Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

We have seen your problems before. We will handle it.

Even now, Peter feels the smallest ease in his uncertainty as he drinks in the familiar surroundings. In terms of pure hours, he’s spent the lion’s share of his waking adult life in these offices. This place is going nowhere. If there is a nuclear holocaust, Lonigan Brown will survive, if only to handle the ensuing litigation.

Peter’s wingtips clack on the marble floor as he leaves the lobby. For all the hours they work, big-firm lawyers aren’t keen on early mornings. Most associates arrive after nine thirty, the partners after ten. The tardiness is heightened on Mondays because everyone’s grumpy, either because the weekend is over or because they never had one in the first place. Other than the two security staff who sleepily man the Lonigan Brown entrance, the place is quiet, unoccupied. He hurries down the hallway to his office. He removes his suit jacket and closes the door.

This has been his practice for the past few months: arrive early, see as few souls as possible, keep the door closed, the head down. Lose yourself in the work. Wait for the day to end. Slither out after the sun falls and everyone’s gone home. But that’s impossible, because no matter how late he stays—11, midnight, 2 a.m. — there are always bedraggled associates sitting in their cubicle offices when he leaves, soul-sucked eyes drifting up to him as he slumps past their doors. He can feel their hatred rising as he passes because he is the reason they are stuck there at that ungodly hour. Maybe not him in this particular instance, maybe not even in most instances. But he is a partner, making money from their misery, and they hate him for it. He knows they feel this way. He sat in those seats once himself.

The hate doesn’t bother him. It is temporary and, as Dominic once expressed to him, even necessary. The hate will drive them, Peter; most to leave, but a few to stay. You hated me once. Don’t bother denying it. No, the hate doesn’t bother him. But lately the hate is mingled with contempt or even snide bemusement. He’s become a joke among the associates, a laughingstock. He can even deal with that. These associates will be gone in a few years, replaced by younger, equally qualified versions. From the same schools, with the same grades, on the same law reviews. The new ones will know about his recent disgrace, but in only a vague, urban-legend fashion, like the way he “knows” that Debby Forsythe, a corporate partner, used to orally pleasure a senior partner back when she was an associate. Or the way he “knows” that Lou McBride, the bankruptcy partner who’s making the firm a small mint these days, brings a companion with him on business trips. A companion who is not only not his wife but not a woman.

Gossip has a voracious and varied appetite; it cannot survive on the same meal for long. The smug glances from disgruntled associates will fade.

But the disappointment that sits behind Maureen’s eyes?

Crushes him every time he sees her. She tries to hide it, but she can’t. It is precisely the look his mother would give him if she knew: a mix of incredulity and disapproval. Makes him feel hollow, like a grave that’s already been dug. He avoids Maureen because he can’t stand that look. He’d hoped that maybe the story wouldn’t make its way to her, would maybe die on the associate vine, but that was a hope beyond foolish.

Everyone knows.

Peter jostles his mouse, bringing his computer back to life. He checks his schedule, looks over some notes he jotted to himself on a call on Friday. He tries to engross himself in work, to submerge himself the way he used to, but he can’t even do that these days. Work drugs you only if it’s keeping you away from something: like grief or your life. Once it’s not keeping you from something, it’s just work. Drudgery. Peter has nothing to look forward to but Alberto’s couch. Work will not anesthetize such a meager expectation.

His phone rings, startling him. Only someone who knows he’s here at this hour would be calling. Or maybe someone who wants to leave a message. Maybe Lindsay. He checks the caller ID. Looks like an international number.

“This is Peter Amendola,” he says uncertainly.

“Peter, how are you, my friend?”

A moment passes before Peter recognizes the voice: Alberto Veras, the man whose apartment he’s crashing at. Alberto’s a corporate partner, spends most of his time in South America. He opened the firm’s office in Buenos Aires two years ago. They were barely on a first-name basis before all this.

“Menzamenz, Alberto. Some days are better than others.”

“Yes, well, that’s understandable. Better days ahead, I’m sure of it.”

Peter laughs.

“Well, that makes one of us. How’s Argentina?”

“Busy. Unbelievably busy. We should have opened an office here ten years ago. We need another ten lawyers at least.”

Each word is spoken with the practiced enunciation of someone who has mastered a language that is not his native tongue. Alberto’s voice could soothe a lunatic.

“Wow, that’s great.”

“Tell my wife. She’s used to not seeing me when I’m in New York, but she was hoping it would be different when we opened the office down here. Now, she’s telling me to go back to New York so at least she won’t have to do my laundry. I didn’t think it would be prudent to point out that she doesn’t do the laundry.”

Peter winces at the discussion of day-to-day domestic jostling. If only he and Lindsay could go back to minor squabbles.

“Probably not.”

“Well, in any event, Peter. She’s getting her wish. I’m coming back to New York for a month.”

“Oh. When?”

“Next week. Coming in Monday night. Now, if things still haven’t worked out, you could certainly stay on the couch for a few days, if you like.”

“No, Alberto. You’ve been more than generous, really. I don’t even know how to thank you, actually. No one else has been remotely as kind.”

Kind didn’t begin to describe it. When everyone else at the firm was treating him like a leper, Alberto offered up his pied-à-terre for Peter to use while he was in South America. Alberto was in his fifties, a silver fox, thin and placid. Had a reputation as a skirt-chaser. Peter guessed that he had some experience with domestic agitation and felt bad for Peter after what happened at the Christmas party.

“Ah, well. This too shall pass. Isn’t that what we always tell our clients?”

“Yes, well, thank you. I owe you a very nice dinner at the least when you’re in town.”

“No problem, my friend. How did you like it, by the way, the apartment?”

“It’s fantastic. The views are unbelievable. Got a chance to reacquaint myself with the comings and goings of the Staten Island ferry.”

“Isn’t that where you’re from, Staten Island?”

“Yes, it is.”

A long pause, like Alberto’s reading an e-mail or someone’s come into his office, but Peter can tell it’s another question that won’t ask itself.

“And isn’t that also… well…”

Another pause.

“Well, this is delicate, but wasn’t the girl from there as well?”

Peter’s cheeks redden reflexively.

“Yes,” he says softly.

“Ahhhh,” Alberto says, like he’s finally removed a splinter that had been stuck in his foot for months. “Well.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose that explains a lot,” Alberto says.

Peter can do nothing but agree.

“I suppose it does.”

* * *

She walked into his office at quarter to five, in a manner that only a first-year associate in her infancy at the firm could think was appropriate, and started talking about her future at the firm as though he didn’t have five phone calls to return and a train to catch. Peter nodded absently as she dithered, trying not to let his eyes wander too frequently to the clock on his computer. He’d promised Lindsay he would make it home at a reasonable hour so the whole family could sit down for a meal together for the first time in weeks and here he was, stuck listening to this girl whose name he’d already forgotten blather on about God knows what. Another first-year who talked too much. A Friday afternoon impediment, one of the many things that were conspiring to prevent him from catching the 5:47 train home and incurring Lindsay’s wrath as a result.