Page 5 of How Freaking Romantic

Despite it being January and one of the coldest days of the year, I have to crack open a window to let in some frigid air while I get ready for the event on Friday.

This is nothing new. My building has steam heat, and in addition to sending a delightful metallic hammering sound through the walls at all hours of the day, it deploys hot air without any practical temperature control.

Since that’s also the case for every apartment on the eight floors below me, that same heat rises and makes my small studio apartment hot.

Really hot. The kind of hot that sits heavy in the air and makes your skin sticky and damp so trying to apply makeup is Sisyphean.

I finally give up, settling on mascara on my lashes and red stain on my lips before I pile my curls up into a loose bun on top of my head.

“You need to find a new apartment,” I mutter to my reflection.

Of course, that’s laughable. I might as well tell myself to buy the top floor of the Plaza. Until I pass the bar and get a position that pays me more than my monthly student loan bill, I can barely afford my rent for this place, let alone the security deposit on a new one.

Not that I want to move. Not really. Despite the heat, and the size, and the fact that the building has been clad in scaffolding due to “renovations” since I moved in seven years ago, I love this apartment.

Mostly because it’s mine, everything from the faded pink sofa I found in the back of a vintage shop in Brooklyn to the queen bed in the corner with the headboard I reupholstered in a fluorescent sixties-era print.

After a childhood spent crisscrossing the country as my mother jumped from one marriage to the next, and then four years of living with roommates at Fordham, I had been adamant about living alone after graduation.

When I broke this news to my friends, everyone had rolled their eyes as if I had told them I was going to hunt for a unicorn in Central Park.

Which, looking back at my income at the time, wasn’t really that far off the mark.

Josh had been the only one to outwardly challenge it, laughing and betting me a hundred dollars that I would be stuck with a roommate in Hoboken by the end of the month.

Two weeks later I found the blessed ad buried deep on Craigslist. One typo meant that it didn’t come up unless you were scouring every single ad posted in real time or you were searching for studio apartments for more than nine thousand dollars a month.

I was the former. I’ve also been bugging Josh for my winnings ever since.

A loud ding breaks my train of thought—the alarm on my phone chirping to let me know it’s six thirty and time to leave.

I fan my blouse in the arctic air one more time, then close the window before grabbing my coat and my bag and heading for the door.

The elevator miraculously appears only a few seconds after I press the button. When the doors open I find Mrs. Seigel already inside, her motorized scooter parked in the center of the car and her attention down on her phone. I squeeze in beside her.

“Hi,” I say as I press the illuminated L button a couple of times.

“Already pressed it,” she murmurs around the unlit cigarette hanging from her lips.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just in a hurry.”

She finally looks up, surveying the outfit under my thin wool coat: the black-and-white-striped shirt, the high-waisted slacks, the stiletto ankle boots.

“Hot date?” she asks.

“No, just a work thing.”

She grunts and turns back to her phone. “Too bad. You need to get laid.”

I force a smile just as the elevator doors open onto the lobby.

“Have a good night, Mrs. Seigel,” I say as I step around her and head for the front door.

The train is delayed, and my heels slow me down on the trek from the subway, but I still miraculously arrive at 408 Park Avenue on time.

I look up at the looming limestone exterior as I make my way inside.

It’s imposing, just like every other building in this neighborhood.

The lobby is the same, too: cream marble and polished teak walls.

All manufactured elegance amid anonymous buildings and hollow streets.

The security guard at the desk directs me to the elevators that take me up to the party. I take a deep breath as it ascends, ignoring the light jazz overhead and focusing on the task at hand. I have to network. I need to network.

Had I known that networking played such a huge part in a successful law career, I’m not sure I would have bothered applying to law school.

But instead, after graduating Fordham and working for more than three years at a healthcare nonprofit in Brooklyn—where I was getting increasingly frustrated about the policies that were making said job impossible—Josh suggested that if I wanted to yell about the injustice of it all, I might as well go to law school so I could get paid for it.

He said it half in frustration, half in jest, but that didn’t matter.

The idea took root, spreading slowly in my mind until it had wrapped itself around every other idea I had for the next year.

And how hard could law school be, really? I graduated Fordham with honors and aced the LSATs. I was sure that when I got accepted into NYU Law, it would be a breeze.

I was wrong.

Surprising to literally no one but me, law school is a different game entirely.

There’s no cheat code that will save you, no amount of preparation that will alleviate the pain.

The only thing you can do is keep your head down and work hard.

Harder than every single person there. So hard that you barely notice when the days between visits with your friends become weeks, or when your two best friends start drifting toward divorce.

So hard that you convince yourself that school is enough to fill the holes left everywhere else in your life.

I hear the din of conversation even before the elevator reaches the twenty-seventh floor.

Sure enough, when the doors open on the event space, I see that I’m not the first to arrive.

Far from it. The massive room is already littered with dozens of people; the lure of free booze and canapés is apparently too much for New York’s brightest legal minds.

The far wall is all windows, affording an epic view of Queens just across the East River, but no one seems to care.

They don’t seem to notice the waiters who float through the crowd with trays of puff pastry and champagne, either, invisible for the most part to the people bragging and arguing and joking with one another.

I drop my coat off with the waiting attendants, then grab a glass of champagne and take in the crowd, all slightly different interpretations of the same stereotype; the men are in dark suits with either a navy silk tie or a gray one.

The women offer only a slightly wider spectrum: suits and dresses that are all expensive and gorgeous, but none that venture out of the black or gray palette.

My eyes snag on Frank, who’s sitting at a table on the opposite side of the room. He’s talking with two people I don’t recognize—probably the people hosting the function. That would explain why he only gives me a cursory eye roll, his universal sign for “not worth it.”

Right . I nod and turn away.

I wander to the far corner, positioning myself between a large potted palm and the sprawling view of Queens.

There are a few odd stares in my direction, as if they’re not sure where to place me on their spectrum of importance, but after a few moments they must surmise that it is low, and they move on. Thank God.

A glimmer of hope springs in my chest, the idea that maybe, just maybe , I will get out of this scot-free: no condescending questions, no awkward pickup lines. I can meander through the crowd and stealthily look for Marcie Land and not have to—

“Hello there.”

Goddammit.

I turn, quickly donning a plastic smile for the man now standing in front of me. In terms of the demographics of the room, he’s young, early thirties, probably. And he’s not bad looking, but also not attractive in any way that stands out. He looks like a Ken doll with an entitlement complex.

“I’m Ted,” he says, smiling back. “And you are?”

“Beatrice.” I lean in on brevity, hoping it will shut down any potential flirting. But Ted seems unfazed.

“Nice to meet you, Beatrice. I don’t remember seeing you at one of these things before. What firm are you with?”

“I’m not with a firm.”

“Ah, that explains it,” he says, his smug smile broadening.

“Sorry?”

“This.” He has a glass of wine in his hand and uses it to motion down my body. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re gorgeous. But none of this screams ‘lawyer.’?”

Anger bristles under my skin, and suddenly it’s an effort to keep the smile on my face. “That’s funny. I’m about to graduate law school.”

I know I shouldn’t say it, shouldn’t share part of myself with this guy, but I can’t help myself.

“No shit.” He laughs. “Where do you go?”

“NYU.”

His eyes light up, and I realize too late that sharing this information was a mistake.

“What a small world. I’m in the middle of negotiating a huge endowment for them.

It’s actually part of a much larger trust that we’ve been wrangling for a couple of years now.

Spans a few countries so, you know, it’s been a headache, but also really rewarding.

I think it was Vince Lombardi that said… ”

I take a deep sip of my drink and stop listening. The sooner Ted finishes his monologue, the sooner I can extricate myself and sneak off to another corner. Maybe steal a canapé or two along the way. I let my eyes drift across the room, mapping my escape.

That’s when I see him. There, just leaving the bar with a drink in his hand, is the corpse flower himself: Nathan Asher.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuuuuuuuuck.

I turn away so abruptly, Ted pauses his banal story to eye me quizzically. “You okay?”