Authors: Margo Karasek
I stumbled out of the courtroom, desperate to get a handle on my newfound good fortune, but instead was distracted by the cell phone I pulled out of my bag when I tried to organize the business cards.
I had one new text message. From Julian.
“You’ll do great. Yours, always,” it read.
I stared at the message and wondered what, if anything, it would mean for the future, for us. It wasn’t exactly an apology. Still …
“Tekla?”
The sound of Markus’s voice had me looking away from the phone and into his smiling face. I shut off Julian’s message.
“The judge has made his decision. Come on.”
I reached for Markus’s outstretched hand.
CHAPTER 29
T
HE RECEPTIONIST
in Stephen Lamont’s office was new—just as blonde as her predecessor, but maybe younger and taller and definitely thinner—if that were possible.
“Yes?” she demanded haughtily when I approached her desk.
“I’ve been waiting for Mr. Lamont for the past fifteen minutes,” I pointed out, no longer willing to be intimidated by Wall Street tycoons—or their secretaries.
After all
, I thought as I padded the bag at my shoulder—the one with all the business cards safely tucked in its pockets—
I had other prospects
.
It was Monday, and I had arrived for my scheduled meeting with Stephen Lamont on the dot, although he hadn’t bothered consulting me with the scheduling. And now he was M.I.A. and I was stuck, waiting, listening to the office clock tick away the day yet again. “I have a class to get to,” I informed the receptionist.
Then I marched back to the waiting room, willing to give Stephen Lamont five more minutes, max.
Because I knew what was coming. And it wasn’t a thank you. Although Monique did mail hers: a Hermes Birkin bag, probably worth a small fortune.
I passed the bag on to Lauren. I wasn’t that cheap. And neither was Gemma.
Besides, the gesture somehow seemed appropriate. My troubles started with Lauren’s idea; they could also end with her. And end they would.
I had talked to Xander since the oral argument. Once. Stephen Lamont had forbidden all other communications until he said otherwise. But I did manage to find out Xander had been suspended, and Gemma had been released from the hospital, taken out of the city, and chartered off to a private clinic in Europe for further rehabilitation. Too bad, because what she really needed to recover was her mother. But Monique was back at work, and Gemma was beyond my reach.
Clearly, my services were no longer needed.
“Mr. Lamont will see you now,” the receptionist called over, then ushered me into Stephen’s office.
He sat behind his Federal desk, with the East River behind him. As usual, he did not indicate a seat for me.
“Well, Miss Reznar,” he said as he reclined in the chair and fiddled with the bowtie at his neck, “you have been quite a busy young woman. Getting drunk teenagers to public hospitals—really, you couldn’t come up with a better alternative?—threatening to call in the authorities, destroying academic reputations.”
The man suddenly made me think of the Mad Hatter, short legs dangling, talking in riddles, utterly crazy. “Getting drunk teenagers to a hospital” …
Was he kidding me? Was he really going to write-off Gemma’s attempted suicide as nothing more than another unfortunate drinking binge?
And it quickly became apparent that wasn’t even the heart of Mr. Lamont’s beef with me: It was all about Xander and his suspension. How could any father who almost lost a child care about something so insignificant in comparison?
Gemma almost took her own life
, I wanted to point out, but of course didn’t, because Stephen Lamont wasn’t the sort to listen.
“I have spent the whole morning cleaning up your mess, Miss Reznar,” Mr. Lamont snapped as he straightened up in his chair, all pretense of friendly chatter abandoned.
I straightened just as fast. My mess! Excuse me, but I didn’t ignore Gemma to the point of suicide.
I
didn’t pay someone to help Xander cheat. My mess, indeed!
“Do you know that Xander’s teacher actually wanted to expel him?” Stephen Lamont continued, clearly offended.
Well, yeah
, I nodded. That was usually what happened when students got caught. It was called “discipline.” The teacher would have been remiss to do anything less.
“But he won’t be making that mistake again anytime soon,” Stephen concluded. I must have looked my surprise, because he elaborated. “As of this morning, his teacher Robert Dandridge is on probation, his contract up for review at year’s end. If I have any say in the matter—and as the head of the Board of Trustees, I’ll have plenty to say—he won’t be welcomed back at the school. No one threatens
my
son. No one. Luckily for the rest of the administration, the school has issued Xander an apology. He will receive his A, and is guaranteed a position on
Horizons
. Unfortunately, I have yet to convince the editors of the anthology that they will be publishing it.”
His words pounded me with the force of a tsunami. Xander was back, and it was the
teacher
who now faced expulsion? And the school was apologizing because Xander got caught cheating? Undoubtedly all this was happening so it—the school—and its employees wouldn’t lose money.
I stumbled backwards, certain I had fallen down a rabbit hall and ended up in an upside-down universe where the Stephens were as powerful as the Queen, and anyone who got in their way … off with their heads!
Did money know no boundaries? This was a
school
we were talking about. Yeah, sure, as an important trustee, Stephen Lamont probably held the strings to a very large purse, but what about academic integrity? Were the wealthy students subject to a different standard? Apparently so: as long as the parents paid, and paid handsomely, the children could do as they pleased, teachers be damned.
“Which brings us back to you, Miss Reznar.”
Stephen Lamont looked close to shouting, but his voice remained calm, deathly so. I fidgeted, my hands idling up and down my legs and arms, until they finally rested on the strap of my bag. My Louis Vuitton. Original. The gift from Gemma. I gulped, both because I was so about to be fired—bye-bye, hefty paycheck—and well, because there was Gemma, with her crazy fantasies and generous displays of friendship. Even Xander had his moments. And the two so desperately needed a reliable, present adult in their lives.
“How dare you?” Stephen Lamont demanded.
I grasped the strap of my bag harder. Because no matter how much I wanted to help, I couldn’t save Gemma or Xander, not from their parents, and not from their plush circumstances. I didn’t have the power to do what was best for them.
The strap bent in my hand. I loosened my grip, so as not to damage the true bounty within: the cards with names to people and jobs I could start immediately.
“How dare you jeopardize my children’s future?” Now Mr. Lamont did yell. “I hired you to tutor. Nothing else. Yet you had to meddle in matters that were none of your concern.”
I
had to meddle … I bit down on my lip. Gemma came to
me
. Better yet,
Stephen
made Lisa call me when he couldn’t find Xander.
“You will, of course, be paid for your time at the hospital,” Stephen Lamont said. “But from now on you may consider your employment, like that of the teacher, up for review. I haven’t the inclination to look for a replacement in the middle of the school year. All truly qualified candidates are likely employed for the year by someone else anyway. But you may be certain your position is temporary.” He leaned back in his chair, slipped off his glasses and rubbed the eyeballs. “You hire a tutor at $600 an hour,” he mumbled, “you’d think you get competence, discretion. Instead, I get an unprofessional girl who may as well notify the tabloids … ”
His mouth kept on going but my brain stopped listening. Actually, it was stuck on one fact.
$600 an hour!
The number knocked the breath right out of me.
That was $450 an hour more than I was actually making. And there was no way Stephen Lamont had misspoken, not about money. The math was simple, really. I made $150. He paid $600. Add two and two together and you got …
Patricia Jacobs. Elite Tutoring Agency.
Now the wheels in my brain were spinning, accelerating, exponentially.
You’re my star, Tekla, my superstar. Call anytime you need help. I’m there for you.
Yeah, right. Not once! Not once did
that
woman respond to a call for help. And she was making a killing on me—three times what I made.
For what?
My body boiled.
I counted breaths, in and out.
The fact in no way changed my reality. I had known she had to be making money off of me—why else would she be in the business in the first place—I just hadn’t suspected how big her actual cut was. And her take in no way diminished mine.
I stared at Stephen Lamont, his mouth moving.
Mwa, mwa, mwa
, was all I heard as my brain crystallized on where I actually stood with him.
He wasn’t firing me. Yet.
Because he couldn’t afford to.
There was no one to replace me, not even Lisa. If he could fire me, he would never have bothered with a personal meeting in the first place. Lisa didn’t merit one, and she slept with the man. So this was nothing more than another scare tactic.
Here I was, really in no different a place than in the beginning. I could keep on working, making my $150 per hour. Ms. Jacobs would get her cut, Gemma and Xander would get their homework done, and Stephen Lamont would keep matters just the way he liked them—in his control.
Peachy.
“Miss Reznar!” Stephen’s annoyed voice finally filtered through the noise in my brain. “Are you hearing me?”
I contemplated his face and nodded.
Oh, I heard him, all right. Loud and clear.
For the first time, I really heard and understood everything. And then I said what I wish I could have at the very first whiff of trouble, with Xander and Gemma, the job, my schoolwork.
“I quit.”
EPILOGUE
Summer
“
A
ND HERE’S
the Court’s library,” Judge Thompson’s main clerk said as she ushered me around massive stacks of books, journals and digests. She was my guide, my how-to person, as I stumbled through my very first judicial clerkship—at the United States Court of Appeals, no less. I puffed up as I did every time I thought of the prize. “You will need to use it when you research and draft the judge’s opinions. Speaking of which,” she said as she handed me a stack of papers, “here are the briefs for a case coming up on the docket next week. The judge wants you to work on it.”
I took the stack and glanced down my spanking-new first-day-on-the job suit.
The clerk chuckled.
“Judge Thompson is a firm believer in hitting the ground running. You’ll do fine. No better way to learn than on the job, he likes to say.”
I cringed, both at the cliché and, well, that I would actually have to do work on my first day. I had envisioned tours around the court, introductions, social lunches, and an early departure.
“If you have any questions, find me.”
The clerk made for the exit.
“Wait!” I called after her. “What exactly am I supposed to do with these?” I waved the papers. Was I expected to know something I clearly didn’t? Was I behind already?
The clerk smiled again. “Research and summarize the case law mentioned in the briefs, and all other applicable precedents. The judge wants an objective view, not colored by the lawyers. Then, after the argument, the judge will tell you his ruling and you’ll draft the opinion. Come to me before and I’ll fill you in on the structure, style and voice the judge prefers.”
My mouth dropped as the clerk walked out of view.
What? She must be mistaken. There was no way the judge didn’t write his own opinions. None. Judge Thompson was infamous for the sharp, almost sarcastic, tone of his rulings. Multiple writers couldn’t possibly duplicate such an original voice. Plus, no
judge
, surely, would dare overstep the ethical boundaries. The clerk had to have meant I would help the judge organize, edit and transcribe his thoughts.
Obviously. The judge was a busy man, too busy for such mundane tasks.
I shook my head and found a worktable. And got to work. Because the faster I finished, the sooner I could leave and get to my date. With my boyfriend.
Yup. I bounced up and down in my seat. And giggled.
I had a boyfriend. As of last week, we were exclusive, and he was turning out to be quite the Mr. Perfect.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margo Karasek is a graduate of New York University, both its Law School and the College of Arts & Science, where she earned a journalism and anthropology degree, with high honors. Since quitting the law, she has tutored for some of the wealthiest, best known families in New York. She currently lives in Queens with her husband and their two children. This is her first novel. She is busy working on her second.
If you’d like to show additional support to the author, please review this novel on www.amazon.com, or e-mail [email protected] Your comments are greatly appreciated.
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