Work for Hire (15 page)

I couldn’t find a suitable response. What was wrong with these people?

Julian took hold of my shoulders, kissed me on the cheek like before—though this kiss was less romantic, by far—positioned me out of his way, and hightailed it for the door.

I plopped back on the loveseat. Alone.

Well, that was … fun.

I eyed the vodka still sitting on the table, and reached for the glass. I twirled the lowball in my hand and, what the hell, gulped down its content in one fast swig. The liquor burned a hot path to my stomach, momentarily robbing me of breath. I hissed when the vodka finally settled.

At least Julian had paid for the drinks. My mother couldn’t complain about that.

I returned the empty glass to the table and glanced down at my wristwatch.

It was barely ten.

Our date had lasted less than an hour.

CHAPTER 9

H
OW WAS
your date?

The instant message popped up on my computer screen during Constitutional Law class. I paused my fingers over the computer’s keyboard, right in the middle of transcribing Professor Johnson’s lecture on the glorious power of the Constitution’s commerce clause, and stared both at the message and its accompanying username.

Law#1.

Only one person I knew loved the law so much she made it her screen name.

Ann.

I turned my head ever so slightly—lest Professor Johnson notice any sudden movement and, God forbid, call on me again—to look at her. She sat in front of her laptop in her customary black turtleneck, low bun and horn-rimmed glasses, seemingly absorbed in the lecture.

Appearances were deceiving.

I turned back to my screen.

Damn. How had she found out about the date?
Worse, how many other section mates would now read her message and latch on to the potentially juicy tidbit? We were all on the same buddy list. And, boy, did we love to gossip, especially during a boring lecture. But gossip was only fun when it concerned somebody else.

I didn’t want classmates speculating about
my
love life, or its lack thereof.

Fine.

I typed the one word and mentally crossed fingers, hoping the uninformative answer would help Ann get the hint to drop the subject.

Better than fine. She got back after midnight.

The comment from HotStuff popped up in mere seconds.

Damn. Lauren. Should’ve figured. Miss “Hot Stuff,” today garbed in a Dolce & Gabbana skin-tight tube dress, couldn’t keep her mouth shut even if a court issued a gag order.

Had to hand it to Lauren’s top-notch investigative skills, though: I could’ve sworn she was sound asleep when I got back to the dorm

Date? What date?
Markus7 demanded.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Markus—button-down shirt, hair parted down the middle, wounded puppy eyes—turn to face me and stare, clearly unafraid of Professor Johnson’s wrath.

Of course, Markus was always prepared. He likely knew the casebook in and out by now, and didn’t care if Professor Johnson called on him every day.

Last night. She went out with some hottie.

Lauren again.

I ground my teeth and swiveled my chair for a clear shot at Lauren’s shin, Professor Johnson be damned.

Lauren
knew
about Markus and the teeny white lie I had told to get him off my back.

Proof-positive she felt
something
for him because why else would she go out of her way to make me look bad?

And it was those feelings that had me stopping short with the kick. Maybe I was her Monique and Markus was her Julian.

“Shut up,” I mumbled instead and swiveled back in my seat, just in time to read Markus’s new message.

I thought you said you weren’t dating during law school.

Er … hmm. I had said exactly that and, officially, I wasn’t, at least where Markus was concerned. The fib had seemed like such an ideal solution to Markus’s constant pestering for a date: I got to say no, his feelings weren’t hurt and we were still friends and study buddies. What I would do after graduation, I didn’t know. But for now, all was good.

And I wanted it to stay that way.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I searched for the right response.

I could write the truth, that the date was a complete disaster, but then Markus would know I had lied about not dating and would get hurt, mad or—worse—start asking me out again, and everyone else in the section—and soon the whole law school—would know about my pathetic love life.

I could say the date went great—hey, what was one more lie—but then what would I do when no second date materialized? Not to mention Markus. Sure, he’d get the message I wasn’t interested, but he would also stop speaking to me entirely.

Or I could take the lawyer’s approach.

Nothing happened
. I wrote and smiled in thanks for the legal training. After all, nothing
did
happen during the date, not even a hot kiss.

I met with a coworker, then went to the movies.
Strictly speaking, true again. Julian was sort of my coworker. We worked for the same people. And I did go to the movies. After. To avoid Lauren and the questions I wasn’t in the mood to answer. No one had to know I went there alone.

The movie ran long, so I got back late. A one-time deal.
Again, all true. I wouldn’t be going anywhere with Julian any time soon.

End of story.
And end of discussion. To punctuate the fact, I got off the Internet before Markus, Lauren or anyone else had time to write something new. Crisis averted, I returned my attention to the lecture and the professor, who stood at the podium in front of the lecture hall, as tanned as ever, a George Hamilton in full gesticulating glory.

“The Supreme Court’s expansive reading of the commerce clause, ladies and gentlemen, has made it the most important of Congress’s regulatory powers,” Professor Johnson waved his right arm like a South American general greeting his adoring army. “Congress today may regulate even small, individual activities which by themselves have no discernible effect on commerce as long as all such activities, in the aggregate, can have an effect on commerce.”

Huh? Discernible effect on the aggregate? Shit. I reopened my class notes. In all that instant messaging I must’ve missed a few steps.

“But let’s take it to the beginning,” Professor Johnson said, stepping down from the podium and leaning against the lectern. “To 1824 and
Gibbons v. Ogden,
the foundation for our understanding of the commerce clause today.”

Gibbons.
I scrolled through my case briefs, stopped on the fact summary and scanned the sad tale of Mr. O’s monopoly within the grand state of New York, and Mr. G’s competing monopoly. Obviously, two monopolies in operation in the same place were impossible—hence, the law suit.

“With
Gibbons
,” Professor Johnson tapped his finger on the lectern, for added emphasis. “The United States Supreme Court first held that if a state law conflicts with a congressional act regulating commerce, the congressional act is controlling. That’s why Ogden had to lose. This, ladies and gentlemen, was a monumental decision.”

Congressional act controlling. Monumental decision.
I pounded away on my keyboard, barely keeping up with the flood of Professor Johnson’s words of constitutional wisdom.

“Now let’s consider how the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890 impacted this holding.”

Professor Johnson moved back on the podium and took his place in front of the lectern.

I sat back in my seat and reread the notes.
Interstate Commerce Act
?
A monumental decision
? Poor Mr. O lost out on his monopoly and probably lots of money, but a monumental decision? What was so monumental about two white rich guys fighting over more dough? It wasn’t like losing out on a few dollars matched the importance of, say, the
Dred Scott
holding or
New York Times v. Sullivan
. Not to mention
Brown v. Board of Education.

I glanced up from the screen and eyed Professor Johnson. He was playing with his gold cuff link, his lips moving, producing a constant flow of legal jargon discussing commerce, when there was the whole civil rights movement yet to be analyzed, along with all the First Amendment cases. What was next, the tax clause?

I tuned out Professor Johnson’s droning and looked around the lecture hall. The girl seated in front of me was playing chess with her computer. Lauren was surfing the web. Even Markus had a game of solitaire going on his screen. Clearly, I wasn’t the only student left uninspired by Professor Johnson’s choice of subject.

So I minimized my class notes and got back on line, to check e-mail. And I had three new messages!

I clicked on the first one.

Hey Tekla, sorry about last night. I’ll call you when I’m back in the city.

I stared at the two sentences then reread them again.

Julian. The
jerk.
He probably e-mailed me from his trusty iPhone on the way to the airport. I wasn’t even worth a personal call.

Delete.

Yeah, call me later, buddy. See if I pick up. Have fun in Milan with Monique.

The next message promised me bigger breasts in a week if I just used Bust-A-Size cream enhancer. I wished.

The third message had me pausing.

problem!!!!!
the subject line screamed.

I looked for the sender’s address.

[email protected] didn’t look familiar.

I opened the text.

yo tekla.

Xander. I could almost hear him speak the greeting.

tried calling. ur phone off. big problem. dad made me show eng essay. wasnt happy. tell me to tell u u better have good essay in 1 hour or else. think hes serious. so heres essay. rewrite & everything ok. i think. bye.

One hour! I checked the time Xander sent the message. Forty-five minutes ago. I had fifteen minutes left!

Fifteen minutes to do
what
? I sat bolt upright in my seat. Professor Johnson was still at the lectern, blabbing about Congress and commerce. I reached for my bag and fished for the phone. But I couldn’t just get up and leave the lecture. Professor Johnson would crucify me. And whom would I call anyway, and about what? Xander wouldn’t be any help and I was not about to argue with Mr. Lamont. No, the phone was out. I dropped it back in the bag and returned to Xander’s message.

I could ignore the e-mail—pretend I hadn’t seen it—and call Mr. Lamont’s bluff. What would he do, fire me? After all, Xander’s essay wasn’t due for another two days. He already had the first paragraph I wrote. I could coach him on the rest until he learned something, anything, about writing, and Mr. Lamont was happy with the final product.

Yeah, that’s what I would do. I relaxed back in my seat. Everything would work out fine. No need to panic. It wasn’t easy to find a replacement tutor in the middle of the school year, Mr. Lamont had said.

Then again, I thought as I fidgeted in my seat, we were talking about Mr. Lamont. He didn’t joke.

I could lose my job over a measly English paper.

I nibbled my lip. Trying to actually teach Xander how to write and thereby appease my conscience wasn’t worth the risk of a lost job.

I balled my hand into a fist; there was no alternative. And really, it was only
one
paper. I would absolutely make certain Xander wrote all the others, threats or no threats.

I’ll have something for you in thirty minutes.

I replied to Xander, downloaded his attached essay—my one good paragraph and a lot of his gibberish—and got to work, hoping Mr. Lamont wouldn’t fire me when the paper came in a few minutes late, because not even Stephen King could write an entire essay in under fifteen minutes.

Okay, maybe Stephen King.

Twenty-five minutes later, I was still writing—barely cognizant of Professor Johnson’s continued litany of cases or Markus’s tapping on my knee—about creativity, about Xander’s mother and her copied photographs. If Monique ever read the essay, undoubtedly she’d have a few choice words to say. But, then, I could honestly answer that though the composition was mine, the choice of topic completely belonged to Xander.

Consequently, few ideas today are really original
, I typed and hesitated. “Consequently”: Would a fourteen-year-old ever use the word? Probably not. I aimed for the delete key but stopped myself short. Hell, no teacher could seriously believe Xander wrote any part of this essay. Might as well leave it in.
True creativity is hard to find, even in the artistic fields
, my fingers danced over the keyboard. Markus’s tapping intensified. I swatted his hand away from my knee.
Just as my mother’s pictures duplicate the paintings of the past …

“Miss Reznar!” Professor Johnson boomed.

I jumped in my seat and jerked my eyes up from the screen, towards the podium where Professor Johnson should have been.

Except he wasn’t.

I swiveled my head from left to right, trying to locate him.

“Behind you,” Markus whispered.

I turned. Yup. There was Professor Johnson, almost directly behind my seat, just a few students off. How, when, had he gotten there? And, more importantly, why? It couldn’t be because of me. He couldn’t possibly have it in for me that much. True, I hadn’t been paying attention, but I wasn’t disrupting the class either. It had to be a coincidence that he now hovered over my back—an unlucky coincidence.

“You seem very preoccupied, Miss Reznar.” Professor Johnson rested his hip on the table behind me. Students moved their computers and books out of his way. “May I ask what you are so busy writing, since I haven’t uttered a single word in the past two minutes?”