All's Fair

It's Just Drinks

Grace dropped her phone back into her purse, and glanced into the hotel bar where Jack was waiting for her. Crap crap crap. She was up for partner this year, and if she got on the wrong side of Paul Glassman she could kiss her dreams of a future with this firm goodbye. She knew exactly what I'm confident you were the right person to send down there meant. It meant that if RKO's acquisition of Shell-Morr fell through because of this lawsuit, there was no chance she'd get the unanimous vote of the management committee. Without it, no partnership.

Paul Glassman believed in hard work, loyalty to the firm and client, and making profits. What he didn't believe in were second chances. The assignment to this case, which had looked initially like a perfect opportunity to impress the firm's management committee, was beginning to feel more and more like a train wreck.

She was regretting the impulse that had led her to invite Jack back to grab a late dinner at her hotel and discuss the deposition. I mean, really, could you even discuss a fiasco like that with a straight face? Right now she'd much rather just go back to her room, take an aspirin for the headache that was nagging increasingly behind her temple, and go to sleep. But since she couldn't think of any graceful way to get out of it – and a little food on her stomach might actually help her headache – she straightened her shoulders, put a smile on her face, and walked back into the bar.

"Something's bothering you."

Grace slid onto the bar stool next to him. "You read witnesses and jurors that easily?"

"Sometimes."

"I'll have to work on my poker face."

"Or you could just tell me what's the matter."

"One of the senior partners in mergers and acquisitions is getting anxious. He wants the deal closed, and this lawsuit is standing in the way."

"So he's not very happy with you at the moment."

She shrugged. "The mergers and acquisitions guys don't have a lot of patience for scheduling orders in federal court. They see it as a frivolous case, and they expect me to make it go away. The sooner the better."

Jack signaled to the bartender, then turned to Grace. "You want to move to a table?"

"No, this is fine. I'll have a glass of the house merlot," she told the bartender. "And can we see a menu?"

"Hungry?" Jack said.

"Well, considering we had lunch at 10:30."

He laughed.

"Did you really have to spend seven hours deposing her when we got back?"

"It would have been considerably shorter if Shelley hadn't demanded a break every 30 minutes. And if she could manage to even once answer a direct question the first time it was asked."

"Is this the kind of case you do all the time? Because I think I'd lose my mind."

"No, I'd say this one is pretty unique."

"Well, I guess I can see why Sherman insisted on the employment contract as part of the divorce settlement. Though why those two even want to work together is beyond me. And they've been sleeping together the entire time? They work together, have sex, apparently spend time at each others' homes . . . I'm not getting why they aren't still married.

"Honestly Jack, that deposition was starting to feel like some sort of mating ritual."

"If so, it's an unusual kind of foreplay."