The Silver Fox was (and still is) the General Counsel of a Major Government Agency. He had oversight power, or some other like big deal gig, for our case. Even then I really couldn’t have told you his specific role, but I did know that the firm went out of its way to wine and dine him whenever he was in town. My early interactions with The Silver Fox were being introduced to him and then subsequently saying hello to him when I was dropping boxes of binders off at the depositions he was required to be at. So, like, none interactions. 

At some point, whilst waiting for one meeting or another to start, The Silver Fox started pursuing conversations with me that went past “Great, thanks” when I handed him a binder. He started asking about me, my life, if I wanted to be a lawyer  — because if you are a paralegal it is assumed you want to go to Law School but yeah, no, hard pass — and so on. When I worked at the firm it was very important to me to tell anyone that would listen that I was educated and applying to PhD programs and this was not my real job so like when I deliver sandwiches to your meeting I am not a servant I am just a victim of the global economy who can’t find a better job that uses my stunning intellect so like no I don’t know if there’s mustard on that OK. Or, you know something along those lines. So, when The Silver Fox actually started to treat me like a human and not a binder bot (like all the other lawyers did RUDE), I was totally flattered. He made me nervous and shy, of course, but it was gratifying. He was Handsome and Charming and a Big Deal. (Because never in the history of the world did that combination lead to disaster. Never.)

Sometime in October, someone at the firm sent an email around advertising four Bruce Sprinsteen tickets up for grabs. I had been working at the firm for five months at that point and I barely knew The Lawyer. I knew that he was an associate and that we paralegals thought he was kind of a dick because he always assigned us the worst work. (Foreshadowing, much?) Hot Scottish Partner, on the other hand, I had a HUGE crush on. HSP was one of the more senior partners on our case and just, yes, please. I snatched two of the tickets for My Cousin and I, and later found out that Hot Scottish Partner had grabbed the other two. So there went I tripping tipsily into the evening with those baby butterflies and the hope that maybe (possibly!) with the help of bourbon and “Thunder Road” (or a totally spontaneous not at all practiced Courteney Cox “Dancing in the Dark” moment) something might kick off with Hot Scottish Partner. I did not know until we got to the seats that HSP was actually “working” and entertaining none other than The Silver Fox. That The Silver Fox was there was incidental for me, however. Over the previous months, The Silver Fox had been mildly flirtatious, but it was a nonstarter in my eyes. One, he didn’t live in New York. Two, he was at least 15 years older than my 28 year old self, so like, Ew No. And then, three, there was the whole issue of HIS WIFE. But like details right?

The Silver Fox had a flask of bourbon. Because of course he did. My Cousin and I had done what all good concert-goers do and tailgated in the parking lot of Giants Stadium, before the show. Hot Scottish Partner and The Silver Fox had been getting after it at dinner. As the four of us unlikely concertmates converged on our terrible seats and the lights went down, a double aged oak barrel tempest kicked up out there in section 128. An inexorable momentum of Oh hey hi, this is my cousin, nice to meet y— wooo Bruce! bourbon? we’ll get us some beers omg it’s Born to Run wait have you ever seen Bruce before where’s the flask, you guys we should totally plan another concert together but like wait we should have more beers before last call right, um ugh is this a Pete Seeger Session song Ima use the ladies, here’s the flask, Bruuucccceeeee.

The four of us were, in a word, boisterous. The couple behind us was, in a word, livid. At the time I was self-righteous and like OMG suburbanites stop shushing us and telling us to sit down this is a rock concert we are v kewl rock and roll chicks do not be laaammeee. Looking back, it’s possible POSSIBLE we were not paying attention and very a skosh obnoxious.

Two pictures survive from that night. One taken by My Cousin: The Silver Fox is in the foreground in profile. I am the background, looking straight past him, directly into the camera, and making a face that can only be called I’m at a Rock Show and I’m So Drunk Having So Much Fun That I Need to WooHoo and Scrunch My Hair at the Same Time. The other is from after the show. We had continued to tailgate in the parking lot. Well three of us continued while My Cousin drank water because she was the DD. The Silver Fox and My Cousin, who was in law school at the time, leaned against her trunk and chatted about Law Things. Similarly, Hot Scottish Partner and I, upon finding an abandoned shopping cart filled with soft pretzels, decided to have a pretzel fight. This consisted of running around the now empty parking lot of Giants Stadium, shrieking and hurling stale carb at each other. In the middle of our mayhem we must have asked some poor unsuspecting soul to take a picture of the four of us: The Silver Fox, mid-sentence, has one arm tightly around my waist and the other loosely draped around My Cousin. Hot Scottish Partner is peeking over our shoulders like a delicious Gaelic Elf. I am gripping a pretzel in my left hand. I’d like to say I didn’t take a bite out of it before unceremoniously chucking it at HSP after the shutter snap, but like WHO KNOWS OK.

At some point in the parting of the ways, The Silver Fox promised to take My Cousin and I out for steaks in the near future. He was gonna like hook her up with law stuff and him and I were gonna taste bourbon. Lolol ok. Being an excellent travel companion, I promptly passed out on the car ride home and then somehow managed to stumble into work hungover AF the next morning. My Cousin had emailed me the pictures from the evening (haha Shutterfly album wuuut), but as we cured my hangover over pizza at Adrienne’s, Best Friend and I decided that I shouldn’t send the pictures to The Silver Fox because like what if his email got subpoenaed omg that would be supes awkward. And also maybe MAYBE not pics a wife would like to see? BF and I talked bemusedly about such unexpected shenanigans, tickled at having seen two Adults, our superiors really, schmagasted at a rock and roll show. While Hot Scottish Partner had already emailed to say he was deathly hungover and Oh Boy What A Night, we laughed at how The Silver Fox might behave the next time I ran into him at a deposition because surely SURELY his flirtations and promises of steaks were entirely induced of a bourbon and Bruce high.

The Silver Fox was definitely not going to, about a week later, call my work line directly and ask me to go out for drinks just, you know, the two of us. Surely, that was never going to happen.

Narrator: That is exactly what happened.