Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“I take it you haven’t shown these to Ms. Bianchi or her client yet?”
“No, Your Honor.”
He nodded and held the envelope out to the court officer. “Frank, give these to Ms. Bianchi, please. I’m going to allow the witness and the new evidence, but I want a full explanation as to why this person couldn’t be found sooner. If I’m not satisfied that you aren’t playing games, I’ll throw out the testimony and pretend this mess never happened. Do you understand, Mr. Pierce?”
“Yes, Judge. Thank you.”
I took the envelope from the court officer and spoke up. “Your Honor, I’d like to request—”
Judge Harrison held up a hand and cut me off. “I know, I know. You want a recess. We’ll take one hour for you to talk to your client about the new evidence.” He lifted his gavel and slammed it down. “You’re gonna need every second of that time.”
***
Today had turned into the day from hell.
I sat on the subway at 5:45 in the afternoon, sweating my ass off in a jam-packed car. We hadn’t moved in nearly an hour, and the air was thick and sour. Seriously? What the heck else could go wrong? First, I’d walked in on old man Kasoff getting a blow job, then my case blew up in my face when my client’s ex somehow got pictures of her sleeping with their eighteen-year-old son’s best friend, and now I was going to have sweat rings when I arrived at the partner announcement—if I even made it before it ended. This day couldn’t get any worse.
Or so I thought…
Twenty-five minutes later, I arrived at the office and made a beeline for the executive conference room. I would’ve liked to freshen up in the ladies’ room first, but there was no time. As I pushed open the glass door, all heads turned to me.
“Sorry,” I said softly. “Train got stuck.”
Harry Kasoff frowned and cleared his throat before continuing with the same speech I’d heard for the last two years, since every fourth-year associate and older attended the annual partner announcements. I was ten minutes late, yet he continued to drone on about the history of the firm for another twenty. At least that gave me a little time to cool off, and now my forehead would be dry when they called my name.
Jonathan Faust, the second named partner of the firm, spoke after Harry finally shut up. I recognized his speech as almost word for word from last year, too. His bit focused on what they look for in potential partners—the qualities of leadership: integrity, drive, resilience…blah, blah, blah. While he rattled on, I scanned the packed room. There were probably eighty senior associates and partners crammed four rows deep around the twenty-seat conference table. I spotted two of the associates who were a year ahead of me and I thought might be granted partnership this time around. I’d been surprised last year when they weren’t named. As I rounded the circle back to where the partners stood, my eyes landed on Sierra Wells. She’d definitely put on a fresh coat of lipstick and fixed her hair before the meeting. And was that…was that a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth? It seemed like she was trying to hide it, but the dimple denting her cheek and the glint shining in her eyes gave her away. She couldn’t possibly think she was going to be made a partner this year, could she?
It certainly looked like it. In fact—my eyes lowered to her outfit—even that screamed it. Normally she wore slacks and a blouse like most of us did, but today she had on a little black dress, the kind you might wear out to dinner or to some sort of a celebratory occasion.
A flicker of doubt seeped into my stomach. Could I not make partner and Sierra would? Was that remotely possible? I hadn’t thought so before this moment. But suddenly, something I believed in, something I’d been counting on, felt very fragile—like any second my world could shatter.
Jonathan finally finished his speech, and the last of the three named partners stepped forward. Rich Moore was the youngest and friendliest of the trio.
“You’ve all been waiting very patiently for my partners to shut the hell up.” He smiled and laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “No offense, boys. But you can really go on and on.”
Everyone laughed, and Rich took out a folded piece of paper from his pants pocket. He spoke as he opened it. “There are six names this year. I swear I know them all, but I’m going to read them from this paper just to make sure I don’t screw this up.”
He held the paper out once it was fully unfolded.
“Congratulations to the following associates who are being offered partnership this year: Tom Walker.”