Love and Miss Communication Read Free Page A

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 onher 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 cutshort 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