Shine Not Burn(30)

I FROWNED at the stack of messages on my desk. Each one was worse than the last, with phone numbers missing, names misspelled, sometimes with nothing but a name. I read the last one with disbelief as I pressed the button on my phone that would make the light blink on Ruby’s: ‘Someone called you about something related to the Blakenship file.’

“Yes,” came her clipped voice.

“Rubes, could you come in here?”

“The name is Ruby.”

“Okaaaay. Ruby, could you come in here, please?”

“I’ll be there in a moment.”

That moment turned out to be ten minutes long, and I’d bet a box of doughnuts she pretended to be busy the entire time just so she could make me wait. These days, Ruby did everything she could to piss me off. It had to stop now, though. We had to have the confrontation that had building for months. I had too much on my plate to deal with her shit anymore.

She stood in the doorway, her back so stiff she looked like she had a pool cue up her big butt. She never relaxed around me anymore. It was all business, all the time. I wasn’t even allowed to call her Rubes anymore.

“Have a seat, please.” I motioned to the chairs in front of me.

“I prefer to stand,” she said, lifting her chin a fraction higher.

I sighed loudly. “Ruby, please. Don’t make me lose my temper again. I’ve had a really long day and a really long week, too.”

A fake-confused expression bloomed across her face. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I the one to blame for your temper now? I suppose I’m also to blame for you losing the Goldman motion and for you getting that speeding ticket on your way to work last week.” She folded her hands casually in front of her ample waist. “What should I do now? Apologize? Or maybe you want me to resign.” She raised both eyebrows at me, still with the fake innocence thing going. It made me want to slap the look off her face.

Her words hurt, cutting me through with their mean, serrated edges. I held up the stack of messages she’d taken while I was out. “You’re to blame for a lot of things, but right now I’d just like to talk to you about these.” I decided to save the conversation about letters never sent and forms mis-filed for another day. She was a handful when she was cranky and right now, she was definitely cranky.

She said nothing, she just stood there giving me silent attitude.

“Ruby, please don’t make me ask again. Come inside, shut the door, and sit down.”

She hesitated a few more seconds, just to let me know she could and would, and then she did as I asked.

Once she’d settled herself in the chair across from me, I let some of the heat out of my voice. “What’s going on? Can you please just tell me? I can’t take much more of the stress, I have to be honest with you.”

She broke eye contact with me and stared at a paperweight on my desk. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Ruby, please look at me.”

She looked at the ceiling, blinking her eyes deliberately.

“I want to know what happened.”

Shrugging, she said, “You took a long lunch with Bradley and a lot of people called in while you were gone. I took messages. I don’t know what else you want from me.” She tapped her long fingernails on the arms of the chair.

“Do you have to say his name like that? He’s my fiancé, Ruby. It hurts my feelings when you say it with such disdain.”

She wiggled around in her seat a little but didn’t respond. The fingernail tapping started again.

“I didn’t mean the messages,” I said, although that was one of the many symptoms of our problem. “I’m talking about what happened between us.”

She finally looked at me, raising a cocky eyebrow. “Us? Whatever do you mean?” Again with the innocent act.

I wanted to scream, but I restrained myself. Anger just got Ruby going even more, making her more cold-hearted toward me than usual. “I mean us. You as Ruby, me as Andie. We used to get along. I used to love working with you, and I think you used to love working with me. But for a long time now, things have been going downhill.” The tone of my voice rose up a notch. “And now they’re to the point where I almost don’t think we can work together anymore.” I gave her my best pleading look. It worked really well on juries.

Her nostrils flared, but she didn’t say a thing.

“Are you hearing me Ruby?” My heart spasmed with the pain of rejection. Ruby hated me, but I still loved and respected her. She had been so good to me once. Without her I’m not sure how I would have worked my way through learning to navigate the quagmire of civil procedure. She’s an expert in her field, and I’m not the only young lawyer who she’s helped mold into a litigating machine. But now instead of helping me, she seemed to spend every minute of her day trying to make me angry by undoing my work or making my work twice as hard as it should have been.

“Yes, I’m hearing you.” She finally looked at me. “The question is, are you hearing yourself?”

I frowned. This, I wasn’t expecting. “I think I am.”

She shrugged just the slightest bit. “I think you’re not.”

“Explain,” I said, curious.

“No, thank you.” She put her hands on the arms of the seat as if to lever herself up. “Will that be all?”