*

I scanned the chafing dish, full of sorry-looking breakfast burritos oozing limp bacon and hardened cheese, in the monthly real estate group meeting. I had never been much of a breakfast person, but the smell of overheated meat and cheese made me particularly queasy. Lara and another real estate partner, Michelle O’Reilly, each took a glass of orange juice and an overstuffed burrito. Michelle was younger than Lara, taller than Lara, and more intimidating than Lara. I grabbed a black coffee.

“I envy your willpower!” Michelle glared at me, seeming to mean the opposite, and took a bite of her burrito. “Mmmm. So good.”

“I woke up so early for some reason. Already ate,” I lied.

“So what have you been working on besides my deal?” Lara asked, making small talk until the rest of the real estate attorneys arrived.

I smiled. “Just real estate so far!”

“What did you say you were interested in?” Michelle asked through a mouthful of burrito.

“Only real estate. I tried to learn as much about the groups at the firm as I could when they asked me to list up to three areas of interest.” I paused. “But real estate was the one that appealed most to me. Maybe I should diversify my experience. I have two more weeks to add areas of interest. I’m thinking of adding M&A as well.” I hadn’t thought of it until that moment.

“Diversity of experience is a good idea. But M&A guys are the worst. They’re a bunch of frat boys who walk around like they own this place because they have clients like Gary Kaplan.” Michelle took in my lack of reaction. “You know who he is, right?” I shook my head. “He runs the private equity M&A world. He founded Stag River, which is the firm’s biggest client by far. He gives us about a hundred million dollars of business each year. And he’s a scumbag. Peter Dunn is his go-to guy—which makes Peter think he’s God’s gift to the world. Peter’s an asshole. So are all the other M&A partners. And associates. They fail to realize they couldn’t do anything without the rest of us.” Michelle’s nerves seemed to be fraying audibly.

“Yeah, and they don’t let women in,” Lara added. “I mean, they say they try to promote women, and that it’s the hours that weed the women out. But it’s their attitudes. Misogynists, all of them.” She leaned back in her chair, resting her case along with her spine.

“Got it. No M&A,” I said, though the challenge of a group where few women had succeeded oddly appealed to me. “Who’s real estate’s biggest client?” I asked, attempting to change the topic.

I noticed a sideways glance between the two women. “Stag River,” Michelle answered. “Because we do all the real estate for the M&A and capital markets teams.”

I sipped at my coffee as I listened to the other attorneys who’d trickled in discussing their deals. Doing work for somebody else’s clients all the time would certainly explain the rather large chips on their shoulders. I smoothed the flyaway strands of hair that framed my face behind my ears and wondered if they noticed what I did during that meeting: that I didn’t really seem to fit in with them.

“You missed a great happy hour last night,” Carmen told me, staring at the tomatoes as we stood pensively at the cafeteria salad bar. The day after the breakfast, I’d been staffed on another real estate portion of an M&A deal, this time with Michelle, and I started to fill my days at a decently busy pace. While I didn’t find the work particularly interesting, I was gratified by the thought that I was earning the same salary as the M&A associates who were emailing us about the deal at all hours of the night.

I spooned green peas over my bed of romaine. “I know. I got staffed on this new real estate deal, and I worked late. Who was there?” The truth was, real estate work never kept me much past six, and I’d gone to see a movie with Sam, but I didn’t feel great admitting that out loud.

“Monochromatic salads are so last-season,” Derrick interrupted, ducking in between me and Carmen. “Saving you seats!” he declared before taking off toward the tables.

“So who went?” I turned back to Carmen.

“Usual crew—Derrick and Kevin—but then some older M&A associates,” she said casually as she contemplated the protein options. I pushed down the fear that friendships and cliques were already forming without me, and that Carmen was getting a leg up.

As we made our way down the salad bar, we had to pause behind a redheaded associate who had been standing there since we got our plates. He stared ahead, unmoving, at the containers of vegetables nestled into the ice. Carmen and I glanced at each other and then back at him.

“Sorry, can I just . . .” I reached over him for the tongs in the chickpeas. He blinked and snapped back to life.

“Sorry.” He looked back at me with eyes that looked bloodshot and bleary. “I just fell asleep.” He looked back at the salad bar, curled his lip, and turned on his heel, leaving his empty tray on the rack.

“That guy’s in M&A,” Carmen said in a low voice.

I nodded but kept my eyes on him until he disappeared out of the cafeteria. There was something almost honorable about his level of exhaustion.

We took our trays into the seating area, where I followed Carmen to the table where Derrick sat with Roxanne and Jennifer. After greeting them, we placed our phones faceup on the table with all the others and took our seats. I quickly surveyed the other tables in the dining room to see that each and every attorney sat with a phone positioned just as we had ours.

“Did you guys see on Below the Belt that the chairman of McAllister resigned because he was sending dick pics to all the young associates?” Derrick asked.

The others nodded, but I had no idea what he was talking about. “What’s Below the Belt?”

“You don’t know it? I read it every morning—it’s like Gawker for law firms,” Carmen explained.

“It’s so entertaining. Here, I’m sending you the link,” Jennifer said as she reached for her phone.

“It’s so nice that they give us phones so we don’t need to be chained to our desks,” Roxanne commented, pushing her bangs back from her eyes and scrolling through her messages.

“They don’t do it to be nice.” Derrick snorted. “They do it so we officially have no excuse not to work every second of the day now.”

I picked up my own phone and frowned as I spotted the most recent message. “My partner mentor canceled our lunch tomorrow,” I announced. “Again.”

“Who is your partner mentor?” Roxanne asked.

“Vivienne White,” I said.

“Wow,” Carmen said, her brow raised. “She’s a big deal. You must have impressed them in your interview. Somebody wants you taken care of.”

“Really? I haven’t laid eyes on her yet.”

Derrick looked down at his phone and burst out laughing. “Check out the email Noah Gellman sent to the whole firm.”

We refreshed our in-boxes.

From: Noah Gellman

To: FIRM-ALL

Subject: URGENT! DOES ANYBODY HAVE CHAPSTICK!!!!

“Somebody must have gotten to his phone or computer before it locked,” Derrick explained. “All the M&A associates mess with each other like that.”

Carmen didn’t seem all that amused. “So, are you going to do international arbitration?” she asked Derrick, then turned to us. “Derrick was telling me last night at happy hour that his father is the Ghanaian ambassador to the US.”

“Probably. What about you?” he asked Carmen.

“I put down real estate and M&A,” she said.

“Shit!” Roxanne announced as she stood and, eyes still on her phone, left the table and her food behind. Nobody reacted besides Carmen, who stole a grape from Roxanne’s untouched fruit cup. In the past few weeks we had become accustomed to work emergencies trumping social niceties.

“I put real estate, but I’m going to request M&A too before our deadline. I hope that we’ll be working on similar stuff. I need somebody to answer all my dumb questions!” I said, turning to Carmen.

A cloud seemed to pass over Carmen’s face, and her spine slumped slightly forward. Her expression remained completely placid, but her eyes grayed over. I coughed and took a sip of my water. When I looked back up at Carmen, her eyes were soft blue again. What the hell was that? Did I imagine it?

“Great minds.” She tapped her temple. “There’s more than enough work for both of us to be in real estate if we want,” she went on. “If we’re both trying to join M&A, we might have a problem.” She wasn’t lying about the competitive streak. It rang like a bit of a warning to me.

“No desire, really,” I assured her. “Just want a bit of diversity in my experience.” I pulled on the hem of my skirt, suppressing the urge to accept her words as a challenge. “I’m only doing real estate now. Might just stick with it.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I’d try to get onto M&A deals as well. I never could turn down a challenge.