The Lincoln Room was at full capacity. Dotted about were expansive round tables, with bushy bouquets at their centers, each named after a prominent female politician: “I’m on Maggie Thatcher! Where are you sitting?” Guests arrived plucking a champagne flute from the white-gloved servers’ trays. The reception was at a pleasant hum; we’d timed our arrival to perfection. Knowing British people, there were at least five concurrent conversations about “this mental weather we’ve been having!”
“You ready?” I asked, pausing under the unconscionably lavish flower arch. The ground floor of the Savoy had been monopolized tonight to celebrate thirty years of the Firm. I spotted in the corner a Willy Wonka–style cart offering cupcakes iced with “1988” and “2018” in the Firm’s colors.
“If I can get through this evening,” Adele said, lips stretched into a ventriloquist’s smile, “without cracking into my cyanide tooth, I’ll consider it a success.”
It seemed the women of Reuben, Fleisher & Wishall LLP had sold out Van Cleef’s Alhambra collection. Men signaled their earning capacity with discreetly indiscreet watches. When we first met a year ago, I read Adele’s insistence on wearing black Dr. Martens and mismatched Celtic earrings as a tiresome display of rebellion; a statement that I may be another cog in this machine, but I’m an individual and, crucially, I am not a sellout. When she got her forearm tattoo—an outline of a nude woman with flowers sprouting out of her nipples—she essentially plastered vive la résistance! over the door to our shared office. I knew now that nothing Adele did was performative.
I had yet to reach such dizzying heights of emancipation. I’d spent the last ninety minutes assembling myself. Neutral-but-smoky eye makeup, legs smoother than dolphins. I got a manicure earlier today, returning to a Post-it on my desk in my boss’s scrawl: Jade, this isn’t play school. An hour for lunch? I wore a fir-green dress that cinched my waist and had a wraparound bodice. Despite its low cut, the dress remained professional, given my lack of breasts. I felt some feminist guilt over the hours I’ve spent researching boob jobs, but enough aunties at enough weddings have lamented that my “childbearing” hips are disproportionate to my flat chest. The last straw was Auntie Ebru’s exclamation that Jade has the face to launch a thousand ships, and the backside for them to harbor under!
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you forever!” Eve grabbed me in a hug as Adele was pulled into another huddle. “Jeez, love this dress, and it has pockets?”
“Hey Evie.” I grinned.
“Come, let’s mingle.” She tugged on my wrist toward a group of colleagues. I looked over my shoulder and flashed Adele an apologetic smile, reciprocated with a minimal wave as she dissolved into the crowd.
“It’s always about the oil,” Will Janson—of Post-it fame, and also the partner who headed my team—cried. There were more partners at the Firm called William (nine in total), than female partners. “That’s all the US involvement in the Middle East has ever been about.”
“Now, we’re not talking politics, are we?” Eve stepped into the conversation, sidling up against Will, one hand perched on his shoulder.
“We were just talking about the Pentagon’s planned withdrawal of troops from Syria,” Will said.
“I’d know nothing about that,” Eve said, doe-eyed. “Could you walk me through it?”
The thing is, Eve has a first-class politics degree. Her thesis charted how the unassuming Bashar al-Assad went from reserved ophthalmologist to dangerous dictator. On an August day, in a muggy lecture hall that smelled of feet, I crept in late to the first session of postgraduate law school. Eve was in the back row, messaging someone under the desk. Her proud chin and severe cheekbones were incongruous with the battered dungarees slung over her shoulders and the carton of apple juice she reached for. She smiled at my dithering by the door and shuffled to make room for me.
“What’sa girl gotta do to get a pint around here?” she whispered as we filed out of a seminar on insolvency that had made time stop still. “Paid a fiver for a cider the other day, gave me a fucking heart attack.”
Eve’s over-familiarity, and the confidence it displayed, made me shy.
“That’s London for you,” I said.
“It was always gonna be spenny here, but no one signed up to starve.”
“I know a place around the corner,” I offered, “a student bar, if you fancy it?”
Frolicking down the back streets of Bloomsbury, we peeked into the cream Edwardian houses saying we were putting ourselves through this grind to get ceilings that high. Eve ended up pulling pints for the rest of law school at that student bar. At the time, she had an older boyfriend who paid her rent and understood she didn’t love him, but she still needed extra cash to maintain the lifestyle she emulated. We went on to submit our applications to Reuben together. We both got in, secured contracts together, trained together, qualified together into different departments. We ran on parallel tracks and, luckily, have never collided. After our shared blueprints, Eve didn’t hide the fact that my rapid free fall into best friendship with Adele was a thorn in her side.
Eve was the most uniquely intelligent person I’d ever met. She understood the person her audience wanted her to be. For Will, she knew to play the role of the gorgeous junior who hung on his alpha word with wonderment. As she requested, he “walked her through” the news story while she innocuously grazed her hip against his leg, to indulge his belief that he could have her if he wanted. It reminded me of the scripted flirtation between a father and his son’s girlfriend (I can see where your son gets his good looks from!). By the same token, Eve knew to mention her desire for motherhood when speaking to a colleague who had just returned from maternity leave, or to play up her Northern accent when the Geordie head of IT came to fix a computer bug. She once referred to herself as the right Spotify playlist.
“Jade, tell us,” Will said, turning to me, “given your background, what are your thoughts on potential British involvement in Syria? History repeating itself?” Being mistaken for Downing Street’s foreign policy advisor was an occupational hazard for people who looked like me. I didn’t get the chance to bluff my way through a response stolen from the Guardian, as just then, we were called to take our seats.
“Have you seen the seating plan?” Will asked.
“No, I haven’t,” I mumbled, looking around for it.
“You’re on Hillary Clinton.” Will nodded toward the table. “In the place d’honneur, I should add.”
“What do you mean?”
“To the right of David.”
“Oh.”
“That bastard,” Will chuckled. “Every year he helps himself.”
He winked as he walked toward his table, Angela Merkel.
“Miss Kaya,” David Reuben said, approaching me with an outstretched hand.
“Mr. Reuben, please, call me Jade.” I felt an overwhelming urge to curtsy.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.” What has he heard about me? “Very pleased to finally meet you in person.”
We actually had met before, three years ago. I’d scurried into his office to procure his all-powerful signature for a contract. He hadn’t looked up at me.
He pulled out my chair and I perched in the most ginger fashion I could muster.
“So, tell me about yourself,” he began. “What are you working on?”
“Project Arrow.” The Firm had been brought onto the case four months ago to defend the ethical investment fund Arrow against the first whispers alleging fraud. After settlement discussions failed, a claim was filed with the High Court, bringing to the public’s salivating attention what had previously been terse talks in conference rooms over glasses of sparkling water.
“Jade, listen.” David beckoned me with a curl of his index finger. As I leaned in, his breath purred against my cheek. “Genevieve and her team at Arrow are top tier and are to be treated as such, do you understand?” His left eyebrow jerked like it had a life of its own.
“Absolutely.” Genevieve was Arrow’s devoutly French founder who’d hurricaned into my life. I admired everything about her. Her meeting etiquette was artful. She referred to herself as a “market leader” and never uttered the word “just.” I felt chic merely as the recipient of her texts that read RDV a 9h. In our first rendezvous, she asked me which university I went to. When I answered, she said pfft, why do you sound so sheepish? Say it again, this time like it’s yours to say.
“The standard is perfection.” David turned a beady eye to me. “Got it?”
I nodded. The political machinations of client networking were usually withheld from us more lowly associates, so now the pressure was on.
“Good.” David nodded back. “Enough business. Tell me, where are you from?”
“Born and bred London.”
“You said that with pride, but I meant where are you originally from?”
The magical realm of Narnia. I sneak out the back of the wardrobe whenever I fancy going home.
“David!” I turned to see Josh, a senior associate, striding toward us with open arms. “To what do I owe the pleasure of sitting at high table with you?” They hugged, slapping each other on the shoulder with the familiarity of two friends living on different continents reconnecting by chance. I quickly looked engrossed by the menu, attempting to channel indifference to Josh. We had worked together over the summer. Long, sleep-deprived nights, alone in meeting rooms with him. The way he murmured his agreement with me. How when he took off his cuff links to roll up his sleeves, the errant undressing made me prickle. The way he suddenly stretched next to me, and it made me exhale slowly to refocus. How his Adam’s apple vibrated when he laughed at my jokes. How we shared a lukewarm beer when he turned thirty-two in the office. He had said you weren’t who I expected to spend my birthday with, but it sounded like a compliment. I’d remained distant and standoffish since the case settled. That was the best way to keep it professional.
Tonight’s starter was salmon tartare and a radish garnish, with a side of you’re mixed race? Your mother came to the UK as a tourist and married your father? For visa purposes, I assume? As he asked, David refilled my glass with a delicious Austrian Riesling. I guzzled the wine to avoid answering his question and immediately felt woozier.
“Miss Jadey, what fun plans do you have on for the weekend?” David asked, while he ceremoniously swirled, sniffed, and sipped the cabernet taster that was paired with our minute-steak main. Miss Jadey? Delighted to announce my debut as one of the Muppets.
“Not much, I’m seeing my parents tomorrow, then probably a relaxed Sunday.” I was seeing Kit on Sunday, but it was best not to mention a boyfriend, to avoid being typecast into either (a) tragic-girl-who-is-obsessed-with-her-boyfriend-who-by-the-way-has-not-proposed-yet, or (b) up-herself-she-thinks-I-was-coming-on-to-her-so-she’s-dropped-the-boyfriend-card.
“That’s wholesome.”
“What about you?”
“It’s my son’s twenty-first. My ex-wife has organized an extravaganza for him.”
“What are you getting him for the big two-one?”
“The Notting Hill flat.”
“As opposed to your many other London flats?” I teased.
“Yes,” David said, deadpan and oblivious to my sarcasm. “It wouldn’t make sense for him to have the Liverpool Street place. Obviously, the house on the Heath is out of the question too.”
I filled the dead air with more wine. My head was nice and fuzzy, while my stomach grumbled in protest.
“Whereabouts do you live?” David asked, sloshing a little more into my glass. The cream tablecloth bloomed oxblood splotches.
“South London.”
“Ooh, trendy South,” David sniggered.
“Any digestifs, sir?” asked a waiter.
“I’ll have a Scotch. The lady will have a limoncello.” He didn’t take his eyes off me. The room felt too hot. I looked around for some water.
“Excuse me, Jade, but I have spotted an old client of mine. Do you mind if I pop over and say hello?”
“Sure, go ahead.” It’s a two-hundred-person dinner, David, not a first date. I dug in my purse for my phone.
Adele O’Hara, 3 minutes ago:
Ladies room—as soon as dessert starts!
Eve Slater, now:
Looking cozy with Daddy Reuben…
“How is it being teacher’s pet?” Josh scooted into David’s seat and gently elbowed me in the ribs. I tucked my phone away.
“Why? You upset to be overtaken?” I prodded back.
“Remember me when you’re living in his mansion on the Heath. I can see it now: Mrs. Reuben the Sixth.”
“Come off it. He has five ex-wives?”
“Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beh—”
I huffed loudly before giving him a bashful smile.
“To be fair, you’d totally blend into a lineup with them.”
“I have no idea what you mean by that.”
“I simply mean,” Josh said with a big smile, “that Sir Dave cannot resist a woman like you.”
“Well…” I slurred, slow to rush past his comment, far drunker than I realized. My breathing was labored, like a layer of gauze was covering my nose and mouth. “He’s old enough to be my dad.”
“Hasn’t stopped him before!”
Josh looked like Marlon Brando playing Stanley Kowalski if Marlon changed out of his greasy singlet, wore a tailored suit, and grew curated designer stubble: refined sophistication meets animalistic masculinity. He put his hand on my forearm when asking another one? I nodded; he took his hand away and my skin bristled with heat.
A minute later, Josh handed me a fresh glass, looking slowly down the whole length of me. “Jokes aside, you look—”
“Josh—”
“I know,” he said.
“I have a—”
“Of course.” His eyes, green and flecked with light brown splotches, held mine for another beat. I longed for him to touch me again. “I just wanted you to know.”
I blinked and remembered where we were. “Save it for someone else. I’m just here for the vintage wine on the Firm’s dime.”
“As you wish.” He clinked his glass against mine. “Cheers.”
After David returned and dessert was served, I excused myself. I fished out my phone and messaged Kit.
Jade Kaya, now:
How is your evening babe? Looooveee you xxxx
Miss you xxx
“How’s it going in here?” Adele said, though it was more like howzit go-win in he-yah, given her jangling accent. I was sitting on a tufted rose-colored bench with my head in my hands. The bathroom was encased in teal-framed mirror panels that bounced my reflection infinite times. “Dude, are you okay?”
“Fuck, Del, I’m boozed.”
“Good Lord, girl.” Adele sat next to me, laughing. “Really dining out on the free wine?”
“Well yes, but also every time I looked away, he was refilling my drink. Feels like he’s being a bit of a creep.”
“Who?”
“David.”
“David who?”
“The David, Adele! The guy’s name is on our fucking office building! This entire party”—I flailed my arm about—“is to celebrate what he created. Are you with me?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“Not someone you can rebuff.”
“No.”
“Okay. Have a piss, go back inside and just”—clap—“drink”—clap—“water”—clap—“for the next forty-five minutes. I’ll keep my eyes on you.”
Dessert passed. The lights were dimmed. A live jazz band appeared, the saxophonist crooning as married associates slunk into darkened corners. A senior lawyer clicked at the server for a round of Negronis! My feeble attempt to resist was met with it’s the Firm’s signature drink, you know that.
“Miss Jadey, I was beginning to think you might have pulled an Irish exit,” David called out at me, his acolytes turning to stare at his target. Nowhere to hide. I smiled weakly and swayed over to him. “If you’re getting tired, this should wake you up,” David said, replacing my half-drunk Negroni with a fresh cocktail.
Adele followed very closely behind me.
“An espresso martini—I’d love one, David, thanks!” Adele swooped the drink out of my hand and replaced it with water. Being American helped her get away with a brashness that startled the British.
“The more the merrier.” David smirked. Now that we were standing, I saw that David was short and beanpole thin. He gestured at the waiter. “Another one.” I gulped as much water as possible before the next stem was planted in my hand. Adele had been whisked away. My feet were sore. My cheeks felt hot, and my head was pounding. I’d brushed past Eve maybe half an hour ago, but there was no sign of her now either.
“Jade, you are an exotic creature.” David’s stubble scuffed my cheek as he whispered his gruff nothings in my ear. The room rippled.
“Sorry, David,” I mumbled, “I need to—”
“How are you getting home tonight?” David’s fingers clasped my forearm. I looked down in surprise. His fingernails weren’t clipped and trapped thin lines of dirt.
“I… I don’t know. Cab?”
“You can’t possibly go back south this late at night. All those stabbings, it’s dangerous.”
“What?” I said, defensive. I hoped my blinking wasn’t as slow as it felt.
“Let me give you a place to stay.”
“No. Really, it’s fine.”
“What’s this game you’re playing?” David’s consonants were sharp.
I stared at him, my face empty and stupid. Say something.
“Don’t play dumb,” his voice said, his face a triple blur.
Say something, for fuck’s sake. His hand was clammy against me.
“Jade!” I turned. Josh was walking toward us and I saw him glance at my arm in David’s grip. “Sorry to interrupt, David. Do you mind if I steal Jade for a few minutes? I’ve been meaning to introduce her to a prospective client.”
“If you must.” David looked like one of those serial killers in Netflix documentaries: high-functioning but a cauldron of simmering rage underneath. “But we have unfinished business.”
Josh shepherded me out of the Lincoln Room and down the corridor. All my focus was spent on walking as steadily as possible.
“Who is it you want me to meet?” I asked, looking up at him towering over me.
“No one,” Josh chuckled. “I thought you could do with a bit of respite from Dave.”
“Oh God, thank you.”
“Yeah, fuck, I’m sorry, I should have intervened sooner. Everyone knows he can be a bit full-on.”
I felt nauseated, as if the little food I’d had was clambering back up my throat. “Do you mind if I sit for a bit?”
My head slackened against his chest, his arm cradled my shoulders. Our pose was like a couple’s engagement photo. He led me to a corner at the back of the cloakroom and, a moment later, held a bottle of water to my lips. “Take a sip,” he said, like he was trying to coax a child to eat their vegetables. “Cinderella, I think it’s time to get you home.” He handed me his phone as he steadied me. “Here, put in your address and I’ll order you a pumpkin.”
I bundled into the back seat of the taxi and immediately rolled down the windows, planning to hang my head out like a dog in a bid to avoid vomiting over the cabbie’s livelihood. Josh closed the door behind me. You’re an embarrassment, Jade, I thought. I need to get home. I felt a twang of mourning for Josh seeing me in this state. Then I clocked that his shape had strode around the car and slid in the other side. I felt my face screw together.
“Don’t look so worried!” he laughed. “I live nearby, I’ll jump out on the way.”
“Mmm.”
Josh leaned across me to fasten my seat belt and, abandoning all socially acceptable inhibitions, I inhaled the crook of his neck. It smelled like dry-cleaning.
My neck swung elastically from side to side, no longer supporting my lolling head. The sounds of nocturnal London fleeted past as we swooped through the Strand. Girls screeching about their feet hurting, emulsified with revving motorbikes and distant sirens. My eyelids drooped as we crossed Waterloo Bridge, taking in the glittering black river before I finally surrendered to sleep.
Adele O’Hara, 15 minutes ago:
How are you feeling?
Eve Slater, 5 minutes ago:
Where areeee youuu? We’re heading to Dirty Martini for more drinks, meet us there?
Adele O’Hara, 4 minutes ago:
Have you left?
Adele O’Hara, now:
Text me when you’re home safe.
“Hey.” A firm hand shook my shoulder. “Wake up, Jade.”
“What?”
“Wake up—we’re here. Is there anyone at home who can take care of you?”
“Nope. I lib alone.”
“All right, then. Which one is your place?”
“Flat sixth.”
Like a newborn giraffe yet to discover the concept of balance, I teetered and swayed my way out of the car.
“I’ve got it from here, thanks, man,” Josh said to the driver as he shut the car door and the taxi purred along the road.
I blinked at my front door.
Is this flat 6 or flat 9?
“Here, let me help you.”
Josh took the keys out of my fumbling hands. Within seconds, he swung open the door to my hallway. It creaked as it moved, the glow of the streetlamps revealing an inky indigo tunnel to nowhere.
“You okay?” Josh leaned against the wall. I swiveled to look back at him, nearly toppling over and having to steady myself against the doorframe. His expression was amused, and I let out a silly giggle.
“D’ya wanna come in for a drink?” I blurted. Why did I say that? I felt sick. I needed to be horizontal. Before Josh could answer, I stalked in and slumped on the hallway bench. He shadowed me inside. I stared at the grain in the wood floor, which appeared to be swirling in opposing directions. My phone flopped out of my hand.
Kit Campbell, now:
Haha you sound boozed my love! Make sure you drink lots of water xxx
My love! I wanted Kit here very badly. Instead, I felt Josh sit next to me and lean forward, lifting my left leg up. His hands were tanned and veiny. One hand supported my ankle while he pulled off my heel with the other. I watched, stupefied, as he did the same to my other foot. With minimal effort, he lifted me up off the stool, steadying me as I wobbled.
“I never realized how petite you are without your heels,” he murmured. I was at eye level with his chest now. With his left hand propping me up, his right tugged at his tie, pulling one strand out through the other.