The next day at work, I ride up to the senior partners’ floor, my stomach rising along with the elevator.
This is it.
This will make or break everything.
I’d resolved to talk to Janice first, to go over the deposition summaries I’d done and get my responsibilities out of the way before I threw caution to the wind and went to see Asher. But she isn’t in her office. So, I leave the deposition summaries I’d prepared on her desk and walk down the hall to face my fate.
I step right into Asher’s office, not wanting to lose my nerve. I plan to shut the door, lock it per his earlier instructions, and say, “I’m sorry, Boss. I want to wear the outfit. I want to do whatever you want me to do.”
But I walk smack into Mandy Calderon, who is sitting on Asher’s desk in broad daylight with one of her legs kicked out flirtatiously. To make matters worse, she’s in the middle of saying,
“…and I knew you’d come to your senses. I just knew you couldn’t really be a chubby chaser, or at least not for long.”
I freeze, but then I remember to pick up my jaw. Apparently, it had dropped open without my realizing it.
I turn around, to leave Asher’s office with what little dignity I have left.
“Madilyn,” Jimmy calls out, and then he’s in the hallway, saying, “Step back into my office.”
I keep walking.
Probably because he realizes that his normal gruff tone isn’t working on me, Asher’s voice becomes softer— desperate, even.
“Madilyn. Please come back.”
But I keep walking. Past his assistant who is looking at me in curiosity and concern. Past all the partners’ offices. I’m thinking that I’ve probably made it so that I can kiss this job and my plans to climb the partnership ladder goodbye.
Asher can have this firm. It’s his— as he always likes to point out— and there are probably better ones elsewhere. Firms that aren’t run by rich men who think they own everything, including the new associate of their pleasing.
Asher can have Mandy Calderon, too.
And she can have him.
I head back to my cubicle, determined to grab my briefcase and leave the building. Maybe for the last time ever.
But Janice is there, bent over my desk and in the process of writing me a note on my sticky pad.
“Oh! Madilyn, there you are,” she says, nearly jumping up in the air. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Hi Janice,” I tell her, so used to her eccentric ways that I only momentarily think of pointing out to her the illogical fallacy that even though she’s at my cubicle she’s somehow surprised that I showed up.
“We must have just missed each other,” she says. “I got back from getting coffee and saw your summaries on my desk. So, I headed right down here to talk to you.”
I’m glad that she wasn’t around to witness my embarrassing departure from Asher’s office. I’m not sure if she’d be happy about it, knowing he and I are finished before we had even really started, or if she’d gloat about it, telling me she had tried to warn me.
“But then you weren’t here,” she continues. “But now, here you are.”
“Yes.”
I smile at her much the same way I would smile at a preschooler.
“Here I am, Janice. What did you want to talk about?”
“Oh, yes. Well. I was glad you were able to complete the summaries so quickly and I have a few more here for you to do,” she says, proudly patting a large stack of deposition transcripts she had left on my desk, beside my computer monitor.
I wish I could roll my eyes but I refrain. More busywork. More work that a paralegal could do, yet she gives it to me.
At least it’s billable hours.
But I can see the writing on the wall. My time at this firm will be spent stuck not only in Cubicle Hell but also in busywork hell.
But what other option do I have?
I stare at Janice, knowing I should be glad that at least I have her.
“Yes, of course,” I tell her. “I’ll get started on these right away.”
“Thanks, Madilyn,” she says, and walks away.
I sit down and pick up a deposition transcript and a highlighter. As I skim the meaningless beginning of the deposition— which almost all deposition beginnings are— I try to formulate my new plan.
I had turned down my prior firm’s offer in order to work here. But maybe they will have an opening and want me back. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll be able to apply for new jobs with a straight face until I’ve worked here for at least a year.
I’ll sit here every day then, I decide, doing Janice’s busywork, so that I will have a year- long job on my resume, and maybe she’ll give me a recommendation when I apply to new jobs. I’ll have to suffer through it, but it’s my only choice.
As I delve into the meatier parts of the deposition, I furiously highlight anything relevant, hoping I look intense and focused instead of upset and pathetic.
And then, someone clears their throat behind me.
I turn around to see the nervous sway of one of the firm’s runners. He’s holding an intra- office lawyer- only delivery envelope and he is obviously not used to delivering it to a lawyer in the paralegal’s domain.
“Ms. St. Clair?” he asks, double checking the name on the package.
“Yes?”
“The lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“I have an intra- office delivery for you from Mr. Marks,” he says. “I was instructed to ensure I give it only to you.”
He hands me the package, and I stare at it in shock.
Clearing his throat again, the runner says, “Please sign this log indicating that you’ve received this delivery, that you are indeed the associate Madilyn St. Clair for whom the package is meant, and write in the time of delivery as well.”
“Um. Okay.”
His instructions are standard practice— purportedly to make sure the runners do their jobs and to record when mail or other items make their way from partner desk to associate desk within the firm. And I suspect its real sole or at least additional purpose is to ensure that no associate can claim they never received an assignment as an easy way out of excusing a missed deadline.
But I feel guilty, as if I’m signing for the acknowledgment of receipt of a bomb. Or hush money. Or something else that is dangerous and taboo.
He pushes the pen into my hand, urging me to sign so that he can go about his next task. I’m shocked but I know it isn’t his fault.
I sign my name and add the time next to it. I even remember to thank him.
And then I peek into the envelope, even though I already know what’s inside of it.
It’s that damn lingerie.
It’s my redemption. The second chance I so desperately wanted just a few minutes ago. But now I’m not so sure I want it.