Silver Fox Hunting Season Because Jesus Loves Me

The phone glued to my hand rings as I step into a New York City skyscraper’s elevator. Signal here is weak, so I ignore the call and check my lipstick in the metal box’s reflection.

I’m at the law firm on a Friday because our law firm manager, a scholarly gentleman with an enthusiasm for supporting New York charities, scheduled a blood drive in one of our conference rooms. He is always up to something relatively wholesome. Blood drives. Food drives. Asylum case trainings. “Help an entrepreneurial veteran start their business” was another stint of his that I haplessly fell into.

This particular email caught me sitting at my computer, ignoring a recruiter call, as I do, with a rare smile on my face. Maybe the sun was shining extra bright that day through the wall-to-wall windows, or maybe I twisted the knife into opposing counsel extra hard, because I was feeling generous. Firm manager’s side projects are a time suck. His things don’t count toward the 1,900 billable annual hours requirement for attorneys; pro bono, internal meetings, and crying in the bathroom, I’ve helpfully informed my juniors, do not count toward those required hours.

So I stared at that blood drive email and wondered, not for the first time, why he’d committed decades of his life to activities that had little effect on firm profits and absolutely no influence on global markets. What actually motivated this silver fox if not power, money, or money and power? A mystery man. And to this mystery-man-silver-fox firm manager, I caved again and typed, “Yes, please sign me up for the blood drive.”

Now I trudge through the firm’s mahogany hallowed halls on a Friday, when most people opt to work from home. I wearing a skin-hugging, ribbed black dress and velvety black cardigan because I like to dress up after a stressful week. Well, more stressful for my junior attorneys than it was for me. I hear it’s important to hydrate for blood donations, so I sip a Joe & The Juice I picked up among the private equity bros on 6th Ave, where they walk in flocks and talk about their fund’s quarterly investment returns a little too loudly and against our legal advice.

I don’t actually expect to see firm manager at the blood drive. Sometimes I suspect he doesn’t follow through on these things, being a busy person running a global entity. So I’m surprised when I round the corner into the donor check-in line and he’s stooped over a white folding table, far too short for his frame, filling out his donor details. He senses the pause in the air and looks up to crinkle his warm brown eyes at me.

“Hey Julia.”

“Hi.” God, that was a weirdly breathy “hi.” 2,000 attorneys, and this man remembers my name. The future law partner list that I have running background in my head immediately pulls my name up a few places. Suck it to all my enemies. That includes you, Nicholas.

Firm manager returns to his blood drive documents. He always seems to me an imposing figure, and I try not to stare. But it’s the cheer in those brown eyes, the charity in his emails and unmarketable side projects, that makes me feel a little less numb. A little less a creature of the law.

I sort out my own forms and am escorted to a waiting chair near him. It’s still early, I guess, so it’s just him and me and the people who spend their lives doing better things than us. He gives me a nod and before long someone leads firm manager to a comfortable recliner and sets him up so that another person can pull up his shirt sleeve and find the juiciest vein on his tennis-muscled forearm. You can spot the tennis players versus the golf players at the firm by their particularly corded arms. His are yummy, yes, but they also signal dedication to a hobby. Persistence. I have respect for persistent people, like the hunters who capture prey by stalking the animal until it falls over from exhaustion. I eye those forearms as I sip my Joe & The Juice vegetable slush.

I’m primly slurping while I think about sinking my claws into this man. I want to disassemble him in a way an engineer disassembles a toy to learn how the parts work. I want to know how he made it to the top of our food chain while being so… benevolent. And, in this moment, I’m jealous: One, because someone else is prodding and examining him right in front of me, and, two, because he’s practicing polite banter with the person trying to stick a long, hollow needle into his vein. Firm manager is smiling like he’s done this dozens of times and isn’t scared.

Well, it’s my first time. So I shake a little when they finally direct me to my recliner. I make sure to push my shoulders back under the weight of firm manager’s glance and not crawl awkwardly onto the plush chair. I look over and he doesn’t make eye contact so I stare rigidly forward like I’m bored, or constipated. When I spotted him at the donor line, I wasn’t imagining that we’d banter as if we were at a dinner party, but I assumed there would be some sort of exchange. Maybe he’d ask how I was doing. Maybe I’d share that my deals closed early. Maybe I’d ask if he had any big projects that he shouldn’t assign to Nicholas because I passed that man in the hallway and he seemed far too overwhelmed, bless his heart. 

Instead, I slowly sink in the chair and am left again to wonder what goes on in his brain. Perfect, here’s a rare chance to finally connect with him one-on-one, and we are playing mannequins who bleed when poked.

They’re quick to tighten a band around my arm, find the vein, and plunge the needle in. A buzzing tickles my leg and through traitorously teary eyes I look down at my phone to find another missed call. It was the same recruiter who had called me in the elevator. They can be tenacious. And then I feel a tugging sensation at my arm like a little vacuum is slurping at my open wound. The blood people busy themselves as a steady, red stream is pulled from both me and firm manager’s supine, compliant bodies and into the plastic packets, and it occurs to me as real boredom sets in that I don’t know my blood type. Maybe they’ll discover it’s rare. The kind that anyone can receive and can save anyone’s life, and I’ll be special and they’ll roll out the red carpet the next time I show up.

My fingers itch to swipe my phone away from the recruiter’s missed call notification to check what the rare blood type is and how I can find my own—maybe the blood lady will tell me. Instead I struggle to move without feeling discomfort in my needle arm, so I fantasize about updating my never-send resume—the long list of accomplishments I keep updated but never send for optics reasons. I would update it for my rare blood type, beneath the recent attorney mentorship award that far too many people were surprised I had won. Cry harder, Nicholas. And while I think all this, I notice my blood bag is starting to look full. In fact, it’s bulging, and turning a blacker red with each heartbeat.

“Uh.” My “uh” is not loud enough to get their attention. Firm manager’s blood bag is still half empty, and I notice my heart has been pumping with unusual excitement over my earlier train of thought. I’m not so desperate as to pull the long needle from my arm, but I’m watching it drain me now as if it’s siphoning my life. “Uh, excuse me.” This time I’m a little louder. I quickly pray and confess my more grievous sins to the big sky daddy, just in case, as people rush over.

Firm manager is leaning towards me, brown eyes concerned. A blood man exclaims under his breath and quickly unhooks me from the machine, checking an almost black, engorged bag of my blood. Another man, who looks like he might be running things, rushes over and chuckles nervously, asking me how I’m feeling as my body slumps further into the recliner.

“Just normal,” I respond. And it’s true; the lingering exhaustion tingling through me is pretty typical, if not a tad heavier. He makes to wring his hands but catches himself and instead claps them, declaring that I did a fantastic job.

“A fantastic job” echoes in what feels like a brain being filled with molasses. See, I amspecial. I look to firm manager, who continues to lean from his chair, his charitable grin replaced with a frown. What was he worried about? The blood person said I did a fantastic job.

They unhook me. I insist I’m fine and I swing my legs firmly onto the ground and stand on my Prada heels without any swaying. See, I’m a trooper to boot. Add that to the never-send resume. They direct me to the food station at the other end of the conference room to soothe myself with orange juice. Firm manager eventually joins me and grabs a bagel as I fight the unsteadying effects of a rare New York City earthquake. Firm manager is unaffected.

“Maybe get some steak for lunch, to replenish your iron.”

I swoon slightly and he politely catches my elbow, and my heart gives a little lurch. He remembered my name, and now he’s expressing concern for my wellbeing. Progress. In my head, my name goes up in the potential firm partner list. I steady myself against his arm as the recruiter rings me once again and finally gives up, leaving a voicemail. The world is fuzzy at the edges and I remove my elbow from his palm to chug my third orange juice while my unfinished emotional support vegetable slush sloshes around in my other hand, like I’m double fisting at a health bar. 

Firm manager looks me warily up and down. “Do you need medical attention?”

I shake my head. “It’s my heels.”

He looks unconvinced, but wants to take me at my word. “I have a lunch reservation at Rose M. Care to join me? We can catch up on that asylum case.” 

Rose M is a fancy modern steak house that once asked me six times during a lunch interview that I was conducting how I liked my pasta, and I hadn’t returned since. I swallow that old swell of rage. “Oh, yes, sounds lovely. It’s a date.” I chuckle in what sounds even to me like a drunken, post-blood draw stupor. 

He blinks, slowly. “Not a date. Noon, then.”

I pause and wonder through a haze what I had said that made him take a step back. Usually I’m good at pulling people in. “Oookay. See you then! Firm manage…” I realize I’m about to call him by his title so I pull for his name. “Fox daddy.” I forget his name.

Whatever reaction he has is hidden under the look of horror on his face. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. See you later.” Firm manager–Mark?–leaves the blood drive and I’m left vaguely alarmed and very dizzy, wondering if the words I think I heard leaving my lips were actually the words that had left my lips. I intentionally bite my cheek so hard I taste blood, but it brings me back to a less fuzzy reality. My heart plummets as I start seeing clearly. Had I just taken a bazooka to the careful professional wall that I had built, layer-by-layer? Over a man with questionable business sense who bafflingly claims a top position at one of the world’s most powerful firms? I crush the empty orange juice bottle in my hand. I need to get out of here.

As I exit the building to get some air, the light reflecting from all the glass skyscrapers hits a little harsh. I find a shady spot and, with slightly shaky hands, finally pull up the recruiter’s voicemail that has been blinking in my dress pocket. Helpful news would be nice right about now. The voicemail plays and her voice gushes “congratulations” along with confirmation that I had options should my career at the firm somehow implode. Great timing. Truthfully, I had assumed the implosion would involve some feud with Nicholas, my sworn nemesis, not a silly mental slip to firm manager. And I didn’t think I would seriously contemplate my options so soon. I had only interviewed because the recruiter offered her reservation for a restaurant I couldn’t get seats to.

“They loved you in the interview,” she gushes in her voicemail while I plop onto one of 6th Ave’s giant water features. Gentle mists of water land in my hair and I am unsoothed as I wonder belatedly if the water is sanitary. “They’re offering a signing bonus if you accept, in addition to salary and year-end bonus.” She breaks down the numbers and then her voicemail pauses for effect, and the effect works. Some attorneys pivot firms like musical chairs, especially when the money on the table is too good to pass up. In the silence, my scheming brain starts to stitch it together.

I pride myself in having a plan A and then a plan B–all the way through Z, so I weigh my obvious options as a group of tourists pause, in the middle of the sidewalk, to flash a pic of the water feature I am sitting on while a group of unfazed suits slam into them: On one hand, I leave and start fresh with some extra cash, and no one would ever know that I possessed a heart capable of any romantic notions. On the other hand, I stay and continue destroying my arch nemesis while dissecting how a simpering fool could lead a law firm. There were other options on the table that I ignored for now. Other firms that would make an offer if asked. Because this world loves people like me.

A flock of Patagonia-wearing private equity bros walk past in lazy synchronization while I toss the remains of my emotional support vegetable slush into the trash. Then I fish a quarter from my bag. This was how I decided between law schools, for the record. Sometimes it’s just easier to let Jesus, who I am told loves me very much, take the wheel. I toss the coin into the misty air filled with water fountain bacteria, I am momentarily blinded by the aggressive flash of another tourist camera, and then the coin lands on its edge, stuck onto one of the millions of pieces of half-dried gum littering New York City streets. I stare while a pair of revoltingly familiar loafers pauses at my new coin-gum art installation, and I look up to see the insolently raised eyebrows of a person whose misery I have sworn to relentlessly pursue in this life and the next until the universe blinks into un-existence. My arch nemesis. A decision is made.

Photo credit: my photo on a day.