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blog BigLawSux had picked it up and then it appeared, verbatim, in the next day’s Wall Street Journal .
    Baker Smith was quick to issue a press release stating that JeffreyBelzer’s employment had been terminated as a result of his lapse in judgment. The statement further clarified, to clients who were already calling up to contest their bills, that the cost of the summer associate program was fully absorbed by the firm and not passed down to clients. Finally, and most comically to Evie, the firm said in the release that it encouraged every employee to recognize other individuals for their inner qualities and not their outer characteristics. Evie guessed that was the diplomatic way of saying that it did not condone referring to people as the “fatty” or “Indian chick.” Fortunately for Baker Smith, its white shoes were quickly repolished and it retained its status as one of the city’s premier law firms. Jeffrey, on the other hand, apparently fled to Thailand for a while and was last spotted taking drink orders at an Italian restaurant in the West Village.
    The episode gave rise to Evie’s hard-and-fast rule: no e-mail or texting while drunk.
    Far less tragically, she had once signed an e-mail to a senior partner, Mitchell Rhodes, with “xoxo, Evie.” Mitchell had responded to the otherwise professional e-mail with, “Thanks. I can’t even get my kids to tell me they love me!” Evie and Mitchell had worked together many times since that e-mail exchange, and considering he was on the partnership committee, she felt fortunate they had shared that moment of intimacy, even if it arose from her carelessness. Still, there was no need for anyone else to receive an unintended electronic hug and kiss or a smiley face emoticon.
    At the time of the Jeffrey Belzer episode, Evie reacted much like the other young associates—with a mixture of uproarious laughter and collegial pity. Things would be different if she made partner. She would be a partial owner of the firm (okay, her share of the profits would be like 1/250), but nonetheless a media crisis like this would have a totally different effect on her. She felt sogrown up thinking about that. In the professional arena, she was exactly where she was meant to be at this age. Romantically, she felt like an insecure high-schooler. Besides the two years she dated Jack, her love life had been a series of three-date-max relationships.
    What would Luke find when he looked her up? She did a quick self-Google. Her Baker Smith profile was the first return. The picture was a total disaster, taken after she’d pulled a double all-nighter. There were a few better images of her on NewYorkSocialDiary.com from society events that Caroline had dragged her to. Her name appeared in a list of participants in a 5K Juvenile Diabetes fun-run, even though she’d actually bailed last minute due to a head cold. Her father’s obituary in the Baltimore Sun was there. There was no trace of her and Jack. He didn’t love pictures.
    She curled up with her laptop tucked under her arm like a blankie and hoped for a new message ding from Luke, but the only thing she heard until she fell asleep were the soothing sounds of ambulances and car horns—the New York lullaby, she liked to call it.
    # # #
    Radio silence. That’s what she got from Luke Glasscock after Paul’s wedding. It was aggravating. He had seemed to forgive the whole birthing-a-phone-on-the-dance-floor mishap. She thought they had made a connection. They shared a hot and heavy makeout at the end of the evening. He had gallantly put her in a taxi, coolly handing the driver a twenty. He promised to be in touch. Could he have forgotten her last name? Where she worked? Even so, he could have asked Paul.
    Now at work she found herself thinking about him too much, moving her head from one giant monitor to the other, like she was watching a tennis match at her desk, but not actually focusingon anything. The Calico closing had gone off without