Work for Hire

by Margo Karasek

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.”

  MINUTES 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 thi
s 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.

  “IT’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!”

  “IT’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!”

  Lisa was talking and pleading to a security guard who was by her side at the townhouse. I’d just arrived there for my evening lesson time with Xander and Gemma. This was the last thing I’d expected to see.

  The man shoved Lisa towards her bedroom, cardboard packing boxes in his hand.

  “What’s going on?” I mouthed to Xander and Gemma.

  The twins stood next to me in the Lamont dining room, silently watching the show.

  “Dad fired her,” Xander whispered back. “She has to pack her stuff and get out. Now.”

  My mouth dropped open. I was in shock. Again.

  I followed Xander and Gemma, who followed Lisa and the guard to what was apparently now Lisa’s old bedroom. Lisa collapsed on the floor, still sobbing, and began folding clothes into boxes. She seemingly was oblivious to anyone but the silent guard who kept watch over her.

  Lisa looked … desperate. Gone was the voluptuous queen in four-inch stilettos who held court over the Lamont kingdom and who had ordered me about at every opportunity. Instead, in her bare feet and with a red, blotchy face, she resembled the dethroned monarch carted about in front of the masses; one who didn’t even seem to know, or care, that I was there to witness her downfall.

  She was Marie Antoinette, and this was her guillotine.

  I almost felt bad for her.

  What could she have done that was bad enough for Stephen Lamont to axe her?

  Xander answered my unvoiced question.

  “She destroyed the backs,” Xander whispered to me before he walked away from the scene. Clearly he was done with Lisa.

  Like a faithful minion, I trailed him.

  “What?” I said, unwilling to dismiss Lisa as quickly. She destroyed the backs?!

  But the recognition that I shouldn’t beg Xander for the information, or pander to him, nagged at me.

  If Lisa was disposable, my time at the Lamonts could end just as quickly, just as arbitrarily. Maybe even faster. At least Lisa had the backing of Stephen Lamont—until she didn’t. My position was even more perilous. Stephen didn’t like me. Monique rarely acknowledged I existed. So Xander and Gemma had to view me as the authority, one who was above mundane gossip. If Xander didn’t want to tell me more about Lisa, oh well.

  “Come on, Xander, tell me,” I begged of his retreating back.

  Xander stopped short of his own room and scrutinized me, his face momentarily older than its teen years.

  “Julian found her on the security tape,” he said and shrugged; with the motion, his seriousness dissipated. “Like, dude, you know, the night of the party,” he said as he ran a hand through his hair. “She came into the house even though she had told Dad she wanted the day off to visit family. And, dude,” Xander informed me, now bursting forth with the news like a colt from the starting gate of the Kentucky Derby. “Before, she told us she was going away with Dad and wouldn’t be back until Monday. Total lie. ‘Cause, like, Gemma and I never saw her at the party, and she never said anything about being here after. Julian said it’s not enough for the police, but it was enough for Dad,” Xander snickered. “She was here and didn’t tell anyone she was, so obviously she did it. Dumb bitch.”

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK about Lisa?”

  I couldn’t believe I was still asking, still harping on the same subject.

  Especially since Gemma, like Xander, seemed pretty much uninterested in the topic. Actually, Gemma didn’t seem interested in anything. She sat at her desk, silent, staring somewhere beyond me, her face vacant.

  “Gemma?” I prodded her foot with my own. “Did you hear me?”

  “I don’t care about Lisa!” Gemma responded, exploding like Mount Vesuvius unexpectedly come to life.

  The outburst was so sudden, so violent, so out of proportion to the atmosphere in the room, that I took a step back.

  It was also short-lived. Gemma slammed her fists on her desk and dropped her head there as well. She closed her eyes, her lips unmoving again.

  “Gemma?” I sat down next to her. “Are you okay?” I asked, concerned.

  Silence.

  “Are you still upset about your mom?” My raised hand hovered above Gemma’s shoulder. I wanted to pat her, to offer the girl some comfort because I knew the situation with Monique was still bad. But I wasn’t sure Gemma would appreciate the gesture, or the physical contact.

  “I am not upset about Maman!” she yelled, head snapping up and eyes spewing embers of anger straight at me. “And I don’t care about Lisa! God! Here,” she hollered, shoving a geography book towards me. “Ms. Anderson wants me to write a stupid essay about the boroughs of New York, just ‘cause I thought New Jersey was a borough and stupid Queens was a state. Who cares?” she cried. “I hate geography! I hate Ms. Anderson! I hate school! I hate everything! Why can’t everyone just leave me alone? I wish I were dead!”

  “I’M WORRIED ABOUT Gemma.”

  I marched into Xander’s room only to find him napping. After all the commotion, how could he sleep? Teenage boys were amazing.

  Xander rolled off hi
s back and looked at me, his eyes heavy.

  “Dumb bitch,” he mumbled. I assumed he didn’t mean me. “What’d she do now?”

  I considered his sour expression and hesitated. He sounded as concerned about Gemma as he had about Lisa. Still, Gemma was pretty upset, more so than usual, and, well, there was no one else to turn to. Monique was the cause of the problem. Stephen Lamont was hopeless as a father. And now even Lisa was gone.

  “She’s really down about your mother, and what happened.” There; that was an understatement if I ever made one. “She sounds depressed.” Though what I expected Xander to do about it, I wasn’t certain. But it felt good to say the words out loud, as if saying them to someone—even Xander—lifted the responsibility off my own shoulders.

  “Dumb bitch,” Xander mumbled again. But this time I wasn’t sure if he meant Gemma or Monique. I hoped the latter. “I don’t know why she cares. Like, it’s just Maman. So what if she doesn’t talk to us? It’s not like we see much of her anyway.”

  He had a point.

  “Yeah,” I said, and I plopped down in Xander’s chair. “But she does. Just keep an eye on her, okay?”

  “Why should I?” Xander scowled. “Dude, like, that closet really sucked. She got what she deserved.”

  I sighed, “I know you’re still upset with her, but don’t you think she’s been punished enough already?”

  Xander frowned, considering my words, and finally nodded.

  Then he ambled over. He looked at me, then the seat, then me again, until I moved from the chair to the stool next to it.

  Xander almost bounced into his chair. “But, yo! Good news. Mr. Dandridge picked my story for Horizons.”

  He did? I re-shifted on the stool, searching for a comfortable spot. Maybe Stephen Lamont would finally get off my case. Maybe.

  “And get this: Mr. Dandridge said it might actually get published in like a Best of High School Writing anthology. He said that he’ll submit it to the editors for me, ‘cause he liked it that much. I’ll, like, actually get published in a real book. Isn’t that dope?”