Work for Hire (32 page)

“You pay me now!” the cabbie yelled after Julian, completely ignoring me. “Or I call the police!”

“Go ahead and call them, you asshole,” Julian retorted, pulling me out of the cab after him, before I could jot down the cabbie’s personal info—not that I was going to do anything with it anyway but, still, it was the principle of the thing—and slammed the door shut behind us.

The cabbie flipped us the bird and sped away in a perfectly working vehicle.

Well.

“What now?” Julian chuckled. “Want to try another one?”

I wished I could share his good humor.

“No,” I said, barely controlling the pout that wanted to break free. Bested by a cabbie … “I’ll take the subway.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Julian laughed, clearly enjoying my discomfort, “we’re kind of far from the nearest station.”

I looked around. He was right. We were steps away from the bridge, but the nearest train was a hike away. So I caved and tried hailing another taxi. What seemed like hundreds whizzed by us, but none stopped at my extended hand, their “occupied” or “off duty” lights on full display.

I glanced at my watch. It was 6:45. I had more than two hours to make the round trip. And my father would definitely drive me back straight to the dorm.

“I’ll walk to the train,” I decided. “Thanks for your help,” I said to Julian, then hesitated. I doubted he would willingly brave the distance with me, and goodbyes could be so awkward. “I guess I’ll see you later?”

“Oh no,” Julian responded, not missing a beat. “I insist on taking you home, one way or another. What kind of a gentleman would I be if I let you leave alone after our wild night together?”

Ahh. How sweet. Sort of. But then I did pout, especially after a vision of my mother glowering at Julian and me, together in the wee hours of the morning, suddenly tangoed into my head. I could just imagine what she would make of
that
spectacle.

“That’s not necessary.
Really.
I’ll be fine on the train. I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

“Afraid I’ll scare your parents?” Julian flashed his pearly whites so wide, his dimples looked ready to burst. Damn, but he was cute. “Don’t worry, we can skip the introductions. Let’s just say we’ll share a train ride home. My place is on the way anyway, so it’s really no problem. And
I
could use the protection. All those single ladies on the train
scare
me.”

Well, when he puts it that way
, I thought, my good humor restored.

We walked to the station. The train towards Brooklyn was almost empty. I knew it would stay that way until the evening rush, when the mass that was crowding the Manhattan-bound side now made its commute home after a long workday on the island.

“Tired?” Julian murmured into my ear as I let my eyelids droop closed.

“No.” I smiled and opened my eyes again. “Thinking.”

“About?” Julian said, smiling back.

“Whether you made any progress in finding out who destroyed the digital backs.”

Not true, exactly. But it was something to talk about, and I did want to know.

Julian’s grin fell. He averted his eyes. “Not yet,” he mumbled. “But I have some leads.”

“Leads?” I perked up in my seat. Julian’s suddenly tense body and drawn face signaled his discomfort with the subject.

“The front door security camera,” Julian replied, his eyes fixated on the train’s window. “It wasn’t destroyed. I’m looking to see if anyone came into the house who shouldn’t have been there. You know, anyone out of place in a house full of partying teenagers.”

He finally turned back to me, his charming smile in full force. “Not that I expect to find anything,” he concluded. Then he immediately began to regale me with details of his latest shoot with Monique, the destroyed backs and their destroyer apparently forgotten.

I sat back in my seat and watched his lips move, barely registering the details about Lenny Kravitz and New Orleans.

What was Julian hiding?
I hadn’t been aware of the front door security camera, but that was neither here nor there. I didn’t seem to know a lot about the Lamont household.

Unless—my heart skipped—Julian suspected
my
involvement; that somehow because I was there after the incident, I was involved, and that was why he didn’t want to elaborate.

But no
, I thought as I searched Julian’s smiling face, that couldn’t be.
He wouldn’t be here with me now if he thought I was that kind of a person.
And, well, he had proof now: the security tape. I was nowhere on it until morning.

I was probably reading too much into Julian’s reaction. He was just tired, especially of the Lamonts. So I sat back and listened to his gripes, about the third assistant who ogled Lenny throughout the entire shoot, until the train pulled into my station.

“I’ll see you soon,” Julian promised as he escorted me to the doors. Then he planted a quick kiss before the doors slid closed and separated us.

The man was smooth. I gaped at the departing train, reminding myself Julian was gone with it.

Then I walked the few remaining blocks to my parents’ house. It was 7:30 a.m. My mother was up. Blessedly, she said nothing, just handed me a packed breakfast and my school things—with the finished brief on top—and told my father to drive me into the city.

I almost wept with relief, especially as our car made good progress. There was hardly any traffic.

Until we hit the bridge.

“Oh my God, we’re not moving.” I plastered my face to the passenger side window and stared at the suddenly growing sea of cars drowning the bridge. “Why are we not moving?”

It was already eight. I had exactly one hour to get the brief to Professor Johnson’s office. We had to be moving.

“Because it’s rush hour,” my father said as he turned briefly to look at me. His raised brows implied even he couldn’t believe I would ask something so stupid. “That’s how it always is.”

“No, no, no,” I whined in denial, although
this
was exactly why I
had
to live on campus. “How long do you think it will take?” I demanded.

My father contemplated the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“Fifteen to twenty minutes on the bridge. I don’t know about Manhattan.”

I bumped my head on the glass window. This could not be happening. How could I leave three hours in advance and still not make it on time? God was punishing me. For all the times I showed up late at the movies, at dinner, for class. For making others wait. For submitting the
Law Review
article late. For leaving the brief until the last minute. This was just desserts, fate’s reckoning.

“Pull over at the nearest subway station,” I begged my father when the car finally rolled off the bridge at exactly 8:25 a.m. I should’ve taken the train in the first place. For all its discomforts—the stink, the mobs of aggravated commuters, the ever-present litter, the rats—there was no traffic underground.

I had thirty-five minutes left.

I kissed my father, jumped out of the car and sprinted for the subway.

Unlike on my ride with Julian, the train was now packed. I had to body-slam myself into the car, but I got in. It was a little past 8:30 a.m., and I was only three stations away. I would make it with time to spare.

I listened to the lolling rhythm of train against track and let the sound soothe me as the stations melted away: three, two, …

The train jarred before the last one, then stopped.

“Damn,” the man next to me grumbled as I accidentally elbowed him in the gut.

“Sorry,” I whispered back and repositioned myself upright, as did everyone else in the car who had been standing.

We braced for the train to move again. Except it didn’t.

Heads swiveled to and fro, all of us looking around at others, waiting for it to start.

The train remained still.

I focused on my watch, hopelessly observing the minutes tick away, one by one, ever closer to nine.

“What the hell is this?” a voice rose from the bowels of the crowd. “And they want to raise fares
and
cut service. Screw the MTA.”

A loud murmur of approval followed.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the train conductor said as he came on the intercom, “we’re sorry for the delay. We’ve hit a large garbage bag on the tracks, and our emergency brakes have been activated. We hope to be moving as soon as the bag is cleared away.”

A collective groan crescendoed throughout the train car. I closed my eyes.

Five long minutes later, the conductor came on again.

“Ah, ladies and gentlemen, the bag is larger than we anticipated. We hope to move into the station shortly. We again apologize for the delay.”

M
INUTES LATER
, without further explanation from the conductor, the train crawled to life and into the station. When its doors slid open, I ran like I had never run before. I ran out of the station, through Washington Square Park and into Vanderbilt Hall. I didn’t pause as I raced through the law school’s hallowed halls and headed for Professor Johnson’s office and his secretary.

I stopped at her desk, brief in hand, heaving.

“You just missed him,” the secretary advised me. “He picked up the briefs less than a minute ago. You have to bring it into his office.”

No, no, no. That couldn’t be. I looked from the woman to my wristwatch to the clock hanging over her head. It wasn’t yet nine.

I moved faster than lightning to open Professor Johnson’s door. He was standing at the side of his desk, skimming the pages. At my entrance he glanced up from the pile of briefs in his hands and pursed the lips in his ever-tanned face.

“Ah, Miss Reznar,” he said. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?”

He dropped the pile of papers on the desk, propped his hip on its ledge, threaded his fingers and rested them against his raised knee. His gold cuff links reflected the bright morning sun.

“I’m happy to inform you that you are the absolutely last person to submit her work. Quite a distinction.”

He pushed himself away from the desk, strolled toward me and took the brief from my paralyzed hand. “Lucky for you,” he said as he turned his back on me, “you made it. Good day, Miss Reznar.”

CHAPTER 25

“
I
HAVE READ
through your briefs,” Professor Johnson announced at the end of class the following Monday.

Everyone in the room froze, their fingers suspended over keyboards, pens stopped mid-air, and mouths silenced mid-whisper.

“They were mediocre, at best,” Professor Johnson grimaced. “However, I found two slightly better than the rest. Mr. Powers … ”

Every head in the room swiveled towards Markus. Two hundred eyes gleamed at him, some with admiration, some with envy. Markus didn’t flinch.

“Your legal research was impeccable, the legal analysis exemplary. Your use of facts could be better,” Professor Johnson said, pausing for a beat, “but since so few things in life are perfect, the latter can be forgiven. Congratulations. You will represent the plaintiff at oral argument this Saturday.”

A few congratulatory claps broke through the silence, but at Professor Johnson’s glare, they quickly died away.

“Miss Reznar,” Professor Johnson said, his gaze coming to rest on me.

All the blood drained from my head.

“Your legal research and analysis need
significant
work. However, your crafting of the factual narrative was impressive. Congratulations are in order, as I have chosen you to represent the defendant at argument.” After these shocking words, his eyes moved away from me, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of me any longer than absolutely necessary. “As for the rest of you,” Professor Johnson said crisply as he scanned the room, “I expect to see all of you in the audience. Attendance is mandatory.”

Then he left the lecture hall.

“I
T’S NOT FAIR
,” Ann whined to the group clustered outside the lecture hall after class.

“She spent like a minute doing her work and Professor Johnson picks her?”

Ann pulled at the neck of her sweater. Her eyes gleamed at me behind the thick lenses of her tortoiseshell frames. I had the distinct impression she had covertly kept track of every minute I spent working on the brief. And every minute I hadn’t.

I realized that if it would make a difference, Ann would tattle on me to Professor Johnson.
But you can’t pick her
, she would surely say.
She left everything to the last minute, and she had to have Markus help her. Not fair. Not fair at all.

And she would be right.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Markus scoffed at Ann as I stood between them and with ten other dissatisfied classmates.

Markus and Ann continued to argue back and forth about my worthiness while I remained too shell-shocked to say anything on my own behalf. Only one thought bounced around in my head:
Professor Johnson picked my brief.

Despite my slackness and almost lateness, Professor Johnson had picked my brief, and I now had a chance at a judicial clerkship. With a federal appeals judge. And a choice of dream legal jobs. ACLU lawyer. Professor. Cravath associate.

Only Markus now stood in my way.

I blanched at the possibility. He would be hard to beat and, worse, it would be awful to beat him. He was a true friend.

“Who cares if she only spent a minute writing it?” Markus said, continuing his defense of my selection to the group. “It’s the quality of the work, not the quantity of time spent doing it. Obviously,” he taunted Ann, “Johnson thought her one minute was worth more than your days and days.”

The group disassembled. I watched Ann scramble after the others, still complaining.

But really, all I wanted to do was jump and pump my fist in the air, shouting, “Yes! Professor Johnson picked my brief!”

“I
T’S NOT FAIR
!” Lisa screamed out, tears streaming down her face, streaking her mascara. Her hair was in shambles, her clothes disheveled. “I didn’t do anything! You can’t do this to me! Stephen can’t do this to me!”