In the fall the results of the bar exam came out. Everybody knew the date. Everybody began to disintegrate that last week. There were constant phone calls back and forth, lots of fearfulness, if not outright panic. Discussion lasted way into the night. For the two days immediately before the results came out, Mairin felt that same awful fear that she had felt right before the bar itself. This is so silly, she kept telling herself. I don’t really have to pass the bar. I probably will never practice law. It shouldn’t be this important to me. But it was. It was a challenge, and Mairin had accepted that challenge. And she wanted to pass as desperately as anyone else. She went for long walks, which had always helped her to hold tension down.

A telephone number had been circulating among the friends. At seven on the morning that the bar results came out, you could call this number at the state supreme court, and someone would check the list for you to see if you’d passed. Mairin was awake at four. At one minute after seven, she dialed. A cheery male voice answered, and she gave her name.

There were a few minutes of silence. "You passed," he said.

"I love you!" she shrieked. Harry and Bea were having breakfast, and they all hugged and kissed. Mairin could barely contain the nervous energy. She wanted to run, to turn cartwheels.

"We’ll take you out to dinner," Bea was saying, anywhere you want to go."

"Fantastic" said Mairin. "I’d love to go to La Casa--margaritas and guacamole and more margaritas. I’ll meet you. . . where? I’m going to work today, then about four there’s the beer and pretzels thing at the law school, you know, where the faculty and students all gather."

"Sure," said Harry. "Hey, I’ll stop in there after court. I haven’t seen some of the faculty in a long time. Then you and I can pick up Bea."

"Great." Mairin grabbed a slice of toast and went running out to work. The law school was bedlam when she got there. Everyone she knew was there, except for the few who hadn’t passed. She already knew who they were. Their names had gone through the grapevine already. Her phone at work had rung all day. One of them was a friend of hers, one of the fellows who had weathered law review with her. Mairin had taken the bull by the horns and called him. They both cried together. But now all was cheer and congratulations. There was move hugging and kissing than at a Polish wedding.

All of a sudden Mairin saw a familiar face and stopped cold. Bob Jeffries had come in and was hand-shaking at the other end of the room.

"What is he doing here?" she asked out loud.

One of the group she was with looked, shrugged, and said, "Isn’t he on the visiting committee for the school?"

"Oh. . . yes . . . of course. . . ."

Eventually he came over to her, extending his hand. "Congratulations, Mairin."

"I feel so good," she said

"I knew you’d make it," he said. ‘I wasn’t seriously worried about that at all. What are you doing now?"

"I’m working at Youth Services, part-time.".

"I hope you don’t turn away from law entirely," he said.

‘It’s not for me," Mairin said.

"We’ve been through that," he said. "I think it is."

Mairin looked at him, completely surprised.

"You don’t think you’re tough," he said. "Let me tell you, you’re plenty tough. Let me be blunt. You would not stand for being fucked over. You were so angry that you chucked the whole thing. You threw out a guaranteed salary of one hell of a lot of bucks and a future with all kinds of promises. You hold a long grudge. You’re still mad, and lord knows how long you’ll stay that way. And you don’t think you’re tough?"

Mairin stood there, not really comprehending. Bob continued, "Most people would have taken the safety. They would have eaten a little crow, and they would have stayed. It would have blown over.

"But you’re mad way down in the gut. You think I’m mean, that I’m an s.o.b., a real bastard. Well, I am. But there’s some of that in you, too, Mairin. You’re not all that different from me in many respects."

"I don’t know..." she said. Her mind was not working, not collecting thoughts, and she hadn’t even had any of the beer. She’d been waiting for the margaritas. His words had really jarred her.

"I do," he said, and, giving her arm a friendly shake, stepped back into circulation.
 
 

Then Harry came, and they went for dinner. Over the buzz of the margaritas, Mairin could hear Bob’s words.

"You look dazed, dear," said Bea.

"I am," said Mairin. "For awhile I thought this day would never come. Then for another while, I thought it wouldn’t matter if it did or didn’t. And now here it is, and I can’t believe it."

"So what are you going to do?" asked Harry. He, too, was perturbed by the thought that Mairin was going to give up law. When she had come home with the news that she was leaving Hadleigh, something about her tone had told him to keep his mouth shut.

"I don’t know," she said. "You know, Bob Jeffries came up to me at the law school. He said the strangest thing." Bea and Harry were both looking at her expectantly. "He said that I was more like him than I might like to think."

So, thought Harry, that’s why she looks dazed.

"He said that I’m as tough as any of them at Hadleigh. But that’s not true. He said I wouldn’t let anybody fuck me over. That’s true. But I wouldn’t fuck anybody else over. That’s the difference."

She lapsed into silence, picking at the guacamole. "Let’s forget it. I’m so happy that that ordeal is over. I’ll never have to take another class."

They went home, and Mairin collapsed into bed. She slept for a few hours and then began to toss in that way that always happened when she had had too much to drink. She saw it all, laid out on a straight line. Social work. Law school. All of her friends. Michael. Sandra. Hadleigh. Bob Jeffries. She wondered if he was right. She didn’t know, and the line stopped there. There was nothing in the future. Not a shape, not a symbol, not even a mist in which these things hid. "I don’t know," was all that she could say.