Whitney Lee was rummaging through her desk when the phone trilled, its sharp blasts reverberating against the walls of her hamster cage-sized office. She stared at the Caller ID for a long moment, dismayed to see that Will Strong was on the line. God, she thought, finally reaching for the receiver, did her boss always have to call at seven o’clock on Friday nights?
“This is Whitney,” she answered, trying to sound sunny.
“Lee,” he shouted, “I need you to” – a faint female voice whined in the background before he cut her off. “Tell her that I’ll get there when I get there.” Pause. “Like hell it’s important. Jesus, can’t you see I’m on the phone? What’s wrong with you? Lee, you there?”
“Yes.” She lowered the volume on the phone base and held the receiver a few inches away from her head. Will never bothered to introduce himself when he rang to shriek at her, and without fail, he managed to include a tirade or two at his secretary while shattering her eardrums.
“I need you to – I tell you what, this’ll be easier in person. I’ll be there in a second.” He slammed the phone, sending a piercing ring through her skull, and in a moment, she heard his heels stomp against the marbled hallway.
“This had better be quick,” she muttered under her breath. If she didn’t leave in the next five minutes, she would be late, and she had a date she refused to break. She shoved two Redweld folders of documents into her briefcase and loaded a banker’s box of files onto her rolling cart. It was more paper than she could review in one night, but at least she would be able to work in the comfort of her own home. She could hardly stomach the sight of her office any longer, the mahogany paneled claustrophobic cave of requisite billable hours, and she was clearing off her desk with manic energy when she heard someone clear his throat.
“What the hell are you doing?” Will asked, his characteristic irritation giving way to bewilderment at her apparent attempts to escape. In his navy doubled-breasted pinstriped suit and slicked back graying hair, he looked every bit the managing partner of Boerne & Connelly LLP, a law firm whose Houston office spanned twenty-two floors of the tallest building in Texas.
“Nothing. I was just trying to clean up a bit. What do you need?” She sat down, grabbed a pen and tried to look like the seasoned attorney that she was supposed to be, if you could call a third-year associate who spent most of her days reviewing documents seasoned.
“Did you get anything from the client? Gary said that he was sending over fifteen boxes of company files.”
“Yes, they’re right there,” she said, pointing to a stack against the wall. He barely glanced at it before his eyes bore into her, and in her gray pencil skirt and white dress shirt, she felt underdressed next to the expensively attired lawyer. The Houston office of Boerne & Connelly had recently adopted a Friday Business Casual policy, and all three hundred lawyers and two hundred staff members had embraced the practice. Will alone refused to dress “like an intern” on Fridays, even though he had been the one to promulgate the perk.
“You and James need to review those documents before depositions start rolling,” he said. “Plaintiff’s counsel’s already bitching about the production, so we need to be sure to produce everything that’s not privileged by Monday.” His voice rumbled like thunder, amplified by the acoustically aggrandizing narrowness of her office.
“Of course.” She scribbled the directive on a notepad. “By Monday.”
“Don’t fuck this up, Lee.” His barrel-shaped body seemed to grow as he thought about the assignment. “You fuck it up, and we’re fucked. Understand?” He thumped a squat index finger on her desk for emphasis. “Make that clear to James. I can’t tell that boy how important this is.”
“I understand.” She threw in a few nods to underscore the fact that his words made sense. The way he yelled at her, she sometimes wondered if he thought that his Asian employee had learned the English language only last year. From across the room, she could see his watch. What caught her eye weren’t the Rolex’s shiny gold links, but the time. She needed to get out of there.
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