“I’m only ever satisfied when someone else is in pain. Does that make me a terrible person?”
“Honestly, Craig?”
“Yes, be enti—no! Not honestly! Who’d ever ask you that honestly!”
“It kinda sounds like you know the answer to your own question.”
“Like I’d take advice from a junior partner who’s my age.”
“Glad to see you’re feeling like yourself again. Okay, what. Stop grumbling at me. Stop it.”
“I wasn’t grumbling.”
“Uh-huh. And we both know that the only reason I’m a junior is because you got the first promotion and then the boss bit the bullet.”
“I’d have gotten promoted regardless.”
“Same. That’s my point. No. We are not doing the grumbling thing again.”
“John? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you stay here? You could do the law thing anywhere.”
“I dunno. Sunk cost fallacy? Or maybe the fact that every time I try to leave you bump my pay by enough that the wife convinces me to stay. At this rate, I’m probably making more than you are. It’s just the rank that’s different.”
“You are, actually. Significantly.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“But why else, Craig? You know you could be doing better somewhere else, even somewhere else in this city.”
“I know. But, to some degree, I like the people. All my friends are here.”
“All your friends and—”
“—and you, yes. I’ve heard that one before. Which kinda just proves my point—I know this firm so well. How would I leave?”
“Politely. You don’t want to burn bridges.”
“I’m too old to worry about burning bridges, John. Pretty soon I’m not going to be able to cross them anymore, with these back troubles.”
“You’re forty!”
“So’re you. Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt to get up in the morning.”
“Fair enough. But seriously, Craig. You’d still be able to go somewhere else. Salvage that Harvard-grade career.”
“And you’d still be able to stop taking joy in others’ pain.”
“There’s a word for that.”
“Schadenfreude. They taught us that at—”
“Harvard. I know.”
“No, actually. They taught us that at a theater summer camp I did.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, John. You don’t know me well enough to interrupt my sentences. And I’m not just my college.”
“That’s true.”
“And you’re not just yours, John.”
“I guess that’s what I have trouble admitting.”
“Trust me, I get the title thing. My parents still aren’t thrilled they have to call me a junior partner to their neighbors. Forget all about that vacation to Hawaii I paid for last year.”
“How was that?”
“Nice to take a break from work.”
“Sounds it. Senior partners don’t really get to take breaks.”
“You can’t expect me to feel too bad.”
“Craig?”
“Yes John?”
“I’m going to offer you the promotion.”
“At a senior partner’s starting salary?”
“No. At what you’re making now. Don’t worry, you aren’t losing money on this promotion.”
“Sorry, John, I’ve been a lawyer for too long.”
“I know. Me too.”
“But it’s nice to know I have someone on my side. And you know what, John?”
“What?”
“It’s been nice to know it for the last twenty years. Promotion or not.”
Hazel Pearson is a young writer in Pittsburgh, PA. She enjoys petting her brindle pitbull, SuperNova Melody Willow Pearson, and making tasty baked goods that would probably be more delicious if she fully followed the recipe. If you can find her, she’s a bit creeped out by that fact.