Chapter Two
Sarah
Another sunny day, so I walked past the cemetery gates. Catechism Cataclysm, the middle entry in the immortal “Sacrament Trilogy” streamed on my MP3 player. The last part was supposed to be coming out within a week, and I was like a kid at Christmas, irrepressibly excited and checking the calendar every few days to make sure all was progressing according to plan.
The legal firm I worked for didn’t really have a dress code, only the barest modicum of professionalism being preferred. Basically, every day was casual Friday, which could be a real Godsend in the Nevada heat. How would it look for the partners of Lewis and Brown to have employees passing out at their desks? Not good. Not good at all. My serious side insisted on a black skirt-suit. Still, my practical side allowed for a much shorter shirt than I would usually wear and convinced me to leave my jacket at the office as I went out for lunch.
The Sure Thing Graphics building was a lot fancier than my legal office. There apparently was a lot of money in graphic design. I had over an hour for lunch, which I figured would be ample, even with the mountain of work piled on my desk—a problem it seemed my friend, Camilla, could empathize with. The reception area at the design firm was chocked full of clients when I arrived on the building’s fourth floor.
The next client went up, and the line moved along, freeing up a seat at the back. I pounced before anyone else could beat me to it—it was likely to be a while before Camilla was able to get away. To be fair, I was ten minutes early. Punctuality was less of a social courtesy in my family and more of a religion.
I busied my mind by taking in the office. This was the first time I had visited Camilla at work. We had just recently reconnected, having originally known each other from college. Sure Thing Graphics was really was quite lovely. Originally open concept, it had an elaborate cubical farm that I guessed, resembled proper offices going by the size of them. There were also two rooms off to either side. One looked like it was a boardroom, even without the sign outside labeling it as such. The other had more of a window than a wall and was some kind of game room with a tournament-sized ping-pong table at the center of the room. I could hardly imagine working in an office so fun.
My phone started buzzing, and I dove to get it out of my bag, knowing all too well how annoying a ringing phone could be. I figured it had the same logic as a baby’s cries, you can’t stand it because you’re not supposed to be able to. The noise all but guaranteed immediate action to end the torture if nothing else.
Even on my lunch break, I was not entirely safe from my supervisor. The call was to remind me of the caseload and to be sure to get back to work on time because they really needed all hands on deck. I assured her that I did not, in fact, have the comparative intellect of a second grader and knew full well the situation we were in. My bosses didn’t know, but going into legal aid after graduation was, if anything, an act of rebellion. As well as an attempt to try and redress the balance. The type of people who tended to go to law school was just the kind of silver-spoon, trust-fund babies I had hung with when I was younger. Seeing the other side was a real wake up call.
The call lasted so long I was almost the only one left in the waiting area seats. Trying to get my supervisor to actually shut up was a challenge on par with traversing the Klondike by dog-sled. Camilla was stuck on the phone herself, so I figured I was pretty safe. I glanced at my watch as my supervisor wound down, like a toy running out of batteries. Focused on waiting for an opening to hang up, I didn’t even see him come out of his office.
“What can I help you with?”
I looked up at the hottest man I had ever seen. He had the muscles of a bodybuilder, and the taste in fashion of a movie star—all with a face that was more perfect than the man of my dreams. But what really caught me were his eyes: deep brown and sad. When I gazed into them, it was like I could tell this man had a depth of passion, and life had let him down. There was something about that look that made me want to put my arms around him and soothe the stranger.