Dooher ran a tight ship. His crew – the young men and women who hoped, after seven years, to make partner and thus in theory secure their financial future – were expected to bill forty hours a week, fifty-two weeks a year. This left them no time during the 'regular' 9-to-5 workday to do administrative work, answer their mail, talk to husbands, wives, significant others, eat, take breaks (or vacations, for that matter), go to the bathroom, small details like that.
To bill eight hours, the associates had to work at least ten, and more likely twelve hours every day. If they wanted their two-week vacation on top of that, they could count on working at least ten weekends a year. So at this time every day, the firm hummed along. Mark Dooher, who had overseen the downsizing and belt-tightening that had made the place profitable again, felt a profound satisfaction in what he'd wrought. People weren't necessarily happy, but they put out some serious work.
For which, he reminded himself, they were handsomely rewarded. And nobody had ever said a law firm was in business to make its members happy.
He rose and walked around his desk, stopping at the edge of the windows again to look out. Now, with the clouds, there was no view, merely a sensation of floating.
She'd left her resume!
Telling him it was his move.
Joe Avery was at his desk, plugging away. Dooher knocked quietly at his office door and Avery looked up in surprise. Two visits from the managing partner in two weeks! Unheard of.
'Still at it?' Dooher asked. 'I thought after last night you'd call it early.'
Avery struggled for the proper tone. 'That was a good party, sir. I meant to come up and thank you earlier, but this Baker matter…'
Dooher waved him down. Shut the kid up. 'I'm sure it's in good hands, Joe. I came down to pick up the summer apps file.'
A worried look crossed Avery's face. 'It's not…? I mean, is there some problem?'
'Not at all, not at all.' Stepping into the office, he closed the door behind him. 'We're handing off your summer clerk duties to another associate, Joe. I think you're going to find yourself with more meaningful work.'
'Sir?'
Dooher cut off the expected barrage of questions, raising his hand again. 'I've said more than I should, Joe. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned anything, but you might as well know. The summer clerks are going to have to get by without your involvement. There are bigger items on your agenda, and more than that I really can't say.'
In another minute, he had the wine box full of resumes under his arm.
On his cellphone in the car, driving home, he left a message. 'Christina. This is Mark Dooher. Just wanted to thank you for keeping me in the loop on your application. I'm proud of you. You made the right decision. If you need to talk to me, anytime, the number here in my car is…'
He left his home number as well.
Christina didn't hear Dooher's message. She'd talked to her parents in Ojai when she'd finally gotten home from her meeting with Glitsky, and then decided that her day – which had begun with ashes at 6:30 – was over. She was plain done in.
If the phone rang at this time of night, it would just be Joe anyway, and she really didn't feel like talking to him. So, with the sound turned down on her machine, she was snuggled under her comforter, in bed and beginning to doze.
The doorbell rang, and she heard Joe's voice. 'Christina?' Then a soft knock. 'Christina, you there?'
She knew she could just lie there and pretend she was asleep, but she wasn't able to do it. Exhausted and angry, she grabbed her bathrobe, wrapping it around her. 'One second.'
Unhooking the chain, she opened the door.
'You're in bed already?'
'No. Actually I'm standing here in the doorway. You got a problem with that?'
'No. I just thought we might… what's the matter?'
'Oh, nothing. Not a thing.' She whirled around, crossed the front room, snapped on the floorlamp and plopped herself down on the sofa. 'You coming in or not?'
He closed the door after him. 'Why are you so mad?'
She pulled her robe close around her, glaring up at him. 'See if maybe you can guess?'
He spread his arms, all innocence. 'Chris. We had a misunderstanding, that's all. Your resume's on file now.'
'File… that's good. It really is.'
'That's a fact. It's on Mark Dooher's desk at this instant, as we speak, in fact.'
'In fact,' she repeated.
He went on, oblivious: 'He picked them all up tonight. They're giving the summer hires to somebody else.'
'Why?'
'Because I'm moving up.' He ventured a step closer. 'Come on, Chris, don't be mad at me, not tonight. Tonight we should celebrate.'
'I don't want to celebrate. I don't even know what we'd be celebrating. I don't even know if there should be a "we" anymore, I really don't.'
'Chris…' He sat on the far end of the couch.
'I mean it, Joe. Okay, you're moving up, maybe, and I'm glad for you, but where are we going? Are we getting engaged? Are we getting married? I mean, what is all this? I don't get to apply to your firm because we might be an item someday?'
'We are.. .'
'No, we're not.' She held out her left hand. 'You see a ring there? I don't. We're still trying to decide, Joe, aren't we? We're still looking at the facts.'
He went silent. 'How am I supposed to respond to that, Chris? You know it's-'
'No! You're just getting to where you think that after all the time you've put in on our relationship, it would be nice if it worked out, after all.' She swiped at the angry tears that had broken. 'But the truth is that you don't like how I act, how I am. You certainly don't want me working around you, that's obvious.'
'But I do!'
'Which is why you didn't want me to apply?'
'That's not true. You know there's a rule about-'
'Stop lying to me! That's not it and you know it! We are, in fact, not actually engaged, you realize that? So there's no reason-'
'But we were going to be!'
She laughed. 'Here's how that happens, Joe. Listen up careful now. One person asks and the other says, "Yes." Not too difficult. So how about it -do you want to marry me?'
'Chris, you know-'
'Goddamn it, Joe! It's a yes or no question.'
'But it isn't! You keep saying you don't want kids, ever, and I don't think-'
Suddenly, she bolted upright on the sofa, kicking out at him. 'Get out of here! I mean it, get the hell out of here!'
The lifebuoy in Santa Barbara Bay had a deep-toned bell and it didn't seem to be far off, although the fog was so heavy she couldn't see it. She was trying to save her baby from drowning. And she couldn't see it, either. Didn't even remember if it was a boy or girl, though of course she knew. It just wasn't in her consciousness at that exact moment.
The tolling of the lifebuoy wouldn't stop, though. It was pulling her forward, toward it, through the water, which seemed to be thickening as she moved.
There was the baby, so close, just out of her reach, disappearing into the brine. 'Wait! Wait! Don't…' Sitting up, now, in a sweat. Her eyes opened on the clock next to her bed: 2:15.
The tolling continued – her doorbell. She tossed off the covers and pulled her robe around herself again.
'Who is it?'
'It's me, Joe.'
Still groggy, too tired for any more anger, she sighed, flicked on the overhead, and opened the door, leaving the chain in place. Hangdog, he stood there, his hair damp as the coat of the suit he wore, hands at his sides. He'd been out walking around for a while, perhaps since he'd left earlier. 'I'm a total jerk,' he said.
'That's a good start.'