Mike Specter (Suits)
The first box of business cards had been a big deal. Mike had gone to the Muji in the bowels of the New York Times building and bought a sleekly unmarked case for them and stared at them on the subway home, too shaky to bike with all the fine embossing on his mind. He'd given one to the front desk at his Grandma's nursing home (in case of emergencies) (and also to see the nurses ooh and ahh that he's finally made something of himself), bought the most expensive frame at the Container Store for a single white rectangle and put it on his dresser, behind a rapidly accumulating pile of cufflinks, and he'd started entering every fucking yuppie drop-your-business-card-here-to-win-free-stuff contest in the city.
The second box is considerably less exciting. The third is pretty much an irritation since the mail room guy dumps it on top of a stack of briefs that Mike had carefully ordered in its disordered chaos, and the fourth is — at best — an afterthought.
So really, it's not his fault that he doesn't figure out there's been a terrible fucking mistake at the printer's until Jessica Pearson hauls him into the office.
***
"I have to say I'm incredibly disappointed with you, Mike," Jessica says, which is up there with Donna before 6 a.m., Louis in flagrante delicto, and Harvey saying, "Don't worry about it," for striking fear into Mike's heart like a fucking poisoned spear.
"Um," Mike says intelligently.
Jessica just keeps frowning at him. "Setting aside all the dozens of workplace fraternization rules that had to have been broken for this, I'm even more disappointed neither of you had the courage to come clean to me — at least then we could have arranged for you to work with some other partner to make this less ethically questionable."
Mike stares.
"And let's not even broach the subject of the poor judgment that it requires to go ahead and have an official name change — to have new business cards made up without even letting us know about this change in your status," Jessica says, coming around to perch on the edge of her massive desk, folding her hands together in front of her lap, and her mouth is twitching like she wants to laugh.
Mike wishes he could laugh, too, the same way he always laughed at funerals and during dates that were crashing and burning, but he's pretty sure however much he's already fired, he's going to be extra super fired if he bursts out in nervous tittering.
"Well?" Jessica prompts, looking expectant. "Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"
Swallowing awkwardly, Mike says, "I don't…actually know — "
"What the hell, Jessica?" Harvey says, sticking his head into her office out of nowhere, looking so sleekly annoyed he almost makes annoyed look good. "Why is there a gay wedding cake on my desk?"
"Secret's out, Specter," Jessica says, officially grinning like a crazy person now. "Or should I say, Specters?"
Harvey, because Harvey automagically (like an asshole) assumes that everything strange or confusing or shitty that happens is Mike's fault, turns and frowns at Mike. "What did you do?"
"Dude, I didn't — !" Mike starts, feeling wronged! Because he still has no idea why he's in here with Jessica's scary ass shark smile or why Harvey has a gay wedding cake (what?) and no matter what Harvey says, Mike's done the math, and really only about 15 percent of the stuff that Harvey categorizes under "obnoxious bullshit" is Mike's direct fault, and —
And then Jessica cocks a brow and produces a business card out of nowhere.
"Don't tell me you really didn't notice this, Mike," Jessica interrupts.
"Oh," Mike says. "Shit."
***
The gay wedding cake is actually a gay wedding cake.
It's an ugly cheap layer cake from Whole Foods that someone's stuck two grooms on top, their faces helpfully Krazy Glued together for that extra touch of tackiness.
"Wow," Mike says, while Harvey sits on the phone in his office yelling at the printer's because Donna had refused to do it on the grounds of their error being hilarious, and therefore laudable.
"How the fuck do you even get that wrong?" Harvey is yelling at someone in the background, shoulders tense and waving his arms. "It wasn't even a new card — it was a fucking reprint!"
Donna comes in with two forks. "Do you think it's chocolate?" she asks. She's got that crazy look in her eye from it being One Of Those Thursdays, so Mike says, "I hope it's chocolate," and takes one of the forks with a nod of thanks while Harvey keeps railing at someone's who's probably an intern.
"No I will not fucking hold!" Harvey snarls. "This is my associate! He's a reflection of me, and — "
There's a terrible, brief silence from Harvey before he says in a horrible voice:
" — a reflection of me not like that."
The cake turns out to be red velvet with cream cheese frosting, which Donna gives a thumbs up and Mike gives an orgasmic eye roll, so Mike and Harvey's gay wedding cake apparently falls somewhere between Magnolia Bakery's banana cream pudding and City Bakery's hot chocolate in the dessert sexual joy scale.
"What do I want you to do about — I want you to fucking fix it!" Harvey raves, turning on his heel just in time to see Mike and Donna with matching squirrel cheeks of cake and caught expressions. He puts a hand over the phone receiver. "Are you two actually fucking eating that cake?" Harvey demands.
"I promise I will wrap up a slice for your one-year anniversary," Donna says.
"It's free," Mike argues feebly.
Harvey points at Donna. "Don't make me tell Louis to set you up with his cousin," he threatens, and while Donna's making a series of horrified noises, Harvey transfers his finger to Mike and snaps, "And you — I haven't even started with you yet. How the fuck didn't you notice?"
"I was blind from the 700 page brief about plankton you were probably making me read," Mike protests. "The tears of blood made it difficult to see that they'd misprinted my last name."
"That's funny, Ross," Harvey bites out. "Keep working on that. You can launch your career in stand up right after I shitcan your ass."
Mike tries not to, but it's pretty reflexive at this point to pout when Harvey says shit like that, which is more effective as a rebuttal when Louis doesn't interrupt by pausing in the doorway of Harvey's office to say:
"Mazel tov, you crazy fuckers," and "Oh, is that red velvet?"
Harvey's glower gets exponentially angrier.
"Right, on that note," Mike says, and sidles out of Harvey's office, darting back for the relative safety of his cubicle, where at least he has taped up a mirror so he can see when Harvey's sneaking up on him and stand with his asshole to the wall.
He's still licking red velvet cake and icing off of his fingers when he starts digging under the mountains of paper on his desk. It takes a few long moments, but he comes up, eventually, with the box of business cards: heavy linen stock in snowy white, with a fine serif font spelling out: MIKE SPECTER, PEARSON HARDMAN.
"Well," Mike says, mostly to himself, "at least it doesn't say Mrs."
From down the hall, he hears Harvey yell, "I'm not getting divorced! We were never married! What the fuck is — put your manager on the phone!"
***
By mid-afternoon there are no fewer than fourteen boxes of MIKE ROSS, PEARSON HARDMAN business cards stacked like douchey bricks around Mike's cubicle, spangled with Post-It notes saying things like, "NEVER ORDER FROM US AGAIN," and "DOUBLE CHECK SPELLING PLS," and "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOUR BOSS?"
"Overkill much?" Jessica asks, looking at Mike looking at the boxes.
Mike stares at her, baleful.
"I know," she says. "I promise I'll stop thinking this is funny sometime before I die."
"Thanks, really, thanks," Mike tells her, and Jessica waves over her shoulder as she wanders off, which gives Mike about 10 seconds of reprieve before Harvey is storming up the hallway, associates and paralegals and mail room boys scattering out of his path.
"Did you fix this?" Harvey asks, coming to an abrupt stop in front of Mike's cube.
Usually, Mike likes it in a perverse way when Harvey stops by. None of the other senior partners ever wander into this part of the offices except for Louis to parcel out his daily dose of bullying and asshattery, so Mike always engages in a little Fuck Yeah, I'm Mike Fucking Ross preening whenever Harvey drops by — which is perverse because whenever Harvey does do it it's because he wants to yell at Mike about something. Which makes today no different except this isn't Fond Yelling or Bemused Yelling or You Hilarious Failure Yelling, this is Irrational Sleep Deprived Nobody's Sucked My Harvard Law Degree Dick In Two Whole Days Yelling, which warrants Mike and Donna to send each other emails about what a raging shit Harvey can be.
Mike holds up one of the boxes of business cards. "This has been fixed 14 times over."
Harvey makes a sucked-lemon face. "Good," he says, and a beat later, "Finally," and another pause goes by before he adds, "So those fucking cards have been eradicated, right?"
"Absolutely," Mike says. "You'll never have to think about it again."
***
Two weeks later, Gary Deckerman is in Harvey's office talking about something so intensely boring Mike's mostly preoccupied with not letting his brains dribble out of his ears when his presumed-true-at-the-time promise comes back and fucks him in the ass.
"…So shared sports PTSD aside," Deckerman says, raising a glass to Harvey, who raises a glass back and shares a Rich Asshole (TM) laugh with the guy, "I admit that I was impressed by your company's out and out diversity. It's not something I knew Pearson Hardman for in the past, but my partner and I definitely appreciate it."
Mike's BlackBerry starts buzzing in his pocket, and since he's technically just standing sentry in the corner saying nothing and looking smart, he's allowed to pull it out and check it.
DONNA: OMG. MIKE.
Harvey, when Mike glances up to check whether or not he's already in trouble, is still smiling and bullshitting about how everybody underestimates how diverse Pearson Hardman is, and how he's grateful that Deckerman is at least intelligent enough to identify it.
The BlackBerry buzzes again.
DONNA: DID HE SAY PARTNER?
Deckerman's talking about workplace adversity now or something, which makes Harvey's face turn into a frozen rictus of polite disinterest, so Mike figures it's safe to reply.
DONNA: DID HE SAY PARTNER?
MIKE: ? yes? something about diversity?
DONNA: Michael Ross did you you give that man one of your cards
"Because there's a lot of polite rhetoric about acceptance and throwing open board room doors, but come on, Harvey, between you and I, we know it's a load of bullshit most of the time," Deckerman is saying. Harvey's understanding smile is getting more and more strained, but he says:
"Of course, but talk is cheap."
Deckerman takes another swig of brandy. "Exactly."
MIKE: no? harvey pulled this one.
DONNA: no, I mean is there a chance he got one of your OTHER business cards?
MIKE: wtf are you talking about?