‘Alex.’ There was a tugging at her arm. ‘Alex, Alex, wake up.’ Now there were fingers on her chin, moving her head from side to side. ‘Alex. Come on.’
Where was she? The last thing she remembered was poor dead little Henny the guinea pig and Noah stomping on her with a diamond ring between his teeth and a demonic glint in his eye. Wait. What the fuck?
Alex’s eyes blazed open to find James approximately an inch from her face, his forehead creased with worry.
‘What are you doing?’ Alex clutched the seatbelt. Now she knew where she was. The car. The fundraising ball. Her big night to shine on behalf of Macauley.
‘You fainted.’ James took her wrist. ‘Your pulse is going crazy.’ He touched her head. ‘And you’re quite feverish. I think you’re coming down with something.’
‘I just fell asleep for a minute,’ Alex protested, pushing James’s hand away, her head spinning wildly. She blinked. And blinked again to bring the world back to a standstill. ‘I’m fine,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘No, you’re not.’ He was firm. ‘And you didn’t just fall asleep, you fainted. We were in the middle of a conversation and you stopped, mid-sentence.’
‘I’m exhausted! I’m pregnant, don’t forget.’ As if to prove the point, she burped, a bilious, eggy ejection that fortunately seemed to ease her queasy stomach.
James clenched the steering wheel. ‘Let’s just go home.’
‘No.’ Alex released the handbrake. ‘We are going to this ball.’ She tried to lean forward, but was constrained by the seatbelt. ‘Now if I can just loosen this stupid dress and breathe properly then everything will be fine.’
James watched her.
‘Maybe instead of just sitting there, you could help me,’ she snapped, twisting in the seat.
In silence, James undid the zipper and Alex breathed deeply, taking in blessed lungfuls of oxygen.
‘There, that’s better. See, I’m fine now. I just needed to, you know, breathe.’
‘Life is pretty tricky without it,’ said James drily, observing her.
‘Well, come on then. What are you waiting for? Let’s go. We’re already twenty minutes late.’
‘You cannot be serious.’
‘I’m perfectly serious.’
‘How are you going to walk around that ballroom with your dress half undone?’
Alex rummaged through her handbag. ‘I’ve got a safety pin here somewhere so I’ll just pin it and cover the back with my wrap.’ She held up the pashmina. ‘Never leave home without one.’
‘This is crazy.’ James tapped the steering wheel. ‘No job could be worth this.’
Alex looked at him. ‘In ten years, when we are debt-free and sitting on a very large retirement fund, you’ll thank me.’
‘If I’m still around,’ James muttered under his breath.
Alex pretended not to hear.
At the oversized entry doors to the ballroom, under a sparkling chandelier, Alex paused. Behind the solid wooden panels, the ball was in full swing. A jazz band, as James had predicted. She twirled slowly in a circle before her husband. ‘Can you tell I’m pinned in?’
James studied her. ‘You wouldn’t know a thing.’
‘Perfect.’ She took his hand. ‘Thank you for doing this.’
The silence of the remaining car ride had given her time to think rationally. James wasn’t trying to stand in the way of her career. He’d always been nothing but supportive. He was worried for her. For the kids, and that was perfectly understandable. She loved him for that. But he didn’t understand how these things worked. He also had no idea of what it was like to go without. His mum’s idea of deprivation was refusing to foot the bill for James’s French horn lessons, on account of the horrendous racket. The poor woman still felt guilty. How could James understand Alex’s drive to secure their family’s financial future? How could he understand that a law firm gave one chance and one chance only? This was her time. All she had to do was be brave enough to take it.
She straightened James’s tie and led him into the ballroom. Both of them stopped under the entry banner, emblazoned with the words A Night of Diamonds: Helping Our Kids Shine Brighter.
Three months ago, she’d attended a conference here about new corporate regulation and remembered the room being as boring and stale as the ginger nut biscuits served at break time.
Tonight, it was like entering a planetarium.
Gone was the beige wallpaper, and in its place were heavy swathes of black velvet. The harsh overhead lighting had been replaced by hundreds of glow-lamps on each table, projecting stars and planets about the room.
‘Oh, it’s gorgeous, don’t you think?’ Alex turned to James excitedly.
‘If only the sick kids could be here to see it,’ he remarked through tense lips.
Alex took his hand. ‘Please. Please just go along with this. For me?’
James nodded grimly and tucked her hand under his arm as they made their way to the Macauley table, Alex being careful to make sure her wrap didn’t snag on anyone’s chair. The last thing she needed was a wardrobe malfunction.
She spotted Martin, sitting at the table and studying the menu. An older man sat to his side, next to a substantially younger woman who appeared to be wearing more make-up than clothing.
Alex waved to get Martin’s attention, and plastered a bright smile to her face. ‘Hi there, sorry we’re late. You remember James, don’t you?’
Martin frowned for a minute before allowing himself a nod of recognition. ‘Hello, James. Good to see you again.’
The two shook hands and Martin turned to the man on his left. ‘Anthony, you’ve met Alexandra O’Rourke, I believe. She was one of the senior associates on your acquisition last year.’
Anthony made a face and offered his hand. ‘I’ve tried to forget all the lawyers I met last year.’
‘I try to do the same,’ joked Alex. ‘What’s your name again?’ she said to Martin.
‘She’s funny,’ Anthony remarked. ‘Keep her.’
‘Alexandra is one of our rising stars. We have big plans for her,’ said Martin. ‘She’s also a mother of two. Twins, I think?’
Alex blinked. Martin never mentioned her children. She wasn’t even sure he knew she had them.
Anthony shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you young women do it all. Or why you do it all.’
‘Because we love to work and we love our kids,’ said Alex, laughing. ‘And we want both. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’
Anthony sat down and leant back, his fingers playing at the base of his wineglass. ‘And what does your husband think about that?’
‘I think Alex doesn’t know when to stop,’ said James.
‘I like that in a lawyer,’ said Anthony. ‘A tiger.’
The band struck up a new song that Alex recognised as the old Sinatra standard ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.
The bejewelled and heavily made-up woman on Anthony’s other side squeezed his arm. ‘C’mon, this is boring. We’re not here to talk shop all night.’
Oh, yes we are, thought Alex.
‘Excuse me, folks. Got to perform my husbandly duties.’ Anthony rose and led the woman that Alex presumed to be his wife (second, at a guess) onto the dance floor.
‘Why don’t you and Martin go join them?’ James took a seat. ‘I’ll stay here and mind the table. Make sure the wine is up to scratch.’ He tipped a glass at Alex and winked.
Bastard.
Martin was the last person Alex wanted to dance with, and her husband knew it. The thought of putting her hands on his neat little waist and staring straight into his squirrelly face for at least three minutes was … Ugh! It wasn’t worth thinking about and she felt quite sure that Martin would feel equally disinclined. He was the kind of man who kept antibacterial wipes in his top drawer and was forever going on about how fingers were the carriers of most illness.
But, wait, shit, no. Martin was rising to his feet. ‘I was actually a junior champion in ballroom dancing back in the day.’
Of course you were.
‘Shall we?’ He extended his hand to Alex.
‘Sure.’
His palm was clammy and Alex resisted the urge to rip her hand away and wipe it down her dress, wishing very hard at that moment for Martin’s box of antibacterial wipes.
Pull yourself together.
She was an adult. So what if she shared a little sweat with her co-worker? It could be no worse than Jasper’s puking.
On the dance floor, Martin clicked his heels together and held his arms out wide. Alex stepped into them and saw a momentary blink of confusion as he pressed his hand into her back.
Oh shit. He’s felt the pin.
But before she could worry about it any further, they were dancing. Martin’s movements were smooth and precise, if lacking in flair. In other words, he danced the way he worked.
‘I hope you don’t mind my mentioning your children to Anthony.’ Martin avoided eye contact by staring off to the side, the way professional ballroom dancers did, as if paradise lay just beyond their partner’s shoulder. ‘But he’s about to become a grandfather and his daughter is your age.’
Alex raised her eyebrows. So his second wife was around the same age as his daughter. Charming.
Martin went on. ‘Clients like to work with lawyers they can relate to, just like any business. People think the law is all about justice and fairness and applying legislation and regulations.’ He stopped to dip her. ‘But at the partner level, it’s actually about personal connections. Most of the work of being a partner is about cultivating and feeding our client relationships.’
And sacrificing your personal ones.
‘That makes perfect sense,’ Alex murmured, starting to feel a little dizzy from Martin’s continual twirling.
‘The other critical aspect of a partner’s role is to develop and guide the company’s culture.’
‘I’m glad you said that Martin, because I have …’
He cut her off. ‘We need a working mother to join the partners.’
‘Right,’ said Alex uncertainly.
‘Specifically, we need a working mother with young children. Our graduate intake this year is seventy-five per cent female and, as you well know, we invest heavily in training and developing our new recruits.’ He stopped twirling and dipped her again. ‘We need a return on that investment.’
Actually she didn’t see. All the female graduates worked their arses off. Macauley more than made its money back on them.
He righted her. ‘That’s where you come in. We want to offer these women the chance to freeze their eggs.’
‘Sorry. What?’
Martin twirled her out, and reeled her back in. ‘It was my impression that you were familiar with the process of in-vitro fertilisation.’
‘If you’re asking if I went through IVF, then yes I did, but that was for fertility issues, not because I wanted to delay having children.’
Martin shrugged. ‘The reasons don’t matter. What’s important is that you’ve done it. You can lead this program. You can show young women that they don’t need to rush off and have babies.’ He said this with a slight sneer. ‘Pregnancy is an inconvenience, as you well know. Remember the Merrill matter?’
How could she forget. They’d been pushing for a resolution for over twelve months, and just as word came through that the other party was ready to do a deal, Alex had the temerity to go into labour with the twins and had had to hand over the reins to Martin. She’d briefed him between contractions, a fact he’d never let her forget. Alex had to concede it was a little disjointed. But still, she was having a baby. Actually, two of them. At that point, she really didn’t give a shit about the Merrill matter.
‘With the egg-freezing program, they can stay working. Establish themselves. Have children when they want to, not according to some arcane quirk of biology. We want them to lean in and, in so doing, ensure that all the time and money Macauley puts into them isn’t wasted.’
Alex stopped dancing and dropped Martin’s hand. ‘So that’s why I’ve been asked to become a partner, so I can be the poster-girl for IVF?’
‘I wouldn’t quite put it in those terms,’ said Martin. ‘You’re also an excellent lawyer.’ He took her back in his arms. Alex felt trapped. She’d given her life to the company. Missed school assemblies and tuckshop duty, even one of the twins’ own birthday parties, to deal with a crisis. She’d assumed the partnership offer was reward for effort and excellence, recognition of the way in which she’d managed to keep her family invisible from her workplace. It was an offer made despite being a working mother, not because of it. Now, she was learning it was the opposite.
Her head spun in time with the mirror ball. Alex stopped still. ‘I’m sorry, Martin, but I’m not feeling very well.’
He jumped back, as if stung by a wasp. ‘You should have told me earlier,’ he said, not in a kindly way.
At the table, James was chatting with Anthony. His wife scrolled through her phone.
‘Anthony, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we need to leave.’ Alex stood next to her husband and tapped the table.
James looked up at her in surprise. ‘What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?’
‘No … Yes … I’ll explain later.’ She took James’s hand and tugged him to his feet. ‘Goodbye, Anthony. It was a pleasure to meet you. Please wish your daughter good luck from me in becoming a mother. She’ll need it.’ Alex turned on her heel. She had the sense James was following close behind, but it wasn’t until they reached the doors that he finally caught her hand.
‘What’s going on? Why are we leaving when we’ve only just arrived?’
Alex looked around. Everywhere she saw money, from the glittering glassware, to the full-to-the-brim champagne flutes, to the thousand-dollar tuxedoes and the even more expensive designer frocks being twirled about on the dance floor.
The fairy lights glittered overhead like stars.
‘This is another planet,’ Alex whispered. ‘And I don’t think I want to be here any more.’
She took James’s hand, and started walking away.