Muscle

by Lexi Whitlow

  Drake shouts from the pool. “Logan! Logan! Swim!”

  The beauty beside me raises her head, glaring at my brother. “Shut up you moron, nobody wants to hear you.”

  Standing, I look down on her. She’s far less attractive than she was ten minutes ago.

  “You know, beauty really is only skin deep. Yours is paper thin.”

  “Hold on Drake,” I call out. In a second I launch myself into the pool cannonball style, creating an epic splash, causing Drake to scream, flapping his arms and hands with unrestrained glee.

  Be good to yourself.

  I think of those words as I jump in the pool with my brother. He laughs, and I laugh.

  A year or two ago, and these girls would have gotten right under my skin.

  But now, there’s something different, and it’s not just the money.

  Maybe it’s Bryn and her message.

  I don’t think too long about that. Instead, I enjoy the sun and let the day move on in peace.

  Chapter 5

  Bryn

  Two Months Later

  “This popped in my inbox this morning,” Claire says, sliding a printout across the counter towards me. She’s got that mischievous look in her eye like she’s up to something. “Thought you might be interested.”

  I have a look, sipping coffee, ignoring the elbow-tight, early crowd at Cup-a-Joe’s.

  For immediate release; the newly formed Chandler Foundation has named its Board of Directors, Chairman, and two Chief Executives, as well as Director of Capital Investment and Director of Awards Initiatives. The Foundation, established with a base grant of $400 million, will begin reviewing proposals and funding requests for both existing and newly imagined 501(c)(3) organizations who support vulnerable, marginalized, and underserved individuals/groups within central and eastern North Carolina…

  “Wow,” I say. “So, Logan is giving away money?”

  I get a twisting feeling in my gut that I can’t quite identify. There are things you don’t expect from mechanic lottery winners, and this is one of them. But Logan Chandler—well, it makes sense. Maybe he never would have seen it about himself, but I think I saw it a long time ago. Back when I was too dumb to appreciate things like that.

  There have been rumors swirling around for weeks that he’s back in town, laying low, working with third parties and intermediaries on all kinds of projects. Turns out the rumors were more than that.

  Claire nods. “A lot of money,” she agrees. “I had a call this morning with the director of awards, and she’s legit. I’m doing a story on the foundation for the paper this week. They’ve rented modest offices up in North Raleigh. Nothing splashy. They’re almost fully staffed and ready to start looking at grant requests.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I say. “There’s a lot of need here. Maybe they can do some good.”

  “I’d keep it,” Claire says. “Or well. I don’t know. He’s got a lot of fucking money.”

  “Like the income of a small country.”

  “Medium sized one,” Claire says. “Definitely medium. I guess I’d get my act together and give some cash away. But he’s going big time. Kinda hot, don’t you think?”

  I nod absently, and she grins, elbowing me in my side.

  “He’s hot. Always was,” Claire adds. “You always thought so.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too,” she says, but this time she catches my eye. “Admit it. You still do.”

  “Yeah, fine. But he doesn’t need some girl hovering around him right now. He’s got a plan, and there’s a lot of people who need him right now. I’m not one of them.”

  I leave it at that, and I try to focus on the good he’s doing rather than the image of him fixing my car. I keep that picture of him with me and go back too it all too often.

  There is need. I see it every day.

  Our firm gets calls every single week from people who have been denied fair wages by their employers, harassed, intimidated, been swindled, left unpaid on signed contracts, denied basic services and protections guaranteed by the government.

  In a thousand little ways, every day, I see people getting screwed—with no recourse—because law firms like my father’s exist to serve and protect the wealthy. We take a few pro bono cases here and there, but only the ones that will burnish our reputation in the press. After all, who can disagree that a kid with a speech problem should be denied use of an electronic aid to help him communicate? If that was reasonable, we wouldn’t have the contributions of people like Stephen Hawking. Taking that case, arguing it, and forcing the city schools to settle and change their policy made headlines. It made our firm look great. Helping an illegal immigrant get paid for painting a house when the owner decides to stiff him? That’s less glamorous and more controversial.

  That’s the kind of work I want to do, but I can’t see how it will ever happen.

  “You should put together a proposal,” Claire says quietly. “You’re always moaning about the fact that you can’t do meaningful work at the firm. Always pointing out how badly this town needs a real legal aid society.”

  Me? I frown. “Claire, I wouldn’t even know how to begin. I’m fresh out of law school.”

  She smiles. “Which means that you’re full of ideas, not completely jaded, and have the energy to do it. You’re smart. Figure it out.”

  “Like I said, he doesn’t need some girl—”

  She stops me, hand on mine. “You’re not some girl. You’re Bryn fucking Beckett. And I’m serious for once. You want to help people. Go do it. It’s not like you’re asking for a date.”

  She leaves it at that and doesn’t mention it again.

  * * *

  My father doesn’t like the idea. But that’s been the story of my life so far.

  “Honey, I know you want to do more of the touchy-feely stuff,” my father says, while munching his salmon salad. “But that’s just your youth and all the time you spent doing internships for the ACLU, influencing you. That’s not where the real gravy is. The gravy is corporate contracts, perpetual trusts, estate management. It’s not exciting, but it’s who we are.”

  “It’s not who I am, Daddy,” I argue. “It’s not like I’m not willing to handle my share of the load. All I’m asking is that I get a chance to handle more of the pro bono that comes to us, in addition to my regular case load. Charles hoards those opportunities, tossing most out, assigning the keepers to his pets. I get nothing.”

  “You got the autistic kid,” he says, pointing his fork at me. “And you did very well with that.”

  “You gave me that one,” I remind him. “Not Charles.”

  Daddy sits back in his chair, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. He regards me carefully.

  “Here’s the thing,” he says. “Charles is on the partner track. He’s got one foot in management’s door. Part of that process is giving him supervisory responsibility, which the pro bono work is part of.”

  I understand all that.

  “If I step around, inserting myself, it’s going to undermine him in the eyes of the junior staff, as well as the partners. You need to figure out a way to warm up to him.”

  I need to what?

  “Bryn, you treat Charles with open disdain. You give your admin and the biddies in the break room more respect than you give him. I know you’ve known him since high school. I know it’s hard seeing him as your superior. But he is. If you accepted that reality and adjusted your approach, giving him a little more credit and deference, he might decide he can trust you with some of the work you want a shot at.”

  I sit quietly for a moment, processing this speech. I want to make sure I’ve got it right. I turn it over in my head, measuring every word. Then, when I’m certain of exactly what my father just advised, I sum it up for him, just for clarification.

  “What you’re saying is I need to kiss his ass?”

  He tips his head, offering a tight smile. “That’s one interpretation,” he observes, then heaves a heavy
sigh. “I should have insisted on sending you to UVA. New York City has made you cynical, and entirely too abrupt.”

  “Bless your heart, Daddy. You’re the one who taught me it takes fewer words to tell the truth than it does to spin a lie,” I remind him. “I’ve learned to be concise. If that’s uncomfortable for you, that’s not my fault.”

  “You’re going to make an excellent litigator one day,” he responds, raising his hand to our waiter for the check. “You’re already thinking circles around me.”

  That’s perhaps the highest compliment my father has paid me since the day I graduated Cum Laude from Columbia. He was proud of me that day. I want him to be proud of me. I also want his respect, but that’s a much harder row to hoe. To do that, I fear I’m going to have to become even more abrupt, bowling him over with boldness.

  * * *

  I’ve got to play this just right, or it will go very wrong. My father is correct about one thing, I do treat Charles like he’s used gum, stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I can’t exactly flip and start batting my eyelashes at him. He’s too smart for that game. But what I can do is very professionally acknowledge the fact that he’s the one with the power to improve my world, and ask him to help me.

  I catch him in the break room, fighting with the Keurig. I don’t offer to help him even though he’s putting the cup in wrong. Instead I shrug, giving a sympathetic smile.

  “I hate that thing too. It’s a devious little machine.”

  A moment later we’re assisted by a nineteen-year-old admin who flips the cup over, snaps the lid shut, presses a button, rolls her eyes, then struts away.

  Again, with the sympathetic smile and humble remark. “These kids,” I say, nodding toward the admin. “They make me feel old.”

  Charles nods, smirking. “Yeah.”

  He turns to his cup of coffee, adding cream and sugar, trying to ignore me. I retrieve a bottle of water from the fridge, then pause, turning to him.

  “I was thinking,” I say. “We should grab dinner one night soon, to go over a couple cases I have that you started last year. Maybe get background on them, some advice on next steps. Ideally, I’d like to skip covering ground that you’ve already tread. I’m trying to get more efficient, so soon I can be more help on some of your pro bono stuff. I haven’t got the time yet, but maybe with some guidance…”

  “Sure,” Charles says without looking up. “I’m free Thursday. We’ll head out after work.”

  “Great!” I say, forcing my beaming cheerleader smile. I can kiss ass with the best of them. “You pick the place. Raleigh has changed so much since I left, I hardly know where to go anymore.”

  That’s the first truthful statement I’ve uttered since I crossed the break room threshold. Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe I am going to be a great lawyer. I can lie with the best of them.

  * * *

  ‘The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry...’

  I think it was Robert Burns who said that.

  Thursday evening started out just fine. I wore my nicest, perfectly-tailored Lauren suit with a V-neck blouse, and open-toed Cole Haan heels anchoring the outfit. My goal was to dress with just enough oomph to bounce over the boring threshold, without vaulting into the valley of the provocative. Somehow, I missed my mark.

  Between the waiter taking our drink order and appetizers arriving at our table, Charles stops talking about work, veering instead to his second favorite subject, Logan Chandler.

  “He’s trying to make himself look like the next Bill and Melinda Gates with this stupid foundation he’s supposedly putting together, and he’s set up his family and friends with trust funds. I hear he’s also bought the old Tatton place on Oberlin. He’s having it completely renovated,” Charles says, with no attempt to conceal the sneer in his tone. “Seriously. Who does the guy think he is? He’s nobody at all—just a dumbass hick with more money than sense. He’ll probably destroy the place. Put in a Jungle Room and make it like some white-trash version of Graceland in the middle of historic Raleigh.”

  Tatton Hall is a historically significant property in the city. Like so many others, it’s been left derelict at least ten years. It’s a wonder to me the place hasn’t been razed to the ground long before now. That’s what happens to old houses on giant lots. They get carved up to build McMansions with miniscule yards, or turned into high-rise apartment buildings.

  “Maybe he’ll restore it,” I offer, trying to play nice. My father is friends with the people who own the place, I know a bit of its story. “The owners were looking for someone who would do just that. That’s why they hung on to it, rather than selling out to developers.”

  Charles scoffs at me. “They were holding out for the highest bidder,” he declares with certainty. “They found the richest dumbass in three states. I’m sure he paid a king’s ransom for it. He’s got it to spare.”

  I take a breath, then a bite of my tilapia, focused on changing the subject back to work. “So… tell me how you go about the process of assigning pro bono work out to the juniors. I want to better understand how I can contribute.”

  Charles looks up from his medallions of roast veal. He smiles, sipping his wine, thinking.

  “It’s very subjective,” he says, hedging. “Everybody wants the fun work. I’m not sure why, but it’s good to be popular. Owning those cases makes me popular.”

  He takes a bite, chewing slowly. Then he explains the process to me as succinctly as he dares.

  “I know it’s fun work to do. I know it gives the juniors a chance to get out there in front of judges, or even in the press. Some of those cases might make a career, or at least get it out of the gates. Take the one you just wrapped up with the school system. I wouldn’t have just tossed that to you. I would have asked you to deserve it.”

  “And how,” I pose, “would I do that, without knowing how you evaluate whether it’s a case I’m qualified to handle?”

  Charles smiles again, a bright beaming smile as if he’s about to tell me a heart-warming story from his childhood.

  “That’s easy,” he says, leaning in. He winks. “You want the fun work, I get some fun in return. Quid pro quo. We both get something beneficial out of it. The more fun I have, the more fun you have. It’s just how this works.”

  What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck. Did he just say to me?

  I catch my breath. My fork trembles in my hand. I will it to stop, trying to gather myself.

  What was it my father said? ‘…give him a little more credit and deference…’

  Not a fucking chance.

  “Wow,” I say, checking all external emotional reaction. “And that works for you?”

  Charles nods. “Surprisingly well,” he admits, smiling self-assuredly.

  I see.

  “And do you get the guys on staff to blow you, too? Or is it the regular, take it up the ass approach? Are you a top or a bottom? Or do you do both ways?”

  Charles nearly chokes, coughing up bits of half-chewed baby cow onto his plate, mashed potatoes clogging his airway, oozing out his nose. He wipes his face with his sleeve, glaring at me.

  “What the fuck, Bryn? I’m not gay,” he states, his face wracked with confusion.

  “You’re not?” I ask earnestly, careful not to break form. “Well for fucks sake Charles, how did you make fast-track on the partner bid if you aren’t blowing the other partners? I mean, at least you must have sucked my dad’s dick to get the nice corner office, right? You just said that’s how this works. I’m trying to understand exactly which acts I need to perform and with whom? Who did you have to get balled by first, to get the pro bono cases?”

  I sit back in my chair, watching Charles face distort into abject horror.

  “Bryn—”

  “Man,” I observe wistfully. “So, if you had to take it up the ass to get the pro bono work, I wonder what John Singleton over in Contracts did to get that plum assignment? ‘Cause—you know—that’s the most profitable wing of the shop. I bet he had to do some r
eally, grinding, kinky shit.”

  Our waiter passes. I raise my hand to him, begging him near.

  “Check please,” I say, handing him my card. I smile across the table at Charles. “I’m getting a Lyft. I don’t want to put you out of your way for a ride home. And I certainly don’t want any extracurricular fun with you.”

  Do I skip the chain of command and go straight to my father with this, or do I play it straight and take my complaint to HR? I’m not sure...