fight to be put up, no finer point to be argued. Smoking was the one topic where
Barack’s logic seemed to leave him altogether.
Whether I was going to admit it or not, though, something between us had
started to change. On days when we were too busy to check in face-to-face, I
found myself wondering what he’d been up to. I talked myself out of being
disappointed when he didn’t surface in my office doorway. I talked myself out of
being too excited when he did. I had feelings for the guy, but they were latent,
buried deep beneath my resolve to keep my life and career tidy and forward
focused—free from any drama. My annual reviews at work were solid. I was on
track to become an equity partner at Sidley & Austin, probably before I hit
thirty-two. It was everything I wanted—or so I was trying to convince myself.
I might have been ignoring whatever was growing between us, but he
wasn’t.
“I think we should go out,” Barack announced one afternoon as we sat
finishing a meal.
“What, you and me?” I feigned shock that he even considered it a
possibility. “I told you, I don’t date. And I’m your adviser.”
He gave a wry laugh. “Like that counts for anything. You’re not my boss,”
he said. “And you’re pretty cute.”
Barack had a smile that seemed to stretch the whole width of his face. He
was a deadly combination of smooth and reasonable. More than once in the
coming days, he laid out the evidence for why we should be going out. We were
compatible. We made each other laugh. We were both available, and
furthermore we confessed to being almost immediately uninterested in anyone
else we met. Nobody at the firm, he argued, would care if we dated. In fact,
maybe it would be seen as a positive. He presumed that the partners wanted him
to come work for them, eventually. If he and I were an item, it would improve
the odds of his committing.
“You mean I’m like some sort of bait?” I said, laughing. “You flatter
yourself.”
Over the course of the summer, the firm organized a series of events and
outings for its associates, sending around sign-up sheets for anyone who wanted
to go. One was a weeknight performance of Les Misérables at a theater not far
from the office. I put us on the list for two tickets, which was standard behavior
for a junior-associate adviser and her summer-associate charge. We were
supposed to be attending firm functions together. I was supposed to be ensuring