that his experience with Sidley & Austin was bright and positive. That was the
whole point.
We sat side by side in the theater, both of us worn out after a long day of
work. The curtain went up and the singing began, giving us a gray, gloomy
version of Paris. I don’t know if it was my mood or whether it was just Les
Misérables itself, but I spent the next hour feeling helplessly pounded by French
misery. Grunts and chains. Poverty and rape. Injustice and oppression. Millions of
people around the world had fallen in love with this musical, but I squirmed in
my seat, trying to rise above the inexplicable torment I felt every time the melody
repeated.
When the lights went up for intermission, I stole a glance at Barack. He was
slumped down, with his right elbow on the armrest and index finger resting on
his forehead, his expression unreadable.
“What’d you think?” I said.
He gave me a sideways look. “Horrible, right?”
I laughed, relieved that he felt the same way.
Barack sat up in his seat. “What if we got out of here?” he said. “We could
just leave.”
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t bolt. I wasn’t that sort of person. I
cared too much what the other lawyers thought of me—what they’d think if they
spotted our empty seats. I cared too much, in general, about finishing what I’d
started, about seeing every last little thing through to the absolute heart-stopping
end, even if it was an overwrought Broadway musical on an otherwise beautiful
Wednesday night. This, unfortunately, was the box checker in me. I endured
misery for the sake of appearances. But now, it seemed, I’d joined up with
someone who did not.
Avoiding everyone we knew from work—the other advisers and their
summer associates bubbling effusively in the lobby—we slipped out of the theater
and into a balmy evening. The last light was draining from a purple sky. I
exhaled, my relief so palpable that it caused Barack to laugh.
“Where are we going now?” I asked.
“How ’bout we grab a drink?”
We walked to a nearby bar in the same manner we always seemed to walk,
with me a step forward and him a step back. Barack was an ambler. He moved
with a loose-jointed Hawaiian casualness, never given to hurry, even and