"You kind of look like my mother, but not really. Her name is Crystal. I'm fine. Just got confused. My house looks exactly like my sister's house." I pointed at the brownstone next door before pointing at Kimmy's.
"Your sister?" She gave me the look, the skeptical look I get when people found out about my adopted family. One would think I'd gotten used to it after all these years. Maybe it was all the tequila shots, but tonight it pissed me off. She continued, "The woman that owns this brownstone is not your sister, and I'm not your mother, so you need to take your drunk ass home, to your actual house, before I call the cops."
"Kimbery Shimmins is my shishter!" I yelled as I backed away from her towards my house. I could hear myself slurring my words and considered the possibility that trying to walk and talk at the same time wasn't the best idea. I turned toward my house, continuing to amble forward. "And I'm glad you're not my mom because my mom is awesome, and you'd be a shitty mom with your baseball bat and your potty mouth."
Even though I was sure I just used the words "potty mouth," I knew I'd said something profound because I was met with silence.
I turned to look at her and found her expression blank. A loud and expletive-filled response was what I expected, but she just stood there, frozen and a little sad. A feeling like regret crept over me, but I couldn't figure out what I should have felt regretful about. I tried to replay the last thing I said, but I couldn't fucking remember, something about Kimberly and a shitty potty?
That look… I couldn't stand seeing it, so I turned away from her and climbed the steps to my door, where I typed in the four-digit code.
Green checkmark.
The throbbingin my head woke me up before I could open my eyes. I'd stayed out late drinking last night and stumbled into bed fully clothed. Again. I barely remembered anything after Beck Cameron's last round of shots. I must have taken a cab home, and I vaguely remembered meeting someone last night. A woman—a beautiful woman who was pissed at me for some reason. I climbed out of bed and trudged to the bathroom, swallowed two Advil, and turned on the shower.
The hot water beat me into consciousness, and memories of last night began to float together in tiny little patches. I had tried to get into Kimberly's house last night, thinking it was mine. We used to have the codes to each other's houses until I went to her home by accident one night, and her fiancé almost beat the shit out of me with a hammer before he realized who I was. Apparently, the nickname Thor had more significance than his resemblance to Chris Hemsworth. The thought ignited a flicker of a memory. The beautiful woman I met last night had a baseball bat. She was outside of Kimberly's house. I said something to upset her, but I couldn't remember what it was. I focused on putting myself together and getting to work.
After a stop at Starbucks,I stepped off of the elevator at seven forty-five. Technically the offices didn't open until eight thirty, and unless we were working on a big case, the senior associates and partners usually didn't show up until after nine. I was a first-year associate, which meant I always had to be here, working my ass off, but not busy, in case one of the partners needed something. My father was also a partner at this law firm before he became a judge, so I also had to prove that I wasn't just a rich kid using Daddy's connections. My dream had always been to work for Hollander and Cameron ever since my dad would bring me here as a kid. I wanted to be just like him. Whenever Crystal was in trouble, we would come to this building, and her lawyer, Reginald Simmons, would fix everything like a superhero. He was also a legend at the firm and was now a United States district court judge, so I'm sure my presence at the firm wasn't purely based on merit. That's why I was determined to work twice as hard as everyone else.
"Good Morning, Judy." I flashed the office manager a grin and handed her a venti mocha latte, 130 degrees.
“Thank you, Cole.” She snatched the cup from me and took a sip. “There is not enough coffee in the world. Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
"Every day, but I never get tired of hearing it," I called over my shoulder. I sat at my desk, or a fancy version of a cubicle, and started working.
In the years I spent daydreaming about being an attorney, I thought it would be closer toLaw and Orderand not hours sorting through discovery requests, filing motions, and reading depositions for hours. It would be worth it if the work were fulfilling. I wanted to become a lawyer to help people like Crystal and me. Most of what we did at Hollander and Cameron involved helping rich people get richer.
Discovery requests in the movies usually depicted someone running into a conference room carrying a file that held the one piece of paper that was the key to winning the "big case." In reality, discovery requests could be four boxes of documents that need to be combed through carefully to find a specific piece of information that may or may not be there. This was a task for first-years. Most of my morning was spent sifting through three years of email conversations from a real estate company looking for any mention of steel beams.
“There he is,” Beck Cameron called behind me. He was the son of Bryce Cameron, one of the managing partners. He’d have a good shot at following in his father’s footsteps if he wasn’t such a fuckup. Beck’s voice was still raspy from last night. “How the fuck do you do it?”
I turned to face him. He was in the same suit he wore to work yesterday, a pair of sunglasses, and sipped something green out of a giant clear Starbucks cup.
“You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit.” He dropped into his chair.
“Are those the clothes you had on yesterday, man?” They smelled like last night too.
“Well, I didn’t exactly make it home yesterday.” He dropped his sunglasses and raised his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean…”
“You mean, you met someone at the bar last night and went to their house to have sex,” I deadpanned.
His expression soured. “Maybe if you tried it once in a while, you’d be in a better mood.”
“I’ll think about it.” I turned back to my computer.
I ignored Beck and tried to focus on work, but the only thing I could think about was my bat-wielding neighbor.
It wasa quarter to nine when I finally stepped off of the subway to make the five-minute walk to my house. My parents lived in the brownstone on the corner. I saw that the front parlor light was on, and my stomach had the Pavlovian response it usually did whenever I got in proximity to my mom's kitchen. The growling also reminded me that I worked straight through lunch and skipped dinner.
Walking into my parents’ house was a crapshoot. Mom and Dad were always affectionate growing up, but since the three of us moved out… Well, it was always a good idea to announce yourself when you came in.
“Mom? Dad?” I yelled after taking off my shoes and walking into the empty sitting room.
“We’re in here, baby,” Mom called. It sounded like she was in the dining room.
The faint melody of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" played as I found my parents sitting on opposite sides of the table wearing their reading glasses and hunched over laptops, probably working on real estate stuff. Dad was a judge, and Mom was a psychiatrist, but together, they had invested in real estate around New York since the early nineties, and most of their money came from those properties. It was how their three kids were able to afford their own brownstones on the same street.
