December 23, 2014
10:00 am
Harrison & Fink, Attorneys at Law
598 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
“Are you fucking crazy?”
She’s standing in my doorway, hair disheveled, panting harshly, like she’s just had really rough sex in one of the bathrooms. I sigh. “Let me call you back George.”
“What about the game? Are you coming or what?”
I hang up on him. No time for Rangers tickets right now. “What’d they tell you?” I grab my pen and tap it on the desk gently.
She closes the door and slowly makes her way towards my desk. “You know what they told me.”
I lean back in my chair and smile for her, folding my hands behind my head like I couldn’t care less.
Am I scared? Hell yes, but I’d never let it show. Not to her. She needs someone to be confident right now, since her fiancé turned out to be such a fucktard. Hey, it’s the holidays too, and nobody should have to be as miserable as she is, even if our bosses are jerks and our jobs are on the line.
I’m confident we’ll keep our jobs and be just fine.
“Look, it’s just a formality. They told me if I wanted them to give you another chance, I would have to put my job reputation up as collateral. It’s not a big deal Mags. I’m smart and so are you.”
“You know they’ll fire you and not think twice about it.”
I laugh at her. “We’re young. There’s plenty of opportunity out there.”
She plops herself into the chair that’s in front of my desk. “You really are crazy.”
“I wasn’t going to stand by and let them fire you. Besides, I knew the case. That insurance firm is corrupt as shit. They deserve to pay out.”
“Corrupt or not it was still my responsibly to make sure we won.”
I shrug. “It’s in the past now.”
“Justin--"
“Get over it.” I say it bluntly, harshly, because it’s the only thing that gets through to her these days.
She sits back and puts her hands over her face. Then she starts to cry.
Oh God, Mags.
I remember when she first came here. She’d been recruited from another firm. I’d been with Harrison and Fink about a year, but she was fresh out of law school. I could tell she was scared, and that I intimidated the hell out of her too. Even then, I was really good. The best, because I learned from the best. I try hard not to be cocky about what I do, how many cases I’ve won, but when someone questions my integrity as a lawyer at Harrison and Fink, I’m smart enough to back myself up and prove myself worthy. Really, this is the best law firm in the Manhattan. Everyone knows that. It’s also one of the hardest to get into. But when your father is Benjamin Timberlake, most firms will hire you in seconds, foaming at the mouth and shaking your hand all the while.
It doesn't hurt that Barry Fink was my father's fraternity brother in college, either. It's not a blessing by any means. He tells my dad everything that goes on, and I'm always subjected to some lecture about how well I'm handling my cases whenever I have dinner with the family. My dad doesn't want me to just succeed at law, he wants my career to exceed his. So far I haven't let him down in that sense, but I've always toyed with the idea of losing a big case on purpose, just to shove it in his face that nobody can be perfect all the time. Failure isn't built in to my DNA though. I can't make myself do it.
I knew Maggie Dawson didn't have the same advantages that I did. She needed guidance, had gotten hired by sheer luck coming out of Harvard, and after I got to know her, I didn’t want to let her drown,even if it could have meant not getting partner.
That’s not what I want my life to be about anyway. So many lawyers center their careers around making partner, including Maggie, and most of the time, it’s barely worth it. You give up a good chunk of your social life all for the sake of bragging rights and a bigger paycheck. I grew up around it. My father worked night and day to make partner at his firm when we were kids. When I was home from school, I barely saw him. I never wanted to do corporate litigation, and at times, I was reconsidering going into the practice at all. I’m a pretty decent cook, and for awhile I considered culinary school, but Benjamin never would have tolerated that from his only son. I was enrolled in law school before I even knew what it was.
Working as a corporate lawyer has it’s perks of course, and I have no reason to complain. It’s very lucrative, and if you get in with the right firm, you’re able to work with only the best politically corrupt companies and executives. While I defend my clients to the ends of the earth, I hate ninety five percent of them. I only hate my bosses sixty percent of the time. I guess that’s why I’m still here.
Well, that, and the great company car doesn’t hurt either. This year its a Ferrari 612 in glossy black, an upgrade because I won that big case for the firm last year. I like to take it around the backroads by my house and work out the engine. My nephew, Tyler, thinks its the coolest thing ever, but my sister won’t let him ride in it with me unless we are on public roads and highways, after I’ve all but signed a contract to obey the speed limit.
“You gotta stop crying.”
“I can’t,” Maggie groans. “You just…you can’t just put your future at risk because I was stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, and my future isn’t at risk.” I sigh, and get up from my chair, coming around the desk so I can stand by her side. “Mags,” I rub her shoulder consolingly. “I’m smart, okay? I know what I’m doing.”
It takes her a couple of minutes, but she stops sobbing long enough to wipe her eyes and look up at me. “I thought I was smart too.”
“You are smart. You’re as smart as I am. Maybe even smarter. My fiancé didn’t just break up with me though.”
“You don’t have a fiancé,” she croaks.
“True,” I chuckle. “But even if I did, and even if she left me, I would have to realize that it wasn’t worth my integrity, dwelling on it. Come on huh? It’s the holidays. Fuck Fink and Harrison. Do you think they’re letting this case ruin their Christmas? I mean, I’m pretty sure Fink just signed a deal on a new ranch for those stupid horses his wife dresses up in those parades. It’s her Christmas gift. He took me out to a business lunch Tuesday and it was all he talked about.”
“She dresses them up?”
“Yeah. Little hats and decorative saddles, things like that. He showed me pictures, told me that it was a good investment for a side business. Do you think I should look into it?”
We stare at each other for several moments, and then burst out laughing.
I know I’m the only one that could get her to laugh at a time like this, and she’s the only one I would put my job on the line for. I guess that makes her my best friend, and it's weird to label her that way since I don't keep friends, just colleagues.
Even so, deep down, I’ve always wished it could be something more.
I’ve never told her, but I think she’s beautiful, and Hunter doesn’t know what he lost. She hits me in a place that no woman ever has. When she’s around I forget about the woman I went on a date with last week, and my latest conversations on match.com (the subscription was a birthday gift from my sister). She makes me laugh, makes me forget the stupid crap that Lawrence spouted off to me in some email, or the grief a client gave me the day before about something completely fixable.
Here, now, I realize all I need is her to keep me happy.
But I can’t tell her that. She’s too damaged and she’s still in love with fucking Hunter.
My sister asked me what I wanted for Christmas the other day. She has it narrowed down to a deluxe detail service for the Ferrari or a cool new pair of sneakers.
But if I could, I’d only ask for one thing this year.
Maggie Dawson.
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