Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [59]
“All right, what next?” I said to them.
Magoo had pushed the files off my couch and stretched himself across it, his tie loosened to the point that it hung in a circle around his neck. Natalie sat on one of the chairs facing my desk.
“You pick,” Natalie said, running her hands through her black, razor-straight bob. “There are two million things to do.” Her face was bland, though, as if two million tasks weren’t necessarily insurmountable.
“I don’t know how we’ll be ready in three and a half weeks,” Magoo said, throwing an arm over his face to block it from the light overhead.
Three and a half weeks. My stomach flipped. The thought of a big trial still sent a charge of panic through me as the days drew nearer. During my first few years of practice, the firm had always made an older partner try any case with me. After a number of them, they agreed I could handle the cases by myself, and for the last two years, each trial was my own, although sometimes one of the attorneys from the group second-chaired it with me. It wasn’t as if I had been doing this for twenty years, though. I was even more nervous this time because I didn’t have my normal focus. Instead, I had spent half my brainpower wondering about my mother, the whereabouts of my siblings and the conversation I needed to have with my father.
I had tried to talk to him a few times since Tuesday, yet he was always at a meeting or running out to a deposition. But I knew that tonight he was having dinner with a client at his club in the city. He would be nearly done now, and I planned to head there as soon as I wrapped up the meeting.
“Let’s just break it down,” I said to Magoo and Natalie. “We’ll go over each task, we’ll prioritize, and divide them up.”
“Sure,” Natalie said, as if discussing whether or not to have breakfast tomorrow morning.
“Sounds good,” Magoo said.
We talked for another twenty minutes, listing the jobs that needed to be completed, debating which were more important than the others, until I had a neat, orderly inventory that made it more manageable. Magoo and Natalie volunteered for various jobs, and I printed each of them a copy of the list so we could all keep track.
By the time we were done, it was nearly nine-thirty. I knew my father would probably leave the club in fifteen minutes in order to catch the ten o’clock train to Long Island.
“I’ve got to run,” I said, grabbing a stack of file folders off the desk. “I’ll finish up at home tonight.”
“See ya,” Magoo said with a wave. Natalie shrugged.
Soon, I was in a cab, headed toward midtown and the Van Newton Guild, a stuffy, antique-filled private club that admitted only men until about a decade ago, when a lawsuit forced them to accept women, as well. As far as I could tell, few women had taken advantage of the new membership policy. My father found the place as pretentious and old-fashioned as I did, but many of his longtime clients dined there, so he kept his membership current and made appearances when needed.
A liveried doorman dressed in a crimson jacket with gold epaulets opened the door. Inside, a long stretch of gray and white marble led to a desk where members and guests were required to check in. As I walked down the hall, I felt as I always did when I was here, as if I was sneaking into a museum after hours, and any minute someone would politely ask me to leave. I tried to step lightly, but my heels kept making succinct clicks on the marble.
“I’m here to see Will Sutter. I believe he’s in the dining room,” I said to the man behind the desk. He was a bespectacled guy about my age who was probably getting a doctorate in medieval poetry during the day. The Van Newton Guild always hired academics with no personal skills.
“Name?” he asked with no hint of a smile.
“Hailey Sutter.”
The clerk barely gave me a nod before calling the dining room. He turned his back and spoke in low tones as if imparting a state secret to the maître d’ upstairs.