Work for Hire

by Margo Karasek

  My eyes expanded to the size of saucers—this, him, I hadn’t expected.

  “It’s not good, Tekla. I won’t lie to you.” Josh sighed, like a doctor about to pronounce a bad diagnosis. “You have to understand, Professor Johnson is one of our most esteemed advisors. I normally wouldn’t say this, not to a staffer, but you have a right to know, under the circumstances.” Josh rubbed his eyes. His fingers were long and pale, like the rest of him. “Professor Johnson really supported your candidacy for the Review. Frankly, it was down to you and another one of your classmates, a male classmate. It was a close call. Professor Johnson pushed for you, hard. He has always been a strong supporter of gender equality in law schools. He was one of the first faculty members to argue for the inclusion of women in tenured faculty. And with that effort in mind, he seems to take a special interest in promising female students and, well, for your year, that student has been you—strong grades, strong writing, glowing recommendations.”

  I jerked back in my seat, as if Josh had slapped me. Professor Johnson had pulled strings behind the scenes, for my benefit? The possibility made me feel … unclean. I wanted to scream, I got Law Review on my own merits!

  “But you’ve butted heads with another of his protégées,” Josh continued, unfazed by what he was telling me. “Your assigned article is by one of Professor Johnson’s colleagues and close friends. Melanie Sylvan’s an assistant professor—non-tenured—at Cardozo, but with another published piece, she’s finally up for tenure review and maybe even an assistant professorship here at NYU.” Josh paused. “Your behavior has put that promotion in jeopardy. If her article doesn’t get published in time, her tenure will be delayed and the position will be filled by someone else, and, well … I’m sorry, but, at this point, I have no choice in the matter. I have to put you on probation. You have one week from today to complete the assignment, or we give it to someone else and you forfeit your position on the journal.”

  I sat, stunned. I didn’t really want the job—but I would rise and fall on my own. I’d be damned if Professor Johnson thought he got me hired and fired.

  Professor Johnson helping me, I shuddered. What was in it for him?

  “Tekla!” The sound of Josh’s voice snapped me back. I refocused. “A word of advice. Try to mend fences with Professor Johnson. He’s an invaluable advocate to have, but a very bad adversary.”

  I GLARED AT PROFESSOR JOHNSON. Every time he paced in front of or around the lectern, I glared and scowled. I know all about you and your meddling, and I am not pleased.

  But Professor Johnson didn’t seem to notice. His eyes slid right past me. No doubt about it, I was being purposefully ignored.

  Jerk, I thought, and closed out of my class notes. If he could ignore me I would ignore his lecture. I opened the Cardozo Law School home page and searched for faculty profiles.

  Melanie Sylvan.

  Up until this point the name meant little beyond the author on the title page of my article. Time to learn more.

  Sylvan, Sylvan, I scrolled through the Ss until, success: Sylvan, Melanie.

  I clicked on the name.

  A full-page image of a pretty, smiling brunette in her mid-thirties loaded onto the screen. Very pretty.

  I studied the profile—NYU graduate, class of 2000; magna cum laude; Order of the Coif; Law Review managing editor—and searched her professional bio: Assistant Professor, Cardozo Law School, 2005; Judge Thompson, United States Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, 2003; Professor Johnson, New York University School of Law, Teaching and Research Assistant, 2002 to 2003.

  The last name on the list—Professor Johnson’s—gave me pause. I looked up from the screen, at the man himself, with his silver hair, tanned face and uniform of navy blazer and powder-blue shirt with white collar and gold tie. He appeared the epitome of what I always considered the scholarly bachelor. Come to think of it, I had never heard anyone mention a Mrs. Johnson.

  Melanie Sylvan’s profile didn’t identify a husband either.

  Could they be … ?

  How much of the brief have you completed?

  The instant message forced me to abandon my conjectures on Professor Johnson’s love life.

  Markus.

  And then something totally unexpected hit me: Markus. It had to be him—the male student Josh referred to. He made perfect sense. Markus’s grades were stellar, his legal research top-notch, his reputation in the law school above reproach. He was responsible, respectful of all legal scholars no matter their viewpoint, and diligent; the perfect would-be Review staffer who would never miss a deadline.

  I fought down a pang of guilt, and wrote back.

  None.

  Want to work on it tonight? I’ll help with your research.

  Always the nice guy. Guilt flooded over me in tsunami-sized waves.

  Can’t. Have to finish Law Review first.

  My fingers faltered over the keyboard; I was embarrassed to type more. I didn’t want the news to spread. But, what the hell, Markus deserved to know the whole truth, the full extent of how much I’d fucked up.

  I’m on probation, I added. I have one week or else.

  Shit.

  I smiled, wryly. Leave it to Markus to summarize things so succinctly.

  Yeah. Plus, there’s work.

  “XANDER. XANDER? Xander! Put down the guitar and come work on the story.”

  Blank stare. Then more noise disguised as music. I could vaguely make out Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

  “Xander … ”

  He rolled his chair across the room, guitar still in lap, and pulled up by the desk.

  “Yo.”

  “The story,” I turned on his computer for him. “Start writing. Now.”

  Xander stared. We’re back to this? his eyes dared.

  Yeah, we are, I stared back.

  “All right.” Xander shrugged and reached for the keyboard. “But it’ll suck. And what do I write anyway?”

  “No, it won’t.” I hoped. It wouldn’t suck, at least not totally. “And write whatever you want. It’s your story. Write what’s in your head.” On second thought, that was one scary suggestion. “Do one paragraph, then stop and we’ll go over it.”

  Xander gave me one last look, then banged away on the keyboard. His typing skills were impressive. He would make any secretary proud.

  I moved away from the desk—lest Xander think I was hovering—and paced his bedroom, to and fro.

  “Done.”

  I virtually tripped over myself to get back to the desk.

  Once upon a time, Xander wrote, there were two dogs Coco and Dior and they live in Manhattan, they had a huge house and also two puppies twins, one is a girl and one was a boy, Coco and Dior were always gone working, Dior was a big business dog who makes delicious biscuits and sells them for lots of money and Coco models for dog food, so the puppy twins always stayed home alone and one day they decided to have a big dog party, so they invite all their puppy friends and the party was huge.

  I glanced at Xander. This story sounded familiar. Well, maybe this time I would actually find out the ending: Did the two puppies get punished for being careless, and indirectly breaking their parents’ expensive biscuits? Because as far as I knew, Xander and Gemma hadn’t. Mum was the word when it came to the party: no mention of the police or a possible suspect. It was as if nothing had happened.

  “Not bad,” I said. And the story wasn’t bad, or as bad as it could have been. Just a few minor grammar corrections and we—Xander—had a good start. All on his own.

  Xander cut his eyes over to me, both brows raised.

  “No, really,” I encouraged. “Not bad. Now start with the commas. Change them all to periods. Oh, and pick one tense—past or present, up to you—and stick to it. Don’t flip-flop.”

  Xander contemplated his story. “Why?”

  “Because,” I said as I lowered myself onto the stool, “inconsistent tenses look sloppy and can confuse the reader. You want your tenses to be parallel from sentence t
o sentence, and definitely within the same sentence. There are exceptions to this, but you don’t have to worry about them now. Go ahead. Try it. See if you like the difference.”

  Xander retyped the changes and read them out loud.

  “Hey,” he said, relaxing into his chair and reaching for the guitar in his lap, “this does sound better.” He strummed the strings; I mentally rubbed my temples. “This short story pretend stuff is kind of easy to write, much easier than essays. And, like, it’s almost fun. Yo,” Xander said as he banged on the instrument, “if I can get the hang of this, I can like, be the next Stephen King. People’ll pay me millions just for the shit that’s in my head. What a scam.” Xander broke into a riff.

  “Yeah, well,” I winced. “Write what happens next, and we’ll see if it stays fun and easy.”

  “MISS REZNAR, A WORD PLEASE.” Stephen Lamont said, materializing out of the shadows of the Lamont staircase.

  I paused, surprised, my hand on the front door’s knob. I had never actually seen Stephen Lamont in the townhouse, and I still suspected he slept elsewhere. “I was just leaving,” I pointed out. “I have to get to class.” And, frankly, I’ve given you and your family too much of my time already.

  “No problem.” Stephen Lamont breezed through the open door, ahead of me. I gawked as he settled in the back of a Bentley. The man gave whole new meaning to etiquette. “Join me,” he called out. “I’m also leaving.”

  I shut the front door behind me. What the hell. A drive to school would likely be faster and definitely more comfortable. And … it was a Bentley. I had never driven in one. Actually, I had never seen one in person.

  I tumbled inside the car, melting into the butter-soft cream leather. I sighed. This was style. I could see why the Queen preferred it.

  The driver, in black suit, chauffeur hat and white gloves, purred the car to life and merged into oncoming traffic. Stephen Lamont pulled out papers from his briefcase and began reading. I watched him flip pages and frowned. Weren’t we supposed to talk? Though about what, I couldn’t imagine. Unless, I sat up straight, my heart racing, he had some beef with how I handled the weekend.

  “About the party … ” I began.

  “What?” Stephen Lamont glanced up from his papers and scowled at my intrusion, as if he had completely forgotten I was in the car with him.

  “The party? Isn’t that what you want to talk to me about?” I asked, confused.

  Stephen Lamont dropped the papers in his lap.

  “No,” he said. “Although, calling the police … Really, Miss Reznar, was that necessary? Over some broken cameras.” He made the $300,000 digital backs sound like $10 disposables. “The Lamonts don’t, as a rule, involve public servants in their private lives, especially over something so trivial. Please remember that in the future,” he directed as he leaned back in the seat and stretched his legs. “No. I wanted to discuss with you something of importance: Xander’s story. It has dogs, Miss Reznar. Are you really serious?”

  “Me?” I gasped. How could Stephen Lamont have complaints about the story already, when he hadn’t even read a single sentence? “The story is Xander’s, and so is the idea. I had nothing to do with his choice of topic.”

  “But you, Miss Reznar,” Stephen Lamont shot out, “are the tutor. It’s your job to guide him. I believe you understand how important it is for me that Xander gets on Horizons. He must follow his family’s legacy. And how will a story about dogs help him do that, hmm?”

  “It worked for Orwell and his pigs,” I tried.

  “Who?” Stephen Lamont glowered.

  With a response like that, I had trouble believing Stephen Lamont ever served on a literary journal. What editor, even a high school one, didn’t know Animal Farm?

  “Xander wants to write a satirical fable. You know, a story with animals that, like, makes a moral point, but with humor,” I added when Stephen Lamont’s glower still hadn’t dissipated. “That’s an ambitious undertaking, especially since he has been studying satires in English class. I’m sure Mr. Dandridge will be very impressed. I doubt other students will try something so hard. That should give Xander an advantage.”

  “We’ll see, Miss Reznar,” Stephen Lamont said, scrutinizing my face before retrieving the papers from his lap. Apparently my answer had satisfied him, at least momentarily. “But make no mistake, I will be observing. Closely. Mellers,” he tapped on the Bentley’s roof, “pull over. Miss Reznar is getting out.”

  He couldn’t be serious.

  But the car stopped.

  He was.

  “Ah, thank you?” I stammered as I slunk out.

  I watched the car pull away then looked around me.

  Great. We had driven twenty blocks.

  Too bad it was in the opposite direction from the law school.

  CHAPTER 20

  MELANIE SYLVAN’S article analyzed the viability of the First Amendment in the age of the Patriot Act; it had 334 footnotes. After two days and twelve hours in the library, I had cite-checked up to footnote number 103. That left 231 one more to go.

  I rubbed my eyes and folded my arms across one of the tens of open legal books scattered on the table, then laid down my head to rest.

  If I could just close my eyes and drift off for hours, unconcerned about how I was ever going to accomplish such a feat—in five days, no less. Or, better yet, if the cite-checking could just miraculously complete itself.

  I sighed and forced my head back up from the comfy pages. I didn’t deserve any miracles. The only way I was going to finish the assignment was footnote by painstaking footnote.

  So I focused on footnote 104: Bob Tedeschi, Patriot Act Has Led Online Buyers and Sellers to Watch What They Do. Could It Threaten Internet Business? and Jeffrey Rosen, The Unwanted Gaze.

  Damn. Two cites in one footnote and no direct quotations.

  The latter were easy to check: just flip to the named book or article, then the specified page number and look if the words matched. They required five minutes of work, ten tops. But paraphrases were another matter, especially if they referenced a book. Those mandated reading pages and pages of both Melanie’s article and her cited text, to see if the overall arguments corresponded in sufficient detail, a painstaking process that could and did take hours.

  Too bad Melanie Sylvan loved to paraphrase. Out of the 103 footnotes I had completed thus far, only two were direct quotes.

  I flipped back to the start of section two of Melanie’s article and tried to concentrate on the words. Again. I had reread the section at least five times, each time analyzing her arguments from the new source’s perspective. The Patriot Act, Melanie wrote, threatens the very foundations of the principles at the heart of the First Amendment. My eyes wanted to cross, but I searched the stack of books and papers for Mr. Tedeschi’s article and Mr. Rosen’s book instead, to see if indeed the Patriot Act proved to be such a threat. At least the article was short—thank God for small favors. As for the book—well, Melanie did only mention three pages.

  I sat back in my chair and started in on the article.

  “Hey, Tekla, how’s it going?” Emily, a heavyset girl with brown hair and apple-red cheeks, sat down in the chair next to me. With her ruddy cheeks, she made me think of Pollyanna.

  I tipped my head in her direction, happy at the distraction, no matter how brief. “Hey yourself, Emily.”

  Emily sat two rows behind me in Professor Johnson’s lecture. We didn’t talk much, usually—Emily lived on a different dorm floor, and Johnson’s class was the only one we had in common—but we did on occasion compare class notes. As far as I knew her, Emily was the epitome of nice.

  “I see you’re working on your brief.” Emily nodded at my stacks of books and papers. If she only knew, I grimaced. “So I won’t disturb you. But I’m almost done with mine.”

  I couldn’t help it. I winced.

  “And I was just wondering—you know, since we’re both on the con side—if you used City of Newark v. Beasley. I talked with
Jason—he’s con too, and finished his brief yesterday—and he says I shouldn’t, that the case isn’t pertinent to our facts. What do you think?”

  “Ah,” I hedged, and shifted the stack of books away from Emily’s curious eyes, lest she glimpse the truth. The library was packed with Johnson’s Constitutional Law students, and I was pretty certain none were working on overdue journal assignments. At the rate of the library’s occupancy it appeared most, like Emily, were well on their way to the finish line. Most, that is, except me. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

  “Oh,” Emily responded, her face falling. “Well, then,” she said, scrambling up from her chair, “I won’t bother you anymore. Thanks.” She smiled thinly and looked ready to make a hasty retreat.

  What the … ? What had I said? But suddenly it dawned on me: Emily thought I was lying, that I was hiding my research about the brief from her on purpose when I moved the books away. I frowned as she almost tipped the chair in her rush to get away from me, like someone who’s just realized she’s in the vicinity of an academic piranha.

  “No, wait.” I shoved the books and papers back towards Emily. “I’m not that far into the brief. See. These are my Law Review books.”

  “Sure.” Emily hardly glanced at the pages. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

  And she was gone, leaving me with nothing but a view of her back.

  Great. I huffed, feeling like dour Aunt Polly. What next: kittens to drown, puppies to kick, or widows to cheat?

  I reached for the article and tried to refocus on the text, on the sad story of Internet users censoring themselves, but just couldn’t do it. I peeped at my wristwatch. I hadn’t checked my e-mail or surfed the web in close to an hour. Not that anything new had likely occurred. And true, I left my laptop in my dorm just to avoid such mindless, time-killing temptations. But, really, what could one teeny-weeny break hurt, even if it wasn’t the first one of the day, or the tenth? So I slunk into the computer lab and jumped on the first free computer. This, I thought as I ogled my inbox, is what recovering alcoholics must feel like when they sneak a drink.