Every single eye in that room slowly turned toward me. My face turned beet red as I swallowed hard, keeping eye contact with my boss so that I didn’t seem weak or intimidated. If I was truly a paralegal at this place, then my voice was just as important in this meeting as everyone else’s.
At least, I hoped it would be.
My boss stared at me for a very long time before his lips finally curled. “She’s right.”
The room damn near let out a collective sigh as my shoulders slumped a bit. “I’m just saying, sir, that?—”
My boss pointed at me but turned his attention back to the rest of the room as he interrupted me.
Of course.
Because why not.
“We’ve given them shot after shot,” my boss said, “and they still haven’t anted up. Not a single penny. At this point, we’re in breach of our own contact. So let’s just unfold the terms of the contract they’ve signed with us to their face. And if they kick back, go prepared with a highlighted copy of their contract that states the stipulations for them, and against them.”
I smiled. “Good idea, sir.”
He nodded back at me. “Good suggestion, Miss Mort.”
“Court,” I said.
“Huh?”
“It’s, uh… Jasmine Court, sir,” I said. “Like courtroom.”
He stared at me for a bit. “Riiiiiight. That’s right.”
But then, his attention turned back to the meeting, and I was back to being the over-glorified-paralegal-turned-secretary.
Oh yeah. I found a way to go to law school. After I was done snowballing myself out of all this debt, I’d start applying?—
“Miss Court,” my boss snapped.
I didn’t even realize I wasn’t paying attention until I jumped a bit. “Sir?”
He shot me a glare. “Are you working? Or sitting there and looking pretty? Because I don’t pay you to sit there and look pretty. I pay other people for that.”
Chuckle rocketed across the room, and I wanted to melt into a puddle and slither my way into the sewer system.
I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Sorry, sir.”
“We’ll start from the beginning of that statement,” my boss said in a clipped voice. “Jackson, repeat what you just asked.”
I swallowed hard as I had my fingers positioned, ready to get back to typing.
I’d never speak up in one of these meetings again, that much was for certain.
“When do we want to deliver the package to the client?” Jackson asked.
I pretty much tuned out after that. Not actually ‘tuned out.’ But I just slid into my silent, little typer roll, and I kept my thoughts to myself. They talked about the contract and getting a copy printed out before I left. They pointed out what portions they wanted me to highlight, and I had instructions to get that contract onto my boss’s desk, highlighting the way they wanted it before I left. I sent the contract to the printer and was thankful when the meeting took a recess long enough for me to get those highlights done.
I packed it into a nice folder for my boss and handed it off to him as we started the back half of the meeting.
I was exhausted by the time the meeting finally broke up. Hands were shaken. I sent a digital copy of the minutes to the three main partners at the firm before printing out a copy for our physical records. I had strict instructions to print out the minutes, place them into an envelope, seal them, and then I had to put my signature over the sealed portion of the envelope.
I wasn’t sure why I always had to do that with the minutes after meetings like this.
But every firm had their kinks and quirks to work out.
