The Partner Track: A Novel (16 page)

I was suspicious.

“Does Melissa normally go last?” I asked.

Hunter glanced up from his clipboard. “Uh, no. Why?”

“No reason, just curious,” I said. I knew Melissa was a very good player, from hearing Hunter and Murph’s game recaps over lunch in the Jury Box. Apparently she’d co-captained an intramural softball team while at UVA Law. I’d never actually worked with her, but Melissa seemed cool. She was tall—taller even than a lot of the men she worked with—with lots of freckles and a loud, jokey personality. Hunter, Murph, and all those guys spoke fondly of her, but I could tell from their tone she was the type of girl they’d never try to sleep with. Or they would, but they wouldn’t be falling all over themselves to tell their buddies about it the next day.

Hunter shifted the clipboard to his hip. “You got a problem with going last?” he asked, not unkindly.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll go last, that’s cool.” I smiled to say, no hard feelings. But I knew now that I was definitely the weak link in tonight’s lineup. They were shifting me to the position where I could do the least damage. I’d probably have one less turn at bat than everyone else. Even so, Link Forster would be up right after me, to execute any necessary damage control.

“Okay, then,” Hunter said, clapping his hands. “Let’s go.”

Davis Polk was in the field. We were batting first. Hunter instructed us to line up in order and wait our turn behind the chain-link fence that backed up the catcher and home plate. Link Forster rubbed his hands together briskly and then picked up a bat.

“Okay, Forster, let’s do this,” said Hunter, clapping Link on the shoulder as he approached the plate. I could see that Hunter took his team captain duties very seriously.

Some scattered catcalls and screams of “Liiiiink!” erupted from the crowd behind us. The chorus was distinctly female.

Link was a lefty. He stood to the right of the plate, holding the bat at a careful angle above his shoulder, cap down low over his eyes, knees bent, butt stuck out. The Davis Polk pitcher, a beefy bald guy, scrunched up his face, scrutinizing Link. Then he wound his arm up three times and fired the ball at Link at an alarming speed. It was a well-placed pitch. I watched Link swing at it and miss.

“Fuck.” Beside me, Hunter let out a loud, disgusted sigh, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, “Come
on
! You’re phoning it in, Forster!”

Link turned around toward Hunter, rolled his eyes, and made a casual jacking-off gesture. Then he turned back to the plate. Hunter laughed and made a catcall back.

I was charmed. I thought about how much easier conflict resolution was when you were male. Maybe that was why I’d always gotten along better with men than with women. They didn’t pretend to like you when they didn’t, and they didn’t feel the need to please everyone all of the time. I admired this. It was just so efficient, so clean. Sure, they weren’t going to win any congeniality awards, but imagine how much time and emotional energy they saved.

The next time Marty Adler came knocking about another
nonlegal contribution,
I should simply roll my eyes and flash him a casual jacking-off gesture.

The pitcher fired at Link again. This time, bat and ball connected with a loud
pop.
As the Davis Polk outfielders ran, cursing, past the far reaches of the marked-off playing field, Link shot Hunter a lopsided grin, and shrugged—like
happy now?
—before setting off at a slow, loping jog around the bases. The crowd went wild, and for a moment I was reminded why people adored athletes. Even I was a little bit in love with Link Forster by the time he made it all the way home and stamped on the plate for emphasis.

When I finally went up for my first turn at bat, I saw all of the Davis Polk outfielders grin at each other and then jog all the way in toward the pitching mound, leaving the outfield wide open. I felt my cheeks burn and thought,
Just watch, you bastards.
But I swung and missed, then swung and missed again, the wind whistling in my ears as my bat whirled vainly through the air, completely missing the ball’s graceful downward arc.

I expected Hunter to yell at me, to give me shit for how poorly I was batting, the way he’d dished it out to Link. Instead, Hunter just shouted encouragingly from behind the dugout, “That’s all right, that’s okay, Ingrid, don’t worry about it. Remember, just wait for your pitch. Really try to keep your eye on the ball!”

Oh, just shut
up,
Hunter,
I thought, before swinging and missing again. His kindness was killing me.

Finally, late in the fifth inning, I landed a single to first base—I know, it was only a single, but it sounds easier than it is—that brought Tim Hollister home for his third run.
“Nice hustle, Yung!”
I heard Hunter hollering from somewhere behind me, and this time it sounded sincere. Right after Tim had tagged home base, as he walked by me in the dugout, he casually reached out his hand to brush my fingers in that male-coded, mutually congratulatory way, which was something I’d just seen him do with Hunter and Link Forster. Murph punched me—surprisingly hard, actually—in the arm. “Nice work, Yung,” he said, looking genuinely impressed. “Thanks,” I said, grinning, resisting the urge to rub my arm where he’d punched it. And I was even prouder of that particular moment than I was of having gotten the damn base hit in the first place.

We won the game, seven runs to four. Not through any spectacularly dramatic feat by me, but—thankfully—not in spite of me, either.

When the game ended, the Davis Polk team was gracious enough to come over and congratulate us, and then the fans poured onto the field. Tyler came up and put his arm around me. “So I see why they call you Slugger,” he said. “You were great.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

“Surprised you’re not chained to the office. Aren’t you buried with the SunCorp thing?”

“Just sent a new round to the other side. Buys me a free night,” I said. Tyler nodded.

At the mention of SunCorp I looked around again for Marty Adler, but realized that he hadn’t shown up. I couldn’t help feeling let down. I’d come out tonight for nothing.

Even without Adler, though, the celebratory beers were still a go. About fifteen or sixteen of us, including all eight of us who had played, along with Tyler and three bubbly young women I recognized as new Litigation paralegals, headed off to the nearest Irish pub.

Paddy Maguire’s was a great dive with sawdust on the floor, a good jukebox, and a midtown mix of suits and neighborhood regulars. We elbowed our way past the boisterous after-work crowd and wedged ourselves around the bar. Tim Hollister was buying and passed the bartender his Corporate AmEx card. There was only one bar stool free, and Tim offered it to me. Chivalry was alive. I perched there with my Amstel Light, wishing I’d ordered something a little less girly.

We raised a toast to the Prosecutors, but as the crowd got progressively larger and pushier, some of the team scattered to the back of the room, where there was more space. Soon it was only me, Hunter, Murph, and Tyler still hanging out by the bar. Hunter and Murph were each on their second Guinness, and even Tyler was having a black and tan. This surprised me. Tyler and I occasionally went out after work by ourselves to the Royalton or the Peninsula, and I’d never seen him drink anything but a martini.

“What, no martini tonight?” I joked, nudging him in the elbow.

“No martini,” Tyler replied quietly. He looked annoyed.

After a minute Hunter and Murph came over to us.

“Glad you came out, Robinson,” Murph said to Tyler. (At this, I thought I heard Hunter chuckle, just a little.) “Haven’t seen you at a game all season. What changed your mind tonight?”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Tyler, pasting on a grin. “Ingrid Yung, out in the dirt, playing
softball
? This I had to see.”

They all laughed.

Now
I
was annoyed. I took a sip of my Amstel and looked sideways at the three of them.
Et tu, Tyler?

Hunter cast his eyes around the bar until he spotted Tim Hollister, talking with Link and two of the first-years, over by the jukebox. The third first-year guy had already struck up a very private-looking conversation in the corner with a petite blond girl with heavy eye makeup and a rose tattoo just above her belly button.

“This song sucks,” Hunter announced. “I’m going to go put on some decent music.” And with that he pushed his way through the crowd toward Tim Hollister and the associates encircling him.

“I’ll go with you,” Murph said.

I stayed where I was and watched as Hunter and Murph pressed their way through the crowded bar and approached the Tim Hollister semicircle. I wasn’t surprised when none of the other associates opened up to let them in. This was common practice for associates trying to schmooze a partner. It was especially predictable at the firm’s weekly conference room happy hour, Fridays at Five, where you were supposed to show up and grab a cocktail wiener and a seltzer for about fifteen minutes before loudly announcing that you were swamped and absolutely
had
to go back up to your office or you’d be there all night. At Fridays at Five, there was about a one-to-six partner-to-associate ratio, and each partner who bothered to show up was quickly surrounded by a semicircle of eager young associates hanging on his every word, so that the room became filled not with the convivial fluidity of a crowd but with tightly guarded circles of conversation, each led by a single partner.
Literal
spheres of influence.

Hunter and Murph insinuated themselves into the Tim Hollister semicircle until it was forced to widen. Link Forster looked annoyed. Of course, during all of this associate jockeying for conversational position, Tim Hollister himself remained oblivious, just talking. I was sure none of the associates surrounding Tim had the slightest interest in
what
he was saying; the important thing was that he was saying it to
them.

When I swiveled back around, Tyler and I exchanged a loaded look.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Basic rule of thumb. Never ask a gay man why he’s not having a martini in front of two jocks,
especially
not at a dive bar with sawdust on the floor.”

“Sorry,” I said, and meant it. He had a point, and it hadn’t occurred to me. And it bothered me that it hadn’t occurred to me. It seemed like the kind of thing that should have.

But then I narrowed my eyes at him and said, “Well, what about you?”

Tyler blinked. “What
about
me?”

I rolled my eyes. “What was all that ‘A girl playing
ball
? This I have to
see
!’ crap? I half-expected you and Hunter to start licking Jell-O shots off of some sorority girls and then go play beer pong.”

Tyler burst out laughing, and I could tell I was forgiven.

“Touché,” he said, bringing his mug up to my beer bottle and giving it a conciliatory clink.

We sat in companionable silence for a while, sipping our drinks and taking in the crowd, and I was basking in the glow of my base hit and the way I hadn’t played
that
much like a girl when Tyler said, “So, I got my subpoena from Dr. Rossi today.”

“What?”

“I got a personal handwritten note from Dr. Rossi through interoffice mail, telling me he would like to have a ‘friendly chat’ with me at my earliest convenience.”

I was quiet. I had already had several meetings with Dr. Rossi—but I’d drawn the line at trying to draft anyone else. Predictably, most of the associates were treating Dr. Rossi and the Diversity Initiative as a big company joke. No one ever came to see Rossi in his office except for the few partners on the Diversity Committee, me, and the occasional hapless first- or second-year he’d succeeded in corralling for a mute, unhelpful, ten-minute noninterview. He was still hidden away in his dark, untrafficked corner of the twenty-ninth floor, which, owing to Rossi’s argyle sweaters and mild manner, had been nicknamed Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, courtesy of some fourth-year wit in Tax.

“And?” I said encouragingly. “Are you going to go talk to him?”

Tyler sighed. “I don’t want to be interviewed for the firm’s little diversity report, Ingrid. You know that.” He paused, then added, “Especially not now, when I’ve already got one foot out the door.”

“I know,” I said. “But, I mean, Dr. Rossi’s really not that bad.”

He looked skeptical.

“Like when I’m telling him about some of the stuff that goes on around here? Like the Corporate guys’ weekly squash court reservation at Chelsea Piers? And how no women are ever invited to play? I mean, I don’t even think I’m supposed to
know
about that. And Rossi was totally not surprised to hear this. He gets it.”

Now Tyler looked alarmed. “You told Rossi about the Corporate guys’ standing court reservation? You don’t think that’s a little too much information?”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But, I mean, I’ve talked with the guy a couple of times now, and I actually think he believes in what he’s doing. He’s just so
earnest
. He genuinely thinks he can level the playing field a little. I figure, least I can do is give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Tyler gave a short, bitter laugh. “Sounds like you’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid. You think they’re going to level the playing field just by interviewing a couple of us lawyers with melanin and having us spill our guts? Come on, Ingrid. You’re too smart for that.”

“Well, I’ve hardly been spilling my guts, Tyler,” I said mildly.

“Okay, maybe that wasn’t fair.” Tyler looked serious. Concerned. “Look, I just don’t want to see you get played, that’s all. Make sure you protect yourself.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, punching him lightly in the arm.

He shook his head. “I mean it, Ingrid. Don’t get yourself too closely tied up in this whole ‘diversity’ bullshit, you know? You were doing just fine on your own. SunCorp loves you. Adler loves you. You’re golden.”

I paused. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”