Chapter Three
There was a time when Mallory felt a thrill walking into the tall glass Park Avenue building that houses the law firm.
There was a time when she felt an absolute sense of belonging there—of destiny, even.
Since the first day she started at Penn as an undergraduate, she knew she would be an attorney.
And then acceptance at Villanova Law. And then the summer associate job at Reed Warner.
And then the job waiting for her there when she graduated.
It all fell into place so easily, so effortlessly. Until last month.
The wide steel elevator doors open on the fifteenth floor.
“Good morning, Ms. Dale,” the receptionist, Blanca, greets Mallory.
“Hi, Blanca.”
Does she know that I failed the bar exam? Mallory wonders. Does everyone at the firm know—even the woman who comes around every afternoon at three o’clock with the coffee cart?
“At least you’re not famous,” her friend Julie said. “When John Kennedy Jr. failed the bar, the Post ran it on the cover with the headline The Hunk Flunks.’”
This doesn’t console her. And even though Alec assures her that it happens to lots of people and she’ll no doubt pass the exam when she retakes it in February, she’s flooded with a feeling about her future she had never experienced before: doubt.
Even her office seems foreign to her now. What used to be a haven of order and purpose now feels like exactly what it is: a cold, boxy room with an avalanche of paper everywhere.
Mallory logs on to her computer. For the next ten hours she’ll sit at her computer, digging around Westlaw and writing the legal memo she should have made a dent in last night.
Her boss, Patricia Loomis, is part of the defense team for Koomson, the country’s largest paint company.
They’re being sued in a lead paint class-action suit.
“Half day today?” Patricia stands in the doorway of her office. Patricia is short, her suits are boxy and ill-fitting, and she bites her nails so badly they look on the verge of bleeding. But she’s an excellent attorney.
Mallory looks at the time on her computer. Eight thirty a.m.
“Harrison wants the brief at the end of the week.”
“Okay,” Mallory says. But Patricia is already gone. Ugh! Patricia had been tough from day one, but when Mallory failed the bar, any speck of esteem she might have begun earning with her hard work evaporated. Now it feels like Patricia is just waiting for her to flame out.
Mallory opens her handbag, digging around for the Life Saver she knows is in there somewhere. She’s so tired she needs a sugar kick. Her hand closes around something small and boxy. When she pulls it out she sees it’s a robin’s-egg-blue matchbook that reads Blue Angel.
Who slipped that in her bag? Probably Billy, that ass.
She sets it on her desk, thinking about the dancer.
Bette Noire. What does she do during the day?
Does she go to an office like everyone else?
If so, does her boss know what she does at night?
Maybe she just sleeps all day like a vampire, emerging only to appear at the Blue Angel.
Maybe her entire life is just about beauty, and art, and inspiration.
She’s probably never heard of the bar exam.
She probably doesn’t know people like Patricia Loomis exist, never mind having her whole career resting on her slumped shoulders.
Mallory logs on to Westlaw.
The buzz of her cell phone jolts out of her lead-paint fog sometime in the late afternoon. She bends down to retrieve her handbag from its spot under her desk and immediately feels dizzy. As usual, she’s forgotten to eat lunch.
“Hello?”
“Hey—it’s me,” Alec says. “What time are you getting out of there?”
“I don’t know. Patricia’s being impossible. She has me transcribing a deposition for her.” The paralegals are supposed to be doing that work. But Patricia is clearly making a point: You’re not an attorney yet. The worst part is, she’s right.
“I need you to come out tonight. Can you make that work somehow?”
“Alec, I really can’t. Whatever it is, go without me. I was late today, I’m exhausted, and this is taking me twice as long …”
“It’s just for a few hours. And it’s the last time I’ll ask.”
She shakes her head even though he can’t see her. “Yeah, right.”
“Well, at least for this week.”
Mallory sighs. “Why? What’s the urgency?”
“I messaged that dancer, Bette Noire, about doing an interview.”
A tug of jealousy pulls at her gut.
“Okay. What does that have to do with me?”
“She agreed, but said you have to be there.”
“Me? That makes no sense. Why would she care if I’m there or not?”
“I don’t know. She also said I had to find an interesting place that she can’t get into on her own.”
Mallory’s desktop phone lights up with a message. “I really don’t have time for these games, Alec.”
“It’s not a game. And I want you to come because I want you to see that everything is aboveboard. It’s just work.”
Mallory looks at her computer screen. The words swim together, the blinking cursor making her eyes blur.
She picks up the Blue Angel matchbox, turning it over in her hand.
“So where is this ‘interesting’ place for the interview?”
“I’m not sure. I’m going to call Billy and see if he will get us into SoHo House or see if he has a better idea.”
Mallory always feels uncomfortable in exclusive places like the clubs Alec has suddenly adopted as favorite spots. She knows, in this case, Bette Noire asked for it. But she also knows that deep down, Alec loves any excuse to get in the door. At least he’s happy to bring Mallory along with him.
“I can’t leave here before eight thirty.”
“No problem. I’ll pick you up.”
Mallory tosses the phone back into her bag. She has twelve hours. Time to get to work.