Gloria, Morgan and I flinched as one as the door to Frank's inner office slammed with a final fury. The moment the reverberations stopped, I was met with two very pointed glares.
“What?” I asked, daring them to place the blame on me.
Gloria merely sighed and gestured toward me as she turned to Morgan. “Sarah is going to the courthouse this afternoon to file a motion. She thought you might like to join her so she can show you around a bit.”
“Why?” Morgan's openly puzzled look was my final undoing.
“Oh for God's sake!” I exploded, giving voice to the persecution of my good deed which I'd felt since the moment the unending discussion had begun. “I am trying to be nice! I am a very nice person! What the hell is wrong with you people?”
Instead of inciting anger with my words, I was surprised to see Morgan break out in a grin. A mighty handsome looking grin, actually. “I'd love to go to the court with you this afternoon, Sarah.”
“Fine. Come get me at one o'clock.” I shook my head and walked toward my office, completely befuddled by the morning's events. Following Frank's lead, I slammed my door behind me.
Being nice was not supposed to be this hard.
* * *
When I entered the safe cocoon of my office, the amount of work piled on my desk provided me with the happy distraction I needed. As the next several hours ticked by, my blood pressure slowly retreated to a life-sustaining number, and I barely registered the soft tap on my door.
I glanced at the clock on my wall. One o'clock on the dot.
“Come on in,” I yelled. Somewhere over the course of the busy morning, Frank had approved and signed the motion that I needed to run over to the court and I was as ready for this outing as I would ever be.
I opened the door to face my nemesis, annoyed anew at the bright smile and nice packaging that greeted me. You would think the spawn of Satan would at least have the decency to look the part. “Ready, Sarah?”
“Sure.”
Morgan helped me on with my coat – two points for being a gentleman – and Gloria and Frank were nowhere to be found when we escaped through the front door. I had no doubt that Gloria purposely distracted my boss to ensure we did not have a repeat of this morning's performance.
The walk toward the courthouse was fairly uneventful. We spent a few minutes discussing the weather as we walked through the brisk, cool wind, but really, how much time could that kill? “Cold, huh?”
“Yeah, cold.” It was January in Portland, Maine. Once you acknowledged the cold, conversations about the weather grew pretty dull.
I took a sidelong look at Morgan and caught his eyes flitting suddenly away, caught in his own furtive glance. Squaring my shoulders, I acknowledged that the entire outing was going to be a disaster if I didn't at least try to be a little friendlier.
“So, has Frank ever taken you to court and showed you around?” I tested the waters.
What appeared to be a grateful smile ghosted across Morgan's lips. “No. Not yet. I had to come with my civil procedure class last semester, though.”
“Is Professor Daniels still teaching that course?” I asked, relaxing as we found a safe topic. I was an alumni of the same school he attended. Certainly we could find some common ground at good old Maine Law.
“Yeah. He took a sabbatical last year, but he's back now.”
“Is he still as scary? I shook in my boots through most of his classes.” I remembered back to my first year when there was a rumor going around that Professor Daniels' annual bonus was based on the number of students who dropped out after tuition was deemed nonrefundable, solely due to fear of his class. Livvie often remarked that he made John Houseman look like Santa Claus.
“You think John is scary?” Morgan asked with a note of surprise.
John? I had never really known the man's first name, but supposed that could be it. Of course, I would have found it just as likely that his first name was Lucifer, Damian or “Rabid-Old-Man” which is how he was most commonly referred during the years I'd been at school.
“I guess I never really thought of him as scary,” Morgan continued. “Intense, maybe, but I really liked that about him. I spent a lot of my time first year hanging out in his office, just shooting the breeze. He's a good guy.”
Son of a bitch.
Although I didn't give voice to my thought, it must have telegraphed loud and clear through the look on my face, because suddenly Morgan's eyes grew much too large for his face and he began backpedaling.
“I can see where he could come across as pretty scary, though. I mean, he knows so much. I can understand why some people would be intimidated by him.”
Some people who were inferior to the great Morgan Donovan, perhaps? Frank's suspicion that I was luring Morgan to the courthouse to meet his violent end suddenly seemed even more inviting than the idea of my making partner.
Partner. That's right, I reminded myself, blowing my bangs away from my face. My laminated lavender refrigerator list shimmered like an oasis on the horizon. This outing was aimed at helping me make partner at Frank's firm and if I contemplated pushing Morgan into a snowdrift every time he said something infuriating, it was going to be a very long afternoon. I turned my head side to side until my neck cracked with relief and plastered on a fake smile, leading Morgan through the metal detectors as we arrived at court.
Luckily, the first person we ran into was a truly friendly face – Trenton, my favorite bailiff. I introduced him to Morgan and explained with a wink that Trenton knew all the secrets of the courthouse – who was having affairs, which attorneys secretly took a nip of something stronger than coffee between cases and which judges relied on their law clerks to do all of their work. Trenton was a man you wanted on your side.
“So, what do we owe the pleasure of today's visit?” Trenton asked, crossing his long arms across his chest, giving the slightest bit of bulk to an otherwise lean and lanky frame. “I don't remember seeing your name on the docket sheets this morning.”
“Nothing scheduled today. I just came to drop off a filing,” I explained, holding up my manila folder.
“You do know that you can file those electronically, don't you?” Trenton said, a twinkle in his eyes anticipating my answer.
“As if Frank would trust his practice to technology,” I laughed. “Speaking of which, have you checked out the new website? I still need to play around with some of the links, but it's looking pretty good.”
“Wait a minute. You set up Frank's website?”
I tried very hard to curb my annoyance at the disbelief dripping from Morgan's tone and explained, “It's not that big a deal. I took a weekend course at the community college a few years ago to set up a site for the diner to grab some of the tourist traffic.”
“I haven't been online much lately except to see pictures of the grandkids on Facebook,” Trenton replied to my original question, returning my focus to the older man. “I'll be sure to check it out.”
“Great. Hope the rest of the day goes well.” I turned to leave, but found my progress halted by my friend's arm on my sleeve.
“One second, Sarah. I saw the Freeman case settled. That looked like it was going to be a doozy of a case. What happened?”
“It went right to the last minute,” I answered, wishing desperately that attorney client privilege didn't apply so I could regale Trenton with the tale of two business partners dissolving their firm based on their affair with the same woman. In the end, it was our client's willingness to expose the tax returns to the public record and the other side's unwillingness – based on a separate but even messier divorce case caused by the same affair. “Let's just say Mr. Freeman walked away pretty happy.”
“I'm sure he was.” Trenton turned to Morgan. “You could learn a thing or two from this woman. She tries to settle her cases, but at the end of the day she'll take her case to trial. That's the mark of a good lawyer. You need to be unafraid of the courtroom.”
Morgan glanced at me quickly, e
yes alight with a spark I couldn't name and hadn't seen before. My opportunity to identify it passed quickly, as he returned his attention to the bailiff. “I've seen too many men and women walk these halls who secretly hate going to court. They want to make deals from their office and practice law over the phone. This girl – and Frank's another one – they are here to practice law.”
Embarrassed, but pleased by the praise, I said a hasty goodbye and dragged Morgan to the clerk's office where we took our place at the back of a long line.
While I leaned back to study a particularly interesting water stain on the ceiling, Morgan decided to break the tedium in a different way. “So, Sarah, is this part of a New Year's resolution or something?”
“What?” I snapped my head down, completely thrown by the question.
“Come on, Sarah, why are you trying to be nice to me?” He gave me a hint of a smile. “It clearly isn't easy for you.”
For crying out loud. Were we really going to go through this again?
“Believe it or not, I am a very nice person.” I bit out and shoved an errant strand of hair behind my ear, wondering why everyone was acting like it was so out of character for me to behave in a civil manner. “If you remember, Mr. Donovan, when you first started at Frank's office, I was very nice to you. Super, sticky, sugary sweet nice.”
Morgan's hint of a smile was gone in an instant, replaced by a look that I could only call bewildered. “And, she's gone again. You are the most maddening woman. Five minutes ago we were having a nice conversation with your friend Trenton and now you're made of ice again.”
I glanced quickly to my left and right, ensuring that Morgan's words weren't overheard. Partner or pauper, I had worked hard to build my professional reputation and wouldn't stand to be part of the courtroom gossip mill. “Keep your voice down. I don't know what you're talking about.”
He shook his head from side to side, this time his ghost of a smile could no longer be mistaken for mirth and the flash of his blue eyes were no longer surprised.
The man before me was angry.
And damn if it didn't make him look a little bit hot.
“No.” Morgan held up his hands. “Just no. I am not letting this go again.”
Knowing that I had mere moments before we really were the talk of the town, I grabbed my co-worker by his wool overcoat, trying not to be distracted by the firm bicep that filled out the sleeve and yanked him out of the clerk's line and behind a stairway leading to the balcony seating above. It was too much to hope that we hadn't been noticed, but at least I had hopefully minimized the damage.
“We are not doing this here!” I insisted.
“Oh, we're doing it! We're doing it here or we're doing it in the middle of the lobby. You decide.” Morgan yelled, and then took a step back as he heard his own words and how they might be interpreted.
“Fine.” I chose to ignore the double entendre. I was tired of Morgan trying to play the innocent victim when I knew the truth. “Every time I turned around, from that very first week you started working at the firm, you threw me under the bus at every opportunity. What did you expect? That I'd just sit there and take it?”
The lines in his forehead deepened into something that was less anger and more confusion, but still a strong mix of both. “I threw you under the bus? What are you talking about? What does that even mean?”
“You know. Throwing someone under the bus.” From Morgan's continued confusion, I could tell that repeating the phrase was not helpful. “You tried to sabotage me in front of Frank whenever you could so that you'd look good and I'd look incompetent.”
“You thought I was trying to sabotage you?”
“Of course you were!” I shook my fists in frustration.
“How was I sabotaging you?”
Was he completely daft? “You kept pointing out my mistakes to Frank, instead of me. You took work off my desk so that I couldn't find it when I needed it. You returned phone calls that came to me so I didn't know what was happening with my own cases. You made me look stupid in front of other attorneys.”
“But, there were mistakes in your work. And Frank or Gloria asked me to take some of those assignments from you.”
“And you couldn't leave a note? I didn't care that you did the work and might have even appreciated it if you'd told me about it, but you should have sent me an e-mail to tell me what you were working on or that you had returned a message so that I didn't have to.” Seeing a glimmer of understanding in Morgan's expression, I continued, “You could have pointed out my mistakes directly to me and given me the opportunity to fix them instead of bringing them to Frank's attention.”
“You thought I was purposely sabotaging you?” I was still scrutinizing the way Morgan cocked his head to the side as if seeing me for the first time when he turned sharply away and walked dazedly toward the small bench across the lobby, outside the main courtroom.
Feeling the tectonic plates of my life shift beneath me at what I was rapidly beginning to believe may have been a misunderstanding of epic proportions, I gave us both a moment to gather ourselves before following Morgan to the bench where I hovered over him.
“She thought I was purposely sabotaging her work.” Morgan muttered, head down, apparently talking to the voices in his head. After a moment, he raised his wide, apparently guileless eyes to me and remarked, “Well, I guess that does explain some things.”
“So you weren't doing those things on purpose to make me look bad?” I held my breath, awaiting the answer, but knowing this performance could not have been faked.
“No.” He denied vehemently, before breaking into a sheepish grin. “Well, I mean, of course I was trying to make myself look good in front of Frank. But I swear I wasn't trying to do it at your expense.”
“If that's true, why didn't you come to me when you found a mistake in my work?”
Morgan shrugged. “In the beginning it just made sense that if the work was on Frank's desk, it would be easier for him to fix it and I wouldn't have to bother you. Later on, though…”
“Later on?” I prompted.
Morgan glanced at me from under his fringe of blonde. “Well, later on you kind of made it clear that you hated me. I tried not to talk to you at all if I could avoid it.”
Fair enough.
“Move over.” I lightly pushed Morgan's leg which was unfortunately every bit as firm and distracting as his arm, and sat on the bench next to him when he made room. He opened his mouth to say something, but I put up my hand to stop him. “Wait. I'm still processing.”
I ran my hands through my hair, mentally evaluating every exchange I'd had with Morgan and running it through the new filter of information I'd received.
Another few moments of quiet passed before I turned to him and asked, “Have you always acted this way around co-workers? Hasn't anyone else complained about your work style?”
Morgan mumbled something under his breath, but I couldn't hear him. When I asked him to repeat his words, he said, “I've never had co-workers before. This is my first job.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-eight? It isn't possible that you're 28 years old and you've never had co-workers before.” I dismissed. “I don't mean in an office. I'm talking about any co-workers.”
“I've never had co-workers.” Morgan shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but the way his eyes darted toward and away from mine belied an unexpected vulnerability.
“So you're telling me you've never had a job before this one? Waited tables? Worked retail?” Each question was met with a negative shake of the head. “You've never folded t-shirts at The Gap?”
“Nope,” Morgan replied.
I suddenly remembered Caryn's words from a few weeks before and snapped my fingers together. “The Donovan Trust. Donovan Industries. That was you, wasn't it? You worked for your family. Well, that's a job. Giving away thousands of corporate dollars to charity certainly counts as a job.”
My c
ompanion shrugged. “Yeah. I guess, but not really. My job consisted of going on the internet and Googling charities. When I found one I liked, I'd spend a few weeks volunteering to make sure it was legit. If I liked what I saw, I'd talk to my dad and show up with a check.”
“Huh. So you weren't trying to be a creep. You just didn't know any better.”
“Hey…”
“Shut up Morgan.” I said, my smile removing any heat from the statement. I rose from the bench and put out my hand. “Let's start over. Hi, I'm Sarah Bennett.”
Morgan smiled as he stood. A true, dimple-inducing smile. “Morgan Donovan.” He grasped my hand firmly. “Nice to meet you. I understand we'll be working together.”
I didn't know if it was the warmth of his hand or feeling the cloud of anger I'd always felt in Morgan's presence lifting, but in that moment, my breath came a little easier and I didn't have to reach very far to find a smile that answered the one I received.
“Great. Before we start, let me tell you a few things about working with other people. Lesson one, when you want to make changes to someone else's project…”
Unfortunately, my words were abruptly cut off by a loud shriek to our left.
“Ohmigod! Sarah!” The grating, fingernails-on-a-chalkboard voice was unmistakable, but I hoped against hope that I was wrong.
Turning to my left, I acknowledged the woman behind the voice with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.
Which wasn't very much at all.
“Hi, Cory.” God really does like to play mean, horrible jokes on me.
With long copper curls and a smile that could make the Osmonds jealous, five foot ten Cory Latham slithered between Morgan and me. He wore a startled, wary expression and I wasn't sure whether it was in reaction to Cory's eardrum-rupturing hello or my less-than-friendly greeting.
My marked displeasure at seeing Cory must have looked even more unusual to an outside observer given her apparent thrill at running in to me.
Of course, Cory and I both knew it was all an act.
“I, like, never see you here anymore!” She cooed, and then moved her attention to Morgan.
Next Year I'll be Perfect Page 9