Mama's Got a Brand New Job Read online

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  We exchanged pleasantries, I gave him my card, and we parted ways. It wasn’t until later in the evening when Dale debriefed me about the players in attendance that I realized that my evening’s entertainment had been supplied by the founder of Parfum Aix, Jacques Deschemel.

  Dale was thrilled that I had given him my card, undoubtedly hopeful that he might score some business from the old chap. But when a representative from Parfum Aix called me the next day inquiring about our company’s services, I referred the call up the chain at McCale, Morgan & Black, rather than downtown to Worthington Investments.

  3

  To the untrained eye, Bertran may have been hard to spot. The building’s columned portico and stone exterior looked like any of the other brownstones on the street. The exception was the shiny navy blue door over which was posted a white sign with brass letters bearing the establishment’s name.

  I took for granted the entrance’s speakeasy atmosphere because I had been there so many times with Dale and the Worthington crew. Bertran was one of the few places north of 14th Street that attracted the Wall Street crowd. The ambiance was clubby and decidedly old school, the décor accented with centuries old wainscoting and glass cases filled with ship models.

  The atmosphere was great, but more importantly, Bertran was renowned for their fresh oysters. Sure, it would have been more conservative for me to book a dinner with Jacques Deschemel somewhere French, like Restaurant Daniel. However, I was betting that Jacques would enjoy top quality, regardless of the cuisine.

  And then there was the bar. New York classics like the King Cole Bar and 21 could choke on the neckties of their midtown stuffiness. Bar Bertran had it all. Its glass shelves were crowded with bottles of myriad sizes and shapes, most notably: vodka (my favorite), gin (nowhere near as versatile), whiskey (Dale’s choice), cognac (bought by the bottle after a good day at the market), and tequila (done by the shot after a bad day at the market). If Jacques Deschemel labored over wine and liquor at a silent auction, he’d be a kid in a candy shop at Bar Bertran.

  I spotted him immediately, posted at the bar in his signature tweed jacket. I waved enthusiastically. Caine was several paces behind, cleaning the lenses of his glasses, despite the fact that they weren’t dirty. “Maxine!” smiled Jacques, as he double-kissed my cheeks.

  “So,” I asked with anticipation, “what do you think of Bertran?”

  Jacques made little fists of joy as he half turned in deference to the spirits behind him. “It is wonderful. I am not sure where to start!”

  Anticipating this exchange, I had done quite a bit of homework about the preferred spirits of the French. I learned that the French had a marvelous array of regional liqueurs, each steeped with its own ritual for serving and imbibing. In Provence, Deschemel’s territory, the anise-flavored pastis was the beverage of choice. Pastis was served with four parts water to one part liqueur, and the resulting cocktail bore an unfortunate resemblance to Milk of Magnesia. How anyone could find such a concoction even remotely appetizing was beyond me. But then again, I was the last person to pass judgment on anyone else’s alcohol-related cultural mores. I was the undisputed champion of Quarters in my class at law school.

  In any case, this was my chance to try it, and I had called in advance to ensure that Bar Bertran served pastis. I was about to order three when Caine appeared with the maître d’. “Shall we sit?” It was a question stated in the declarative.

  Not missing a beat, I ushered Deschemel to follow along and then instructed the maître d’ to bring us our pastis toute suite.

  The ceiling in the Bertran dining room was about 10 feet higher than in the bar. Three large brass chandeliers illuminated the space. Starched tablecloths hung down to the well-worn wooden floor. The heavy white china and no-nonsense glassware were plentiful, and regularly broken. Our ears were filled with the sounds of shellfish shucking, silverware clanking, and diners chattering.

  Caine, meanwhile, struggled with the wine list, which was about an inch thick. I wanted to grab it from his clutches and hand it over to Jacques, who was clearly more qualified to perform the wine ordering duties for our table. But ceding the menu would have meant ceding control. Caine bumbled through the pages, which was excruciating to watch, since I knew all the white wines he should have been considering were listed at the front of the book.

  The waiter arrived with a tray of glasses. Each of us was served a small glass of ice water, a smaller glass filled with a thick clear liquid, and a spoon. I watched as Jacques poured out the thick liquid and gently stirred it, transforming the ice water into a murky, mysterious pastis on the rocks. Jacques and I shared a smile as I took a sip. It was lovely—a fresh blend of spices, herbal essence and licorice.

  Caine had taken a gulp, not a sip, which had rendered him useless in the wine-ordering department. Jacques was happy to pick up the slack and ordered some esoteric Chablis that earned a knowing nod from the waiter. I drank more pastis.

  Finally settling in, Caine initiated some technical legal commentary. It was all politely acknowledged by Jacques. Of course the man knew we were a good firm. Aside from our reputation, Caine had sent Parfum Aix as much due diligence about us as the FBI might provide for a RICO case.

  Caine then tried an alternative tack and described some of McCale’s relationships with clients similar to Parfum Aix. Unfortunately, due to client confidentiality, Caine couldn’t mention any of their names. Comparing Parfum Aix to a “large multi-national consumer goods manufacturer,” as evidenced from Jacques’s disgusted expression, bordered on the insulting.

  But rather than verbalize his discontent to Caine, Jacques went to town on the waiter, who had arrived to take our dinner order. I was so grateful that we had one of the veteran Bertran servers because Jacques would have eaten a novice alive. He didn’t even look at the menu. He had an idea of the kind of oysters he wanted to eat, and to find them, he squeezed every ounce of molluscan knowledge from the mitochondria of our waiter’s brain. When all was said and done, we were treated to a spectrum of flavors and textures that I never could have imagined existed in that family of bi-valves.

  I began to wonder if the labor-intensive activities required for the consumption of oysters had proven too distracting for a business meal. Much of Jacques’s attention seemed focused on the food on his plate. I tried my best not to stare, but his process was riveting. First, he stabbed the oyster meat with his seafood fork. Then he turned the fork—delicately, but assertively—about 90 degrees until the meat popped off the shell. Then he smelled it.

  I couldn’t imagine what fragrances were even detectable, but if any nose in the world could ferret them out, it belonged to Jacques Deschemel. I was about to ask him if the oysters were up to snuff, so to speak, when I heard the shrill bellowing of my name across the Bertran dining room. “Maxine! Is that you?” Jacques, Caine and I turned to see a man shuffling towards our table. He was about 5’ 6”, with cropped red hair and pale, freckled skin. The knot of his Brooks Brothers tie was wide and loose, demonstrating more of an inability to tie it correctly, than an air of casual, post-work relaxation. Patrick O’Shaughnessy had arrived to crash the party. “Oh, thank GOD! I totally need your advice!” he blurted out, finally reaching the table.

  Caine shot me a look that easily translated into, “Get rid of him—NOW.”

  “Hello, Patrick,” I mustered the patience to say. “I hear congratulations are in order.” I turned to Jacques and Caine, and in an effort to explain Patrick’s inebriation, I said, “Patrick works with my husband, and he’s just learned that he and his wife are expecting their fourth child.” I forced myself to smile, despite my disgust at the notion.

  “Yup. We just keep pumpin’ ‘em out.” Patrick gave the two gentlemen a small nod of acknowledgement and then hunched over my shoulder.

  I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Patrick, I’m in a meeting. Can’t this wait ‘til later?”

  “Oh, sorry. Sure. I just need to know the name of that gin that you
always have at your apartment. The one in the black bottle. It looks like a medicine bottle?” Patrick looked up and said a bit more loudly, “You have got to have cocktails at Dale and Maxine’s apartment. Seriously, this woman knows more about alcohol than anyone I know. And believe me, that means a lot!”

  Caine’s face reddened. Patrick continued, totally oblivious of his unwelcomed presence. “Gin, vodka, rum. I had no idea there was so much to know. I would argue that the volume of Maxine’s vodka collection might rival that of an amateur wine collector.”

  Patrick’s last comment, the most eloquently stated, really chapped me. My 30-odd bottles of vodka were always a source of amusement for the visiting Worthington staffers, and the wine collector joke was a staple of bar talk at our home. Leave it to O’Shaughnessy to pawn off someone else’s joke as his own, while making me look like a lush at a critical moment in my career.

  I answered testily, “The gin is Hendrick’s. Good-bye, Patrick.” I turned my back on O’Shaughnessy, who stumbled off to annoy someone else.

  I patted down my hair and said to no one in particular, “I apologize for the interruption. Please continue.”

  “Hendrick’s?” Jacques repeated, rolling the “r” so much, the word didn’t sound English anymore.

  “Yes!” I said, laughing from both amusement and relief. “It’s almost like vodka. Very crisp, usually served with a cucumber.” I rattled on, my nerves getting the better of me. “But gin is so English. I can’t imagine it’s widely popular in France.” Jacques didn’t have a response. I couldn’t believe he didn’t have anything to contribute, so I just kept on talking. “Well, I’d think, given your enjoyment of pastis, that of all the gins out there, you’d be a fan of Bombay Sapphire.”

  “The one in the blue bottle?” he asked.

  “Yes!”

  Jacques sat back in his seat, in contemplation. It seemed like he was trying to remember the taste, the flavor profile. His brain had to be jam-packed with an encyclopedic record of scents and smells.

  Kind of like mine.

  I jolted up in the chair. I waved the waiter over to our table, and asked him to bring me something from the bar. Within moments he returned with a light blue glass bottle and put it on the table. I picked it up, cradling it like a newborn baby. “Maybe you have noticed this before, but I think it’s just delightful.” I pointed to raised impressions in the glass down the side of the bottle. I flipped the bottle around, pointing to similar etchings on the other side. “These pictures show the herbs and spices used in the production of Bombay Sapphire. Angelica. Coriander. Juniper berries.”

  Jacques examined the bottle with pure joy. I let him admire it for a bit and then said, “Can you imagine a bottle of Parfum Aix with etchings of the flowers and herbs that you use to create each fragrance? Wouldn’t that be fun?!”

  “Certainly,” said Caine, “but you would need a lawyer to make sure you did not get sued for trade dress infringement.”

  “Impressive. Very impressive.” Then Jacques sat up in his chair and buttoned his sports coat. “Monsieur Seaver, you have demonstrated that your company has excellent professional qualifications. Maxine, you have now proven to me that you understand—and passionately appreciate—the essence of Parfum Aix. Congratulations to you both. Parfum Aix is pleased to select you as our new legal counsel!”

  I couldn’t stop smiling when I heard the news. Caine got right down to business, committing the firm to providing all kinds of documentation, which he delegated to me. Of course I would present Caine with draft material the next day. Of course I would ensure the contract was signed by the end of the week. This deal was my baby, and nothing was going to stop me from closing it.

  4

  “I’m not sure how you did it,” said Caine, “but on behalf of the partners at McCale, Morgan & Black, congratulations on helping us to expand our global reach by signing Parfum Aix.”

  I stood in the conference room surrounded by the firm’s illustrious leadership. Applause filled my ears. It was the weekly partner meeting and I had just concluded a rudimentary overview of Deschemel’s company. As far as I knew, I was the only one of my peers to have been an agenda item for the weekly power session. I graciously thanked Caine for his support and attempted to exit the meeting with dignity. I think I may have skipped out the door. I’m not sure.

  I high-fived Joy on the way to my office, where I tried to compose myself. It was a completely ridiculous notion, because it was 1:15 on a Friday afternoon. Too mentally fried to undertake anything challenging, I opted to make a phone call.

  Dale would be a great person with whom to share my professional success. But he wouldn’t answer his phone since the market was still open. My mother would be proud of me, but in an abstract way. Proud as she had been when I received an “A” on my senior thesis at Yale, “The Electoral College as an Anti-Democratic Construct.” She could understand the concepts, but was too removed from the experience to give me the affirmation that I needed. Which brought me to Paola.

  Paola was my best friend, a bond that developed when we had attended the same elementary school in Manhattan. It was a small, Upper East Side private school that my parents struggled to afford and ultimately led to our decampment to the suburbs.

  While my family was moving out, Paola’s was moving in. Her father had moved everyone up from Mexico City so he could open an American office of his successful investment firm. Paola and I had remained friends, I believe, due to our separation. Pre-teen jealousy over Paola’s position of privilege was replaced by ties of sisterly solidarity, a joy in maintaining a friendship outside either of our social circles.

  As the years had progressed, Paola and I had also developed a pseudo-sibling rivalry, career-wise. Paola was a successful management consultant, who, like me, was closing in on making partner at her company. But she had one thing that I did not: a child. Conversations with her of late were a combination of therapy for her, education for me, and a little competition for us both.

  Paola traveled during most of the week, enabled by the support of a battery of nannies, her mother’s seemingly unlimited availability, and a husband with a flexible work schedule. On Fridays, she worked out of her apartment in what I considered a futile attempt at maternal bonding. Taking a conference call while nursing an infant? That was Paola’s definition of multi-tasking. I called Paola at home, hoping that her daughter wasn’t hungry since just thinking about nursing made me want to buy stock in Enfamil.

  When she picked up the phone, I could hear the sound of a baby crying in the background. As Paola started to speak, the sound grew louder. “Hi,” she huffed into the receiver.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Amanda is teething really badly and she can’t fall asleep. Sorry, but I have to pick her up.” The child’s screams were quite loud.

  “Oh, I guess this is a bad time. I can call you later,” I said, anxious to get off the phone.

  “No, no, no! All good. I’m glad to have an actual conversation. I’ve been on conference calls all day.” Paola’s voice was shaking. “Sorry, I’ve got to rock her back and forth.”

  Just listening to her was making me tired. Paola, poor thing, still hadn’t lost the baby weight she had gained during pregnancy. Any attempts at maintaining a fitness regime, which was not her strong suit to being with, went out the window with the arrival of Amanda. Less time for herself and for her friends seemed to be the post-baby mantra.

  She may have been busy, but I wanted to go out and celebrate my win. “So, is there any chance you can grab a drink? I know you’re swamped, but we need to hang out!”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure. Sounds fun.” Pause. She had nothing to add. The usually chatty Paola Brighton wasn’t saying a word. Either she was jealous, or her child had to be doing something to distract her from listening to me. How annoying.

  “Everything O.K. with you?”

  “Oh, dios mio,” deadpanned Paola. This couldn’t be good. Paola breaking into Spanish was a bellwether
for an impending crisis. “Oh, my GOD,” she repeated. “You know, I have seen some pretty gruesome stuff on YouTube before. But nothing compares to this. I am holding Amanda’s bottom right now, and she is squeezing out the nastiest poop. I have to go. I’ll call you later. You need to come over. Visit me!” Then she hung up.

  I hadn’t seen Paola in a while, but the image of watching a baby take a bowel movement wasn’t exactly the enticement I needed to set up a play-date. Besides, I had more mundane things to deal with, like clearing out my over-stuffed inbox. I was determined to address all the loose ends at work. I didn’t want anything hanging over my head for the weekend.

  At the top of my inbox was a series of emails marked “urgent.” They were all from Nancy Lallyberry, a female junior associate, just one year behind me but gunning for Caine’s job. My back stiffened as I prepared to read her barrage of missives.

  A quick scan of the first six messages revealed that nothing was truly urgent, but that fact was irrelevant to Nancy. She had probably set a default in her email so that all of her messages would be tagged as “urgent.” That, however, would have suggested a sense of efficiency, and Nancy was not one for that.

  The flutter of emails was related to the law school clerk program. Nancy was in charge of overseeing the mentoring program for the prospective attorneys and was pulling together a meeting to brainstorm about improvements to the process. Although the timing for the meeting was almost ludicrous—the clerk program wasn’t supposed to start for three months, yet the meeting was next week—I put it on my calendar anyway.

  Further down the inbox were several emails from Caine. He was still in the partner meeting, which was scheduled to end at 2:00, so I had some time to react.

  Now that the engagement letter was signed, Caine was wasting no time in charging ahead with the Parfum Aix relationship. I, of course, was the team lead. Caine had assigned Horace Blankenfield, a junior associate of moderate capability, as support.