Christy said, “Great. Hey, I have to get back to the office, so how about you come over at, say, eight?”
“Sure.” Heather waved at a passing server to get their checks. After they’d settled up and paid they scraped their chairs back and stood. The restaurant’s outdoor area was literally on the sidewalk, and Christy got caught up in the flowing tide of big city foot traffic. She called, over her shoulder, “See you tomorrow!”
Heather sighed and headed the other way toward her office. Her workday had already been long, and it would probably be really late before she managed to get back to her apartment that evening. Being a lawyer was not her dream; it had never been her dream, in all honesty. It had been her parent’s dream though. Her dad was a doctor, her mom was a financial advisor, and her brother was a high-powered hedge fund manager. A lawyer was the last piece of the family puzzle as far as they had been concerned.
Since she’d needed help with the crazy cost of tuition and everything else, she’d agreed, thinking she’d take the classes she really wanted to take and then, when it was time for her to go for her graduate degree, she could work a decent job and get her upper degree in something she really wanted.
That hadn’t panned out exactly as she had planned.
Nothing had turned out like she had hoped and planned, least of all her love life.
She’d met Todd during her senior year of college, and his dream had been to become a lawyer. She’d gone into that profession knowing it was the wrong one, and knowing she was just doing it to please her family and him—which was the wrong reason to take on the wrong career path.
It had certainly not ended well. That was for sure. All she had to show for selling out her dreams was a broken engagement and all the heartache and constant embarrassment that came from a groom who’d decided to run off with her bridesmaid the day before the wedding, and a lot of trust issues.
She wandered into the building where her offices were located. She’d no sooner crossed the doorway than Mr. Pilman, the founder of the firm, rushed at her with wide eyes and a seriously pissed-off expression on his paunchy face. He said, “I need the Reynolds’ files, and now. I can’t find them anywhere.”
“I don’t have a case for anyone named Reynolds.”
His hands yanked at his hair. His eyes, the cold color of frozen lakes, narrowed. “I know that; I do. And the files are lost. Get them back.”
Jesus Christ. Her life just kept proving, over and over, how shitty it was. She was not a secretary or an assistant; she was a goddamn lawyer with the student debt and degree on her wall to prove it, but Pilman was forever acting as if it were nineteen fifty-five and she some hapless woman with the misfortune to be his salaried slave. Her teeth clenched. “I would not have the slightest idea of what you did with your files Mr. Pilman.”
His teeth showed between his lips. “Betty’s gone. Probably quit. Why these goddamn millennials can’t stay at a job is beyond me.”
She was a millennial, something he had either overlooked or was willing to say because he knew there was nothing she could say about the word. It was hardly a slur, even if he was using it as one: something that just made her want to kick him right in his fat shin.
Betty had likely quit because she didn’t want to deal with a psychotic misogynistic asshole screaming at her all day, and all so she could earn minimum wage. It was probably better not to say so though—not given how close to the edge Pilman was at the moment, and how rare jobs were at that moment too. She had to have at least six more months of experience before she could hope to move on and out of his firm and into one where she might actually earn a living wage and get some benefits while she was at it.
Heather said, “Okay. Where did Betty keep the files?”
He shot back a belligerent, “How would I know? That’s not my job.”
Not my job either, you bastard, but let’s go with that. Heather fixed a smile on her face and said, “I’ll just see what I can do.”
Never mind that she had clients coming in less than twenty minutes and a long list of papers to file and things to do.
God, maybe a date—a decent one—was just what she needed in her life!
