Reasonable Doubt(5)

I stared at her message long and hard—debating whether I should help her with no chance of getting anything out of it, but something made me call her anyway. I walked her through every mistake she’d made, insisted that she clear up a few sentences, and even re-formatted her brief.

Just when I was about to tell her goodbye and hang up, the strangest thing happened. She asked, “How was your day today?”

“That’s not in your brief.” I said. “You only want to talk about lawyer shit, remember?”

“I can’t change my mind?”

“No. Hang up.” I waited to hear a beep, but the only thing I heard was laughter. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was such a raspy and sexy sound, I would’ve hung up myself, but I couldn’t put the phone down.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still laughing. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t. Hang up.”

“I don’t want to.” She finally stopped laughing. “I apologize for that hostile message I sent you...You’re actually the only guy I’ve met on here who answers all my questions. Are you busy right now? Can you talk?”

“About what?”

“About yourself, your life...I’ve been asking you boring legal questions every day, and you’ve been very patient so...It’s only fair that we talk about something less boring for once if we’re going to be friends, right?”

Friends?

I was hesitant to respond—especially since it didn’t seem like the ‘less boring’ topics would involve sex, and she’d said the word “friends” so easily. Yet, I was in the middle of another sex-less night already, so I began to have a regular conversation with her. Until five in the morning, she and I discussed the most mundane things—our daily lives, favorite books, her dream of becoming a late, professional ballerina.

A few days later, we spoke again, and after a month, I was talking to her every other day.

Tossing back another shot, I pressed the call button on my phone and waited to hear her soft voice.

No answer. I considered sending her a text, but then I realized it was nine o’ clock on a Wednesday and we wouldn’t be able to talk at all tonight.

Practice...Wednesday nights are always ballet practice...

***

“Mr. Hamilton?” My secretary stepped into my office the next morning.

“Yes, Jessica?”

“Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Bach would like to know if you want to participate in the next round of intern interviews today.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay...” She looked down and scribbled something onto her notepad. “Did you at least look over the resumes then? They have to narrow it down to fifteen today.”

I sighed and pulled out the stack of resumes she’d given me last week. I’d read through them all and written notes, mostly—“Pass” “Double Pass” and “I don’t feel like reading this.” All the remaining applicants were from Duke University, and to my knowledge, we were the only firm in the city who accepted pre-law and law school applicants for paid internships.

“I wasn’t impressed with any of the applicants.” I slid the papers across my desk. “Was that the entire selection pool?”

“No, sir.” She walked over and placed an even larger stack in front of me. “This is the entire selection pool. Do you need me to do anything else for you this morning?”

“Besides getting my coffee?” I pointed to the empty mug at the edge of my desk. I hated that I always had to remind her to bring it; I couldn’t function in the morning without a fresh cup.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll get that right away.”

I turned on my computer and scrolled through my emails, sorting them all by importance. Of course, Alyssa’s latest email was pushed straight to the top.

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Subject: Get Over Yourself.

Thank you for the childish picture text of the white dust that was outside your condo this morning. I really appreciated it, but I can assure you that that is NOT what the inside of my vagina looks like right now.

Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t need to get laid every other day to satisfy my needs. They are WELL taken care of with a VARIETY of tools.

—Alyssa

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Subject: Re: Get Over Yourself.