good sport about the whole thing and, in my book, she gets extra points for that.” A roar of applause fills the awkward silence and Antoine lifts his glass to me. James presses his hand on my shoulder and smiles broadly. “Well done, Catherine. Well done.”

“Yes, before that little incident, I was going to talk about the firm’s international rankings and so on,” Harry continues sombrely. “But I decided to say a few words about the virtues of loyalty and unyielding dedication.”

I take a large gulp of wine to numb my embarrassment. It then occurs to me that Harry’s about to give his last Edwards speech and will probably take this opportunity to vent some of his frustrations publicly. This makes me smile.

After he discusses the values of loyalty and dedication in one’s career, he starts to walk across the stage like an evangelistic
preacher. “When I started out at the firm more than thirty years ago, it was a small litigation boutique with no more than a few dozen people. It was very collegial at the time.” He pauses, smiling nostalgically. “Those were truly the golden days of the firm. We fought like hell in court and we were loyal to our clients and they really loved us for it. Then the firm grew and started opening offices left, right, and centre and we sort of lost that intimate feeling. To my chagrin, people started becoming selfish, worried about the size of their take-home profits…” His voice trails off and this generates an exchange of red-faced glances and a few dry coughs at the senior partners’ table. “And then after a while this selfishness turned into flat-out greed.” He looks like Michael Douglas in a scene from
Wall Street.
Just when I expect him to launch into Gordon Gekko’s greed speech, he stops in his tracks in front of the managing partners’ table and continues his spiel: “But the greed I’m referring to turned out to be a backstabbing, screw-you-up-the-ass kinda greed.” I turn to Bonnie and Scott, whose faces have now dropped into their chocolate cake; Bonnie has even covered up her cleavage with her shawl.

“This is why tonight I say to you,
Au revoir,
farewell, you buffoons! I’m leaving you to start my own firm and I’m taking about fifteen of your esteemed colleagues with me…So good luck with everything!” He exits the room dramatically and a sudden hush comes over the audience. Like in an episode of
Survivor,
everyone looks at their neighbour wondering who the fifteen “traitors” are. I pretend to play with my evening bag, trying to look innocent.