Member of the NYU Law Review“Where were you?” my mother says, bursting in the door to my office. Not only has my mother never visited me at work, but also, it’s 8 p.m. at night.
“What are you doing here, Mom?” I say, getting up from my desk to give her a kiss hello.
“We had a 7 p.m. appointment at Amsale,” she says.
“I totally forgot,” I say, trying to figure out what day it is, “I’m so sorry.”
“You forgot?” she says, “about shopping for your own wedding dress?” And with that, she puts the back of her hand to my forehead. And then her other hand to her own forehead.
“What are you doing?” I say, swatting her hand away.
“You must be ill,” she says, “I’m testing to see if you have a temperature.”
“I feel fine,” I say, walking back behind my desk and sitting down, “Why would you think that I’m sick?”
“Well, you would have to be deathly ill,” my mother explains, as she sits down on one of the visitors chairs in my office, “to forget about shopping. Wedding dress shopping, no less.”
“I’m not ill,” I say, “I’m just insanely busy at work is all.”
“I have never known you, in your 30 years on planet earth, to choose work over shopping,” she says, reaching over my desk to feel my forehead again. “Surely, you must be delirious.”
“I’m not delirious,” I say, leaning back in my chair, out of the reach of her arm, “I’m just very busy at work. And I didn’t choose work over shopping. I really had no choice in the matter.” I toss the document requests over to her to prove my point.
“What is this?” she asks, picking up the document request with two fingers as if it was a dirty turtle I’d found in our backyard. “Is this piece of paper supposed to validate the fact that you missed our appointment at Amsale?”
“I’m just showing you how busy I am,” I say, taking the document request back.
“Yes, I know all about it,” she says, “it’s what you told me last night when you missed our appointment at Vera Wang.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” I say, looking back down at the documents I was reviewing when my mother first walked in.
“That was your excuse on Monday, when you missed our appointment at Reem Acra,” she says, grabbing the documents I’m reviewing and throwing them down on the floor behind her.
“What are you doing?” I say, getting up from my chair to retrieve the documents.
“What are you doing is the better question here, BB,” she says, grabbing my arm as I pass her. She stands up from her chair and we are face to face. “What are you thinking? Don’t you want to get a wedding dress?”
“Of course I want to get a wedding dress, Mom,” I say, “it’s just that I have all of this work to do.”
“When you were at Gilson Hecht you were never this diligent about work,” she says, “I remember meeting you on many an occasion at Saks when you’d snuck out of work for the afternoon. And now, when you really have something that you need to shop for, you don’t have time?”
“I need to prove myself here, Mom,” I say, “you just don’t understand.”
And of course my mother wouldn’t understand. The longest job she ever held was working at the Five and Dime when she was sixteen years old. And that was just an after school job. She had the luxury of meeting my father in college and being married by the time she was nineteen. Pregnant with me at twenty-two.
“What I do understand is that I’m trying to get my only daughter—my only child— married here,” she says. “What’s important is life, not work. You’ve finally found Mr. Right. Don’t you want to celebrate that?”
“While I was waiting around for 30 years for Mr. Right to come around, Mom, I got a career and a life. I still have to honor my commitments. You’re the one who taught me that.”
“But, BB, now you’ve found Mr. Right, so you can relax a little. I’m not telling you to quit your job. I’m not telling you to drop your big case. I’m just saying to give yourself a little time off so that you can look gorgeous when you walk down the aisle to go join Mr. Right in holy matrimony.”
“This is the last night I work this late, Mom, I promise,” I say, as she releases me from her grip and I bend down to retrieve the documents she’s thrown on the floor. “Once I get done with this document production, it’s back to wedding dress shopping full force.”
“And all things wedding?” she asks, her right eyebrow arching upwards.
“All things wedding,” I say, “I promise.” My mother smiles and I know that it is because she thinks that she has won. But the truth is, the documents are due at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. I couldn’t work on them any longer if I wanted to. So, after I have these documents sent over to Jack’s office, I can finally rest and get back to planning my wedding.
My mother hugs and kisses me before she walks out the door and I immediately get back to work. The documents themselves are out being photocopied and numbered, so all that’s left to do now is draft a privilege log and re-read the request to make sure that I’ve given Jack all of the documents he’s requested.
I open a Word document to begin drafting the privilege log, but first indulge in a little activity I always find myself doing to procrastinate when I’m at work. I click open an internet browser and then type in the familiar website of my old law firm: www.gilsonhecht.com. First I type in my own name, and wait for the search screen to come up, telling me that no result was found. Then, I type in Vanessa’s name and look at her profile:
Vanessa Taylor, Esq.
- Howard University
- New York University Law
Member of the NYU Law Review
- Admitted to practice in the State of New York, Southern District of New York, and Eastern District of New York
She looks absolutely adorable in a fitted black Theory suit which she’s paired with a pale pink cowl neck top. Since she wears her hair so short, she’s always wearing beautiful earrings to complement her look. In the picture, she’s got on long gold drop earrings that have tiny pink stones dangling from them.
Next, I go to the “S” section of the “Our Attorneys” page where I pull up Jack’s profile:
Jack M. Solomon, Esq.
- University of Michigan, magna cum laude
President, Drama Society
- Harvard Law School, sigma cum laude
Articles Editor of the Harvard Law Review
Moot Court
President, Student Bar Association
- Admitted to practice in the State of New York, State of Pennsylvania, Southern District of NewYork, Eastern District of New York, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Second Circuit, Third Circuit.
Just seeing his firm photo smiling back at me is always enough to make me smile myself. And I figure that it’s okay to procrastinate by doing this, since when I worked at Gilson Hecht, I’d go and visit Vanessa and Jack in their offices to procrastinate. Since I’m at a new firm, it’s only fair that I still get to procrastinate with them.
Before turning back to my work, curiosity gets the best of me and I pull up Miranda Foxley’s profile:
Miranda Foxley, Esq.
- University of Texas
- Emory Law School
- Admitted to practice in the State of New York, Southern District of New York, and Eastern District of New York
I absolutely cannot get over how slutty she manages to look in her attorney portrait. Even in a suit, with a background of a bookshelf filled with legal treatises behind her, she still manages to look like she’s in the mood to have sex. Red hair blazing, completely unkempt and out of control, there’s a seductive look on her heavily made up face and a camisole under her suit jacket that is a little too lacey and way too low cut for a traditional office photo; there should be one of those cartoon captions over her head that says, “Hey baby, wanna’ wrestle?”
“Are you still here?” a voice says to me, and I instinctively sit up a bit straighter in my chair and then click off Miranda’s firm photo as quickly as a thirteen year old boy caught with a dirty magazine. I look up from my computer screen to find Rosalyn Ford leaning in the door frame of my office with a smile.
“Rosalyn,” I say, almost out of breath. “Hi.”
“Burning the midnight oil,” she says, “I’m impressed.”
“It’s not like I really have a choice,” I say, lifting up the discovery request to demonstrate my point, and attempting a lame smile. “These privilege logs don’t exactly write themselves.”
“Well,” she says, “you always have a choice. You know that. But, you look busy. So, I’ll just leave you to your work.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I don’t mean to be so cranky. It’s just that I’m a bit stressed out right now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says, “we’ve all been there. You’ll figure it out. How about I take you to lunch tomorrow?”
I want to tell Rosalyn no, that I have too much work to take a lunch break tomorrow, but it’s never a good idea to say no to a partner. Especially one like Rosalyn, who’s consistently been supportive of my work and my career here at SGR.
“Great,” I say. “Thanks.” I try to keep smiling, but I can’t help but think about what my mother would say about taking a lunch, but making no time for dress shopping.
“Have a good night,” Rosalyn says as she walks out. I draft a quick email to my assistant to tell her that if my mother calls tomorrow from the hours of 12 noon to 2 p.m., she should be told that I am in a meeting. Then, I get back to my work.
Four hours later, I’ve got my documents back in my office and boxed up, my privilege log drafted and everything proofread. With my head so heavy, it’s about to hit the keyboard, I quickly draft a cover letter, print it and sign it. As I place the letter in the box of documents, it feels like something is missing. I pick the letter back up and walk with it over to my desk.
My mother is right. What’s important is life, not work. So, I should be focusing on my life. But I am such a woman of the millennium that I can inject a little bit of life into my work. I open my desk drawer and rifle around a bit. Finding the loudest, most obnoxious shade of red that I’ve got, I quickly put it on my lips. I pull the letter out of the box and put it onto my desk. Once I’ve smacked my lips together a few times to make sure that I’m even, I then lean down to the letter and plant a big kiss right on the letter, next to my signature line.
With a smile, I put the cover letter back in the box, tape it up and then call Federal Express to pick it up.