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“So… Is anyone going to clue me in as to what the hell is going on?” Atticus asked, looking between Vivian and I who now worked on opposite sides of the office. It had been a week since that night, and we still hadn’t spoken a word to each other. We did our work, pretended the other wasn’t there, and then went home.
She didn’t answer him, and neither did I.
“Okay then.” He leaned back.
Levi had only brought it up to me once and that was the night of the ball.
Are you running?
That was all he wanted to know. It frustrated me how relaxed he was about all of it. However, I wasn’t running. I couldn’t find the strength to run from him anymore, and I was tired of running.
Now that we were basically living at his office, filing reports, doing coffee runs, or just stapling papers, I once again realized how important he was.
“What’s going on?” Atticus asked again, but this time he wasn’t talking about us.
Instead, he was looking out the office and at the stream of reporters that were following Betty. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected that she either knew, or assumed, that something was going on between Levi and I. Every time I walked past her in the hallway, she would pause, look me over, and smile to herself like she’d heard something funny.
“Didn’t you hear? Professor Black won Lawyer of the Year,” Raymond said as he leaned against the door.
He looked as sharp as ever in his navy blue suit.
I had read up on Raymond; he was one of Levi’s first associates, and the only person who was not of Harvard breeding. Instead, he went to Boston College and had attended one of Levi’s seminars. To get an internship, he stood outside every day for three weeks, and handed Levi his morning cup of coffee… in the winter. In his personal reports, it said he only took four days off per year to visit his mother in Jamaica.
“He has an interview going on, so if anyone asks you anything about anything, smile and lie.”
“So, if they ask how it feels to spend our evenings filing briefings from three years ago, we should say it’s great?” Atticus asked sarcastically, as he pulled out the files he needed to work on next.
“Some people would kill to be where you are. I remember being at the bottom of the food chain. Believe me, it’s worth it when you get to sit at the grown-up table.” He looked to me, “Now, one of you, get me some coffee.”
“Black?” I asked getting up.
“Cream and four sugars… you really should stop volunteering yourself, or you’ll be remembered as the coffee girl,” he said to me, leaving as he heard his named called by none other than Tristan.
“He’s right you know,” Atticus replied, and Vivian walked right in front of my face, as if I wasn’t even there, grabbed my papers and then moved back to her desk.
“Anyway,” Atticus shook his head, “coffee girl can—”
“I hear office gossip when I’m walking around. Plus being seen working is good—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be getting me coffee?” Raymond asked me.
“Really? Good, Levi was just asking for it. Hurry up,” Tristan said, leading Raymond away.
“You’ll get to hear some of the interview,” Atticus pointed out.
“Of course,” Vivian muttered.
I turned on my heels and left. She wanted to be a child about it, then fine, I could handle her little digs. Entering the break room, I ran straight into Betty, sending her tray of cookies and pretzels everywhere.
“Betty, I’m so sorry,” I said as I dropped down and began picking up the mess I had made.
“It’s okay, never mind the mess, I’m just going to have to order something for them—”
“I can run out and get it.”
“You're a lawyer, not a delivery girl. I got it,” she laughed when I stood back up, handing her the tray of broken treats.
She was being nice… no one in this office was nice to any of the “twelve”. We all believed that Levi had told them to give us the hardest time possible over the smallest of things. For example, last week Atticus had misplaced someone’s cup, and all of sudden it was being treated like a missing person’s case.
