There’sno way,Jordan knows, that Irina is going on the partner track. Irina’s work can be sloppy, and her instincts need serious guidance. She doesn’t have what it takes to be really good at the job.
“So put Irina on the partner track.” Another pause. She has called Bernadette’s bluff, and it feels really good. “It doesn’t matter to me. I quit.”
“You can’t quit.”
“I just did.”
“You have proprietary information about a lot of our clients.”
“And?”
“If any of that leaks I’ll sue the hell out of you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Jordan. “I’m a vault.”
Another pause. Jordan can feel Bernadette gathering herself, coiling like a rattlesnake before a strike. “Do you know what your problem is, Jordan?” Bernadette’s voice is full of venom.
“What’s that?” asks Jordan. She’s a little scared, but she’s also genuinely curious. Whatisher problem?
“You’re good. But you’re not nearly as good as you think you are.”
“Ha!” Nice one. Jordan readies herself to unleash the zinger of all zingers. She wishes she could say it in person, so she could see Bernadette’s expression before turning her back on her and leaving the room. She says, “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m even better.”
She ends the call, puts her phone down, and opens the slider. Across the patio, down the steps, across the sand, and into the angry sea.
She dives under the first wave that comes toward her. It’s bracing. No swim in the history of swims has ever felt as good as the one Jordan takes that day, with the rain streaming down and the wind whipping the waves into a frenzy. It’s perfect.
After this, she is going to call Samantha Braddock.
Once she has Caspian down for his nap, Natalie takes a look to see what the ocean is doing.
What the ocean is doing is spitting out Jordan, who is striding up the beach in an extremely fetching athletic two-piece, the kind that confident and fit models wear in surf or yoga catalogs. She has no towel, no cover-up; she’s holding no flip-flops that she might have flung carelessly in the sand. No phone. She’s just in a full, beautiful stride, muscles popping. Jordan has incredible abs. She has abs that Natalie didn’t even know were possible. Jordan’s abs have abs.
Jordan is, and always has been, such a badass. Jordan’s high school friends had been cool and sophisticated. They weren’t the most popular crowd but rather the smart crowd, who were cool enough not to care that they weren’t popular because they truly believed they were going to change the world. And many of them are doing it! Clerkingfor Supreme Court justices or doing big things in big tech. Doctoring without borders. Being Jordan.
“What are you doing?” calls Natalie. She grabbed a rain poncho from one of the hooks in the mudroom and now she has the hood on. The only people left in the water are the serious surfers, the ones who will go out in anything.
Jordan continues to stride up to the patio, where she ushers Natalie under one of the table umbrellas. She says, “I just quit my job.”
“You did?”
“I’m shaking, look.” She holds out her hand.
“Well, you’re freezing. Come in. Let me get you a towel.”
“That’s the bad news.”
“Then what’s the good news?”
“The good news is, I’m going to go out on my own, like I told you. And I thought you could be my first clients, you and Austin.”
“Us? Jordan, can we go inside?”
“You’re in crisis, right? You’re having a crisis?”
“We’re definitely having a crisis. But I thought you didn’t want to help us.”
Jordan wrings out her hair. “I didn’t,” she says. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and now I do.”
