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I watched while a line of speakers from a newly formed venture-capital firm took the dais and eternally praised themselves for raising so much funding. I tried to make small talk with the others at our table—two people from a local accounting firm and their spouses—but because of my increasingly agitated worries about Sam, they were tough to tell apart save one woman’s lazy eye and her husband’s psoriasis.
“Sam’s on his way,” I kept saying to no one in particular, starting to doubt my own words with each second. Had he gotten held up with some emergency with Forester’s work? It was strange for him not to text me and let me know what was happening.
I went to the bathroom, stood at the counter and called Sam’s cell. It went to voice mail.
Q was someone I turned to for help with everything, not just work, so I called him to see if he had any ideas.
I’d been lucky enough to find Q while he was night staff at Baltimore & Brown doing word processing for attorneys, like me, who worked too much and too late. He had simply wanted to make some money until he could figure out what he should do with his life, having realized that his acting career wasn’t exactly taking off. He was conscientious and meticulous, and as soon as he’d handled a few projects for me, I begged him to become my assistant. Yes, he’d be working for someone slightly younger, I told him, and yes, maybe “legal assistant” wasn’t the day job he’d always dreamed of, but I’d get him as much money as I could, I’d let him go on auditions anytime he wanted and we’d have a blast. I told him that I needed him. Desperately. At the time, I was twenty-six. Only a year and half out of law school, and suddenly I’d found myself handling a large chunk of the legal work for Pickett Enterprises—and I knew I was in way over my head.
Q finally caved, and now, three years later, he was, as Sam always joked, my “work husband,” a husband who could and would always make things better.
But oddly, Q’s phone didn’t ring either and went straight to voice mail.
I went back into the dining room and sat staring at my engagement ring, while the speakers droned on. I tried to figure out when it had happened—when the feeling had started that the wedding was getting away from us, didn’t seem like us anymore. I had to talk to Sam about it. So where was he?
Whenever a dinner course was cleared, my eyes darted to my lap, where my cell phone sat, and I stared at the empty display. I texted him a few more times. Again, nothing. Something was wrong.
The desserts—glazed pears that were better suited for a Gerber jar—were served, but I pushed them away.
When the dinner ended I said goodbye to Faith and the rest of the table, then I left and tramped down the stairway that was lined with an eclectic, expensive array of oil paintings. Once in the lobby of the club, I called Q again, but again it went right to voice mail. I tried Sam’s cell phone … and his office … and his apartment number. Nothing.
I jammed the phone in my purse and wondered whether to keep being worried about Sam or move to pissed-off mode. This no-show was completely unlike him. In fact, he’d never done something this inconsiderate, this out of character, so my usual repertoire of fiancé-management techniques seemed inappropriate.
I walked back to my office, through the mostly empty Loop, now lacking its daytime vitality. I found my silver Vespa parked behind the building. My mom had gotten me started on scooters when I was sixteen. We didn’t need a car in the city, and yet she constantly worried about me waiting at public bus stops and El stations. I’d used the scooter through college and bought a new one during law school. I thought that when I started practicing law I’d get rid of it. But then gas prices skyrocketed, and there was something about driving the Vespa I found not only convenient and energy saving, but cathartic. After a day spent in the stale stratosphere of the law firm, I liked the fresh air on my face, the feel of movement, of getting somewhere, sooner than later.
I got on the Vespa and pointed it in the direction of Sam’s office. There was little traffic, so I was able to floor it up LaSalle Street. The dazzling lights of office buildings and restaurants bled past me into streams of colors. The wind tore through my hair, causing strands of orange curls to flick against my eyes and cheeks. I tried not to think of Sam. Instead, I let myself think how grateful I was that Illinois had no helmet law and, as a result, I could let my ears and my head fill up with the rumble and roar of city life.
In the lobby of Sam’s building the security guard called upstairs, at my request, and said no one was answering. Everyone had gone for the night.
“Can I look at the log to see when he signed out?” Sam had told me about how the security in his building was woefully out of date. To make up for it, the building required every person, even employees, to sign in and out each time they left or entered.
The guard, an overweight, middle-aged man with a drooping mustache, shook his head. “Sorry. No one can see the log.”
“Sure, sure.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “How do you like the Bears this year?”
The guard waved a hand. “Ah, shit, that kid they got as quarterback doesn’t even have gonads yet. We need somebody good.”
“Somebody like McMahon?” Most Chicagoans had never emotionally recovered from the beauty of the Bears’ mid-eighties victory in the Super Bowl. A reminder of such beauty was a guaranteed way to become best friends with anyone over forty who lived within a sixty-mile radius of Soldier Field. Name-drop a player from the ‘85 team to these guys and they were putty in your hands.
“Exactly!” the guard said.
“And they need a moral leader. Somebody like Singletary.” At this point I was just spouting names I remembered from seeing the Super Bowl Shuffle video after we moved to Chicago.
“Right! Shit, that’s exactly what they need.”
“My fiancé and I are big Bears fans. He was at Soldier Field the day Payton broke the rushing record.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed. “You kidding me?”
“No.” At the time, Sam had only been a kid, visiting a distant relative in Chicago, but he remembered it vividly.
“Wow,” the guard said in a hushed, reverent tone. “Wow.”
“Yeah, I gotta find him.” I straightened up. “Can you check that log and just tell me when he left?”
The guard eyed me. Then he put the logbook on the counter, swung it around and pointed to an entry at the top of the page. There, Sam had signed out of the office ten minutes before I’d seen him at Cassandra’s.
I looked up at the guard. “And he didn’t come back?”
He shook his head then retracted the book.
“Thanks.”
“Sure thing. Go Bears.”
“Go Bears,” I answered and left.
I called Sam’s apartment, then mine. No answer at either. I started my Vespa, but I wasn’t sure where I should go. What was I supposed to do now? Sam, where are you?
I called my best friend, Maggie, but only got her voice mail. Where in the hell was everyone?
As I clicked the Off button, my phone rang. I felt a tiny bit of relief rupture my worry. But it was a Chicago number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Izzy, it’s Shane.”
“Oh. Hi, Shane.” Forester’s son rarely called me, but then maybe Sam was out with him for some reason. God, let it be as easy as that.
“Izzy,” Shane said. He seemed to choke, then I heard a snuffle. “My dad is dead.”
6
The first time I spoke to Forester I’d been out of law school for eleven months. After living the student life, with natural built-in breaks of a week here, two months there, I had struggled to get my body and mind on what Grady, my friend at work, and I called the coal-miner’s schedule. To us, it seemed that we labored as hard as coal miners with only a tiny light to illuminate the work ahead of us. As first-years, we were clueless about the law. We were given projects in piecemeal fashion, we worked until the wee hours to finish them, and then we turned them over to demanding partners, crossing our fingers that we hadn’t just prepared a thirty-page memo on the completely wrong topic—something that happened more frequently than one would think. Often, the partners weren’t clear about what they wanted, because they weren’t even sure themselves. Other times, they were pompous jerks who believed that associates should be able to divine precisely what they needed without a lick of direction.
Tanner Hornsby fell into that second category, and so working for him, as I did, required lots of late nights in the office. But that first time I spoke to Forester, it wasn’t even late. It was about five o’clock, and I’d just run downstairs to the lobby and bought myself a massive green tea with a shot of vanilla syrup to keep me sharp for the next few hours. Tanner had already left for the day. With the weather warming up, I’d heard him on the phone earlier making plans to sit outside at Tavern on Rush, where he and his buddies would no doubt ogle women and drink themselves silly.
I was jealous of Tanner that night. Jealous that he already understood the law, that he had the money and time to hit the town on a Tuesday night.
In my office, I sipped my tea and tried to focus on an option agreement Tanner had asked me to finish.
But it became hard to concentrate because of the ringing phone in Tanner’s office, which was a few doors down from mine (and on the side of the building that actually had windows). Closer to me was the desk of Tanner’s assistant, Clarice, and I could hear her phone chiming, too.
Finally, I got up, walked to Clarice’s desk and picked it up. “Baltimore & Brown,” I said in a quick, what-the-hell-do-you-want kind of tone.
“Tanner Hornsby, please.” The man’s voice was melodic, with a slight Southern accent.
“Mr. Hornsby is gone for the day. May I take a message?”
“Gone for the day? It’s only five o’clock.”
I thought of Tanner, probably already well into his second Bombay Sapphire. “Mr. Hornsby is in a meeting.”
“Is this Clarice?”
“No, it’s Izzy McNeil, one of the associates.”
“Forester Pickett here.”
I coughed involuntarily. Everyone at Baltimore & Brown knew Forester, at least by name, but the associates were typically kept away from the clients. “Hello, Mr. Pickett. May I help you with something?”
“Well, I’m calling about Steven Baumgartner, and I need some assistance ASAP.”
Steven Baumgartner, commonly known around Chicago as “the Bomber,” was the morning shock jock on a radio station Forester owned. We’d been working on his new contract, which he had been expected to sign for millions more dollars than before, but after a recent stunt that resulted in over a hundred listeners jumping into the Chicago River to win concert tickets (many of them ending up with a waterborne virus), the station had considered letting him go.
“I’m familiar with Mr. Baumgartner,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m at Baumgartner’s house. I’ve told the guy he’s got to tone it down on air, and he’s willing to do it. He’s also willing to take a lot less money than we thought. But he wants to sign tonight. He thinks the bad press is going to lose him listeners, and he wants to turn it around as quickly as possible. His agent is on board. So I need you folks to get me that contract in the next two hours.”
I felt a charge of energy. I’d always thrived under deadlines. “No problem, Mr. Pickett. I’ll find Tanner, and we’ll get this to you right away.”
“I’ve tried his cell phone a number of times already.”
“I know how to reach him.”
I hung up the phone and called Tavern on Rush. I spent ten long minutes describing Tanner to the maître d’, insisting they find him, asking him to look again, all to no avail. I tried his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. Maybe they’d gone to Lux Bar? Or Gibson’s? Or Hugo’s? I tried each one. No one at any of these establishments matched Tanner’s description.
Finally, I called Forester back, taking pains not to reveal my panic. “I’m having a hard time reaching Tanner, but I’m sure we can get this done first thing tomorrow.”
Forester lowered his voice. “His agent is here now. They’re in talks with stations in L.A. But if we get this done tonight, they’ll sign with us. And I’ll have just saved my company a truckload of money.”
I thought about the contract. It was essentially ready to go. All I’d have to do was insert the new salary. “No problem, Mr. Pickett. What are the new contract terms?”
Forester named an amount, hundreds of thousands less than the original. I pulled up the contract on the computer, typed in the new salary term and printed it out. Now I’d have to proof the thing. If I made one mistake, I’d be collecting unemployment in a week.
Thirty minutes later I called Forester. “Does Baumgartner still get a signing bonus?”
“Ah!” he said, sounding pleased. “Excellent point. No. No signing bonus anymore.”
“I’ll take that out. And what about the bonuses if he reaches certain ratings?”
“Keep in the ratings bonuses.”
“May I have your fax number? I’ll send the contract to you in five minutes.” I took down the fax, gave Forester my direct line and told him I’d stay in my office for the next few hours in case any additional changes were needed.
I went back to my office with a pleased smile on my face. Making the changes to the Bomber’s contract, although simple, had been the first time I’d felt any proficiency with the law.
Forester called back in an hour and a half. “So you said your name was Isabel McNeil, is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you spell McNeil?”
I spelled it for him. I could hear Forester murmuring, as if he was writing this down, and the notion that Forester Pickett—media mogul, founder and CEO of Pickett Enterprises—was writing down my name was thrilling.
“Well, Ms. McNeil, you saved Pickett Enterprises today.”
I blushed. I couldn’t help it. As a redhead, the blush is impossible to control. “I think that’s overstating it, sir.”
“It’s the truth. That’s all there is to it. Now, tell me, how long have you been a lawyer?”
“Only about a year. I’ve been working here with Tanner Hornsby most of the time.”
Forester grunted at the mention of Tanner’s name. I interpreted this as a derisive grunt, which made me love him even more.
He asked me where I’d gone to law school, and I described Loyola University in Chicago. He asked about college, and I told him about the University of Iowa. And soon, I was talking about high school in the city and grade school before that and how we’d lived in Michigan before that. Forester was one of those great listeners. He chuckled at all the right times, and asked for clarification about this and that. He told me a few stories, too, like how he’d started in the business by buying a radio station, but how he’d gone to the University of Chicago at age fifty to get his college degree.
By the end of our conversation I felt, oddly, as if I was becoming friends with the man. The fact that he was a bizillionaire and I was a relative pauper didn’t matter, nor did the fact that he was one of the firm’s biggest clients and I was merely a peon associate.
When we were about to hang up the phone, Forester said, “You did well today, Izzy.” It was the first time he’d called me that, and I blushed again, but this time with pride.
The next day, Forester sent a new case to the firm. The lawsuit wasn’t anything big, just a simple torts case, a slip-and-fall accident at a theater Forester owned, and it arrived at our offices the same way all Pickett cases did.
The only remarkable thing was that the letter of retention wasn’t directed to Tanner. Instead, it was made out to Isabel McNeil.
7
An emergency-room nurse in pink scrubs stepped in front of me and held out an authoritative arm. “Who’re you here to see?”
“Forester Pickett.”
She pursed her mouth. “Mr. Pickett is …” She glanced over my shoulder, as if looking for reinforcements.
“He’s passed away. Yes, I know.” I put on my courtroom face and refused to let the statement register. “I’m actually here to see his son.”
“No one can go in except the family.”
A green curtain that covered the entrance to one of the rooms was flicked back at its corner and Shane Pickett’s face peeked out. “She’s okay.” He let the curtain fall closed.
“All right, go ahead,” the nurse said. “Sorry about your loss.”
The emotion hit me for the first time, and I felt as if I might gag on something large, something wrong, in my throat. “Thank you.”
I pulled back the curtain and stepped inside. Shane sat next to a metal bed, staring at the form that lay there, covered. Shane was a small man, a sharp dresser, his brown hair always parted severely and combed precisely. He had recently started wearing glasses that were stylish, but I got the feeling he wore them so that he would somehow look older, smarter. When Forester had had a heart attack a few years ago and succession planning was done at the company, Shane was made president of Pickett Enterprises, so that if something happened to Forester or when he stepped down as CEO, Shane would run the place. Forester was determined to keep it a family company. (I think he hoped Shane would have kids and that those kids would work there, too.) But Shane hadn’t been a “natural” in the business like his father was. There had been a lot of talk that he wasn’t ready or worthy for the position of CEO.
Shane looked up at me now, then back at what was apparently the form of Forester Carlton Pickett, the kindest and most vibrant man I’d ever known, now covered with a white, hospital-issue sheet. Forester had been a simple man in many ways, but he’d loved luxury in all its forms, and in particular he’d often spoken about his 1500 thread-count sheets and how he always bought the best bedding money could buy. Something about the hospital sheet that now covered him struck me as deeply wrong.
“Shane, I’m sorry,” I said.
