“Come in and close the door.”

Paul was waiting for her, kicked back in his massive, magenta desk chair behind a glossy mahogany desk that looked like Paul had nabbed it from J.P. Morgan. He didn’t stand when she entered; he never did. It was part of the power play.

Behind Paul, on the credenza, sat the framed photos of Paul’s hypothetical children—hypothetical because Clemmie had never seen any hard evidence of their existence. The glass-covered shelves behind him were stocked with law books—no plebian binders for Paul. Those were kept in Joan’s cubicle, along with all the rest of the actual apparatus of legal productivity.

Following his instructions, Clemmie closed the door gently behind her, holding her yellow legal pad under one arm, a black pen clipped to the top. Paul’s pen were for Paul only. Many an associate had learned that the hard way.

“I hope you had a good holiday,” he said, in the false cheerful voice he used when he was trying to be chummy.

Clemmie stared at him. Really? He knew her grandmother had died; he’d bitched enough about her missing work for it.

She swallowed her snarky comment and crossed the office to her usual chair across from Paul’s desk. Deep breaths. Just suck it up. That was the only way to deal with Paul. In a day or so, the partnership announcement would be out, and she’d never had to kowtow to the Pauls of the firm again. Instead, she’d be sitting with him at the partners’ lunch table and he could just lump it.

Yes, good image. She’d just hold on to that one. Once someone made partner, there was no way to unmake them. She could be as snarky to Paul as she liked and there’d be nothing he could do about. It was a remarkably soothing thought.

Clemmie sat, balancing her yellow legal pad on the slippery polyester of her pin-striped skirt. “Joan said you wanted to see me?”

There was a plastic football Paul kept on his desk, a little novelty one. He tossed it up in the air and caught it again. “Yes.”

Up the football went again. And down. Clemmie waited. And waited. Meanwhile, her blackberry, attached to her waistband by its own special clip, buzzed and buzzed again.

Any year now….

“You’re probably wondering why I wanted to see you,” said Paul.

Clemmie sat up straighter in her chair. It was faux Louis XIV, with slippery satin upholstery. “If it’s about PharmaNet, I’ve been coordinating with Harold while I’ve been away,” she said briskly. “I have the latest copies of the internal reports as well as an indexed binder excerpting the pertinent testimony.”

Two paralegals had given up their New Year’s Eve for that.

“No, no.” Paul frowned. “Although now that you mention it—Joan!”

“Yes?” The suspiciously regular rattle of typing cut off and Joan popped her head around the door.

Clemmie had to hand it to her, Joan had put up with a daily dose of Paul for nearly five years now, even if she had gone on a bender at last year’s Christmas party and used a couple of cocktail franks to rather graphically illustrate just what she’d like to do to him if he made her retype his f-ing briefs one more time. No one had wanted to eat the cocktail franks after that.

Paul leaned sideways. “Tell Harold I want to see him once I’m done with Clementine. In, say… five minutes.”

“Gotcha.” Joan disappeared around the door.

Paul settled back in his chair, kicking it back. “Where were we?”