Chapter 2 – Natalie
Chapter Two
NATALIE
“ T he next time I say I’ll take a construction case, please shoot me.” I drop into the empty chair around the circular table at Hot Spot. A waiter shows up almost immediately, wanting to take my order. “A dirty martini with three olives. I haven’t had any dinner and I’m starving. Did you guys order anything?”
“A whole platter of sushi,” Frankie, my best friend, assures me. Hot Spot is packed, as it always is, and not because this place is so grand. It’s a bar that looks like every other bar in the city—a row of bottles lining a glass wall behind a long stretch of glossy wood. The main seating area is a mix of tables and curved upholstered benches. The music is trendy top hits, and everyone here is wearing power suits or dresses. The raciest garments here are the too-tight suit pants on some of the guys which show off way too much or the too-tight white button-downs that a few of the women are wearing. No one needs to show more than an ankle or a decolletage because everyone is here for the same reason: to find someone to hook up with and let off some steam. Our careers are stressful, and we need a release.
Not that I’ve ever had a release like that. Oh, I’ve given myself a release, but I’ve never been able to cross that hump of taking my clothes off for someone else. Like, what if we get up to their room and he decides to dismember me? What if he’s married with two kids back home? What if he has a disease? There are so many variables that run through my head, and when it’s hookup time, I talk myself out of it. The shower head is all a girl really needs. At least that’s what I tell myself.
“Who else is coming?” I nod toward the two empty seats on the other side.
“Luna is bringing a new friend. Tell me about the case.”
“It’s not the case. It’s the client. He might have been unlawfully terminated because of his age, but he’s inappropriate at all times. As we were sitting in the conference room, he said he was glad there was a woman on his team because law is so boring and he needed something nice to look at.”
“Cut off his balls, metaphorically of course.” Frankie isn’t a labor lawyer like me but works in the corporate law department of a steel production company. It’s a sausage fest there with the men outnumbering women by ten to one, even in the corporate headquarters. She’s smarter than everyone in her office put together and tougher than the metal they sell.
“I want to, but this is my boss’s uncle-in-law.”
We both make a face—me in frustration and Frankie in commiseration.
“This is why happy hour exists.” She raises her glass. “To drink and bitch about the things we wish we could change but can’t.”
“You guys started without us?” Luna appears with a small blonde wearing a red knit dress that somehow manages to look both sexy and professional at the same time.
“It was that kind of day, sorry.” I push the bar’s digital drink menu over. “But the service here is good, so you should be caught up quick. Hi, I’m Natalie, and this is Frankie.”
“Sorry, yes, Nat, Frankie, this is Julie. Julie, this is Nat and Frankie. We all went to college together. Nat practices labor law, Frankie is in corporate, and, as you know, I’m working on my MRS.” Luna waves her five-carat ring around.
“Stop. You’re blinding us.” Frankie pushes Luna’s hand to the side and shakes Julie’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Where’d you and Luna meet?”
“Pilates. Luna joined my favorite studio and started going to the five a.m. class. There are only six of us there, and we started chatting.”
“Julie’s a big fan of spy movies.” Luna places an order and passes the device over to Julie.
“Huge fan. I can’t get enough of them. I might have been a detective in a former life. I can usually guess an entire plot in the first episode.” Julie snaps her fingers.
“Does that make the shows boring for you?” I ask.
“Not at all. It’s like double-checking my work.”
“Julie actually owns the Pilates studio.”
”It’s a franchise.” She waves her hand. “I’ve two studios. One downtown and one out west.”
“That’s very cool.” I tip my glass toward her. “When did you open your first one?”
“Two years ago. I started working for this electronics firm and hated it. The woman who owned the studio before me was retiring and suggested I buy her out. One hefty bank loan later and I was the proud owner of my own business.”
“Good for you. Life’s treating you well.”
Julie wrinkles her nose. “My business life but not my personal one. It seems like I can only have one good thing going on at any single time.”
“Do tell.” Frankie loves good gossip. It’s the whole reason we started our Wednesday afternoon rituals.
“Julie broke up with her boyfriend last week and has been moping around ever since. I forced her to go out and stop trying to call him to reconnect.” Luna thanks the waiter for bringing the drinks.
“What was wrong with him?”
“Ambition. Total lack of it, actually.” Julie sighs. “In every other aspect, he’s a 10. In fact, in the ambition category, he used to be a 10. He got top marks in college, went to an Ivy League law school, graduated with honors, clerked for a Supreme Court justice, opened his own law firm, handled some big cases, and then boom. Decided he hated law and has been downsizing ever since with the goal of completely quitting the practice.”
Frankie and I exchange glances. He sounds like he’s living every lawyer’s dream. “Is that so terrible? Everyone I know who practices law hates it,” I say.
“He’s a great lawyer and now sits at home most days. I don’t even know what he does there other than probably scratch his balls and watch reruns of old football games.” Julie tips her glass toward me. “It was false advertising. He sold himself as one type of person and then ended up being someone else. If I wanted a couch-surfing slacker, there are plenty hanging around.”
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” As Luna taps the edge of her glass against Julie’s, she kicks me under the table. I dutifully join the cheers at the center of the table, and so does Frankie because this is happy hour but also lady solidarity hour. If girls can’t bitch about bad boyfriends to other girls, what is even the point?