The last thing I needed to do was lose this job because of a bad attitude.
Sure, this wasn’t quite what I thought a paralegal for one of the most prestigious law firms in the area would be. But it beat my last job by a mile and a half. My pay was doubled. My benefits were outstanding. If I could just keep at it for a couple more years with this place, with my head down and a smile on my face, I’d be debt-free.
Free from the confines of the burden I carried around because of my father.
Fucking drunk.
I sighed heavily as guilt washed over me. I shouldn’t be so hard on my father. He worked hard so that I could grow up in the kind of environment he’d never had. He married the love of his life, and then lost her when she had me.
I could only imagine what that did to him, looking at me after all that.
Maybe that’s why he drank so much while I was growing up.
I yawned as another ding on my desktop told me that I was ignoring emails. Fuck, I was staring off again.
“Pay attention, Jasmine,” I grumbled to myself as I abandoned the files and wiggled my mouse.
The screen of my computer came to life and it wasn’t just one email that I had, it was four. My goodness, I swear, these things multiplied like rabbits right in front of my very eyes sometimes. I groaned as yet another email I was copied to ran through.
I double-clicked the first one and skimmed it before hopping over to my boss’s schedule.
“He’ll be happy to know that’s cancelled,” I said breathlessly to myself.
I scrolled through the emails, one by one, responding as necessary and adjusting my boss’s schedule accordingly. Usually emails were either ‘I need a meeting’ or ‘I need to cancel a meeting.’ Every once in a while, it was emergent. But if someone needed my boss instantly, they called.
And of course, my phone rang at that exact moment.
“Langley, Pierceson, and Dahl, this is Jasmine speaking, how may I direct your call?”
This was the shit that made me feel like a secretary. I was supposed to be the paralegal for everyone on the top floor,helping to deal with their most high-profile cases. But when we weren’t working on something like that?
I answered phones.
I listened to the man on the other line with my polite ‘uh huhs’ and ‘of course, sirs’. I took down the request, telling the man that I would get it to my boss the instant he got out of his meeting. As a paralegal, it was my job to make sure that all the I’s were dotted and all of the T’s were crossed before court ever happened with one of my clients. However, one of my ‘side jobs’, as I liked to call them, made sure that when the firm had a financial board meeting, everyone was there.
Even if I had to take my boss’s driver to go pick up someone.
Like I had to do this morning.
“Jasmine!” my boss barked.
I jumped up at the sound of his voice, ripping the headset off my head. “Yes, Mr. Langley?”
His beady little stare zoned in on me. “I need one of the financial portfolios from the last meeting. Where is it?”
I dipped down. “Right here, sir. I can put my hands on it now.”
He paused. “I’m waiting, Jasmine.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I pulled the drawer of my desk out, immediately zoning in on all of the colorful folders that denoted the quarterly earnings reports that he always wanted to go over with the financial board.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” I said as I pulled out a yellow folder with last quarter’s dates on it, “I could have sworn I placed one right there at your seat when I came in this morning.”
“You did,” is all he said.
I wanted to question why he needed another one, but then that would just get me yelled at. I clicked over to him in my heels, holding out the folder for him.
He snatched it from me without so much as a thank you. Just a head nod before he disappeared back into the meeting.
