“How thrilling,” she deadpans, and I imagine her scrunching up her pin small nose like she’s just smelled something unsavory.

“When are you back?” I ask.

“Probably Tuesday,” she says. “But I don’t know. Renaldo might meet me, in which case we’d go to the Riviera for a few days. You wouldn’t think it, but it’s great this time of year. No one is around. You have the whole place to yourself.”

Renaldo. I haven’t heard his name in a beat. I think he was before Francesco, the pianist, and after Marcus, the filmmaker. Bella is always in love, always. But her romances, while intense and dramatic, never last for more than a few months. She rarely, if ever, calls someone her boyfriend. I think the last one might have been when we were in college. And what of Jacques?

“Have fun,” I say. “Text me when you land and send me pictures, especially of Renaldo, for my files, you know.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Love you,” I say.

“Love you more.”

I blow-dry my hair and keep it down, running a flat iron over the hairline and the ends so it doesn’t frizz up. I put on small pearl stud earrings my parents gave me for my college graduation, and my favorite Movado watch David bought me for Hanukkah last year. My chosen black suit, fresh from the dry cleaners, hangs on the back of my closet door. When I put it on, I add a red-and-white ruffled shirt underneath, in Bella’s honor. A little spark of detail, or life, as she would say.

I come back into the kitchen and give a little spin. David’s made little to no progress on getting dressed or leaving. He’s definitely taking the day off. “What do we think?” I ask him.

“You’re hired,” he says. He puts a hand on my hip and gives me a light kiss on the cheek.

I smile at him. “That’s the plan,” I say.

Sarge’s is predictably empty at 10 a.m. — it’s a morning-commute place — so it only takes two minutes and forty seconds for me to get my whitefish bagel. I eat it walking. Sometimes I stand at the counter table at the window. There are no stools, but there’s usually room to stash my bag.

The city is all dressed up for the holidays. The streetlamps lit, the windows frosted. It’s thirty-one degrees out, practically balmy by New York winter standards. And it hasn’t snowed yet, which makes walking in heels a breeze. So far, so good.

I arrive at Wachtell’s headquarters at 10:45 a.m. My stomach starts working against me, and I toss the rest of the bagel. This is it. The thing I’ve worked the last six years for. Well, really, the thing I’ve worked the last eighteen years for. Every SAT prep test, every history class, every hour studying for the LSAT. The countless 2 a.m. nights. Every time I’ve been chewed out by a partner for something I didn’t do, every time I’ve been chewed out by a partner for something I did do, every single piece of effort has been leading me to, and preparing me for, this one moment.

I pop a piece of gum. I take a deep breath, and enter the building.

Fifty-one West Fifty-Second Street is giant, but I know exactly what door I need to enter, and what security desk I need to check in at (the entrance on Fifty-Second, the desk right in front). I’ve rehearsed this chain of events so many times in my head, like a ballet. First the door, then the pivot, then a sashay to the left and a quick succession of steps. One two three, one two three…

The elevator doors open to the thirty-third floor, and I suck in my breath. I can feel the energy, like candy to the vein, as I look around at the people moving in and out of glass-doored conference rooms like extras on the show Suits, hired for today — for me, for my viewing pleasure alone. The place is in full bloom. I get the feeling that you could walk in here at any hour, any day of the week, and this is what you would see. Midnight on Saturday, Sunday at 8 a.m. It’s a world out of time, functioning on its own schedule.

This is what I want. This is what I’ve always wanted. To be somewhere that stops at nothing. To be surrounded by the pace and rhythm of greatness.

“Ms. Kohan?” A young woman greets me where I stand. She wears a Banana Republic sheath dress, no blazer. She’s a receptionist. I know, because all lawyers are required to wear suits at Wachtell. “Right this way.”

“Thank you so much.”

She leads me around the bullpen. I spot the corners, the offices on full display. Glass and wood and chrome. The thump thump thump of money. She leads me into a conference room with a long mahogany table. On it sits a glass tumbler of water and three glasses. I take in this subtle and revealing piece of information. There are going to be two partners in here for the interview, not one. It’s good, of course, it’s fine. I know my stuff frontward and backward. I could practically draw a floor plan of their offices for them. I’ve got this.

Two minutes stretch to five minutes stretch to ten. The receptionist is long gone. I’m contemplating pouring myself a glass of water when the door opens and in walks Miles Aldridge. First in his class at Harvard. Yale Law Review. And a senior partner at Wachtell. He’s a legend, and now he’s in the same room as me. I inhale.

“Ms. Kohan,” he says. “So glad you could make this date work.”

“Naturally, Mr. Aldridge,” I say. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He raises his eyebrows at me. He’s impressed I know his name sight unseen. Three points.

“Shall we?” He gestures for me to sit, and I do. He pours us each a glass of water. The other one sits there, untouched. “So,” he says. “Let’s begin. Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

I work through the answers I’ve practiced, honed, and sculpted over the last few days. From Philadelphia. My father owned a lighting business, and when I was not even ten years old, I helped him with contracts in the back office. In order to sort and file to my heart’s content, I had to read into them a bit, and I fell in love with the organization, the way language — the pure truth in the words — was nonnegotiable. It was like poetry, but poetry with outcome, poetry with concrete meaning — with actionable power. I knew it was what I wanted to do. I went to Columbia Law and graduated second in my class. I clerked for the Southern District of New York before accepting the reality of what I’d always known, which is that I wanted to be a corporate lawyer. I wanted to practice a kind of law that is high stakes, dynamic, incredibly competitive, and yes, has the opportunity to make a lot of money.

Why?

Because it’s what I was born to do, what I have trained for, and what has led me here today, to the place I always knew I’d be. The golden gates. Their headquarters.

We go through my resume, point by point. Aldridge is surprisingly thorough, which is to my benefit, as it gives me more time to express my accomplishments. He asks me why I think I’d be a good fit, what kind of work culture I gravitate toward. I tell him that when I stepped off the elevator and saw all the endless movement, all the frenzied bustle, I felt as if I were home. It’s not hyperbole, he can tell. He chuckles.

“It’s aggressive,” he says. “And endless, as you say. Many spin out.”

I cross my hands on the table. “I can assure you,” I tell him. “That won’t be a problem here.”

And then he asks me the proverbial question. The one you always prepare for because they always ask:

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I inhale, and then give him my airtight answer. Not just because I’ve practiced, which I have. But because it’s true. I know. I always have.

I’ll be working here, at Wachtell, as a senior associate. I’ll be the most requested in my year on M&A cases. I’m incredibly thorough and incredibly efficient; I’m like an X-ACTO knife. I’ll be up for junior partner.

And outside of work?

I’ll be married to David. We’ll be living in Gramercy Park, on the Park. We’ll have a kitchen we love and enough table space for two computers. We’ll go to the Hamptons every summer; the Berkshires, occasionally, on weekends. When I’m not in the office, of course.

Aldridge is satisfied. I’ve cinched it, I can tell. We shake hands, and the receptionist is back, ushering me through the offices and to the elevators that deliver me once again to the land of the mortals. The third glass was just to throw me off. Good shot.

After the interview I go downtown, to Reformation, one of my favorite clothing stores in SoHo. I took the day off from work and it’s only lunchtime. Now that the interview is over, I can turn my attention to tonight, to what is coming.

When David told me he had made a reservation at the Rainbow Room, I immediately knew what it meant. We had talked about getting engaged. I knew it would be this year, but I had thought it would have happened this past summer. The holidays are crazy, and the winter is David’s busy time at work. But he knows how much I love the city in lights, so it’s happening tonight.

“Welcome to Reformation,” the salesgirl says. She’s wearing black, wide-legged pants and a tight white turtleneck. “What can I help you with?”