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• kira86 (2008-7-27 23:03:45)

  
  
  CHAPTER Two
  As I arrive at the office, Ketterman is standing by my desk, looking with an expression of distaste at the mess of papers and files strewn everywhere.
  Truthfully, I don’t have the most pristine desk in the world. In fact… it’s a bit of a shambles. But I am intending to tidy it up and sort out all the piles of old contracts on the floor. As soon as I have a moment.
  “Meeting in ten minutes,” he says. “I want the draft financing documentation ready.”
  “Absolutely,” I reply. Ketterman is unnerving at the best of times. He just emanates scary, brainy power. But today is a million times worse, because Ketterman is on the decision panel. Tomorrow morning at nine a.m., he and thirteen other partners are holding a big meeting to decide on which associates will become partners this year. All the candidates gave presentations last week to the panel, outlining what qualities and ideas we would bring to the firm. As I finished mine, I had no idea whether I’d impressed or not. Tomorrow, I’ll find out.
  “The draft documentation is right here…” I reach into a pile of folders and pull out what feels like a box file with an efficient flourish.
  It’s the wrong one.
  Hastily I put it down. “It’s definitely here somewhere…” I scrabble frantically and locate the correct file. Thank God. “Here!”
  “I don’t know how you can work in this shambles, Saman-tha.” Ketterman’s voice is thin and sarcastic.
  “At least everything’s to hand!” I attempt a little joke, but Ketterman remains stony-faced. Flustered, I pull out my chair, and a pile of articles and old drafts falls in a shower to the floor.
  “You know, the old rule was that desks were completely cleared every night by six.” Ketterman’s voice is steely. “Perhaps we should reintroduce it.”
  “Maybe!”
  “Samantha!” ‘A genial voice interrupts us and I look round in relief to see Arnold Saville approaching along the corridor.
  Arnold is my favorite of the senior partners. He’s got woolly gray hair that always seems a bit wild for a lawyer, and flamboyant taste in ties. Today he’s wearing a bright red paisley affair, with a matching handkerchief in his top pocket. He greets me with a broad smile, and at once I feel myself relax.
  I’m sure Arnold’s the one who’s rooting for me to be made partner. Just as I’m equally sure Ketterman will be opposing it. I’ve already overheard Ketterman saying I’m very young to be made a partner, that there’s no rush. He’d probably have me pegging away as an associate for five more years. But Arnold’s always been on my side. He’s the maverick of the firm, the one who breaks the rules. For years he had a labrador, Stan, who lived under his desk, despite the complaints of the health and safety department. If anyone can lighten the atmosphere in a tricky meeting, it’s Arnold.
  “Letter of appreciation about you, Samantha.” Arnold beams and holds out a sheet of paper. “From the chairman of Gleiman Brothers, no less.”
  I take the cream vellum sheet in surprise and glance down at the handwritten note:.. .great esteem…her services always professional…
  “I gather you saved him a few million pounds he wasn’t expecting.” Arnold twinkles. “He’s delighted.”
  “Oh, yes.” I color slightly. “Well, it was nothing. I just noticed an anomaly in the way they were structuring their finances.”
  “You obviously made a great impression on him.” Arnold raises his bushy eyebrows. “He wants you to work on all his deals from now. Excellent, Samantha! Very well done.”
  “Er… thanks.” I glance at Ketterman, just to see if by any remote chance he might look impressed. But he’s still frowning impatiently.
  “I also want you to deal with this.” Ketterman puts a file on my desk. “Marlowe and Co. are acquiring a retail park. I need a due diligence review in forty-eight hours.”
  Oh, bloody hell. My heart sinks as I look at the heavy folder. It’ll take me hours to do this.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ketterman’s always giving me extra bits of mundane work he can’t be bothered to do himself. In fact, all the partners do it. Even Arnold. Half the time they don’t even tell me, just dump the file on my desk with some illegible memo and expect me to get on with it.
  And of course I do. In fact I always try to get it done just a bit faster than they were expecting.
  “Any problems?”
  “Of course not,” I say in a brisk, can-do, potential-partner voice. “See you at the meeting.”
  As he stalks off I check my watch. Ten twenty-two. I have precisely eight minutes to make sure the draft documentation for the Fallons deal is all in order. Fallons is our client, a big multinational tourism company, and is acquiring the Smith-leaf Hotel Group. I open the file and scan the pages swiftly, checking for errors, searching for gaps. I’ve learned to read a lot faster since I’ve been at Carter Spink.
  In fact, I do everything faster. I walk faster, talk faster, eat faster… have sex faster…
  Not that I’ve had much of that lately. But two years ago I dated a senior partner from Berry Forbes. His name was Jacob and he worked on huge international mergers, and he had even less time than I did. By the end, we’d honed our routine to about six minutes, which would have been quite handy if we were billing each other. (Obviously we weren’t.) He would make me come—and I would make him come. And then we’d check our e-mails.
  Which is practically simultaneous orgasms. So no one can say that’s not good sex. I’ve read Cosmo; I know these things.
  Anyway, then Jacob was made a huge offer and moved to Boston, so that was the end of it. I didn’t mind very much.
  To be totally honest, I didn’t really fancy him.
  “Samantha?” It’s my secretary, Maggie. She only started three weeks ago and I don’t know her very well yet. “You had a message while you were out. From Joanne?”
  “Joanne from Clifford Chance?” I look up, my attention grabbed. “OK.Tell her I got the e-mail about clause four, and I’ll call her about it after lunch—”
  “Not that Joanne,” Maggie interrupts. “Joanne your new cleaner. She wants to know where you keep your vacuum-cleaner bags.”
  I look at her blankly. “My what?”
  “Vacuum-cleaner bags,” repeats Maggie patiently. “She can’t find them.”
  “Why does the vacuum cleaner need to go in a bag?” I say, puzzled. “Is she taking it somewhere?”
  Maggie peers at me as though she thinks I must be joking. “The bags that go inside your vacuum cleaner,” she says carefully. “To collect the dust? Do you have any of those?”
  “Oh!” I say quickly. “Oh, those bags. Er…”
  I frown thoughtfully, as though the solution is on the tip of my tongue. The truth is, I can’t even visualize my vacuum cleaner. Where did I put it? I know it was delivered, because the porter signed for it.
  “Maybe it’s a Dyson,” suggests Maggie. “They don’t take bags. Is it a cylinder or an upright?” She looks at me expectantly.
  “I’ll sort it,” I say in a businesslike manner, and start gathering my papers together. “Thanks, Maggie.”
  “She had another question.” Maggie consults her pad. “How do you switch on your oven?”
  
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• chenqi6886 (2008-7-28 08:11:11)

  thank you very much, nice work!

• boresome (2008-7-28 08:19:45)

  呵呵，原来已经更新了啊，我还在傻傻地在不停刷新版面......

• magicfish (2008-7-28 17:04:22)

  额比你更傻，还跑去催kira，结果被ta讽刺不关注新闻，其实额只是不断地在看上面，真还没注意下面

• kira86 (2008-7-28 17:09:08)

  不怪你啦，是我发的有点晚，帖子就被大家踩下去了

• dsz_shn_CHINA (2008-7-28 18:22:19)

  QUOTE:

  原帖由 magicfish 于 2008-7-28 17:04 发表
  额比你更傻，还跑去催kira，结果被ta讽刺不关注新闻，其实额只是不断地在看上面，真还没注意下面

  你总是蹬大眼睛，火急火燎的吗？

• magicfish (2008-7-28 20:25:10)

  其实额的眼睛很小，同学们都说我的小眼睛迷迷的，不知道是色眯眯的还是迷迷人的。

• dorise206 (2008-7-29 18:17:40)

  等了好几天了,谢谢

• pippogoal111 (2008-7-29 18:52:54)

  非常感谢
  楼主辛苦了

• magicfish (2008-7-29 23:05:27)

  偷偷再来看一眼就睡觉

• wdm1028 (2008-7-30 09:22:45)

  俺纯粹是想看一下你的笔记咋做的

• 大兜 (2008-7-30 10:07:42)

  Thank you, 继续跟进

• melucky010 (2008-7-30 15:47:03)

  原来是集体项目啊

• kira86 (2008-7-30 15:57:43)

  弱弱的问一句，啥叫集体项目？

• lubowei1984 (2008-7-30 21:03:34)

  thank you for sharing this precious stuff

• yjmydbj (2008-7-30 23:17:31)

  谢谢，非常感谢

• ckluo (2008-8-01 10:54:26)

  Thanks for your hark work.

• momo3366 (2008-8-01 12:58:39)

  为什么文字和录音有些不一致的地方？这个录音的来源是什么？口音很好听，像是在听电影。

• caraelle (2008-8-01 15:23:05)

  终于更新了， 我等得脖子都酸了  
  
  辛苦了
  
  谢谢

• kira86 (2008-8-01 15:27:11)

  QUOTE:

  原帖由 momo3366 于 2008-8-1 12:58 发表
  为什么文字和录音有些不一致的地方？这个录音的来源是什么？口音很好听，像是在听电影。

  是有稍微对不上的地方，但只是很少的，我们还专门讨论过这个问题，好像是在第一章第二节，有可能是英国版的录音，美国版的书，也有可能是录音的人比较累，读错了那里，只好自由点，盖过失误，本来开始想改文字的，但感觉不好，本身是以文字为主的，以音频为娱乐辅导的，但音频失误的地方一点也没有影响的，