Practice Makes Perfect

  “There are no quotas or maximums,” Ben had repeatedly assured her in her annual reviews. “Each associate is judged on his or her own merit.” And from what Payton had observed in the classes before her, this statement appeared to be true: each year the associates who were ranked at the top of their class all made partner regardless of the total number of associates being considered that year.

  So from where Payton stood, her chances of making it were pretty good, especially since she and J.D. were the only two litigators left in their class. According to her friend Laney, who also worked at the firm but was in the class below them, this was not coincidence: the gossip among the younger associates was that Payton and J.D. had scared off the other members of their class who hadn’t been nearly as interested in keeping pace and working the same ridiculous hours as them.

  Which was why it wasn’t a competition between them.

  Frankly, Payton would’ve disliked J.D. no matter what class he had been in. He just had this way about him that really, really irked her.

  Payton got to her office and took a seat at her desk. She checked her computer and saw that she had received thirty-two new email messages during the brief time she had been in Ben’s office. She refrained from sighing out loud in exasperation. Four more weeks, she reminded herself.

  Plowing through the emails, she came across one from the firm’s Executive Committee. Intrigued, Payton opened it and was pleasantly surprised by what she read:

  In order to honor its commitment to the policies created by the Committee for the Retention of Women, the firm is proud to announce that it has set a goal of increasing the number of female partners by 10 percent by next year.

  Payton sat back in her chair, rereading the announcement and considering the reasons behind it. Frankly, it was about time the firm took some action—they were notorious for having the lowest percentage of female partners in the city.

  She reached for her phone to call Laney, who she knew would have a similar reaction to the news. Mid-dial, she glanced across the hall and saw J.D. returning from his male-bonding meeting of the Mighty Penis-Wielders with Ben. Payton hung the phone up as she watched J.D. enter his office—she had to see this.

  J.D. took a seat at his desk. Just like Payton, he immediately checked his email. There was a moment’s delay as Payton waited in delicious anticipation . . . then—

  J.D.’s eyes went wide as he read what Payton could only presume was the email from the Executive Committee. He clutched his heart as if having an attack, then snatched the phone on his desk out of its cradle and dialed someone up with a quickness.

  His friend Tyler, Payton guessed. If she were a betting woman, she’d wager that J.D. was just a tad less excited about the email regarding the retention of women than she.

  Score one for Team Kendall, Payton thought.

  Not that it was a competition between them.

  Not at all.

  Three

  “IT’S HORSESHIT!”

  J.D. felt some satisfaction as he smashed the squash ball with his racquet. He’d been in a foul mood all day, ever since he’d seen that ridiculous email from the Executive Committee.

  “A ten percent increase in female partners!” he raged on, his breath ragged with exertion. He was definitely off his game that evening. Tyler had barely broken a sweat while J.D.—normally the far better player of the two (if he modestly said so himself)—had been diving all over the court just to keep up.

  Tyler returned J.D.’s volley easily. “Still only brings them to twenty-eight percent,” he said good-naturedly.

  “Who are you, Gloria Steinem?” J.D. glared at his friend for even suggesting there was any possible defense for the policy change the firm had announced today. “It’s their decision, Tyler,” he continued. “There is no glass ceiling anymore—these women choose to leave the workforce of their own volition.”

  “Ahh . . . the voice of equality rings out once more.” Tyler laughed.

  “Hey, I’m all for equality,” J.D. said as he hit the ball with another gratifying smash. Frankly, his friend’s lack of concern over the Executive Committee’s email baffled him. After all, Tyler worked at the firm, too, and while he wasn’t up for partner this year, his day soon would come.

  “And anyone else who allegedly stands for equality should be against this policy as well,” J.D. continued. “It’s reverse discrimination.”

  Tyler shrugged this off. “It’s only a commitment to make a ten percent increase. What difference does it make?”

  J.D. couldn’t listen to another word. With one hand, he caught the ball, bringing their game to an abrupt stop. He pointed his racquet at Tyler. “I’ll tell you what my problem is.”

  Tyler set his own racquet down and leaned against the wall. “I sense that I should get comfortable here.”

  J.D. ignored the sarcasm. “The playing field isn’t level—that’s the problem. Now maybe you’re comfortable accepting that, but I’m not. You know as well as I do that these days, if a man and a woman are equally qualified for a position, the woman gets the job. It’s this socially liberal, politically correct society we live in. Men have to be twice as good at what they do to remain competitive in the workplace. Women just have to stay in the race.”

  Tyler eyed him skeptically. “Do you really believe that?”

  “Absolutely,” J.D. said. “At least in the legal environment. It’s a numbers game. Because, percentage-wise, so few women stay at these large law firms—again by choice,” he emphasized quickly, “when one woman who’s halfway decent does come up for partner, she’s a shoo-in. But do guys like you and me have it so easy?”

  Tyler opened his mouth.

  “You’re right, we don’t,” J.D. finished for him. “No one from the Human Resources Department is telling the Executive Committee they need to increase the percentage of white males they make partner. So we”—he pointed—“have to fend for ourselves by making sure we don’t give them any excuse not to promote us.”

  Tyler held up his hands. “All right—just take it easy. I know you’re stressed out these days—”

  “—I’m just saying that everyone should be judged solely on merit. No ‘plus’ factors for gender, race, national origin, or—”

  “—what with the partnership decision coming up and all, I realize you’re nervous—”

  “—so that each person is given a fair chance—” J.D. stopped. He had just caught Tyler’s last words. “Wait—you think I’m nervous about making partner?”

  Tyler looked him over. “Are you saying you’re not nervous?”

  “Are you saying I have a reason to be nervous?”

  J.D. glanced around and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Why, what have you heard? Do you know something? Wait, never mind—don’t tell me. No, really—what?”

  Tyler laughed. “Take it easy, buddy. I haven’t heard a thing. The Executive Committee doesn’t exactly let lowly sixth years in on their partnership decisions.”

  J.D. exhaled in relief. “Right, sure.” Resuming his façade of nonchalance, he tossed the ball to Tyler. “Your serve.”

  The two played in silence for a few moments, the only sound being the repetitive bounce-smash! of the ball as they volleyed back and forth.

  Finally, J.D. broke the silence. “For the record, I don’t believe I’m ‘stressed out.’ ” But if, for argument’s sake, I am a little anxious, it would only be natural. After all, it’s been eight years. It’s my job, you know. It’s—”

  “—the only thing you’ve ever done without your father’s help and you don’t want to screw it up,” Tyler cut in. “I get that.”

  J.D. stopped dead in his tracks. The squash ball whizzed by, careened off the back wall, and bounced around the court until it finally rolled to a stop. He faced Tyler in stony silence.

  Tyler smiled innocently. “Oops—was that one of those things we’re not supposed to say out loud?”

  J.D. still said nothing. As his best friend, Tyler understood that t
he topic of his father was distinctly off-limits.

  “But I thought we were bonding,” Tyler continued. “You know, one oppressed white male to another.”

  J.D. gave him a look. “Very cute. Laugh now, but we’ll see who’s laughing in two years when you come up for partner and they toss your ass out onto the street with nothing more than a ‘thanks for your time.’ ” J.D. gestured to the court. “Now—if we’re finished with your little personal insights into my psyche, do you mind if we play some squash here?”

  Tyler bowed agreeably. “Not at all.”

  The two once again resumed their game. Silent. Focused. J.D. was just getting back into his groove when Tyler brought up another topic of conversation he had even less interest discussing.

  “So I saw you walk by my office this afternoon with Payton,” Tyler said. “You two looked chummy as always.”

  J.D. dove for the ball and narrowly missed it. Cursing under his breath, he picked himself up from the floor and walked it off. He knew Tyler was baiting him once again and was hardly about to give him the satisfaction of being successful at it a second time.

  “Payton and I had a meeting in Ben’s office,” he replied matter-of-factly. He tossed Tyler the ball.

  As their play continued, so did Tyler’s taunting. “So . . . did you congratulate her on the Chicago Lawyer article?”

  J.D. smiled, thinking back to his conversation with Payton earlier that day. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. In my own way of course.”

  “You know, maybe you should run your whole ‘women just have to stay in the race’ argument by her,” Tyler teased. “I’m sure she’d have a few thoughts.”

  J.D. scoffed at this. “Please—as if I’m worried about anything Payton has to say. What’s she going to do, give me another one of her little pissed-off hair flips?” He flung imaginary long hair off his shoulders, exaggerating. “I’ll tell you, one of these days I’m going to grab her by that hair and . . .” He gestured as if throttling someone.

  Without breaking stride, he returned Tyler’s serve. The two smashed a few back and forth, concentrating on the game when—

  “Is violence always part of your sexual fantasies?” Tyler interjected.

  J.D. whipped around—

  “Sexual—?”

  —and got hit smack in the face with the squash ball. He toppled back and sprawled ungracefully across the court.

  Tyler stepped over and twirled his racquet. “This is nice. We should talk like this more often.”

  J.D. reached over, grabbed the ball off the floor, and hurled it right at Tyler.

  J.D. HEADED HOME later that evening, still smarting from the squash-ball blow to the cheek. He didn’t know what hurt more—his face or his ego. A very competitive player, he couldn’t believe he had let Tyler distract him so easily. Taunting him about Payton, it was so . . . simplistic. But what could he say? As always, she brought out the worst in him. Even while playing squash, apparently.

  Truth be told, however, on this particular occasion he had a bit more on his mind than Payton Kendall. As J.D. parked his car in the underground garage of the Gold Coast high-rise condo building where he lived, he felt tired. Really tired. As if all the nineteen-hour days he’d been putting in the last year were suddenly catching up with him.

  Heading toward the garage elevators, J.D. pushed the remote on his key a second time to double-check that he had locked the doors. He knew he was overprotective of his car, but come on—who wouldn’t be? As he had once joked to Tyler, driving a Bentley actually made a man wish he had a longer commute to work. While Tyler had laughed at the joke, his father sure hadn’t when J.D. had said the same thing to him. In fact, it was that very car, the silver Bentley Continental GT, that had precipitated The Fight, the infamous argument between him and his father two years ago.

  J.D.’s father, the esteemed Honorable Preston D. Jameson, had once again been trying to tell J.D. how to live his life.

  “You have to sell the car,” his father had said in no uncertain terms the day after J.D.’s grandfather’s funeral.

  J.D. had pointed out that his grandfather, the illustrious entrepreneur Earl Jameson, had specifically left J.D. that car in his will. This reminder had only further annoyed his father, who most definitely was not a “car guy,” and who also had always been resentful of the bond between J.D. and his grandfather.

  “But you can’t drive that car to work—the partners don’t want to see an associate driving a one-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar car!” His father had tried appealing to what normally was J.D.’s weakness—his desire to be successful at the firm. But for the first (and to date, only) time, J.D. had other priorities—that car meant more to him than his father understood.

  He had smiled thinly at his father, tired. The days surrounding his grandfather’s funeral had been long and difficult. “Actually, Dad, it’s more like a one-hundred-ninety-thousand-dollar car—what with the chromed alloy sports wheels and upgraded interior veneer. And yes, I can drive it to work, quite easily, in fact—see, I just take Lake Shore Drive south and get off at Washington Street . . .”

  His father had not been amused.

  “Do you know what people will say?” his father had ranted. “It’s not dignified for a judge on the federal appellate bench to have a spoiled playboy son running around in some hotshot sports car!”

  J.D. tried to hide his anger and not dignify the comment with a response. Sure, he was single and he dated, but “playboy” was a little extreme. Frankly, he put in too many hours at work to have anything above a moderately healthy social life. Besides, he knew what the real issue was—his father’s reputation, not his. He figured his father could just add this to the list of other ways in which he had been a disappointment as a son: not being the editor of the Harvard Law Review, not being married, and then—worst of all—choosing to work at Ripley & Davis, the other of the top two firms in the city and direct competitor of the law firm his father had worked and been senior partner at before being appointed to the bench.

  But what bothered J.D. far more than his father’s disappointment or concern for his professional reputation (in thirty-two years he had grown quite accustomed to living under the shadow of those things) was the fact that his father had the audacity to call him spoiled. Sure, his family had money, a lot of money, but that shouldn’t diminish that he had worked his ass off to get where he was. That was the very reason he had chosen not to work for his father’s old firm: he didn’t want any special treatment because of his last name.

  Normally, J.D. would’ve ignored his father’s refusal to acknowledge his achievements, but on that day, in the emotional wake of his grandfather’s funeral, he simply couldn’t. So he said some things, his voice growing louder and louder, and then his father said some things, and in the midst of their argument, J.D. declared that he didn’t want another penny from his trust fund. From that day on, he vowed, he would survive on his own.

  And from that day on, he had.

  Okay, truthfully, this wasn’t exactly a fiscally impossible task. By that time a sixth-year associate at the firm, J.D. was earning at least $300,000 per year, including his bonus. But that still was a helluva lot less than any Chicago Jameson of recent history had lived on. And for that, he was proud.

  And he was also proud of that Bentley. Not only a sentimental link between him and his grandfather, it had become the symbol of J.D.’s Declaration of Independence from following in his father’s footsteps. And beyond that—

  He looked really cool driving it.

  On the elevator ride up to his condo apartment on the forty-fourth floor (“Not the penthouse?” his mother had asked in abject horror when he’d first given her the tour), J.D. mulled over the comments Tyler had made during their squash game. Not that he’d ever admit it, but he had been growing increasingly anxious every day, waiting for the firm to make its partnership announcements.

  Although certainly, J.D. thought as he walked the hallway to his apartment and unlocked
the front door, his meeting with Ben that afternoon had stifled pretty much any lingering doubts that had been creeping into his head these past few weeks. He’d caught what Ben had nearly blurted out during their meeting, about J.D. and Payton soon being partners. J.D. had noticed that Payton hadn’t missed Ben’s slipup, either—he’d seen the gleam in those dark blue eyes of hers.

  Probably the same gleam she’d gotten when she read the email from the Executive Committee, J.D. guessed. He tossed his briefcase and his gym bag onto the living room couch that faced the best feature of his apartment: floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the famed Magnificent Mile of Michigan Avenue, and beyond that, the vast blue expanse of Lake Michigan. (“At least there’s a view,” his mother had sniffed reluctantly.)

  Yes, indeed, J.D. had no doubt that the email from the Executive Committee had been the absolute highlight of Payton’s day. She was clever—she never directly played the gender card with the firm’s partners, but she also never missed a chance to flaunt her feminine status. Like that “Forty Women to Watch Under 40” article, for example. The only reason he’d asked her about it was to preempt any pleasure she’d get in bringing it up herself and rubbing it in his face.

  Not that it was a competition between them.

  Payton Kendall, Esquire, could be named in ten magazine articles for all he cared, she could have the entire firm wrapped around one of her little liberal feminist fingers—it concerned him not one bit. J.D. knew he was a good lawyer, very good, and once he made partner (even if she made it, too), and was in complete control of his own workload, he planned to make sure that he and Payton never worked together again.

  Now, if he could just get through this business with Gibson’s Drug Stores . . .

  J.D. showered quickly. It was late, and he needed to get an early start tomorrow morning. Payton had very nearly beaten him into the office the other morning, and he needed to put a quick kibosh on that.