Introduction

An extraordinary debut about second-generation Asian-American women trying to live up to society’s high standards, as well as their own. Even though it’s been ten years since their Houston high school days, co-valedictorians and best friends Whitney Lee, Hercules Huang, and Audrey Henley still delight in their once-a-month get-togethers where they talk, laugh, and confide in each other— although not about everything. Because each young woman has a deep, dark secret they think they could never share. Not even with their best friends. Then, during a girls’ weekend getaway, these three friends wind up revealing their most intimate truths—and realize that to get straight As in the real world, all you have to do is let go of the need to be perfect…

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Excerpt

ONE

Whitney Lee was rummaging through her desk when the phone trilled, its sharp blasts reverberating against the walls of her hamster cage-sized office. She stared at the Caller ID for a long moment, dismayed to see that Will Strong was on the line. God, she thought, finally reaching for the receiver, did her boss always have to call at seven o'clock on Friday nights?

“This is Whitney,” she answered, trying to sound sunny.

“Lee,” he shouted, “I need you to” - a faint female voice whined in the background before he cut her off. “Tell her that I'll get there when I get there.” Pause. “Like hell it's important. Jesus, can't you see I'm on the phone? What's wrong with you? Lee, you there?”

“Yes.” She lowered the volume on the phone base and held the receiver a few inches away from her head. Will never bothered to introduce himself when he rang to shriek at her, and without fail, he managed to include a tirade or two at his secretary while shattering her eardrums.

“I need you to - I tell you what, this'll be easier in person. I'll be there in a second.” He slammed the phone, sending a piercing ring through her skull, and in a moment, she heard his heels stomp against the marbled hallway.

“This had better be quick,” she muttered under her breath. If she didn't leave in the next five minutes, she would be late, and she had a date she refused to break. She shoved two Redweld folders of documents into her briefcase and loaded a banker's box of files onto her rolling cart. It was more paper than she could review in one night, but at least she would be able to work in the comfort of her own home. She could hardly stomach the sight of her office any longer, the mahogany paneled claustrophobic cave of requisite billable hours, and she was clearing off her desk with manic energy when she heard someone clear his throat.

“What the hell are you doing?” Will asked, his characteristic irritation giving way to bewilderment at her apparent attempts to escape. In his navy doubled-breasted pinstriped suit and slicked back graying hair, he looked every bit the managing partner of Boerne & Connelly LLP, a law firm whose Houston office spanned twenty-two floors of the tallest building in Texas.

“Nothing. I was just trying to clean up a bit. What do you need?” She sat down, grabbed a pen and tried to look like the seasoned attorney that she was supposed to be, if you could call a third-year associate who spent most of her days reviewing documents seasoned.

“Did you get anything from the client? Gary said that he was sending over fifteen boxes of company files.”

“Yes, they're right there,” she said, pointing to a stack against the wall. He barely glanced at it before his eyes bore into her, and in her gray pencil skirt and white dress shirt, she felt underdressed next to the expensively attired lawyer. The Houston office of Boerne & Connelly had recently adopted a Friday Business Casual policy, and all three hundred lawyers and two hundred staff members had embraced the practice. Will alone refused to dress “like an intern” on Fridays, even though he had been the one to promulgate the perk.

“You and James need to review those documents before depositions start rolling,” he said. “Plaintiff's counsel's already bitching about the production, so we need to be sure to produce everything that's not privileged by Monday.” His voice rumbled like thunder, amplified by the acoustically aggrandizing narrowness of her office.

“Of course.” She scribbled the directive on a notepad. “By Monday.”

“Don't fuck this up, Lee.” His barrel-shaped body seemed to grow as he thought about the assignment. “You fuck it up, and we're fucked. Understand?” He thumped a squat index finger on her desk for emphasis. “Make that clear to James. I can't tell that boy how important this is.”

“I understand.” She threw in a few nods to underscore the fact that his words made sense. The way he yelled at her, she sometimes wondered if he thought that his Asian employee had learned the English language only last year. From across the room, she could see his watch. What caught her eye weren't the Rolex's shiny gold links, but the time. She needed to get out of there.

“Good.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall and gazed about her office, and his uncharacteristic loitering made her nervous.

“Is there something else you need?” she asked. Her voice caught his attention, and his beady eyes narrowed on her.

“You know, ever since I became managing partner” - he never let her forget his two-week old position - “I've been trying to figure out how to take our firm to the next level. You know what the answer is?” He didn't wait for an answer. “Clients. We need more clients. We've rested on our asses for too long, and the whole world's changed in the last fifty years. I've been telling the executive committee that this office has got to get rid of its good 'ol boy reputation. It's killing us. Clients don't seem to care anymore about the good work we've always done. Now, all of our clients - and more importantly, our prospective clients - all they can think about is the firm's minority count. How many women it has, how many homosexuals, how many liberals, and all that other bullshit.”

“God, Will,” she said with a heavy sigh. She knew better than to blast him for his political insensitivity, and even if she had had the authority to chastise him, she didn't have the time. “Is there any way we can talk about this on Monday? I have to be somewhere in ten minutes.” She fidgeted feverishly, praying that he would go away. She was already late. Even worse, she might miss the Valedictorians' Dinner altogether, and it was the one occasion she refused to pass up. Ten years ago, the only three Asian girls at the otherwise WASP-y Loyola Academy had graduated with identical GPAs, making their class the first to celebrate three valedictorians. They had returned to Houston, Whitney later than the others, and even though she couldn't remember exactly when they had begun to meet monthly, she also couldn't remember the last time one of them was a no-show. Come to think of it, in the three years since the inception of the Valedictorians Dinner, none of them had ever cancelled.

“No, this can't wait until Monday,” he snapped. “This is important, Lee. You're one of the few Asians - Asian-American - Orient -girls at the firm.” They both cringed as he stumbled over his characterization of her. “Shit, you're the only one in our office.”

“I know I'm the only Asian woman,” she said, helping him along.

“A Chinese woman lawyer. You'd think we would've had more than one by now, but there just aren't that many that interview with us. It's a real problem, Lee.”

“I'm Korean, Will,” she said flatly.

“Korean,” he echoed. It was clear that her correction confused him, and he was looking at her so intently that she thought he might argue about her ethnicity. Suddenly, he bolted upright. “Well, I'm going to make it my mission to show the community that we have minorities at the firm.” He beamed at her. “You're the wave of the future, Lee. The wave of Boerne & Connelly's future. Texas Lawyer won't be able to slam our firm for discriminatory hiring practices anymore once it sees that you're our - what's the word I'm looking for? - mascot.”

“I'm hardly a mascot.” Giving up on politeness, she stuffed herself into her coat and reached for her bag. “If the firm wants a reputation for diversity, why don't the partners just hire more minorities?”

“It's a problem of perception,” he said, frowning. “Minorities - at least the ones we want to hire- don't want to come here because we have no diversity, and we can't tout that we're diverse because, well, we aren't. It's a vicious cycle, which is why we need to advertise the ones we've got. Perception, Lee. It can be your greatest friend or your worst foe. And you're going to help change people's perception of us.” He suddenly smiled widely, revealing the silver crowns that peppered his molars. “A young, attractive, minority woman on the cover of our firm press packet. This is the best idea I've had all day. The PR firm's already got copies of your picture from the website, so you won't even have to do anything.” He smiled even harder, his bizarre expression making him appear like a maniac. “You can thank me by getting to those documents.”

She gaped at him, at a loss for words. She didn't challenge his ridiculous plan to prop her up like an exhibit in the foolish hopes of luring darker-skinned law students. He was likely to forget they had even had this conversation by Monday morning. Why the partners had voted the most absent-minded, attention-deficient, wrathful man to run the office was beyond her.

“I told the executive committee that the firm needs change,” he said, apparently lost in self-adulation. “And, boy, change is what I'm going to give them.”

She sighed, wondering how long he planned to chit-chat. Thankfully, she didn't have long to wait. He suddenly swung his left wrist to his face so abruptly that she winced, afraid that he'd strike himself.

“Shit, I need to go. Get to those documents.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, relieved that he hadn't given himself a black eye.

He stomped out of her office, his alligator boots ringing against the marble floors of the hall. Whatever his mood, he lumbered across the floors as if he were furious, and his ample girth only magnified the Tyrannosaurus Rex quakes of his travels.

A mascot, she thought as she turned off her computer. Three years at the firm, and Will had promoted her from his personal slave into an unwilling cheerleader. It was an additional insult, actually, considering that she loathed her job and barely tolerated her coworkers. Had she known six years ago that her life would turn out like this, she would never have gone to law school. She was a twenty-eight year old pack mule, as fungible and objectified as the rest of the lawyers at her firm. It was a terrible realization, and one that weighed on her mind constantly. Not that her parents viewed her circumstances as such. As obsessed as they were with professional accomplishments, they were mentally unequipped to understand that she was desperate for a way out, and they were psychologically incapable of comprehending that her true calling was music. They would likely suffer massive strokes if they discovered that she dreamed of leaving the firm for a singing career, one that would allow her to share her raspy, blues-y voice with the rest of the world. Then again, they didn't work hundred hour weeks like she did, or James did.

As if on cue, James Carothers, the beleaguered fifth-year associate, appeared at her doorway.

“Hey, Whitney,” he said with the enthusiasm of a zombie.

“Hi. Listen, we've got to get those documents reviewed and produced by Monday,” she said, nudging her chin towards the wall.

“Fine. You staying late tonight?” His bloodshot eyes glazed over her, and in the same gray suit that he had worn yesterday, he looked every bit the person who hadn't slept in two days. Considering that she had barely slept in three, she shuddered to think about her own appearance.

“I can't. I've got a dinner.” She yanked her bra-length hair out of the nape of the jacket, catching her reflection in the wall of windows that winter darkness had transformed into a mirror. The deep hollows in her cheeks dismayed her, and the almost wild quality of her wavy hair only highlighted the fatigue on her face. She averted her eyes and turned off the tiffany lamp on her desk before moving towards the door.

“You know my wife's expecting our third kid next month,” he said. He didn't look excited. He didn't look anything other than exhausted.

“I had no idea. Congratulations, James.”

“I can't even go home tonight, so what does it matter?” He spoke quietly, as if to himself. “What does any of it matter? Some days, when I can't take it anymore, I just stare at the gun in my drawer. I don't think I'd ever use it, but it's there nonetheless.”

Whitney froze. If he was kidding, he wasn't convincing her, and she didn't know him well enough to know if he had sunken into the kind of despair that required a call to professional help. Or to the police.

“James, please go home,” she said, searching his face for signs of jest. “Get some sleep. Play with your kids, have dinner with your wife, do something that won't worry me. I'll look through the documents tomorrow morning, and I'm taking some home with me tonight.”

“Really?” His expression remained unchanged. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Don't worry about the project until Sunday. You can pick up where I leave off.” She walked through the door and turned around. James hadn't moved. “You were joking, right? Because if you need to talk, I'm right here.”

“Of course I was,” he said, not at all assuring. “I don't have a gun at the office. I don't even have one at home.”

“Okay.” She continued to study him, still concerned, and as he gazed back at her, unblinking, she got the impression that he wasn't really seeing her at all. “Hey, seriously, if you need some time off, let me know. I can get through these. I'm sure Glenda would help, too.”

“Thanks.” He trudged out of her office and made his way down the hall, his focus never leaving the floor.

Whitney lingered a moment longer before she dashed into the hallway and strode towards the elevator banks. Waiting for the doors to open, she watched several dozen lawyers scurry about the hallways, all of them as frantic on this Friday night as they were on Monday mornings. Despite their frenetic movements, there was a static quality to them, and they buzzed past each other, as disconnected from each other as they were from themselves. It was as if a part of their souls had died and had been sentenced to solitary hells, and when she stepped into the elevator, she sighed with relief. Lord, she prayed, may she never become like them.

Weaving through a sea of people who were also rushing to escape the building, she made her way through the marbled lobby, burst through the gilded doors, and trotted across the street. The January air, unusually cold for the normally balmy city, nipped at her cheeks, and she pulled her coat closer around her, quickening her steps to escape the frigid evening. She spotted her car in the football field-sized parking lot, and in moments, she was throwing her bag into the passenger seat and plopping behind the wheel. Even before she started the engine, she fished through her bag and pulled out a cigarette while fumbling with the radio until she found a classic rock station. As she navigated through the interminable traffic with smoke streaming out the windows and Stevie Ray Vaughan blasting from the speakers, she thought about her Friday-night companions. Although she saw them every month formally, and spoke to them at least half a dozen times in between their sacred dinners, she was still eager to hear what was new with them. And considering that one of them was a rising star in the culinary world, and the other was a hero to her first-grade class, there was always plenty to talk about. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

(1) Whitney, Hercules, and Audrey have different backgrounds and interests but there are some commonalities as well. What do you think bonds them and, despite their friendship, why is there still a wall that separates them? (2) The three women are at turning points in their personal and professional lives where the decisions they make now will affect their happiness. They’re pressured by what they think they should do and what their gut tells them. Have you ever felt at the crossroads in your life where one decision you made affected which road you took in life? Did you follow your head or your heart? (3) Whitney, Hercules, and Audrey are all sympathetic characters with their own baggage, strength, and resilient spirit. They're able to overcome their obstacles but they each handle their situations in different ways. Which character do you relate to more and why?

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