“I’d take Nancy over this d-bag any day,” Jordan whispered into my ear before heading back to his seat. I let out a small snort of laughter, recalling Jordan’s expression as he stared at Nancy eating her Caesar salad at our lunch. I pushed my wineglass slightly toward the center of the table and away from my hand, suddenly very aware that I should abide by the firm’s suggested two-drink maximum, which I’d read in the “Client Entertainment Policy” we’d received on the first day.

I locked eyes with Derrick and gave him a warning look, but he brushed me off with a quick eye roll and patronizing flick of the wrist in my direction.

“You’re all a bunch of drunks,” a booming voice declared, stealing my attention from my annoyance with Derrick.

I recognized Didier’s voice instantly—it was unmistakable, with the slightest guttural trace of an accent clinging to his perfectly idiomatic English. I looked up, expecting a dapper, handsome Frenchman in a slim suit, but Didier was heavy. Fat, actually. And tall. Maybe six-three. He was also red-faced, in a way that made me think it wasn’t just a momentary flush, with big blue bloodshot eyes and blond, almost white, hair. He shook everybody’s hand, even KJ’s and Taylor’s, quickly making a round of the table before stopping at my chair.

He stared at me intensely. “You must be Alexandra.”

“I am! Pleasure to finally meet you.” I plastered a smile on my face as I extended my hand, which he took and raised to his lips. I inwardly shuddered at the beads of sweat on his thick upper lip, but I resisted the urge to snatch my hand away with every polite and dutiful fiber of my being.

“Enchanté, mademoiselle,” he said. Matt coughed, sounding uncomfortable. “Madame or Mademoiselle?”

I pulled my hand away with a big smile. “Mademoiselle.”

“Parlez-vous fran?ais?”

“Didier, please, have a seat.” Matt sounded more desperate than generous as he gestured to the empty seat across the table in an obvious attempt to end the bizarre flirtation.

“I should sit next to the one member of the Klasko team I haven’t met yet,” Didier insisted, nodding in my direction.

“You’ve met Derrick?” Matt asked, and I could hear a slight challenge in his voice.

Didier turned to Derrick. “Do you do M&A?” Derrick shook his head, and Didier turned back to me.

“I’ll move,” KJ offered, rising from his seat. I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive an entire meal beside Didier, but I felt Matt looking at me, and as I turned to lock eyes with him, I immediately understood that I was to keep the client entertained.

The waiter started to pour Didier a glass from the table’s bottle of wine, but he shook his head decisively. “I want to taste what you’re tasting,” he said, leaning in toward me. He smelled of cigarettes and gin. I felt my upper lip curling at the smell and coughed to mask it. KJ and Taylor laughed, apparently accustomed to their boss’s antics. Derrick looked momentarily as if he was considering intervening on my behalf and then seemed to think better of it. Jordan raised his glass to me with a small smile. I couldn’t tell whether he was wishing me luck, congratulating me on capturing Didier’s attention, or preemptively thanking me for model behavior, but whatever he was gesturing, I took it to mean I was about to begin a test of sorts.

I sat up straighter and adjusted my expression to telegraph to my colleagues, This is nothing I can’t handle. I noted the heightened alertness of my senses, a weaker version of what I used to feel right before a swim meet. It seemed odd for my body to be producing adrenaline in that moment, but right then I realized how much I had missed it coursing through my veins.

Didier took my wineglass, stuck his nose in it, and breathed in deeply. He took a long sip and swirled the liquid around in his mouth. I watched him carefully as his blond mop flipped forward over his eyes, marveling that he must be worth at least forty million and yet didn’t get regular haircuts.

He looked at me and smiled. “Ah. Sauvignon blanc. The most wonderful hint of citrus. I love the lime. Only the French can do wine.”

I turned to the waiter, who was mercifully passing by. “May I see a wine list?” I pivoted in my chair toward Didier. “I prefer a California white, actually. Please, you keep that. I’m going to order something else.”

I saw Jordan looking nervous.

But Didier laughed boisterously, slapping his palms to his gut. “She knows what she likes!”

Just as I thought. A little boy in banker’s clothing who only wanted somebody to stand up to him.

We were interrupted by the arrival of the appetizers, which the waiters presented with ceremony. Matt had ordered almost every starter on the menu for the table, and I watched as more sea urchin, crudos, oysters, and caviar than we could ever eat were laid down in front of us.

Jordan took the opportunity to order another round of drinks. “Skippy?” he asked in my direction. I shook my head, but he scowled and turned to the waiter. “She’ll have another too.”

By the time dessert finally rolled around, everyone else was on their fourth or fifth round of drinks, and in no rush to leave with the rain still pounding outside. I pretended to sip my wine, grateful nobody had noticed that my glass remained almost full. KJ and Didier wanted all of us to take them out to a bar after dinner, and Taylor was easily convinced to join. Matt scribbled in the air to ask for the check. I watched as he signed the $3,200 dinner bill without flinching, also signing an “esq” after his name, a ridiculous affectation.

“Skippy! Drink!” Jordan pointed at my wineglass from across the table.

“Why do you guys sign ‘esquire’ after your names?” I asked, making sure everybody else was engrossed in their own conversations.

“We do what now?” He furrowed his brow and leaned closer to me.

“You sign ‘esq’ after your names.”

Jordan took a look at Matt’s bill and laughed. “No, we don’t.” Apparently finished with the conversation, he leaned away from me, and since the meal was over, I took a large gulp of wine to wash down the procession of uncomfortable conversations that I had just endured.

As Didier, KJ, and Taylor huddled at one end of the table, looking at a new email that had just come in, Derrick was eagerly rattling off the names of all the clubs he could get us into. “. . . Goldbar or Death & Co. or Acme. I can absolutely get us in to Acme,” he was saying. Matt and Jordan stared at him, slack-jawed, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Matt cleared his throat and spoke in a low voice. “Derrick, you’re a guest here. Act accordingly.”

The energy around the table dropped off a cliff. I checked to confirm the clients hadn’t heard and was relieved to see that they were still huddled in their own conversation.

Derrick’s face fell, and I wanted to defend him, but couldn’t figure out how to do it without overstepping myself, or embarrassing him even more.

KJ broke the silence. “Let’s get out of here!” he said, loosening his tie as he rejoined the rest of us.

Derrick politely indicated that he needed to get home, making eye contact with the napkin in his lap, and nobody argued with him.

“Same—I need to wake up early to wrap up some postclosing matters for all of you on Hat Trick,” I said, scanning the table with an apologetic smile, grateful to have a legit excuse.

No! Come! Skippy, you can’t leave! the rest of the table chorused.

I squirmed at the stark contrast between the responses to my excuses and Derrick’s, and went on slightly too long about the closing checklist and the documents I needed to send to firm records for posterity, and then added a lie about a 7:00 a.m. spin class.

When Derrick and I stepped outside, it had stopped raining. He continued forward on the sidewalk, which was still covered in puddles, looking down the street for an available cab and ignoring me.

I stood still for a moment, uncertain whether I should say anything.

“D? What was that in there?”

“What?” He stuck out his hand to hail a cab, barely acknowledging me.

“I just mean . . . are you okay?”

He didn’t look back at me. I stood by his side and watched the back of his head as he looked west on Central Park South.

“I’m fine. I guess it was a mistake to put my own spin on ‘black man at dinner’ tonight. I’m sorry if not everybody enjoyed the performance.”

“Jeez. What are you even talking about? You were—”

“What am I talking about? I was only at that dinner to be the black guy. Don’t be so naive, Alex. I don’t even do M&A.”

“Don’t be so self-deprecating, Derrick,” I snapped. “You were invited because people like you.”

Derrick whipped his head around and stared at me. “I’m not only self-deprecating. You were there because you’re a woman. An attractive, well-behaved, goody-two-shoes woman. You think they always invite first-years to these dinners?”

I narrowed my eyes at him before my heart sank. Oh god. He’s totally right.

“It’s the same shit all over again. It happened when I was a summer associate in LA too, but I just hoped when I was an actual employee they might treat me like everybody else. Especially in New York City. But no. Whatever! I just forgot which black guy I was playing tonight. All the associates expect me to be the black playboy. Partners expect me to be the black intellectual.”