beer in tow, hoping to beat Graciela home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was common knowledge at her firm that Sarah’s work ethic, legal mind and enormous billables put her on the fast track to partner. She was at her desk early each morning and stayed into the wee hours with the most wired and macho of the male associates. As she approached her thirty-second birthday, her only break from work came from college friends — now scattered all across the country — her parents, Eva and Joseph and the rest of her small family. After living with a man whose betrayal scarred her more deeply than she cared to remember and dating her share of empty suits, she’d given up looking for a life partner. For Sarah, the only difference between the weekend and the workweek was that she could trade her suits and heels for sweats and sneakers.
This weekend was no exception. From the moment she awoke on Saturday, she focused on fashioning Tuesday’s presentation for its intended audience. Catherine Malloy-Arkin, reputed to be intellectually quick and tough minded, wrote features for a highly regarded business magazine. Her husband’s corporate strategy — leave no competitor standing — was legendary. Raised in a working-class family, the scrappy Mark Arkin had clawed his way to the top. As for the attorney who would accompany them, be it the general counsel of Arkin Worldwide or a malpractice specialist, he or she would be the Arkins’ pit bull, safeguarding the family’s interests. There was no doubt the small audience would be a hard sell. The stakes were enormous, and given the harm done to the helpless newborn, emotions were raw. This was Sarah’s most challenging project to date, and since it was her brainchild, her career might well rise or fall on its outcome.
She took only three breaks during the weekend, spacing them out for maximum stress reduction: one long run along the river, an hour of laps at the pool and a phone conversation with her Bubbe Rivka. Rivka was her mother’s mother, a Lithuanian Jew and a Holocaust survivor. At eighty-six, her frail looks were deceiving. The truth was, she had a spine of steel. She was also one of the few people who could send Sarah into fits of laughter. Widowed for years, she still lived in the same Coney Island high-rise where she’d raised her two children. Sarah rarely had time to trek out to the last stop on the subway line, but she tried to call her grandmother every weekend.
This weekend’s call featured a blow-by-blow account of the latest Oprah show. Rivka recounted the story of a bearded transgendered man who was having a baby with his wife. Apparently, his uterus was intact and his age made him the more fertile of the pair. Rivka was fascinated by the story. She was also fascinated by Oprah, whose rags-to-riches life struck a chord with a woman whose family had emigrated to America with nothing more than two small valises of second-hand clothing.
Rivka adored her granddaughter; Sarah was named after Rivka’s mother, who had been murdered by the Nazis during the war. Rivka thought Sarah was both a shankeit and a mensch , a beauty and a fine human being. Rivka was quick to add that she wasn’t the least bit biased, either.
* * *
The Tuesday meeting was set to take place on neutral turf: an upscale boutique hotel just a block from the Arkins’ Upper East Side brownstone. Sarah got to the hotel hours before the rest of the hospital team, which gave her time to organize the environment to her liking. She arranged the rectangular tables in the shape of a U, so all participants could easily see one another as well as the projection screen. Following the seating chart she had devised, she positioned large, two-sided name cards in front of everyone’s place, including one labeled “Counsel for the Arkin Family.” She set the dozen printed copies of the remediation plan behind her name card and then distributed paper and pens so they were readily available
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was common knowledge at her firm that Sarah’s work ethic, legal mind and enormous billables put her on the fast track to partner. She was at her desk early each morning and stayed into the wee hours with the most wired and macho of the male associates. As she approached her thirty-second birthday, her only break from work came from college friends — now scattered all across the country — her parents, Eva and Joseph and the rest of her small family. After living with a man whose betrayal scarred her more deeply than she cared to remember and dating her share of empty suits, she’d given up looking for a life partner. For Sarah, the only difference between the weekend and the workweek was that she could trade her suits and heels for sweats and sneakers.
This weekend was no exception. From the moment she awoke on Saturday, she focused on fashioning Tuesday’s presentation for its intended audience. Catherine Malloy-Arkin, reputed to be intellectually quick and tough minded, wrote features for a highly regarded business magazine. Her husband’s corporate strategy — leave no competitor standing — was legendary. Raised in a working-class family, the scrappy Mark Arkin had clawed his way to the top. As for the attorney who would accompany them, be it the general counsel of Arkin Worldwide or a malpractice specialist, he or she would be the Arkins’ pit bull, safeguarding the family’s interests. There was no doubt the small audience would be a hard sell. The stakes were enormous, and given the harm done to the helpless newborn, emotions were raw. This was Sarah’s most challenging project to date, and since it was her brainchild, her career might well rise or fall on its outcome.
She took only three breaks during the weekend, spacing them out for maximum stress reduction: one long run along the river, an hour of laps at the pool and a phone conversation with her Bubbe Rivka. Rivka was her mother’s mother, a Lithuanian Jew and a Holocaust survivor. At eighty-six, her frail looks were deceiving. The truth was, she had a spine of steel. She was also one of the few people who could send Sarah into fits of laughter. Widowed for years, she still lived in the same Coney Island high-rise where she’d raised her two children. Sarah rarely had time to trek out to the last stop on the subway line, but she tried to call her grandmother every weekend.
This weekend’s call featured a blow-by-blow account of the latest Oprah show. Rivka recounted the story of a bearded transgendered man who was having a baby with his wife. Apparently, his uterus was intact and his age made him the more fertile of the pair. Rivka was fascinated by the story. She was also fascinated by Oprah, whose rags-to-riches life struck a chord with a woman whose family had emigrated to America with nothing more than two small valises of second-hand clothing.
Rivka adored her granddaughter; Sarah was named after Rivka’s mother, who had been murdered by the Nazis during the war. Rivka thought Sarah was both a shankeit and a mensch , a beauty and a fine human being. Rivka was quick to add that she wasn’t the least bit biased, either.
* * *
The Tuesday meeting was set to take place on neutral turf: an upscale boutique hotel just a block from the Arkins’ Upper East Side brownstone. Sarah got to the hotel hours before the rest of the hospital team, which gave her time to organize the environment to her liking. She arranged the rectangular tables in the shape of a U, so all participants could easily see one another as well as the projection screen. Following the seating chart she had devised, she positioned large, two-sided name cards in front of everyone’s place, including one labeled “Counsel for the Arkin Family.” She set the dozen printed copies of the remediation plan behind her name card and then distributed paper and pens so they were readily available
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