Chapter Nineteen
Early Monday I headed to the office with my suitcase in tow, feeling surprisingly energized from the weekend away.
“So, what’s a Virginia girl’s take on the Catskills?” Charlie asked as I rolled my suitcase under the desk.
“I mean, you can’t get to Manhattan in under two hours from the Blue Ridge Mountains, so I guess I’m a Catskills girl now,” I said, powering up my laptop and logging into the review database.
“Did you feel properly celebrated?”
I nodded. “I still can’t believe you made it all the way there from Missouri or Texas or wherever you were on Thursday. I felt very special.”
He grinned. “And now we’re back here. Like it never happened.”
I scrolled through my calendar. “I have to leave here at three for JFK. Let me make sure Patricia booked a car,” I said distractedly.
He headed out for coffee with his firm mentor, and I spent the morning organizing documents and drafting questions for Emerson. By 3:15 p.m., I was in a car to the airport.
Early the next morning, I woke up in Los Angeles jet-lagged and booked a last-minute boxing class next to the hotel. I went back to my room to shower, threw on a navy skirt suit with a cream-colored blouse, and took an Uber to meet Eddie and Andie for a preinterview lunch.
Eddie got right down to business. “After we finish these interviews and Sam updates the timeline, I’d like to talk about whether it makes sense for you to consider pleading guilty.
There are over two dozen people in the indictment, and the longer it takes you to plead compared to the others, the less favorably the court looks on your decision to accept responsibility.
A sixth defendant pleaded out yesterday.
I still don’t think the government has anywhere close to enough evidence to convict you if you were to go to trial, but it’s always a gamble. ”
Andie shook her head. “I’m the only woman involved in this. I know I made bad choices, but I never meant to break the law—isn’t that worth fighting them on?”
Eddie folded his arms. “The straightforward answer is no. I’ve seen thousands of these mass indictments. I wholeheartedly believe there’s an exception that takes you outside of 1955, but judges are always more lenient when someone pleads guilty early on.”
“Should we wait for the Second Circuit’s ruling on whether poker is a game of skill?” I asked.
“When is the court hearing arguments?” he asked.
“Next week. I’m scheduled to go and watch.”
He nodded. “Let’s see how long it takes for the decision to come down.
But if it’s delayed, or they reverse the lower court’s decision, I don’t think you should keep waiting to plead.
I’ve been in this situation many times, and my gut is telling me you need to be able to move on with your life, not tie yourself up in court for years for an outcome that’s far from certain. ”
She paused, and I could tell she was nervous. “I want to be able to move on too. I guess that’s as good a time as any to run something by you guys.”
She reached into her bag and put a folded letter on the table. “I got this from a publisher last week. They’re offering me a book deal.”
Eddie looked more concerned than usual. “Andie—”
“Wait. Before you say anything, I just need you to know I’m not actually interested in writing a book.
But I am so outrageously broke right now, and they’re offering a huge advance.
I’ve had offers before, but everyone wanted names, and I won’t do that.
This one is interested in my side of the story.
Please . . . I need your blessing, but I need to find a way to do this. ”
Eddie unfolded the letter and read it silently. I gave Andie a sympathetic smile.
He looked at Andie with a serious expression. “You cannot bullshit me on this, Andie. I need to know right now: Have you started writing this book? I have to know if there’s a manuscript out there. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I cannot do my job if you withhold things from me.”
Andie shook her head. “I spent a few hours outlining some chapters, just to see if this was even something I could do. But I meant what I said. I don’t want to write a book. I just don’t see how I say no to this. It feels like my only chance for a fresh start.”
Eddie folded his napkin. “If you write this, we’re going to have to disclose it to the prosecutors. I get that you need money. But if it fucks up your case, the money is moot.”
He looked at his watch. “I need time to think it through. I have to get on a call, but I’m asking you to hold off for now. Here’s my credit card. You two can finish up here. Sam, I’ll see you upstairs for the three o’clock.”
Andie dropped her head into her hands. “I didn’t think he was going to react that way. I guess I just don’t understand how this could hurt my case.”
“I think he’s worried that if you write something that contradicts what we’ve said to the government, they’ll either bring new charges or use it as a reason to reassess a more lenient sentence.”
She shook her head. “I need an income. I’m just planning to tell the truth. I’ve been telling the truth.”
“I’ll try my best to make sure he gets back to you quickly,” I promised. I signed the check and hugged her goodbye.
I skimmed emails on my phone as I waited for the elevator up to the office. Leo had seen my name on the firm’s visitor list. Did I want to discuss Sterling’s case over drinks?
I was still trying to detox from the Catskills. It was becoming impossible to remember a time when drinking wasn’t part of my life, even though it hadn’t always been that way.
I was twenty-six the first time I got drunk.
It was Thanksgiving break of my first year of law school.
My brother Artie was in town for Thanksgiving, and he wanted to go out Wednesday night.
Ben and I drove to the bar because neither of us planned to drink a lot.
Some of Artie’s DC friends showed up, and I felt my first real taste of social anxiety.
I’d never self-medicated with alcohol until that night.
Someone bought a round of vodka sodas. After the first drink, the vodka stopped tasting like medicine and the conversations felt lighter and almost fun.
I shed my suburban housewife hang-ups. I felt like a typical twentysomething, not someone who had gotten married younger than everyone else.
By my second year of law school, I realized that my marriage was a ticking time bomb.
Each time I thought about being honest with Ben about my unhappiness, I drank.
I had never been a wine o’clock person, but I’d pour a glass while I was cooking dinner, then another one during dinner.
Maybe one more while I did laundry or finished reading for class.
I became a pro at functional drinking. I went from being someone who drank iced tea with dinner to a full-on wino.
Ben joked that we needed a wine-club membership.
I thought I just needed to figure out my life.
Only when I finally leveled with Ben and we separated, alcohol became useful for an entirely new set of problems.
I was never single in my twenties. When I interacted with men after I separated from Ben, I didn’t even know how to flirt.
Drinking helped me relax. If I went to a networking event, drinking made me feel like less of an imposter in this electric new world I wanted desperately to fit into.
It was the simplest way to numb my discomfort.
And unlike most of my peers, I hadn’t destroyed my liver in college, so my body tolerated it like someone a decade younger.
Starting adulthood as a housewife turned New York lawyer ratcheted up my social insecurity just as my drinking became seemingly orthodox.
There seemed to be an acceptable reason to drink every night of the week.
It was almost like being hazed: How many hours can you bill while firing on all cylinders socially and professionally?
Lines were blurred between associates who were routinely out until 2 a.m. or later, only to find themselves in a meeting at 10 a.m., ties straight, heels on, discussing litigation strategy.
A Tuesday night of networking with drinks followed by a dinner with more drinking.
Career suicide to miss the firm’s 7 a.m. “team-building” SoulCycle the next morning.
Even as life normalized social drinking, I knew there were pitfalls. The spectrum of what was acceptable, even encouraged, felt endlessly vast. Drink functionally, but don’t be The Girl on the Train drunk.
Despite desperately needing a liver cleanse, I immediately said yes to drinks that night with Leo.
We met at six o’clock. Cocktails turned into appetizers and appetizers turned into dinner with a bottle of wine.
We talked about our shared impression of Sterling as sympathetic despite being privileged and Leo’s failure to convince him that the best course would be settling out of court.
“My wife tells me I need to take something to trial one of these days. She’s a jury consultant, so she lives for the courtroom.
She’s amazing at what she does. But believe it or not, I get shy in court.
I’m just not a litigator at heart, and I don’t want to cede the spotlight to the Perry Masons of the world, like Eddie. So I’m wired to settle.”
I imagined Leo’s wife as an Amal Clooney type: flawless, ambitious, effortlessly handling it all. I wondered what it would be like to be half of a power couple.
“We have twin boys, Aldous and Kingsley. A&K. An homage to the firm that’s given them a comfortable life.”
My EQ antenna sensed that someone like Leo didn’t always get the chance to share things about his personal life. Something about how easily he was opening up made me feel self-conscious in a way I tried masking by asking more questions.
“Do you think they’ll grow up and become lawyers?” I asked.