Chapter 5
The Day After the Fainting Incident
Ihunched over my desk and read the three-page email of diligence updates from Claire while holding back tears.
I’d just told her to go ahead and send the note directly to our client when a knock on my glass office door jolted my system like a jump-scare straight out of a horror movie.
My heart rate settled slightly when I saw it was Mallory and not John. I waved her in.
Please don’t have a new deal for me.
Mallory was a partner I enjoyed working with and often sought out for advice. She was one of only a few female partners in the private equity group. She had a daughter, made partner three years ago, and was a great mentor.
“Hey, Val. Just checking in. You’ve seemed more stressed than usual lately, and I wanted to see if you’re okay?”
Is it that obvious?
The concern on her face was genuine. It made me want to cry.
And then, a burst of anxiety. Does she know I fainted last night?
“I’m okay.” I willed down the emotion in my voice. “It’s just that this Brower Capital deal has been super intense. But I’ll get through it.” Even as I said it, I wasn’t sure I believed that anymore.
She nodded, her dark bob bouncing slightly, but she looked skeptical. “It’s supposed to sign by the end of next week, right? Will you get a breather after that?”
“Yes, and I hope so. There’s another deal I’m on with Carl that’s percolating, but I hope it doesn’t take off for another couple of weeks.”
She reached for the hand I had splayed on top of that printed vendor contract and gave it a brief squeeze. “Hang in there, okay? Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”
I nodded as hot tears burned right behind my eyes, hoping Mallory would turn before they fell.
What is wrong with you? I chided myself as she closed the door behind her. Nearly crying in front of a partner.
It wasn’t until I sent my comments on the Brower vendor agreement to John two hours later that I let myself feel a glimmer of temporary relief. I started packing up my things in a hurry. Not that I had any Friday evening plans. I was just excited to sleep before I saw my parents tomorrow.
My hand was reaching to pull the cord out of my laptop when my office phone rang—a piercing, awful sound. No, no, no.
I inhaled, blew out a shaky breath through pursed lips, and answered. “Hi, Carl.”
“Val, great news. The Choice Partners deal is back on, full steam. The client is sending us those two key agreements they need to renegotiate within the hour. Can you take the first pass and send me your comments by Sunday night?” With each statement, he sounded farther away, drowned out by the tidal wave of stress collapsing on top of me.
It was Friday. The time on the corner of my computer screen said 4:00 p.m. I was going to throw up.
I opened my mouth to ask for more time, but then I heard John’s voice in my head. “You need to work on producing work product faster.”
“Okay,” I said instead.
“And the data room will open back up this weekend, too.”
I swallowed the growing lump in my throat.
“Actually, Carl. Do you think there’s another senior associate that could tag into this deal? I’m stretched pretty thin on the Brower Capital deal right now. It’s supposed to sign next week.” It was a really bad look for me to even ask, but I physically couldn’t do it.
“You already have all the background on this one. We can’t bill the client for the time it would take to get another senior associate up to speed. Plus, the guys at Choice love working with you. Can you just staff some extra junior associates, delegate most of it to them until you free up?”
But I still have to instruct them and review their work. It used to be an enjoyable part of the job: training the junior associates. But not this month. Not when my nerves were as fried as the charred remains of a July Fourth sparkler.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. He phrased it like a question, but it really wasn’t one. “Yeah, let me call staffing right now and line up the team.”
“Thanks, Val.”
The line dropped with a click, and tears erupted from my eyes, pouring down my cheeks until they spilled off my chin. I should have worked from home today. I felt so exposed, visible to anyone walking past my clear glass office door.
And what the fuck is up with all this crying? I’d never been like this before. I clenched my fists, frustrated and helpless. My job had always been onerous, but it rarely brought me to tears.
Every other time I’d gone through a rough patch as an associate I’d convinced myself I could get through it, and there’d be some benefit in the end: client loyalty, high billable hours, a big annual bonus, my eligibility for partner improving for closing another high-profile deal successfully.
I closed my eyes again now and tried to picture a way through. But when I did, it was like a big, iron gate slammed down in my mental path. STOP! my body insisted. How many more times do I need to show you? You can’t go on like this.
But don’t I care? I asked myself.
Didn’t I want to make partner?
My drive to succeed had been an unflappable part of my personality for as long as I could remember. I dug deep, clawed to find it, but it wasn’t there anymore. At some point in this last month of hell, it had vanished.
And that was what scared me most of all.
Guilt clung to me like a weighted blanket, pressing on every pore, every appendage, as I took out my phone on my walk home to call my mom and cancel our plans for this weekend.
I trudged down the sidewalk, braced against the raw, March chill in the air, and waited for her response.
“Oh, it’s okay, honey. We won’t bother you. You can do your work, and we’ll occupy ourselves on Saturday, and then we’ll come by for a quick lunch on Sunday before we head home, okay? You have to eat anyway, right? I still want to bring you some groceries, too.”
I felt like I couldn’t even manage that, but I reluctantly agreed.
When my parents arrived on Sunday afternoon, I barely knew who I was anymore.
I hadn’t left my apartment since Friday night, when Jasmine emailed to say that we’d be getting the contracts back from the tech company on Saturday morning, earlier than expected, and asking us to keep an eye on our inboxes.
Just like that, the whole weekend became reviewing documents and hopping on and off phone calls with my client, my team, John, and the counterparty.
We’d just sent the agreements back to the tech company, and I’d only looked at the two contracts Carl asked me to review long enough to see they were sixty and eighty pages long, respectively.
When my parents called to say they were on their way, I wished they weren’t coming. And then I hated myself for wishing that.
What kind of daughter can’t spare an hour to have lunch with her dad on his birthday?
This isn’t who I am.
This isn’t who I want to be.
My hand shook violently as I reached for the door. I know! I wanted to yell at it. I know I’ve pushed myself so far beyond my breaking point that I’m a shell of who I used to be.
When I opened the door and saw their tentative smiles, I immediately burst into tears.
They dropped the boxes of takeout and bags of groceries on my kitchen counter and guided me to my couch like a histrionic child.
“I’m overweight and exhausted and—and miserable.
I don’t have time to do anything for myself, let alone my friends or family.
I haven’t gone to the gym in months. And even when I do have time to see my friends or do anything that’s not work, I don’t enjoy it.
I couldn’t do anything with you guys this weekend after you traveled all this way,” I blabbered through heaving sobs.
And then I whispered, “I don’t care about making partner anymore.” And after another shaky breath, “I don’t know what I want, but it’s not this.” My hands gestured to myself, my messy apartment, my desk in the corner.
My mom nodded, a look of pure sympathy on her face, like she was despondent, too. She rubbed circles on my back.
My parents sandwiched me on the couch just like they did when I was thirteen. The glassy-eyed disappointment I felt then paled in comparison to the hysterics I displayed now. Maybe that was why instead of telling me to stay the course, my dad said, “Quit.”
I whipped my head around to look at him. He had never told me to quit anything in my life.
“They don’t own you, Val. You don’t need to be this miserable.”
At thirty-one years old, I didn’t need my father’s permission to quit my job, but his support meant a lot to me.
They finally get it.
In their defense, I spent years convincing myself and everyone around me, including my family, that I was doing great.
“I love my job. It’s interesting and challenging, and I’m getting great performance reviews,” I would say.
I would send them those press releases about the splashy deals I’d worked on and tell them about the big bonuses I’d get at the end of each year.
I felt accomplished, and the personal sacrifices—sleep, extracurriculars, dating, workouts, plans, events—seemed worth it.
But I wasn’t so sure it was anymore.
I looked back and forth between my parents’ heavy expressions. They waited patiently for me to respond to my dad’s suggestion.
I didn’t want to miss important family events like my brother’s graduation.
I didn’t want to show up exhausted to weddings and parties and other gatherings with my friends.
I didn’t want to not make plans for fear of having to cancel them when something flared up with work.
And I didn’t want to spend holidays up in my bedroom crouched over my laptop instead of downstairs with my parents, my grandmother, and my brother and sister-in-law.
More than all of that, I wanted to enjoy things again.
Relentless crashing waves of cortisol had broken down whatever mental barriers I used to have between work and leisure that allowed me to enjoy things like dates and musicals, birthday parties and wine nights with my girlfriends. I needed to build them back.
Between this tech company deal from hell and the regular cataloging of all the things I’d given up over the last six years that it had inspired, something had snapped inside me. I didn’t care about success, prestige, money, or being the best corporate lawyer anymore.
I have to get out.
The warning had already been rattling through my head, almost every second of every day, like a ringing in my ears I couldn’t shake. It had manifested itself in tears and shakes and panic attacks and musings about what my life might look like if I didn’t spend every second working.
I’d been ignoring it, but not anymore. Hearing my father tell me to quit was the last push I needed to finally listen.