“Very much so,” Oliver says, as even-keeled as ever. “You’ll be getting an email from HR soon, but I wanted to call and give you the good news. You’re the youngest woman partner in the firm’s history, if I’m not mistaken. Well deserved, and only sorry it was such a faff to get here.”
I wonder if he’s pranking me, but then I remember he’s not the sort of person who believes in pranks or practical jokes.
My heart skips a beat or two, and shivers course through my body. An incredulous grin catapults across my face, and I feel my mouth physically hanging open. Here it is, the shiny accolade I’ve been waiting for and working for.
It turns out I’ve gotten it after all.
Oliver says they want to send me to Dubai for my first case as partner. I’d be relocated right after the Turpi case wraps up. Rory’s face—and the vision of our hypothetical life together in Michigan—flashes through my mind before I accept.
But I accept anyway. In the rush of this success, the idea of giving up an incredible career opportunity for someone who’seffectively broken up with me seems ludicrous. And there’s no point moving back to Michigan by myself. I’d be reminded of Rory, and it would just depress me that much more.
My ingrained instinct to run far away is taking over, and I’m in no mood to fight it.
Sure, I’m still hoping Rory will come back, but I can’t put my life on hold while he figures out what he wants. He had his chance, he asked for space, and if he wants to try again then he’ll have to understand that while we were broken up (or “on a break,” as I still prefer to think of it), I made decisions that were best for me, not us, because currently there is nous.
The reasoning doesn’t go down easily, but it goes down, nonetheless.
“And Kat?” Oliver carries on through the phone. “I know Harold has been … difficult to work with, to say the least. I’m glad you told me what happened at Annabel’s, and it’s not right—absolutely not. But at this point, I reckon let’s just try to go out on a high note, shall we?”
There’s a stanza of silence as I search for something assertive to say. “Sure,” is the meek little word I hear myself say, because it seems like the only thing Icansay. I’m supposed to agree with the man who just made my career dreams come true. Let everything pass over peacefully because, in the end, it turned out alright. I got what I wanted, even if it wasn’t the way I wanted it.
It’s not until I hang up that I wonder if the promotion and allegations were not in fact mutually exclusive events. Could the higher-ups at Leo & Sons have wanted to avoid upsetting a client by escalating the matter, so they decided to promote me as placation? Was the partner title nothing but an expedient solution to save a client’s reputation, and their own?
I want to think that I got it because I deserve this. That being good is good enough. But I’m not sure. The truth suddenly feels tangled and tainted, like it’s a dirty mix of factors.
I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. That I deserve it regardless. That I’ve reached my goal and am one step closer to my CEO dream, so all’s well that ends well.
I do my best to push out the uneasy feeling in my conscience and bask in the glow of this milestone. It’s not too hard to do, especially when the HR email arrives, confirming the promotion, and I get those giddy shivers all over again.
Since I can’t share the news with Rory, and I don’t want to rub the partner news in Blake’s face, I go to the loo and call my parents. Mom picks up on the first ring. She always answers right away, and I wonder sometimes if she walks around with that bulky landline phone in her hand, just so she doesn’t miss me on the rare times I call. The picture, whether true or not, makes me feel like a bad daughter. It makes me yearn for that lake life in Michigan more than ever, not just so I can be with Rory, but so I can be near my whole family.
She seems excited as I tell her about the promotion, letting out some squeals and claps, but I can tell she’s doing it more for my sake then her own. She doesn’t care what my business card says, so long as I’m still the same Kat on the inside.
Which I’m not sure of. I felt like I was getting that Kat back again with Rory, but I don’t know if I can find her again on my own. Or if I even want to.
Mom wants to know if this means that I’ll be transferred back to the United States. I tell her that I’m actually being sent to Dubai, and try not to notice the way her whole demeanor deflates. “How’s Rory doing?” she asks as brightly as she can.
The question scrapes all over. I never told her that Rory and I were dating, since it only ended up being a week, and I’m mostly glad for this so she won’t be disappointed now. But part of me wishes I had filled her in, so more people would know about our relationship and it wouldn’t be something that could fade away so easily after one fight.
“Haven’t seen him recently,” I tell my mom curtly. To avoid follow-up questions, I say I have to go jump on another call but that I’ll talk with her again soon.
A bit later, Harold swings by my desk, fresh off the TV set, his face still caked in peachy goo. “Heard the news, Kitten,” he says jovially. “Brilliant job. Reckon we round up the team for some celebratory drinks at Annabel’s?”
It’s a testament to the audaciousness of the male species, or perhaps just to this single male specimen, that he so nonchalantly suggests celebrating my promotion in the very place where he made a pass at me.
I’m inclined to say no and just go back to my flat and order takeaway from Deliveroo. I’m inclined to see as little of Harold as I possibly can before the case wraps up, when I can be free of his seedy stare forever.
But I don’t want to live in fear of him or that place any longer. So I put on a smile and say, “Sure. Annabel’s sounds great.”
By the next day, the high from the promotion has steeply waned. I feel jittery and hungry, almost like I’m having a sugar crash.
I didn’t stay long at Annabel’s and only sipped seltzer before slipping out. I was glad I’d gone, if only to prove something tomyself, but I’d wound up wishing I were curled up on the couch, eating gelato with Rory instead. I didn’t spiral or text him, probably because I wasn’t drinking, but I still dropped into a low sort of place like a rapid comedown after what should’ve been one of the best days of my life.
The juniors cooed over my promotion, asking wide-eyed questions about how they could best set themselves up for success and make partner one day. They diligently scribbled down everything I said in their notebooks, like it was the word of God. Last night, I’d welcomed their idolization as proof that I’d followed the right life track and arrived somewhere wonderful and enviable. That everything I gave up to get here was well worth it.
But this morning, as I lather peanut butter onto my crumpets, it strikes me as tragically sad, the way these young twenty-somethings look at me for answers when my whole life seems to be one giant question.
As I open the sitting room curtains and glance out onto Upper Street, I catch myself wondering if I took a wrong turn somewhere. If there was a fork in the road that I never noticed because I was hell-bent on getting straight up to the rocky, wind-blown summit when a sunny meadow lower down might’ve actually been a happier landing place that more closely resembled Mala’s crayon-drawn picture.
