“I think this isn’t quite straight.” She shoves it lightly with her hip.
Randall releases a growl from the back of his throat while I bite back a snarky retort. Taking a deep breath, I try again to play peacemaker.
“Did you need something, Heather?” I’m not sure why she’s hanging around.
She shrugs, a delicate movement. Heather is very pretty. In fact, if she wasn’t so intent on being an attorney, she’d have done a great job as our jaywalking victim who got struck by a car. “Not particularly. I was wondering, though, how it was decided that you’d be in charge, Lucinda?”
I school my features into an impassive expression, not wanting her to know that I hate being called by my full name. I’ve told her at least twice that I prefer to be called Lucy, but since she continues to call me Lucinda, my guess is she’s trying to get every last dig in wherever she can. “I’m not in charge. Coach Jensen is.” Coach Jensen is a local trial attorney who volunteers her time to train us.
“But you put the team together. You were the contact person on the sign-up sheet for this elective.” She rubs her finger along the side of the desk, looking sweet and innocent, but I’ve spent two weeks with this girl and it’s been long enough to realize that sweet and innocent is an act Heather adopts when she wants something.
“Randall lost his cellphone so it made sense for me to put mine on there while he was getting it replaced,” I explain.
“That’s convenient for you, isn’t it?”
I glance over at Randall because I have no idea where she’s going with this. Randall’s expression is one of confusion, too.
“I don’t know if I’d say it was convenient. I had to field a hundred calls and about a quarter of them were crank ones that asked me if the try out was for my ass.”
Heather smirks. “You’re still in charge. The others in the group listen to you.”
“None of us is in charge. We’re all working together toward the same goal. You told me last fall when you tried out that you wanted to join to help us defeat Central and hopefully go on and win Nationals,” I remind her.
“See, that’s why I’m worried.”
“About what?” I shoulder my backpack, wishing I had escaped with the rest of the team, but that would mean leaving Randall and Heather alone, and I was afraid if that happened, only one would be alive for our next practice.
“I’m wondering whether we’ve assembled the right pieces for the team. You’re good as an administrative point person. You know, signing us up, getting us the schedule, passing out the materials, but you really don’t have the killer instinct a lawyer needs.” Ouch. But her ability to accurately hit at all of our insecurities after just a short time means she’ll be really good in competition, I remind myself. Heather keeps going, “I’m going to ask my father to come and evaluate the talent. He can coordinate with Ms. Jensen. They belong to the same club.”
“We’ve already set the roster. Why would we change it now?”
“So that we can win.” She states the words as if the answer is obvious.
I grit my teeth, but Randall’s had enough. “Lucy is the best attorney on our team.”
She arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “If Lucinda is so amazing, why isn’t she doing either the opening or closing? Why am I, someone you say has no experience and no skill, delivering the closing? Isn’t that the most important role of the whole team? We can hide the weak link between the two of us.” She drags her eyes down Randall’s perfectly fine outfit once again. “But if you don’t dress better, no one is taking us seriously.”
With that last arrow, she spins on her heel and walks away.
“I can buy a suit, but you can’t buy class,” Randall yells after her.
“Might want to brush up on your insults,” Heather calls casually over her shoulder. “That one’s older than your shoes.”
“I got these shoes last year.”
“From Goodwill?”
I step in front of Randall as he lunges toward the doorway Heather just exited.
“It’s not worth it,” I tell him.
“We can’t have her on the team. She’s a cancer,” Randall rages, pulling away from me and straightening his sweater in a huff. “Don’t you care that she basically called you incompetent?”
I shift uncomfortably because, while Heather’s words stung, I don’t know if she was entirely wrong. I mean, I’m not incompetent, but isn’t part of competence knowing your limits? “I thought you were sitting right beside me when I crashed and burned our freshman year?”
Randall clicks his tongue in sympathy. “It was a mistake. You froze. We’ve all had a similar experience once in our lives. When I was in eighth grade speech class, I couldn’t get more than two words out in rebuttal.”
“Randall?”
“Yeah?” He smiles brightly.