The Key. Jennifer Sturman

I’m running on empty here.”

      “I had a feeling about that. I left a little fuel for you in your office.”

      “You are my new best friend.”

      “You might want to wait and see what I brought you before getting rid of your old best friend.”

      I was incredibly lucky to have Jessica as my assistant. An aspiring actor, she was absurdly overqualified for her current job with a degree in drama from Yale, and she’d saved my skin on more than a few occasions. Unfortunately, she was also a bit of a health nut. Instead of the bagel and cream cheese I’d been hoping for, the bag she’d left on my desk contained a distressingly wholesome-looking bran muffin and some carrot juice.

      I reached into the small refrigerator under my desk and pulled out a can of Diet Coke. Carrot juice just wasn’t going to cut it this morning. I picked up the phone, cradling it against my shoulder and dialing Jake’s extension with one hand while I popped open the can of soda with the other. I probably could have walked over to his office, but it was on the other side of the floor and that seemed like too much work.

      “Hey,” he said.

      “Hey. So, are we ready?”

      “I think so. Mark’s dealing with the copies.”

      “He’s a machine.”

      “Yes, and he’s our machine, thank God.”

      “Good point.”

      “So, what did Gallagher want with you?”

      “Nothing much. Just to warn me to keep the thoughts in my pretty little head to myself.”

      He chuckled. “Don’t let him get to you.” That seemed to be a recurring theme today.

      “Who, little ole me? Worry my pretty little head with silly details about a silly ole deal?”

      “Cute, Scarlett.”

      I switched back to my own accent. “Let’s just say, if Gallagher suddenly dies a mysterious death—”

      “We’ll know who to bring in for questioning.”

      “Exactly.”

      “Rachel,” he said. “Seriously. Do you want me to say something to him? Or to somebody else?” Jake had come into my office on Saturday shortly after I’d slapped Gallagher’s hand from my arm and told him that no, I had no interest in joining him for lunch at an intimate restaurant he knew nearby. I’d still been sufficiently upset that it hadn’t taken much coaxing to get the story out of me.

      “What could you say?” I asked. “Everything he’s said and done can be explained away. It’s all too subtle, and it’s all his word against mine. And he’s a rainmaker—he brings in more fees in a month than I bring in all year, so I think I know where the partners’ loyalties lie.”

      “I don’t care how much money he brings in. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this sort of thing.”

      “I’ll just deal with it, and once I make partner, I’ll never have to deal with it again.”

      “Well, let me know if you change your mind….”

      “Thanks, Jake. I appreciate it.”

      “No problem. See you at ten?”

      “At ten,” I confirmed and hung up the phone. “Pretty little head, my foot,” I muttered, washing the words down with a swig of soda.

      I turned to where I’d left my briefcase on top of the credenza, unlatching it and drawing a battered spiral-bound notebook from an inside pocket.

      The notebook contained a hundred sheets of ruled paper, but it was already more than half-filled, which wasn’t surprising given that I’d been making regular entries for years. I opened to a fresh page and printed the date at the top. Then I quickly summarized my interaction with Gallagher, “pretty little head” and all. I tried to describe it objectively, which was challenging given the rage still coursing through my veins. I wrote steadily for several minutes before pausing to look over my account. Satisfied that I’d captured everything important, I flipped through the preceding pages.

      The previous entry was from Saturday afternoon and described the first incident with Gallagher. The page before that held a description of my most recent meeting with the partner assigned to be my “mentor.” He’d insisted on conducting my last performance review over drinks and had swilled down three Glenlivets while I nursed a seltzer and fought off his attempts to steer the conversation toward my love life, rather than my professional development.

      The notebook was my version of an insurance policy, started at the urging of my friend Luisa, a lawyer. I wanted to succeed on my merits, but it hadn’t taken long to realize that there was a lot more than merit to succeeding on Wall Street, especially as a woman. If I ever found myself getting the shaft for reasons that I suspected had more to do with my gender than anything else, I had a detailed record of all I’d put up with over the years. None of my experiences met the legal definition of sexual harassment, but as a whole the handwritten pages told a compelling story.

      I’d returned the notebook to my briefcase and was cranking through the e-mails overflowing my in-box when the intercom buzzed. “Peter’s on line one,” Jessica told me.

      “Thanks, I’ll take it,” I said and picked up the phone, still typing with my free hand. “Hi.”

      “Good morning.”

      “Not so far.”

      “That’s the attitude, Sparky.”

      “What’s up?”

      “I wanted to check in and see if maybe you could sneak out for a nice romantic lunch today.”

      I hadn’t told Peter about Gallagher’s far less welcome invitation—it would only upset him, and he was already concerned about how hard I’d been working—so he couldn’t have known the unfortunate associations lunch invitations held for me just then. Nor was there any way I was going to be able to sneak out for a nice romantic anything. In fact, sneaking out for a decent night’s sleep was probably going to be a problem, and I told Peter as much.

      “That bad, huh?” Peter ran a tech start-up, and while he worked hard, he was his own boss and set his own hours. It wasn’t always easy for him to understand how little control I had over my own schedule.

      “Just business as usual. Listen, I’ll call you when I know how things are shaping up. Maybe we can try to grab a late dinner?”

      “That would be great. I feel like I see less of you than I did before we lived together.”

      “I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “But this deal can’t last forever.” At least, I certainly hoped it couldn’t. “I’ll talk to you later?”

      “All right,” he agreed.

      My other line was ringing, and I checked the caller ID. “That’s Jake. I’ve got to run.”

      I’d hung up before I realized Peter was still talking. “Love you—” he was saying.

      I felt guilty, but only partly because I’d had so little time for Peter of late.

      The other part was because I was annoyed that I felt guilty. A nasty little voice in my head was saying that Peter should know well enough by now what my job was like, that he couldn’t expect me to drop everything whenever he called. Just because he had a key to my apartment didn’t mean that he had a key to my entire life.

      And the very existence of that nasty little voice made me feel all the more guilty.

      chapter four

      J ake, Mark and I took the single flight of stairs up to the designated conference room a few minutes before ten. “Where should I sit?” asked Mark nervously, setting the stack of bound presentations