A Conflict of Interest Read online

  “No one makes someone else happy.”

  This is something of a credo with Elizabeth, the idea of taking responsibility for your own happiness, or misery, as the case might be. But she has said this with a vastly different voice than in our last few exchanges. It’s still gentle, but now is characterized by a definite inward resolve.

  Elizabeth takes my hand in hers. For the life of me I can’t remember the last time we’ve held hands.

  “Alex, I really don’t think that Michael Ohlig made your mother very happy. Do you?”

  45

  The first day back at the office is excruciating. Amidst trying to catch up on the emails and voicemails I’d ignored during the trial, and taking awkward congratulations on the trial, I can’t stop myself from thinking about Abby. I begin the day checking my voicemails and end it the same way, but for the first time in months, there are no messages.

  The next day is exactly the same.

  The silence is double-edged. It hurts that Abby appears to be weathering the separation better than I am, but it would be worse if she weren’t. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

  All the litigators at Cromwell Altman meet on the last Wednesday of every month. Someone, usually a more junior lawyer, is tasked with the responsibility of giving a presentation, either about a case the firm just won (or, in rare instances, lost), or some developing area of the law. This month, the meeting was pushed up because most of the lawyers take off the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

  The meetings are held in the partners’ dining room because there are enough seats for most of the litigation department, at least the half that shows up. It looks more or less like a five-star restaurant. Tables of two, four, and six seats, each with a white linen table cloth and fine china place settings. A buffet is laid out along the back wall of the room.

  Partners are encouraged to sit among the associates. The firm thinks of it as a way to bond, but it actually just makes the meetings that much more uncomfortable for everyone. Everyone except me, I should say. Since September, I’ve always sat with Abby, normally at a table for two.

  David Geyser is the chairman of the litigation group, a figurehead position because it’s well known that Aaron’s the one who’s really in charge. Pretty much all David Geyser does as chairman is make sure the litigation meetings start precisely at noon and end exactly at one. It’s actually something he’s quite good at.

  I purposely arrive fifteen minutes late so I won’t have the awkward moment of either choosing not to sit with Abby if she got there before me, or seeing her select a seat away from me if I’m the earlier arrival. I enter quietly, taking a seat at a table in the back. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds, however, before I spy Abby sitting in the middle of the room. She’s the only associate at a table of four male partners, one of whom is Aaron Littman.

  When our eyes meet it’s the first time since Tao. She smiles at me, but it’s different from the smile I’d become so accustomed to seeing. It’s uncertain and without the confidence she normally projects.

  I smile back, as broadly as I can, and then her expression morphs into the glow that I’ve missed so much.

  She flutters her fingers at me in a wave, and mouths “hi.” I nod back at her and mouth “hello.”

  Meanwhile, Geyser is standing in the front of the room behind a podium that bears the firm’s initials—CARW—in large letters. As long as I’ve been at the firm, there’s been speculation that Aaron’s Littman’s name was going to replace Franklin White’s on the letterhead, a move that would make sense given that White was at Cromwell Altman for only a few years back in the 1970s, and was given a place on the masthead only because he was formerly a judge on the Federal Appeals Court. The firm thought it would provide some cachet during the recession at the end of that decade. The running joke is that the reason the name change hasn’t happened is because no one wants the firm to be known as CARL.

  Geyser is talking about Aaron’s representation of a cable company against one of the phone carriers, which The American Lawyer magazine had opined was the biggest stakes litigation in the country this year; it settled sometime during the summer. That’s when I realize that this is the final litigation meeting of the year, which is when Geyser does his year-in-review, going through the department’s highlights over the past twelve months.

  With the exception of mentioning Aaron’s case first, Geyser is apparently going in chronological order because next he discusses a pro bono death penalty case from January, followed by an SEC insider-trading case that was filed in February. Six more cases follow, all of them resulting in successful outcomes. To hear Geyser tell it, Cromwell Altman is more successful than Perry Mason.

  With about five minutes left before the hour is over, Geyser says, “And last, but certainly not least, just last week, Alex Miller and Abby Sloane obtained an acquittal of OPM CEO Michael Ohlig in a securities fraud trial.”

  Although he spared the other lawyers whose cases he discussed, Geyser says, “I see you, Abby, but where’s Alex hiding?” I sheepishly raise my hand. “There he is, way in the back. Why don’t you stand up, Alex. You too, Abby. Stand so we can all recognize the fine work you did in this case. You’ve made Cromwell Altman proud.”

  I rise, and then Abby comes to her feet. Our colleagues in the litigation department are clapping.

  “Well done, both of you,” Geyser says. His voice rises above the applause, although with the microphone in front of him it sounds as if he’s yelling. “This was a spectacular year for our department and the firm. I have every expectation that next year will be even better. From my family to you and all of yours, have the happiest of holiday seasons and a joyous New Year.”

  When the applause begins to die down, Geyser adds, “Our next meeting will be on January 7, at which time we hopefully will have an announcement that a new partner has joined our ranks.”

  He doesn’t mention Abby by name, but everyone knows it’ll be her. The other two litigators of her vintage have already been told that they’re going to be passed over, their names not even being put up for consideration, which makes Abby the litigation department’s sole candidate. At this juncture, particularly with her sitting next to Aaron, I doubt you could find anyone to take odds against her making it.

  There’s usually some mingling after the departmental lunch, but I get out of there as soon as I can. I’m just not ready yet to make small talk with Abby, or even to discuss Geyser’s seeming endorsement of her with any of the others.

  I suspect our encounter at the lunch has emboldened Abby because we run into each other the next day in front of my office. It’s not quite a chance encounter, however. As I’m returning from the men’s room, I find her leaning against the door frame to my office, waiting for me.

  “Hey stranger,” she says. “Long time, no see.”

  I don’t know what to say. Taking pity on me, Abby says, “Mind if we talk in your office?”

  “Sure,” I say, gesturing that she enter. I want to tell her to shut the door, but I know that would be a mistake.

  “So, how much did you have to pay Geyser?” I say as she takes a seat, doing my best to keep this encounter on a lighthearted plane.

  “I know. It was a little embarrassing. After he said it, I said something to my table like, ‘God, if I don’t make it now, I’ll never be able to show my face around here,’ and then Rick Rubin says, ‘Don’t worry about it, Abby. If you don’t make it, you’ll be pushed out so you won’t have to show your face around here.’”

  “He’s such a horse’s ass.”

  “Aaron put him in his place, though. He looked right at Rubin and said, ‘That’s true of partners too, you know. It’s not a lifetime position.’”

  I chuckle lightly, a jealous pang hitting my stomach at the specter of Aaron coming to Abby’s rescue. “So, what are you doing trolling 56?” I ask.

  She looks flustered for a moment. “I’ve got a meeting.”

  “Who with?” />
  “Aaron, and a cast of thousands, of course.”

  “That’s a good sign,” I say. “I mean, if Aaron has brought you to a case less than two weeks before the partnership vote, there’s little doubt that you’re going to make it.”

  “I suppose,” she says. “Truth is, my meeting doesn’t start for another few minutes. I came up early because I wanted to see you.”

  “Here I am,” I say, feeling foolish for saying it, but not sure what response would be more appropriate. Should I tell her that I miss her with every fiber of my being? What good will that do unless I want to end up in bed with her, which, while true, is something I’m trying my damnedest to avoid.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good.” I try to punctuate the point with a smile.

  “Good for you,” she says without a smile, and somewhat bitterly, I think. “Unfortunately, I’m not doing so good.” She lowers her voice. “I really miss you, Alex. It’s so hard coming to work and not having you there to talk to you. I mean, putting aside everything else, you were also my best friend.”

  I want to say that I miss her too. Actually, that’s only partly true. What I actually want to do is lock my office door and take her in my arms. But I know that’s only going to make things that much worse.

  “It’ll get easier.”

  The moment I say this I realize how patronizing it sounds. I should have been honest and told her that it’s been torture for me too, that I think about her every minute of every day. But the opportunity is gone now.

  Abby clenches her jaw, an effort to hold back tears, I think.

  “Thanks for the advice, Alex,” she says curtly. “I’ve got to go.”

  She bolts to the door and I take off after her, stopping once I enter the hallway. I can’t yell out to her, and so I watch her recede from view, as she enters the woman’s restroom without looking back.

  It is then and there that I decide I’m going to take the rest of the year off. I’d rather not encounter Abby again until I have my sea legs.

  46

  Growing up in a Jewish household, Christmas was something I longed for but couldn’t have, at least not directly. My parents were not religious people, and so they had no objection to my watching Christmas shows on television or participating in my friends’ annual rituals, but they drew the line at having a Christmas tree of our own or giving out presents on the 25th.

  After Elizabeth and I were married, I threw myself into Christmas with the zeal only a convert possesses. I wanted to get the biggest tree, and that first year I must have spent five hundred dollars on ornaments, much to Elizabeth’s amusement. “Most people just wait until they’re fifty percent off the day after Christmas and stock up then,” she laughed at me.

  I’m more excited about Christmas this year than ever before. Charlotte didn’t seem to grasp the concept of presents the first three holiday seasons. Last year she was excited about it for the first time, but really couldn’t recall it from the year before. This Christmas, however, she remembers last year’s, so she knows what to expect, and she doesn’t have the slightest doubt about the existence of Santa Claus. By next year, I suspect that will no longer be the case.

  In front of the window in our living room is a seven-foot Douglas fir that is half-decorated. Charlotte insisted we stop putting ornaments on and pick what’s going to go on top of the tree. She has a theory that what ultimately goes on the top of the tree will impact the subsequent placement of ornaments.

  I’m on a step stool, holding the winged fairy in place. Charlotte is eyeing it with a squint. She has already rejected the snowflake, and she’s deciding between the fairy and the gold star when the phone rings.

  Elizabeth doesn’t like making phone calls or receiving them. She carries a cell phone but almost never answers it. No one ever has anything to say that can’t wait, she’s told me on several occasions when our phone is ringing and she doesn’t move to get it. It would be rude for me to stop talking to you and start another conversation with someone else who was in the room, so why is it any more polite if that person doesn’t even have the decency to visit us? Like a lot of things Elizabeth says, there’s some pretty convincing logic at work, and yet I also know it’s a bit twisted and off.

  “Can you answer the phone?” I call out to her. She seems annoyed by my request, but nevertheless walks over to pick up the receiver.

  “Hello. Oh, hi, Joan. Yeah, he’s here. Hang on a second.” She pulls the phone away from her face. “Alex, it’s your aunt Joan.”

  I climb down off the step stool and take the phone out of Elizabeth’s hand. For some reason, I know it’s a call for which I’ll want some privacy, and so I walk to the bedroom even before saying hello. I sit down on the corner of my bed.

  “How are you, Joan?”

  She doesn’t answer. Instead, she says, “I don’t know if I should tell you this, Alex, but it’s been making me crazy, and I … I just think you deserve to know, especially now.”

  “Okay,” I tell her, although I’m not sure that’s it’s actually better to know the truth than not to know it in all instances.

  “Well, it’s about your mother.” I expect her to come out with it, but she hesitates. “It’s about both your parents, actually,” she finally says.

  “Okay,” I say again, now concerned.

  “I don’t know how to say it.”

  “Please, Joan, just spit it out. It’s okay.”

  “Alex, your father believed that your mother was having an affair.”

  Goddammit. He knew. The one piece of solace I had taken through all of this was false. My father knew.

  “What did he say?” I ask quickly.

  “You knew?”

  Joan sounds surprised, which makes sense. She had no reason to believe I’d learned about my mother’s affair with Ohlig during the trial.

  “I knew she was having an affair with Michael Ohlig. It came out during my representation of him. I didn’t know my father knew about it, though. How did you find out?”

  “Your father actually told me. Well, not exactly. What he said was that your mother was in love with someone else.”

  “He actually used that term—in love?”

  “Yes.” I can hear sadness in her voice. This couldn’t have been easy for her to share.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “There’s more, I’m afraid.”

  “What?”

  “Please don’t be mad at me, Alex.”

  “Joan, just tell me.”

  “Okay. Okay. She told your father about this on the day before he died.”

  She doesn’t say anything more, and so I press her, as I would with a hostile witness whom I suspect is holding back on me. “Joan, please just tell me what he said. I want to know all of it—what he said to you and what you said to him,” I say, using a common lawyer formulation for questioning witnesses in a deposition.

  I can actually hear her sigh, as if she’s gathering strength for what is to follow. “The day before your father died, he called me. He sounded very upset and asked me to come over because he didn’t want to be alone and he didn’t know who else to call. When I got there, I could tell that he’d been crying. He reminded me of a little boy. Lost and scared. I asked him what was wrong and he just came out and said that your mother was in love with someone else. I asked him what happened, why he would think that, and he said that’s what your mother had said to him.” There’s a long silence before she says, “I wanted to tell you at your father’s funeral, Alex, but then I thought about it more and I decided maybe it was better that you have the best thoughts possible about your parents. But after that man was arrested, and it was in the newspapers about him and your mother, I thought you’d want to know. I hope I made the right decision.”

  My father knew that my mother was in love with someone else, and the next day he was dead. My mind flashes back to the rabbi’s words at my mother’s funeral, and how wrong he was. It was my father, and not my mother, wh
o died of a broken heart.

  I don’t remember saying good-bye to Joan, although I doubt I just hung up on her, but a moment later the phone is beside me on the bed, my head is in my hands and I’m sobbing. It feels almost like I’ve lost him again.

  “What is it?” Elizabeth says in a whisper as she enters the room. She sits down beside me and places her hand on my back, rubbing in a circular motion, the way we do with Charlotte when we’re trying to comfort her.

  Elizabeth is a patient sort, and so she doesn’t ask me again, even though a good thirty seconds go by without an answer. Finally, catching my breath, I say, “He knew. My father knew about my mother and Ohlig.”

  “Is that what your aunt said?”

  “Yeah.”

  I straighten up and wipe the last tear from my eye. Looking into Elizabeth’s face I see only concern, and just like I was when I came home after breaking it off with Abby, I’m jarred by just how unfair this is—her comforting me about my father being betrayed by his wife.

  “I’m so sorry, Alex.”

  She still doesn’t know the worst part, the part that really pushed me over the edge—my father found out the day before he died. Could that really be a coincidence?

  But then something else occurs to me, a fact I’d overlooked. My initial premise was that my mother told my father about Ohlig only because she was leaving him. But that made sense only if Ohlig was going to leave his wife too. Then why didn’t they finish the plan? Why weren’t they openly together?

  Because my father died, I realize. The ultimate ironic twist—my father’s death kept my mother and Ohlig apart. Now they’d have to wait. After a respectable period, they could tell everyone how, in their mutual grief, my mother turned to my father’s oldest friend for comfort, and he toward her and, though no one planned on it happening, they fell in love. And then they could live happily ever after, the end.