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Chapter 7
My phone had been silent all day. No messages. Nothing.
Unready to process the events of last night with anyone, not even Jane, I had thrown myself into doing whatever I could to put the haze of last night firmly out of my head. The first thing I did when I woke up was to join a gym, and I spent the rest of the morning in the pool, swimming away my hangover and my shame. When my furniture was delivered that afternoon, I unpacked my clothes, color-coded my closet, and set up my belongings. I covered the piano with a throw blanket until I could decide what to do with it, but everything else (my new bed, a desk I had found at a different consignment shop, and the matching bureau and nightstand I'd found on craigslist) eventually found their homes against my new blue walls.
Still, it took me several hours and several recruitments of my irritable, hungover roommate to move around the furniture until I was halfway satisfied with its placement. Nothing seemed right; everything seemed out of place no matter where I put it.
By the end of the day, while my insides still felt like they had the strength of a blade of grass in a windstorm, I felt like I had done everything I could to stabilize everything I could. I was due in my new offices tomorrow morning to sign my new hire paperwork. I couldn't afford to be a basket case on the job.
Just before going to sleep, I steamed one of my new outfits from Bubbe and hung it on the closet door before taking one of Eric's a sleeping pill. I couldn't afford to stay awake with my thoughts, staring up at a ceiling that would undoubtedly reflect a certain thousand-watt smile and pair of dimples. I had a big day in the morning at my new job, and I wasn't going to fuck that up.
~
"Great suit."
Kieran looked the same as always, dressed in a minimalist black suit and shiny black loafers. Her dark shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, and her face was unadorned except for a slash of red lipstick. Her eyes, sharp and unflinching, flashed as I stood up from my seat outside the HR offices.
I looked down. Out of all of the pieces that Bubbe had insisted on, this one was my favorite: a dusky, light-olive silk from Calvin Klein that was perfect for spring. The color made my green eyes glow, and it fit me like a glove. The jacket was collarless and set off against a crisp white blouse, while the matching pants tapered at the ankles above a pair of whiskey-colored pumps. I'd pulled my hair into a no-nonsense bun and foregone contacts in favor of my tortoise-shell glasses. I looked professional and chic. It was oddly satisfying.
"Thanks," I said with a confident smile, although I was incredibly nervous.
I had just finished signing the paperwork needed to start officially working at Kiefer Knightly, but this was the first time I was facing Kieran. Having served as my mentor at a family law clinic last semester and being instrumental in getting me this position in the first place, she was someone whose opinion mattered to me very much. Did she know what had happened with Brandon and me? Two months ago? Two weeks ago? Or even two nights ago?
As Kieran led me back through the firm, again I mentally thanked Bubbe for the wardrobe updates. This was a law firm, so no one was too flashy or avant-garde, but the attorneys at Kiefer Knightly clearly made some money and dressed like it too.
Kiefer Knightly took up two floors of a large office building near Copley Square, just a stone's throw away from the bustling downtown area of Boston's business district and three blocks from Brandon's firm, Sterling Grove. It was a full-service firm that did a lot of business in family law, my intended specialty and something that Sterling Grove barely touched, which was likely why Brandon wasn't using in-house attorneys to handle his divorce. That, and I suspected that Kieran was the only person he trusted with the intimate details of his marriage.
Kieran steered us past the main reception area down a hallway lined with offices on one side and a long conference room on the other. All of the walls were glass, although I noticed that some of them looked like they were covered in a thick layer of fog.
"All of the walls in the office are equipped with privacy glass," Kieran said, tapping a fingernail against one of the frosted walls we passed. "But FYI, the partners prefer associates to keep their offices transparent when they are not with clients. Makes it easier for Big Brother to watch, right?"
Kieran wasn't one to wink, but she gave me a wry smile to let me know she thought the practice was ridiculous. I followed her down to the end of the hall, where she turned right into a small office on the interior side. She held out a hand.
"Your office. Hey, at least you get windows, right?"
I smirked at the joke. Like every other office, all the walls were windows, but every one of them looked out to another office. It was basically just a glass cube.
I shrugged and set my briefcase down on the empty desk. "I can't complain. It's a job. Really, Kieran, thank you so much for helping me here and for showing me around. I know it wasn't easy."
"It'll be worth it," she said. "The button for the windows is on the far side of the desk. Even though we'd like you to focus on passing the bar before you really start work, we had the paralegals make you and the other new associates copies of the files for a case that's going to trial soon. There will be an associates meeting about it today, so you should stick around for that. It's in the main conference room at eleven. In the meantime, Chris in HR will be here in a few to get you registered for your bar exam class."
I nodded and sat down behind the desk, eager to get started. Kieran looked at me for a moment, then nodded back.
"Right then," she said. "Well, welcome."
Without a word, she disappeared down the corridor of glass, a feat I would have though impossible considering most of the walls were transparent. But that was Kieran, I supposed. No muss, no fuss.
I turned to my computer and started to click through the log in instructions. It was nice to have something to do, things to do that would distract me. It was nice to feel productive.
"Excuse me, Ann-Marie told me that Kieran was––oh!"
A familiar deep voice froze my hands over the keyboard. No. This wasn't happening. Not on my first day and not in a building with transparent walls through which everyone could see my equally transparent features. Fuck. How had Kieran said to frost the walls?
"Skylar?"
Goddamn it. The real problem was that someone like him was bound to attract attention, if he hadn't already. And I couldn't look down at the plastic keys forever.
"Skylar?" he said again.
