Risking the Crown

by Violet Paige

  Instead, I didn’t. I looked like a novice D.C.’er.

  Tomorrow I would shove my heels into my messenger bag like the other locals. I had walked down three flights of stairs from our rooftop apartment and another ten minutes to make it to the red line metro. We lived in a historic building without an elevator. It was charming, but the stairs were a pain in the ass.

  Every part of me wanted to reach down and throw the heels in the nearest trash can, but then what? Was I considering showing up barefoot? I had to keep walking.

  The metro I had ridden to the Tenleytown stop whizzed behind me, kicking up a hot wind that engulfed my arms and legs as I walked toward the escalator. I could already feel the fabric of my dress sticking to the creases in my skin. I hadn’t accounted for the August heat when I’d dressed before six.

  Greer had left for work before I’d fixed my first cup of coffee. I hadn’t been able to consult her on my choice. She would have probably warned me about the shoes. I couldn’t believe how early she had to arrive at her office. The few days since I had moved in she was gone before I was awake.

  No one else seemed to notice how ill-suited I was for traveling the subway system. They were too busy staring at their smart phones and racing to their jobs. A man brushed past me, taking the spot ahead of me on the staircase.

  I grabbed the railing quickly so he didn’t knock me off balance. He either hadn’t seen me, or hadn’t given a shit that he had bumped me.

  The escalator was one more thing that didn’t agree with my heels. I teetered on the ridges of the metal steps, pushing my balance on the balls of my feet. It didn’t help that I was holding a cup of coffee and trying to keep my bag on one shoulder.

  I exited the metro and turned for the spot where the bus would pick me up. D.C. was blistering hot in August. I stood at the stop, praying the shuttle would arrive quickly. I could feel the sweat trickle down the backs of my knees.

  I wanted to make a statement today. First impressions mattered. I deserved this position. I’d earned it. I wasn’t too young or green. My blond hair didn’t drop my IQ points. My southern background didn’t preclude me from intelligent discussions. Without fail I heard the same thing from people I met for the first time.

  “Are you really twenty-eight? No. You could pass for twenty-one.”

  I always got carded at bars. I was used to it. My friends laughed at me. It wasn’t embarrassing until the time I met my former boss for drinks and the waiter asked him what his daughter wanted to order. I had been mortified, mostly because he was forty.

  Today’s first impression mattered, and mine was going to be nothing but a wrinkled, mess of a sweaty dress I bought on sale and swollen feet I hobbled in on to my first staff meeting.

  I didn’t want to question my decision to move to D.C. I didn’t want the nervousness to strike again. This was where I was supposed to be. I took a sip of coffee and waited for the shuttle. The liquid churned in my stomach. First day jitters were normal.

  I never expected to be on this path. But here I was, changing the course of my career after a brutal two years in private practice. Instead of practicing law I was going to learn how to teach it. I didn’t know how to supervise students, or develop curriculum but I would. This program was exactly what I needed. So why did I feel so nauseatingly nervous?

  I exhaled when I saw the bus round the corner. I stepped back as the doors opened outward. The driver looked straight ahead.

  “Good morning.” I smiled.

  “Mmmhmm.” He closed the door and hit the gas before I found a seat.

  The shuttle lurched forward as my bag dropped off my shoulder and I lost control of my coffee. The cup hit the floor, separating from the lid as it splattered at my feet.

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  I refastened the lid and watched in horror as the spill spread from one end of the shuttle to the other. Oh God, this was a disaster.

  There was a man at the back of the bus reading his phone. He never looked up or offered to help.

  I looked around for something I could use.

  “Excuse me.” I walked to the driver. “Do you have any paper towels or anything? I spilled some coffee. I’m so sorry.”

  “You can’t cross the red line,” he snapped.

  “Oh, sorry.” I shrank back over the mark on the floor, watching the coffee dry on the tips of my heels. “Do you have something I could use? It was an accident.”

  “We’re about to stop on campus. Hold on.” He seemed aggravated. I couldn’t tell if it was from the spill or because I had bothered him while he was driving.

  I sat in the seat closest to him, waiting for him to hand me something, anything I could use.

  The shuttle came to an abrupt halt. I looked out of the window and saw students walking across campus. Without turning around the driver handed a roll of paper towels to me over his right shoulder.

  “I gotta keep a schedule,” he smacked.

  “It will only take a second,” I explained.

  The other passenger jogged down the stairs and walked off.

  My fitted dress made it hard to kneel to the floor. I did the best I could, running the paper towels over the aisle with my foot.

  I gathered up the trash and tossed it in the wastebasket by the door.

  “Thank you. Sorry about the spill.” I carefully stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “Maybe next time don’t bring your coffee on here.” He nodded at me before closing the door in my face.

  By the time I found the conference room, there was standing-room only. Holy hell. I wasn’t expecting it to be packed. Or to be in a room with this many other Practioners-in-Residence. There had to be twenty-five of us packed into a room meant for a meeting of ten people. My stomach sank. Until now, I had no idea the pool of competition would be this large.

  I was wedged between a girl in a navy blazer and the wall. I smiled weakly at her as I tried to retrieve a notepad from my bag. My elbow banged into the chair railing.

  “Can you see?” she asked.

  She was extremely tall. I looked down and noticed she had on flats.

  “I’m fine.” As long as I had room to scribble notes, I could handle it. That and as long as my feet didn’t give out. It was possible they had lost feeling.

  The mumbling stopped as soon as one of the program directors closed the door, sealing us in the claustrophobic space. I tried to take a slow steady breath.

  “Good morning. Glad to see so many faces here today.”

  He took his time to make eye contact with each of us. I recognized him as one of the people from my interview panel three months ago. His goatee was peppered and he had a long drawn face.

  “Some of you are here to practice law. Some of you are here to learn how to teach law.” He cleared his throat. “Some of you are here to do some good for those under-served in our community. Me? I’m here for all of that. I’m the director. If we haven’t met, I’m Max Harrison. This is my twentieth year in the Clinical Program. I oversee all ten clinics. I pick up clients when I can and I also teach a history of law class twice a week. So, I don’t have a lot of free time.” He chuckled.

  I shuffled to the right, trying to see past the girl in front of me.

  “You should all have your clinic assignments. There are ten clinics, but this year we only had open slots in Taxation, Immigrant Justice, Intellectual Law, International Human Rights, and Women and Law. We did our best to sort you based on experience and personal requests, but it may not have worked out for everyone.

  “The positions are for one year. All of this was covered in your interview process, but now that you’re here I want to remind you—you aren’t faculty and you aren’t staff. You are here as a resident of this program. At the end of the year there will be an opportunity to apply for a faculty position, but you can see the competition is going to be fierce.”

  This was the part where everyone wanted to size up the person next to them. The tall girl
blocked my view from most of the cohorts in the program. I kept my back against the wall and my head down.

  I had no way to assess my experience against the people in the room. We were all supposed to be the best in our graduating law classes. We all came from prestigious practices. We all kicked ass in our interviews. None of us would be here otherwise. I didn’t know how they would weed us out.

  I thought about the irony of standing here pinned to the wall, preparing once again to compete. I thought that part of law was behind me.

  The room was tense. The energy buzzed with sharp focus. We might be here to do some good in the world, but underneath it all each person in the room wanted to win. Each one of us wanted to be the only one standing when this process ended.

  Max smiled. “I would like to add that even if things don’t work out for you here at the end of the program, we have had many of our law residents go on to receive full-tenure track positions at other law institutions. And some of them even find that doing pro-bono work is sometimes more rewarding than they could have imagined. This year is going to teach you more than you could have thought possible. I think I’ll finish on that note.”

  The tall girl scribbled something on her notepad. I didn’t have anything on mine.

  Professor Harrison wrapped up his introduction. “You can break and head to your respective clinics. I’m sure we’ll have a chance to get to know each other over the next two semesters. Good luck.”

  Max cut for the door and walked out of the room before anyone could bombard him with questions.

  The tall girl turned to me. “I’m Trish.”

  I smiled. “Emily. Nice to meet you.”

  “What clinic did you get?” she asked.

  “I’m in the women’s clinic,” I responded. “How about you?”

  “Taxation law. I worked for three years at my uncle’s firm in Atlanta.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing stimulating to me about accounting or the law that went with it. Since I was pre-law women’s issues had always been a part of my studies.

  “Maybe we’ll run into each other some time,” she mused.

  “Maybe.” I think we both knew it wasn’t likely to happen.

  Trish walked out of the room.

  This was always the hardest part about starting over. Even in a room full of people I felt completely alone. Everyone was a stranger. Nothing was familiar. The conference room was new. This building. The next building. Everywhere I turned I saw something strange and foreign.

  I told myself it wouldn’t stay like this. Each day I’d learn people’s names. I’d figure out how not to piss off the shuttle driver. I’d learn to wear the right shoes. I’d be able to make it to clinic without having to check the map app on my phone. The pieces would come together. But right now as I watched my colleagues shuffle out of the meeting, it was hard to think that day would ever come.

  I only had a few more steps to go. I looked up at the brownstone I now called home. Why was our apartment on the top floor? The windowpanes glowed from the sunset sinking behind the city. Even the ones on the third floor reflected orange and pink hues.

  I knew why. Greer loved the deck. She loved the view. She thought it was cool all of our windows were huge dormers.

  And she told me a hundred times on facechat that we couldn’t beat the location. The townhouse was in the heart of Adams Morgan, directly in the center for both of us to go to work. I went northwest and she went southeast.

  I hadn’t been here long enough to know if the location was the best. I hadn’t met any of our neighbors. I hadn’t even changed my address with the post office. I still felt as if I were visiting Greer, not living with her.

  It had been five years since she was my roommate in college. Neither one of us had expected to live together again.

  I glared at the front stoop. I couldn’t take it anymore. Not another step. I reached down and peeled the stilettos from my feet. I almost expected to see dried blood on my skin.

  “Ouch,” I whined. My toes were permanently pressed together. I couldn’t wiggle them.

  I took the first step, feeling the heat of the rough surface sear into the underside of my foot.

  “Oh God.”

  By the time I made it to third-story landing, I was certain I had damaged every tendon and nerve ending in my feet.

  I turned the key in the lock and walked through the narrow hallway. Greer and I shared less than a thousand square feet of living space, but the deck was enormous. It was the best part of the apartment. I hobbled to my bedroom on the far end of the apartment.

  I pushed through the door, stubbing my toe on a cardboard box next to the wall.

  “Damn it.” I hopped on one foot. I felt the sting of tears in the corner of my eye.

  “You okay in there, Emily?”

  Greer appeared in the doorway.

  “What are you doing home?” I was surprised to see her.

  “I got one of the guys to take over my file for the rest of the night. Told him I needed to get home early.”

  It was close to seven. I had learned in the few days we had moved in together that Greer rarely made it in before nine.

  “Did you wear those heels all day?” She zeroed in on the coffee-stained shoes in my hand.

  I dropped on the bed. “God yes. And don’t ask me why I thought it was a good idea.”

  “I should have warned you about all the concrete.” I heard a tinge of regret in her voice.

  “I’ll be ok in a week,” I added.

  She twisted her bottom lip under her teeth. Even with a funny expression on her face she was still pretty. Greer was one of those girls who could leave the house without makeup and her skin always looked flawless. She had bright olive skin and long dark hair.

  “I have a way to help you forget about your swollen blistered feet.”

  I looked down at them. “They are horrible aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, but I want to take you out for drinks.”

  “Drinks? As in I have to walk down three flights of stairs?”

  She sat next to me. “Yes. But I’ll call an Uber. No metro walking.” Her eyebrows arched.

  “I don’t know if I’m up for celebrating. I’m exhausted, and my head is about to explode from all the human resources meetings I had to go to today. I think it’s worse for lawyers. They think we’re all going to sue each other.” I smirked.

  “You don’t even want to know what I went through when I was moved to the senate committee. Background checks. Family investigation. Special security clearance. It was insane. I’m surprised I didn’t have to sign away the rights to my first-born.”

  “Did you read the fine print?” I joked. “Maybe you did.”

  She sighed. “There is nothing funny at the Armed Services Committee. This job drains me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I could see the look of exhaustion on her face.

  “This is not about me. Come on, get up. If you stay here, we’ll never get out. We have to celebrate your first day at work. Your first few days in D.C. Your new life. All of that stuff.”

  I groaned. “Can we celebrate tomorrow when my feet aren’t threatening to disown me?”

  “No.” She shoved me. “Since you’ve been here we’ve had pizza one night. Chinese the other and last night I didn’t even make it home to eat, so I have no idea what you had. Sorry. You deserve a proper welcome.” She paused. “Hurry up and change. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re a really pushy roommate. You know that?” I placed one foot on the floor, testing the tenderness.

  “You have always loved being my roommate.” She winked.

  “Loved is past tense,” I teased her. “We haven’t lived together in five years.”

  She shrugged. “Get dressed.”

  I still hadn’t unpacked all of my clothes. There were boxes scattered on the floor. I thought about a short blue sundress I wanted to wear, but I wasn’t sure I could find it. I started ripping tape
and rummaging through the stacks.

  It was folded at the bottom of one of the piles. I held it in front of me. I remembered the days in college when Greer and I would swap clothes. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I was standing in front of the mirror holding my blue dress.

  I knew it wasn’t the same. We weren’t the same girls we were back then. We had careers now. Greer had Preston. Life had been sweet and ugly since we graduated from college.

  I unfolded the belt from my waist and pulled the dress over my head.

  “Hey, Greer. I need to get in the shower,” I called from the doorway. “Give me ten minutes.”

  There was no way I was going out with the day still clinging to me.

  I quickly rinsed off and slid into the blue sundress. It felt good to have something clean on that didn’t smell like coffee. I shook my hair out and let it fall around my shoulders in golden waves. Good thing the beach hair look was still in.

  Somewhere in this room was a cute bag that matched this dress, but I didn’t feel like excavating again.

  I walked in the living room. “Do you have a purse I can borrow? I don’t have the energy to unpack.”

  Greer sat on the couch, flipping through a magazine. “Sure. I have a straw one that would be cute.”

  She returned from her room holding a waffle cut hemp bag. “Thanks.”

  And for a second it felt as if we were twenty-two again. We weren’t in Washington D.C., focused on careers and making a difference in the world. We were two girls getting ready to go out for the night to have some drinks. Maybe hit a mixer at the Sigma Nu house.

  She put an arm around me. “Preston’s going to meet us in about an hour.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know he was coming.” I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice.

  “He said he wanted to buy you a drink and congratulate you on your first day in person.”

  She locked the door behind us as I surveyed the staircase. If only I could shimmy down the banister.

  “That’s sweet.” I mustered the words.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like Preston. I did. He was nice, but that was the only word I could think of to describe him. I didn’t get what it was about him that made Greer so giddy. I didn’t see the spark. I didn’t see any fire between them.