Fairy Tales Can Come True: How a Driven Woman Changed Her Destiny

404 Pages·2004·1.17 MB·English

by  Rikki Klieman

FAIRY TALES CAN
COME TRUE
HOW A DRIVEN
WOMAN CHANGED
HER DESTINY
RIKKI KLIEMAN
WITH PETER KNOBLER
To Bill, for twenty-five years and a day
—R.K.
To Daniel and Jane
—P.K.
If you asked me what I came into this world to do,
I will tell you: I came to live out loud.
—Émile Zola
And life gets more exciting with each passing day.
And love is either in your heart or on its way.
—“Young at Heart,” Carolyn Leigh and Johnny Richards

CONTENTS
EPIGRAPH iii
PREFACE vii
1. “MISS REMARKABLE” 1
2. SORORITY RUSH 16
3. GIRLS DON’T GO TO LAW SCHOOL 29
4. MENTORS AND MEN 48
5. “I CAN DO THIS” 72
6. MY LIFE IN COURT 93
7. A WOMAN AT THE BAR 115
8. THEATER OF THE COURTROOM…FOR THE DEFENSE 135
9. THE PRICE OF THE PRIZE, THE PERILS OF BEING
PERFECT 162
10. UNCIVIL ACTIONS 181
11. MY FRIEND BECOMES MY SAVIOR 199
12. ZEALOTS 216
13. THE FUGITIVE 245
14. BRILL’S CONTENT 285
15. A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE: CAREER OR LOVE? 305
16. LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING 329
17. MY HOUSE, MY HOUSE, MY HOUSE, MY JOB, MY JOB,
MY JOB 343
18. ON THE JOB 357
19. TURNAROUND 371
EPILOGUE 383
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 386
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
PRAISE
COVER
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
PREFACE
It happened over and over again.
I’d be on trial, working from 5:00 in the morning until 11:00 at
night, totally focused on my job. There wasn’t a day the whole year
when I wasn’t trying a case, preparing a case, or blessedly pleading
one out. Pretty much the only thing I did that was good for myself
from Monday through Friday was take a break and go out at 6:30
each morning for a forty-minute run. I slept with the case’s six-inch-
thick brown accordion folder on the floor next to my bed, so if I
woke up tossing and turning in the middle of the night, as I was
regrettably prone to do, I wouldn’t have to pad around my home
to work on it.
I would finish my court week at 4:30 P.M. on Friday, get back to
the office in a frenzy, unable to decompress from the demands of
the trial itself, and start throwing my papers around, trying to get
the stuff to fit in my bag. I was living in Boston but had to deliver a
speech the next day to a group of lawyers somewhere in America,
and I couldn’t be without my papers filled with quotes, humor, and
drama.
We had a ritual. Every Friday evening after work, my criminal
defense lawyer friends and I would gather at an upscale French
restaurant, Maison Robert, and begin to unwind. A criminal defense
attorney always has someone’s life in her hands, which has its appeal
but can lead to stress in large drafts. We would drink for hours, after
which I would stagger home and at some point find myself in the
kitchen saying, “Oh my God, I forgot to eat.” I’d pop a Lean Cuisine
in the microwave sometime near midnight to make sure I had some
carbohydrates in me to absorb the alcohol. I’d take an Alka-Seltzer,
two B vitamins, four glasses of water, and a sleeping pill, and pray
for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I would wake up at dawn. I wasn’t worried about the speech I
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was going to give; I had given that speech so many times before. In
fact, I thrive on public speaking; it gives me an audience and an ab-
solute certainty that I am making a difference in other people’s lives.
When I am onstage I am transported to some other place. The larger
the group, the more the energy—from me to them, from them to
me.
It was the process of getting there that was awful. I had my gar-
ment bag and makeup kit already packed and my travel outfit laid
out. I would grab a cab, stagger onto the plane in my navy blue
slacks and a blazer, and fall dead asleep before the plane left the
tarmac. I don’t even remember saying hello to the flight attendants;
I was out cold.
A few hours later I would wake up startled, drink a bottle of water,
and see how much time I had before landing. It was usually not
much. Sometimes I’d have a moment in my schedule to clean up
before the function at which I was speaking, but usually I was being
met at the gate, which meant I had to get off the plane looking sharp,
together, and competent.
I could do that.
I squeezed into the minuscule airline bathroom, stripped down
amid the stainless steel, and put on my good clothes. Sweating in
that confined space, standing with one foot on the toilet seat, my
elbows bumping the doors while I put on my stockings, this was
not the moment to sneak a quick peek in the mirror. It was just in-
sane.
My travel kit was stocked with Visine, Evian spray, toothbrush
and toothpaste, a thick moisturizer for the flight, and my makeup.
I’d done enough of these quick-change routines to be able to do my
face in three and a half minutes. Back then my hair was long and
straight—the Joan Baez/Buffy Sainte-Marie look—so I saved a couple
of minutes by only having to brush it through. Finally a fast check—a
dazzling smile. “Showtime!” Very Roy-Scheider-as-Bob-Fosse in All
That Jazz. I was ready.
I would emerge from the bathroom and return to my seat.
If this happened once, it happened a hundred times—the man
sitting next to me, and it was inevitably a man traveling on business,
would say, “Wow, Cinderella, what a difference!” or “How did you
do that?” I would chat him up—“What do you do? Here’s what I
do”—to see if I could land some business for my law firm. Airplanes
are a rainmaker’s heaven.
Briefcase in hand, slinging my garment bag over my arm like a