After a month, he began to grow restless. He did not relish the thought of leaving the safety of Hope Village, but he knew the time was coming. Brother Manny encouraged him to make his plans. He was too young and smart and gifted to spend his life in a homeless shelter.

“God has big plans for you,” Brother Manny said. “Just trust him and they will be revealed.”

WHEN IT LOOKED as if they might escape at a decent hour on Friday night, Tim Reynolds and others quickly organized a drinking party and hurried out of the building. Saturday was to be a rare day off. No member of the litigation group at Scully & Pershing could be seen at work on Saturday because it was the annual family picnic in Central Park. Thus, Friday night was cleared for serious drinking.

Kyle declined, as did Dale. Around 7:00 p.m., as they were both wrapping up the last details of an endless week, and with no one else around, she leaned around the canvas partition that separated their tight cubicles and said, “What about dinner?”

“Great idea,” Kyle said without hesitation. “Any place in particular?”

“My place. We can relax and talk and do whatever. You like Chinese?”

“Love it.” The word “whatever” was bouncing around his addled brain. Dale was thirty, single, attractive, apparently straight, a pretty lady alone in the big city. At some point, she had to think about sex, though Kyle was depressed at how little he thought about it.

Was she picking him up? It was a startling idea. Dale was so shy and reserved it was hard to believe she would put the move on anyone.

“Why don’t you pick up some Chinese and bring it over?” she said.

“Great idea.”

She lived alone in Greenwich Village, in a fourth-floor walk-up. They discussed various take-out restaurants in the neighborhood, then left the office together. An hour later, Kyle climbed the stairs with a sack of shrimp-and-chicken fried rice and knocked on the door. Dale opened it, with a smile, and welcomed him to her apartment.

Two rooms, a den-kitchen combo, and one bedroom. It was small but nicely decorated, a minimalist theme with leather and chrome and black-and-white photos on the wall. She, too, was well-appointed and pursuing the less-is-more approach. Her white cotton skirt was extremely short and revealed more of the slender legs Kyle and the other vultures had been admiring. Her shoes were short heels, open toe, no straps, red leather, high-class-tart stuff. Kyle glanced at them and said, “Jimmy Choos?”

“Prada.”

The black cotton sweater was tight, without a bra under it. For the first time in far too many weeks, Kyle began to feel the excitement of sexual arousal.

“Nice place,” he said, looking at a photograph.

“Four thousand a month, can you believe it?” She was opening the fridge, one about the size of a large desktop computer. She removed a bottle of white wine.

“Yes, I can believe it. It’s New York. But no one made us come here.”

She was holding the bottle of chardonnay. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any club soda. It’s either wine or water.”

“I’ll have some wine,” he said, with only a slight hesitation. And he decided on the spot that he would not torment himself by arguing back and forth about whether he should take a drink after five and a half years of sobriety. He’d never been to rehab, never been forced to detox, never considered himself an alcoholic. He had simply stopped drinking because he was drinking too much, and now he wanted a glass of wine.

They ate on a small square table, their knees almost touching. Even at home and completely relaxed, conversation did not come easily for Dale, the mathematician. He could not imagine her in a classroom in front of fifty students. And he certainly couldn’t picture her in a courtroom in front of a jury.

“Let’s agree that we will not talk about work,” Kyle said, taking the lead. He took his fourth sip of wine.

“Agreed, but first there’s some great gossip.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Have you heard about the split?”

“No.”

“There’s a rumor, I heard it twice today, that Toby Roland and four other partners, all in litigation, are about to split and open their own firm. They may take as many as twenty associates.”

“Why?”

“A fee dispute. The usual.” Law firms are famous for exploding, imploding, merging, and spinning off in all directions. The fact that some unhappy partners wanted their own show was no surprise, either at Scully or at any other firm.

“Does that mean more work for the rest of us?” he asked.

“I sure hope so.”

“Have you met Toby?”

“Yes. And I hope the rumor is true.”

“Who’s the biggest prick you’ve met so far?”

She took a sip of wine and thought about the question. “That’s a tough one. So many contenders.”

“Too many. Let’s talk about something else.”

Kyle managed to shift the conversation around to her. Background, education, childhood, family, college. She had never been married. One bad romance still stung. After one glass of wine she poured another, and the alcohol loosened her up. He noticed that she ate almost nothing. He, though, devoured everything in sight. She pushed the topics back to his side of the table, and he talked about Duquesne and Yale. Occasionally, the law firm would get mentioned, and they would find themselves wrapped up in it.

When the wine and food were gone, she said, “Let’s watch a movie.”

“Great idea,” Kyle said. As she looked through her DVDs, he glanced at his watch. Ten twenty. In the past six days he’d pulled two all-nighters — he now owned a sleeping bag — and averaged four hours of sleep each night. He was physically and mentally exhausted, and the two and a half glasses of quite delicious wine he’d just consumed were thoroughly soaking whatever brain he had left.

“Romance, action, comedy?” she called out as she flipped through what appeared to be an extensive collection. She was on her knees, the skirt barely covering her rear. Kyle stretched out on the sofa because he didn’t like the looks of either chair.

“Anything but a chick flick.”

“How about Beetlejuice?”

“Perfect.”

She inserted the disc, then kicked off her heels, grabbed a quilt, and joined Kyle on the sofa. She wedged and wiggled and snuggled and pulled the quilt over them, and when she was finally situated, there was a lot of contact. And then there was touching. Kyle sniffed her hair and thought how easy this was.

“Doesn’t the firm have a rule against this sort of thing?” he said.

“We’re just watching a movie.”

And they watched it. Warmed by the quilt, the wine, and each other’s bodies, they watched the movie for all of ten minutes. Later, they could not determine who fell asleep first. Dale woke up long after the movie was over. She spread the quilt over him, then went to bed. Kyle woke up at 9:30 on Saturday morning to an empty apartment. There was a note saying she was around the corner at a coffee shop reading the newspapers, so stop by if he was hungry.

THEY RODE THE subway together to Central Park, arriving around noon. The litigation section of the firm threw a family picnic on the third Saturday of each October, near the boathouse. The main event was a softball tournament, but there were also horseshoes, croquet, bocce, and games for the kids. A caterer barbecued ribs and chicken. A rap band made its noise. There was an entire row of iced kegs of Heineken.

The picnic was to promote camaraderie and to prove that the firm did indeed believe in having fun. Attendance was mandatory. No phones allowed. For most associates, though, the time could’ve been better spent sleeping. At least they were not subject to being dragged into the office for another all-nighter. Only Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur afforded the same protection.