Ruth Bettendorf took my arm at the door of Larimer Hall.
"I asked her to come," she told the woman with the guest list.
It was 7:30 PM on Friday, December 11.
Ostrander Keane's holiday party had 180 guests.
Ruth was the firm's biggest client.
She could bring anyone she liked.
She had called me on Monday.
She'd asked what I was wearing.
She hadn't mentioned the porch.
I wore the black dress I'd bought for my admission ceremony.
The ceremony was ten days away.
Clay was still listed as my sponsor.
The hall had brick walls and string lights.
An ice sculpture of the letters OK sweated by the shrimp.
Bea Fontaine was checking coats.
She took mine without a word and gave me ticket number nine.
She held the ticket a second before she let it go.
Ruth held my arm through the whole first lap.
People who'd seen me fired on video stepped out of our way.
Near the bar stood a cluster of strangers.
Six of them wore green lanyards.
I knew the color.
I'd last seen it on the back wall of Conference Room 31A.
At 8:00 Clay took the microphone by the band.
"The class of 2026!"
He read four names off a card.
Four young lawyers walked up into the light, one at a time.
Each shook his hand.
Each got a round of applause.
A title change.
A salary change.
At the December ceremony.
I was standing in the room where mine was supposed to happen.
None of the four names was mine.
Clay lowered the card.
He found me before the clapping stopped.
"And our paralegal emerita!"
He lifted his glass at me.
"One room, one client."
The laugh started at the partner tables.
It rolled back to the bar.
All 180 heads turned.
Ruth's hand tightened on my sleeve.
Jonah had been talking with a judge near the windows.
He set his drink on a ledge and crossed the dance floor.
He didn't hurry.
He stopped at my other side.
"She's with us, Clay."
Clay laughed into the microphone.
"Enjoy the shrimp, Jonah."
"It's on us."
Jonah didn't answer him.
He stayed where he was until Clay handed the microphone back to the band.
The band started again a beat late.
Ruth wanted ginger ale.
I went to the bar for it.
Lorna Keane was already there.
A tall man stood beside her with a whiskey.
He was 63, gray at the temples, in a suit that didn't come from Denver.
"Conrad Peale," Lorna said.
"Bexley Harrow."
Tell Conrad it's handled.
I'd heard that through her glass door on the worst morning of my life.
Peale nodded at me.
He didn't offer his hand.
His lanyard hung inside his jacket, face turned in.
Lorna took a cream envelope from her clutch.
She set it on the bar beside my ginger ale.
"Seventy-five thousand."
"Same line."
"'I may have shared portions of the sealed brief with a third party.'"
"One sentence, Delia."
I didn't touch it.
"Ruth doesn't need to know about this," Lorna said.
"Ruth knows I won't sign it," I said.
"Wednesday is a long morning in a courtroom," Lorna said.
"This makes it short."
"You'll have a career."
"I have one," I said.
"Sixty-three days and a contempt motion," Lorna said.
"That isn't a career."
"That's a cautionary tale."
Jonah came up behind me.
He saw the envelope.
"Don't open that envelope!"
He said it loud enough to stop the bartender.
Three conversations at the bar went quiet.
One of the four new associates froze with a canapé halfway up.
I picked up the envelope by its corner.
The flap was still sealed.
I slid it back across the bar to Lorna.
"No," I said.
Lorna left it where it stopped.
"It doesn't go higher."
"Then it doesn't," I said.
Peale had watched all of it.
He set his whiskey down.
"Lorna," he said.
His voice was quiet and careful.
"I've read Corvane's notice."
"Which inboxes did that email reach?"
Lorna didn't blink.
"Ours."
"All of them?"
"Every one, Conrad."
Peale looked at her for a second longer than he needed to.
Then he turned to leave the bar.
His jacket swung open.
The lanyard flipped face out under the string lights.
It was green.
Same green as the back wall at the all-hands.
Same green as the two strangers who had checked their watches when Lorna did.
BH INTEGRATION
Peale walked away into the crowd.
Lorna picked up the envelope and put it back in her clutch.
She didn't look at me again.
I picked up Ruth's ginger ale.
By the shrimp, the ice sculpture had lost the bottom of the K.
My hand was steady.
Jonah stood close enough to hear me whisper.
"Who else was on that list?"