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My face flushes with embarrassment. “Angelo isn’t my assistant. I said he’s helping with a case. And yes, I’m very—”
“Where did you even find that man?” Mom asks, her nose wrinkled. “Honestly, Sara. He looks like a bartender.”
That’s about the biggest insult my mother can imagine.
“I can’t discuss the case with you two, all right? Why are you here?”
Dad turns his hard glare on me. “Is that how you talk to your parents now?”
I stiffen in response. “No. Sorry. I just mean this is a surprise, is all. You caught me off guard.”
“You don’t need to be on guard for your parents, dear,” Mom says from the door. She looks like she’d rather throw herself out a window than come deeper into my office.
Shame hits me hard. I don’t keep my space as neat and tidy as I should. It’s not bad—it’s clean, and I keep it dusted and I have my own organization system—but it’s cluttered. That’s just how I work. But back when I was a kid, my parents would constantly criticize the way I kept my room. Mom would go on and on about how a cluttered life meant a cluttered mind. Now she must be sick, thinking this is what my brain’s like.
“I just mean—I’m working, that’s all.” I look at Dad, feeling helpless, but he’s not about to make life easier on me.
“We heard you have a new case,” he says, eyes narrowing. “A friend of mine told me at the club just last night.”
The Club. He means the Oak Club, this exclusive rich guy place where all his powerful friends congregate. I’ve never been there, but Dad’s famous and skilled enough that all the high-powered wealthy folks who like to have a doctor around granted him a membership.
“Who’s talking about me at the Oak?” I ask, feeling genuinely disturbed.
“You don’t need to know that,” Dad says and crosses his arms. “Sara, dear, you know your mother and I were very happy when we heard you got a junior position at Klein and Houndson, but we didn’t know—” He stops himself and glances back at Mom.
“We didn’t know your office was so small.”
I clench my jaw. I wanted to scream at them that I’m lucky to have an office at all, that I’m brand new here and the bottom of the totem pole, that I’m a woman working twice as hard, that I’m freaking pregnant, but I can’t say any of that. Instead, all my anger gets funneled deep inside and channeled into the dark pit I have brewing in my chest, the place where I’ve always shoved my feelings. I plaster a smile on my face and try not to feel like I’m going to snap.
“My office is fine, Mom, and I don’t know what you’ve heard about my cases, but everything’s fine.”
“It’s fine,” Dad says, pursing his lips. “Are you sure about that, dear? From what I’ve been told, you took a case from some very unsavory characters.”
“Is that man who just left involved in all this somehow?” Mom asks. “Darling, you can’t be serious about working for a man like—that.”
“Angelo is helping with the case,” I say again slowly like I’m a child trying to explain how I spilled a drink. “I’m working with respectable clients. Brice’s husband—”
Dad sneers at me. “Brice’s husband? You mean that Scavo man? I’ve heard all about him at the Oak. He’s a member there, did you know that?”
“Yes, Dad, I knew that,” I say quietly. Brice likes to visit the Oak whenever she’s in town. She tells me all about the absurdity of the place, about the giant tree growing in the atrium, about the rich and famous people lounging around at the bar and eating at their exclusive dining room. She thinks the whole thing is absurd—and my father is a part of that world, if only on the fringes, and only because he’s useful.
“Carmine Scavo is not the sort of client you want. I understand you have to work hard when you first start, believe me. I had to struggle myself when I was a brand-new resident, and yet I never stooped to something like—Carmine Scavo.”
“Honestly, dear, he has a terrible reputation,” Mom says with a shake of her head. “You can’t seriously think it’s a good idea to work for him.”
“I took this case because it’s a good one, and I can’t talk about it with you two. So, please—”
“Drop Scavo,” Dad says, his tone firm. It’s the voice he uses when he’s ordering me around and expects to be obeyed, and every fiber of my being wants to bend over backward to do what Dad’s telling me. “I don’t care how much he’s paying you and the firm. I don’t care if he’s a member at the Oak. Drop him, get rid of his case, and move on.”
