Page 9 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
There was a clang and then another and another, and the roof vibrated lightly. The enormous bells in the clocktower, a few metres from us, pealed and then settled into a rhythm of deep booms that announced that it was now eight o’clock.
We used the enforced silence to surreptitiously check each other out. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. He was wearing a crumpled T-shirt and cotton pyjama shorts, and his blond hair stood on end.
As he crunched on a spoonful of cereal, I couldn’t help but smile. This situation was bizarre. He grinned back and for the first time I noticed he was, well, gorgeous. His blue eyes were framed by dark lashes, his skin had already picked up a golden sheen despite it still being spring and he had a disarmingly cheeky smile.
I could tell he was, between bites, looking at me too. It was a strange feeling because I wasn’t used to being looked at. I’d spent my whole life surrounded by beautiful women. Their hair was blonde or titian and I was a middling brunette, they were vivacious and I was reserved, they were well dressed and I... wasn’t. I looked down at my usual uniform of jeans and a navy hoodie.
‘So why did you come here if you didn’t want to change the world?’ he asked after the final peal echoed into the night. He turned to me, looking interested in my reply.
‘Because it was as far away as possible from Melbourne.’ I began to reel off the checklist I’d put together when organising my exchange. ‘My friend was already studying here, so I knew there’d be a familiar face on campus. And it’s the most prestigious place I could be a visiting student – good for the CV.’
‘I guess thosearereasons,’ he said, unimpressed. He stared at me intently. I’d never met anyone like him. He’d just woken up yet seemed to thrum with a sort of raw energy.
‘I better go,’ I said, suddenly feeling a bit woozy. Maybe I’d had too much to drink on an empty stomach. ‘It’s almost dark, my bottle’s empty. And you’ve got to fix broken hearts.’
He laughed, a deep, almost husky one. ‘Are you going to keep celebrating?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve been working so hard for so long that I can’t really remember how to have fun.’
This time he didn’t smile at my answer. He was looking at me again, as if he was trying to solve an equation and I was ‘x’.
And because I’d said I was going, I left him alone with his cereal on the almost-dark roof. Except as I carefully crawled through Lily’s half-open bedroom window, I realised that I hadn’t wanted to leave.
Chapter 5
NOW
After I escaped Alex’s office, I convinced Miranda’s EA (it helped that I regularly brought in treats from TikTokapproved bakeries) to squeeze me in for a meeting that afternoon. In the name of professionalism, I’d called our appointment ‘Catch up’ rather than ‘HELP – I need to get the hell off the project I’ve been staffed on!!!’
Instead of doing any actual work, I’d spent the day working up a speech. I was going to make a compelling case for a transfer. People kicked up a fuss about the type of projects they were assigned to all the time, whereas I’d learned the hard way, early on in my career, that being demanding didn’t always end well.
This did mean that I’d been sent to some true holes to do the least sexy type of work and was often thrown on to cases in desperate need of staff. But I’d never complained, not once. Even when I’d been sent to Far North Queensland in the middle of summer to work out the most efficient way to slaughter wild pigs (the answer: don’t).
‘Rebecca!’ Miranda looked up from her laptop with a warm smile when I knocked on her office door. She was the partner who’d mentored me since I joined Stern & Co. If other people had a work wife, I had a work mum – someone to show me what the road ahead should look like. She’d been one of the last peoplestanding on the dance floor at our engagement party, and I’d madeFrozen-themed cake pops for her youngest daughter’s last birthday.
But even after almost a decade, I still found her slightly terrifying. She was many things that I found particularly intimidating in a person: vegan, outdoorsy and naturally blonde. I’d once, at the end of a company Christmas party (featuring unlimited negronis), asked her if there was anything she couldn’t do. She’d thought for a moment before replying, ‘Relax.’
‘I’m so glad you booked in this time. I needed to have a chat with you.’
My stomach froze. A ‘chat’ with a partner wasn’t necessarily a good sign. In fact, it almost never was. Often it was the managing partners, like Miranda, who were tasked with ‘difficult’ conversations.
‘You’re going to be up for early promotion in the next round,’ Miranda said, with a proud smile.
I stared at her for a moment, absorbing the news. This meant that in a few weeks all the partners would gather, a slide with my name, face and performance ratings would be beamed onto a screen, and they’d collectively decide whether I was ready to be promoted to principal, the step before partner.
But I also knew that the chance for early promotion was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was a vote of confidence. On the other, unlike in most businesses, if I didn’t make the grade, I wouldn’t get another try in a few months. In our industry it was ‘up or out’. If I didn’t get across the line, I knew that it was only a matter of time before someone from HR would quite strongly suggest that it might be time to start looking for a new job.
‘Why?’ I couldn’t help but ask the only question on my mind.
‘First and foremost, you’re good at the job,’ Miranda said. Then she sighed, an uncharacteristically weary one. ‘And also,for your ears only, the firm is struggling to meet its gender target for senior roles. There’s been a call-out to push more women forwards for promotions.’
I tried to keep my expression neutral but felt a stab of disappointment.
‘You’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt. Life’s a series of asymmetric transactions. You’ve got to jump when the odds are in your favour,’ Miranda said, giving me one of her pep talks, which were invariably distilled wisdom from bestselling business books, her daughter’s YA novels and lived experience. Evidently, I’d not done a good enough job of hiding the disappointment on my face.
‘You know that your new case is crucial,’ Miranda continued. ‘The partners will be looking at your most recent client feedback and case rating carefully. And the market’s tough right now. Not all promotions are going through. It’s just not the moment for second chances.’
This was my opening – if I blew it, that was it for me at Stern. Game over. I’d be thrown (though strictly in accordance with prevailing employment law) out of the ivory tower.
