Andie dropped her head into her hands. “I didn’t think he was going to react that way. I guess I just don’t understand how this could hurt my case.”
“I think he’s worried that if you write something that contradicts what we’ve said to the government, they’ll either bring new charges or use it as a reason to reassess a more lenient sentence.”
She shook her head. “I need an income. I’m just planning to tell the truth. I’vebeentelling the truth.”
“I’ll try my best to make sure he gets back to you quickly,” I promised. I signed the check and hugged her goodbye.
I skimmed emails on my phone as I waited for the elevator up to the office. Leo had seen my name on the firm’s visitor list. Did I want to discuss Sterling’s case over drinks?
I was still trying to detox from the Catskills. It was becoming impossible to remember a time when drinking wasn’t part of my life, even though it hadn’t always been that way.
I was twenty-six the first time I got drunk. It was Thanksgiving break of my first year of law school. My brother Artie was in town for Thanksgiving, and he wanted to go out Wednesday night. Ben and I drove to the bar because neither of us planned to drink a lot. Some of Artie’s DC friends showed up, and I felt my first real taste of social anxiety. I’d never self-medicated with alcohol until that night. Someone bought a round of vodka sodas. After the first drink, the vodka stopped tasting like medicine and the conversations felt lighter and almost fun. I shed my suburban housewife hang-ups. I felt like a typical twentysomething, not someone who had gotten married younger than everyone else.
By my second year of law school, I realized that my marriage was a ticking time bomb. Each time I thought about being honest with Ben about my unhappiness, I drank. I had never been a wine o’clock person, but I’d pour a glass while I was cooking dinner, then another one during dinner. Maybe one more while I did laundry or finished reading for class. I became a pro at functional drinking. I went from being someone who drank iced tea with dinner to a full-on wino. Ben joked that we needed a wine-club membership. I thought I just needed to figure out my life. Only when I finally leveled with Ben and we separated, alcohol became useful for an entirely new set of problems.
I was never single in my twenties. When I interacted with men after I separated from Ben, I didn’t even know how to flirt. Drinking helped me relax. If I went to a networking event, drinking made me feel like less of an imposter in this electric new world I wanted desperately to fit into. It was the simplest way to numb my discomfort. And unlike mostof my peers, I hadn’t destroyed my liver in college, so my body tolerated it like someone a decade younger.
Starting adulthood as a housewife turned New York lawyer ratcheted up my social insecurity just as my drinking became seemingly orthodox. There seemed to be an acceptable reason to drink every night of the week. It was almost like being hazed: How many hours can you bill while firing on all cylinders socially and professionally? Lines were blurred between associates who were routinely out until 2 a.m. or later, only to find themselves in a meeting at 10 a.m., ties straight, heels on, discussing litigation strategy. A Tuesday night of networking with drinks followed by a dinner with more drinking. Career suicide to miss the firm’s 7 a.m. “team-building” SoulCycle the next morning.
Even as life normalized social drinking, I knew there were pitfalls. The spectrum of what was acceptable, even encouraged, felt endlessly vast. Drink functionally, but don’t beThe Girl on the Traindrunk.
Despite desperately needing a liver cleanse, I immediately said yes to drinks that night with Leo. We met at six o’clock. Cocktails turned into appetizers and appetizers turned into dinner with a bottle of wine. We talked about our shared impression of Sterling as sympathetic despite being privileged and Leo’s failure to convince him that the best course would be settling out of court.
“My wife tells me I need to take something to trial one of these days. She’s a jury consultant, so she lives for the courtroom. She’s amazing at what she does. But believe it or not, I get shy in court. I’m just not a litigator at heart, and I don’t want to cede the spotlight to the Perry Masons of the world, like Eddie. So I’m wired to settle.”
I imagined Leo’s wife as an Amal Clooney type: flawless, ambitious, effortlessly handling it all. I wondered what it would be like to be half of a power couple.
“We have twin boys, Aldous and Kingsley. A&K. An homage to the firm that’s given them a comfortable life.”
My EQ antenna sensed that someone like Leo didn’t always get the chance to share things about his personal life. Something about howeasily he was opening up made me feel self-conscious in a way I tried masking by asking more questions.
“Do you think they’ll grow up and become lawyers?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t rule it out. Jessica was a lawyer before she started jury consulting. But yeah, I’m afraid it’s in their blood.”
“Is it difficult having two at once?” It felt like a good balance of personal but also something I was genuinely curious about. One sounded impossible enough.
“Unbelievably. They terrify me. They’re five and already lecturing me about pronouns. The other day, they found out their preschool teacher is having a baby. When I asked if she was having a boy or girl, Aldous said, ‘They have to be born before they can decide, Dad.’”
I laughed. “That’s amazing.”
“We can’t keep up. We both have careers we love. Neither of us thinks we’d be good parents without fulfilling careers.” He paused. “But honestly, both of us trying to balance demanding careers with parenthood could all blow up in our face.”
I admired how seamlessly he melded personal and professional success. “It sounds like you’re being thoughtful about it all, which is the most anyone can do.”
He nodded. “What about you? Do you want kids?”
There were at least a dozen more pressing questions I needed to answer for myself before I could even think about kids. “That’s hard to answer. I’ve never been sure. But, if I imagine myself sitting here in twenty years, telling you that I never had one, I feel this sadness that I can’t explain. Which makes me second-guessnothaving kids. Does that make sense?”
I blushed at the honesty of my answer.
Leo took a sip of wine. “I was never sure I wanted kids before Jess got pregnant.”
He looked at me sideways. “What about the boyfriend you mentioned the other week? The one you left behind. Did he want kids?”
I shifted uncomfortably, taken aback that he remembered. “We were married. He’s my ex-husband.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Jesus. Youareinteresting. I’m not allowed to ask how old you are, but just know I’m wondering.”
