Hard Edge - Tess Oliver Page 0,67
on the street side of an apartment in a section of town that was noisy, dirty and depressingly ugly. The clamor and flashing lights from traffic, pedestrians and constant police activity outside my bedroom window continued long into the night. Sometimes the noise was so loud, my window shook as if the building had been hit by an earthquake. Then the internship turned torturous when I discovered that the three lawyers I worked under were the most ridiculously conceited, pompous and demanding individuals on the planet.
I kept my eyes diverted, like a prey animal trying not to make contact with the predators surrounding it, as I carried the coffees into the meeting room. Mr. Campe, a nephew of one of the partners and a man who was always the topic at the water cooler because of his after hour hot tub parties, liked his black. Not too hot or too cold. I wasn’t completely sure how I was supposed to know if it was too hot or too cold, so I just placed the cup in front of him and hoped for the best. Mr. Hoffman, a top-notch divorce lawyer, or so he liked to call himself, was probably the least vile of the three, but he made up for it by being creepy. He liked to lick his lips while he was talking to me, which made it hard for me to keep my focus because it felt as if I was being ordered around by a lascivious snake. But the worst of all was Ms. Bridger, the queen bee who had harshness down to an art and who I was certain would step over someone dying of thirst while chugging down her expensive bottled water. And her bottled water was her main source of nutrition. Every day at twelve o’clock, I had to bring her a sandwich, which was only a sandwich because something was stuck between two pieces of something else. She only ate gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free bread, which I was pretty sure was the definition of cardboard, which was what the pretend bread looked like. And as for the pasty pink stuff in between, I had no idea what it was or if it even came from planet earth. Naturally, she only ate two, small bird-sized bites before dumping the rest of it in the trash. Normally, I would have had to bite my tongue to not remind her of waste and all the starving kids in the world, but in the case of her alien sandwich, I decided I was doing my part for the hungry kids by not mentioning it.
I placed the color free, fat-free, caffeine free cup of clear liquid on the table in front of Ms. Bridger, and as quickly as possible, made the move for a fast escape.
“Oh, Ken, hold on a minute.” Ms. Bridger’s dry bitchy tone struck my back before I managed to leave the conference room. She’d shortened my name to Ken because she claimed Kenna was too long to take up her time with.
I froze at the door, reminding myself that without the internship I really would be sleeping on a park bench. “Yes, Ms. Bridger?”
She continued on with a separate conversation with Mr. Campe and left me standing there waiting to hear her orders. I was only a few semesters from taking the bar exam, but in their world, I was still beneath them. I’d met many lawyers and law professors and thankfully not all of them were conceited buttheads like the three sitting in front of me. I had no idea how I’d gotten so unlucky as to land in an internship with the trio from hell.
I stood like a toad, ready to be stomped on in the doorway of the room, until Ms. Bridger honored me with her attention. “Ken, I have a list of errands I need you to run for me. I emailed it to you this morning, but it seems you haven’t gotten to them yet. I needed my scarf from the dry cleaners, and I didn’t see it in my office.”
“I’ve been filing all morning.”
“Well, get to it now.” She had the imperious, dismissive hand wave down to an art.
I turned to leave, but her annoying voice shot over my shoulder again.
“Oh, and Ken, I didn’t put something on the list. Stop by the store on your way back and pick me up a yogurt for lunch. And not one of those calorie-laden, ice cream substitute type yogurts I