Five weeks later…
I enter The Pit and the sound of all those voices jabbering at once grates on my nerves.
Same as it does every day.
And just like I do every day I walk into work, I look across The Pit to my dad’s office, where he’s been since probably seven AM. My dad, the lawyer, who I’m nothing like. A man who relishes in the fact he can wear jeans to work and engage in almost a bare-knuckle brawling type of legal theatrics. He’d much rather be in a courtroom and go toe to toe with scrappy lawyers, and for cases that really don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of how the world works. I mean, they’re important to the people he’s representing, but his work doesn’t shape and mold the course of the law. It’s more about individual justice versus a service to the sanctity of the law as a whole.
Lowering my gaze, I look down at my sensible shoes with a low block heel—brown today to match my taupe suit—and make my way to my desk.
To another day grinding away at a job I just feel no affinity for. My entire legal career—that has only been in existence for less than a year now—has been nothing but one long, boring grind.
Unless you count that day many weeks ago when I got Evan Scott out of jail.
Well, I didn’t get him out of jail-jail, but I did an adequate job of walking out with him. I sat with him through a brief interrogation by the police, even managing to lodge some well-placed objections to some of their questions. They didn’t seem too bent out of shape about it, especially when they realized Evan could account for his whereabouts for the most part. And that brief period of time in my legal career was exciting and invigorating, even as much as it was terrifying.
Thinking back on that day, I can’t really say it was the case itself that got me fired up. I still want nothing more than to work in a nice, quiet office researching the law, reviewing contracts where no one bothers me or crafting appellate arguments. I want that so much that I’ve got job applications out all over Raleigh and even some of the surrounding cities. I’m not built for the stress of criminal practice or civil litigation, and nothing about what I did as a lawyer that day is what got my blood pumping.
No, it was the man Evan Scott who got me so riled up. I lost control of all my senses. He pissed me off so badly, I shrieked at him like a banshee and actually cursed at him. I was so worked up, I made to leave my client behind to rot in jail, a move that would have surely gotten me fired the minute I walked back into Knight & Payne, and that isn’t something I can afford right now. I have bills and law school debt, and as much as I loathe my current job, I need it until I can find something better.
So yes… he got me fired up in a way I’ve never been before. I won’t admit it to anyone, much less myself, that when Evan grabbed my wrist… when he halted my rapid exit, it was the touch of his hand on me that really caused my blood pressure to spike.
It was Evan Scott that made that day memorable, and I’m ashamed to say I think about it more often than not.
My most exciting moment as an attorney, and it had everything to do with the hot mega-star musician who was a douche to me, but ultimately saved my hide by insisting I stay in that room and do my job.
When I reach my desk, I sit down in my swivel chair and tuck my purse into the empty bottom drawer. I boot my computer up and immediately log onto my personal email account to see if I’ve gotten any responses to my job applications.
Sadly, my inbox is empty.
Just like my legal career.
Taking a deep breath, I let it out and try to think pleasant thoughts. I mean… Leary did just assign a huge research project to me rather than one of the paralegals, and that is the type of work that definitely is more my speed.
I busy myself with pulling up the email Leary had sent to me with the assignment and start to review her instructions. But annoyingly, and as happens at least a gazillion times a day, the conversations around me start to interfere with my concentration.
“I swear to God it was him,” Krystal says in an excited voice from her desk to the right of me. I glance at her and see she’s talking to another female attorney named Liz. She’s one of the more “sedately” dressed folks in The Pit, preferring to wear chic casual attire. Today’s ensemble includes a pair of navy wide-legged pants with four-inch heels, and a form-fitting crepe blouse in a pattern of red, blue, and gold chain links.
“How long has he been in there?” Liz asks, and I note she glances at Midge’s office across The Pit.
“About half an hour,” Krystal says.