Practice Makes Perfect

by Carsen Taite

  “I’m sitting here so you won’t. Drinks. Roosevelt Room. Now.”

  “I can’t. I have to work.”

  “We all have to work, but we also have to play every now and then. Besides, the patent associates are buying. They’re celebrating some new engineering coup that I pretended to understand. I helped with some of the transactional work, and they invited me and I’m inviting you. All you have to do is nod your head and act like what they accomplished is the best thing ever.”

  She hesitated. She could use some Seth time to debrief after everything that had happened today. “Okay, but only for a little while, and only if it’s not too loud. I need to talk to you.”

  “Deal.” He lowered his legs from her desk and stood. “Meet you downstairs in five.”

  She met Seth in the lobby of the building and suggested they walk. “There’s no parking down there, and who knows how long this spring-like weather will last.” The truth was she figured the stroll would give them more time to talk before they were immersed in a crowd. They were a few steps away from the firm when she blurted out, “Campbell Clark is the bane of my existence.”

  “Bane? That’s a pretty strong word. Sounds like something you need a wizard to help you sort out.”

  “Okay, she’s not an epic bane, but she’s definitely a burr under my saddle,” Wynne replied, instantly regretting the reference. “You know what I mean.”

  “Do you want to spend the entire walk talking about what to call this or do you want to tell me facts, woman? Out with it.”

  “She and her fledging law firm have been hired to represent Leaderboard.”

  Seth came to an abrupt stop. “Wait, what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You got fired from the case?”

  Wynne shook her head. “I almost wish that had happened. No, we have to work together. At least on the Hendricks case. Once that’s over, Braxton implied they would pick one of us to handle their future business.”

  Seth waved his hand. “Oh, please, there’s no way he’s ditching Worth Ingram for a start-up.”

  “A week ago, I would have said there’s no way he would even hear their pitch, but he’s on a tear about having representation that more accurately reflects his corporate culture—hip and trendy. Everything that Worth Ingram is not.”

  “Makes sense in a way.”

  She punched him in the arm. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, of course. Look, you just have to get him to see that just because his company is hip and trendy doesn’t mean his law firm has to be. He needs lawyers who can deal with the gravitas of the courtroom and who bring venerable veteran force to the table in order to intimidate litigants.” He raised his fist. “Might and power, that’s what Worth Ingram, with you leading the charge, represent. Campbell Clark and her pals are all lipstick and kisses. You got this.”

  “I guess so.” She appreciated his encouragement, but now all she could think about was the pretty coral shade of Campbell’s lipstick and what it would be like to kiss her full lips.

  “Wynne?”

  She shook away her dreamy thoughts. “Yes?”

  Seth pointed at the sign to the Roosevelt Room. “We’re here. Are you good?”

  She wasn’t, but she didn’t think talking about it anymore was going to help the situation. Seth had given her what he promised—a pep talk. Now she needed to make it work. “Sure.”

  An hour later, she nursed a drink at the bar while Seth cruised an associate from the tax section and the rowdy patent lawyers cheered on a pool tournament like it was a Manchester United match. Good thing she’d talked to Seth on the way over because there was no chance they’d be able to have a conversation here. She didn’t begrudge him his fun. She’d gotten what she needed and she was ready to do battle to keep Leaderboard’s business. Campbell Clark and her pals were going down.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Wynne looked up to see a woman leaning on the barstool next to hers. The woman had perfectly coiffed waves of jet-black hair, and she was dressed in a red suit that hugged all her curves. And there were curves for days. Suddenly aware that she’d let her stare travel the entire length of the woman’s body, she looked at her face—which was perfect in every way—and realized she looked vaguely familiar. “Uh, yes. I mean, no. No one’s sitting here.”

  The woman slid onto the stool and stuck out her hand. “Lane Jennings. Patents.”

  That’s where she’d seen her, a lawyer at the firm, although Lane didn’t fit the usual profile of the patent section posse. Wynne raised her glass. “Ah, you’re the one responsible for the free drinks tonight.”

  “One of the ones.” Lane pointed at Wynne’s near empty glass. “Can I get you another?”

  Wynne considered for a moment. She’d been nursing the same martini since she arrived, regretting her decision to accompany Seth to the bar. It was too noisy and too full of coworkers to have a decent conversation, and she didn’t have the luxury of getting drunk because she would have to get some work done when she got home. Still, Lane was nice to look at and everyone in the patent section was a brainiac, so conversation was bound to be stimulating. Her mind flashed to Campbell standing at the front of the Leaderboard boardroom, commanding the attention of everyone in the room with her engaging and original presentation. The last thing she needed was another distraction from a cute girl.

  “Actually, I was about to head out.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  Wynne cast about for a response. A minute ago, she’d figured Lane was just being friendly, but now she heard a trace of flirtation in her voice. Or was she imagining it? Her strange and unwelcome attraction to Campbell had her on edge and likely reading more into this encounter than was actually there. She traced the rim of her martini glass and made her decision. “Thanks for the offer, but I really need to go.” She stood before she could change her mind.

  Lane smiled, a slow, sexy smile. “Another time maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  Chapter Eight

  Campbell swiped her hand to strike at whatever was blaring in her ear and heard a crash followed by the sound of something skittering across the floor.

  “What is happening?” she exclaimed as she rolled over in bed and squinted at the daylight pouring in through her bedroom window that signaled Monday was already rocking along without her. Making a mental note to buy blackout curtains, she crawled out of bed and retrieved her phone, praying the case was as sturdy as the guy at the store had promised. True to his word, the glass screen was intact, and the calendar alert that flashed across it signaled she didn’t have time to snooze. “Justin, you owe me big,” she muttered.

  The truth was, she owed him for the intro to Brax, and he was merely cashing in. The only good thing about defending a traffic ticket for her brother was that the municipal court was close to her house in South Austin. Everything else about the task was bad. For starters, she’d never appeared in city court before where simple traffic tickets and code violations were handled. She was no stranger to speeding tickets, but her packed schedule had never allowed time to fight them. All she really knew about municipal court was she’d be down there, vying for a dismissal from the prosecutor along with a bunch of random citizens, most of whom were representing themselves, which is exactly what Justin would be doing if he hadn’t connected her with Braxton Keith.

  She showered and wandered to the kitchen, hoping there was enough coffee left in the house to make a cup for the road. There wasn’t. Campbell stood in front of the open cabinet for way longer than necessary to confirm this fact as she tried to remember the last time she’d ordered groceries. Finally, she shut the cabinet door and scratched out a list, vowing that sometime today she would find time to order enough food to make her look like she actually lived in this house.

  The house had been her grandparents’ place. It was one of the few in the South Congress neighborhood that had stayed in a family rather than being sold off to the highest bidder wh
en the tax rates started to skyrocket. It had been sad to see all the neighbors move out and be replaced by a random mix of hipsters and out of state transplants who didn’t balk at the exorbitant real estate prices because they were still more affordable than New York or California, but she was thankful the new residents seemed vested in keeping the houses authentic, rather than mowing them down and replacing them with multistory monstrosities.

  The courthouse parking lot was crammed, and the line to get through security was full of clueless people who had pockets full of stuff that set off the metal detectors. By the time Campbell slipped into the courtroom, she’d rehearsed her arguments about how the hidden placement of the speed limit sign was the real culprit involved in Justin’s speeding violation as if she was pitching a case to the Supreme Court. She strode confidently toward the bailiff and asked where she could find the prosecutor. He pointed at a harried young man, likely a brand-new graduate from law school, sitting at one of the counsel tables, surrounded by stacks of files. Campbell put on her best winning smile and approached with an outstretched hand. “Good morning, I’m Campbell Clark here on behalf of my client, Michael Justin Clark. I was hoping that we could—”

  “Dismissed.” He handed her a piece of paper. “Get the judge to sign it.”

  Campbell stared at the piece of paper until he shook it at her. She pulled it toward her and skimmed the three-line motion to dismiss. “Why?”

  He stopped what he was doing and looked at her with a curious stare. “Officer can’t make it. I could ask for a reset, but the judge hates it when the officers don’t show, and…” he paused and pointed at the stacks of files, “it’s not like I don’t have anything else to do.”

  She nodded, gripped the paper, and walked over to the bailiff. She didn’t have to say anything. He plucked it from her hand and handed it to the clerk who stamped it with the judge’s signature and told her she was all done. She got a copy of the dismissal from the clerk and hightailed it out of the building before anyone could change their minds. It was still early and she had nowhere to be before her meeting at Wynne’s downtown office at eleven. Justin’s office was close to Wynne’s, and she snagged some pan dulce from La Mexicana Bakery and drove downtown. Parking in downtown Austin was one more thing she didn’t miss about her old job, but this way she could accomplish two important tasks.

  Justin came up to the front desk to meet her a few moments after the receptionist told him she was there. “Did you forget to go to court? Are you here to beg my forgiveness and pledge your eternal service to me?”

  Campbell smacked him in the stomach with the bakery box. “Hardly.” She pointed at the paper she’d placed on top. “Case freaking dismissed.”

  He took the paper in both hands. “You’re kidding!” He set it and the box down and spun her around. “All those years of arguing with me over the remote have really paid off. You’re the best.”

  She felt a pang of guilt. “Give me a sweet bread, and I’ll tell you how it went down.”

  He opened the box with a flourish and gazed inside while Campbell looked on—so many incredible choices. She settled on a fruit bar pastry, because fruit was healthy, right?

  “Okay, dish,” he said between bites of his concha.

  “Truth? The officer was on vacation, and they’re too backed up to reset your case. Total time in court, twenty seconds, tops.”

  “That’s it? I think you still owe me a favor.”

  “Nope. A deal’s a deal. Besides, it’s not like your favor to me has actually panned out. Brax hired us to work with his current firm for one case. If the case goes south, he may fire us all, and then I’ll be handling everyone’s traffic tickets while I find another big fish.”

  “Damn, I thought the gig with Brax would be a lock. Isn’t the other firm a bunch of dinosaurs? I’m surprised he decided to keep them around.”

  Campbell conjured up a vision of Wynne, the very opposite of dinosaur. She started to mention her to Justin but stopped. She wasn’t sure why. “Not sure he had anything to do with that decision. More like his board took over when they saw he was trying to fire venerable and stuffy and replace them with Charlie’s Angels.”

  “Charlie’s Angels? Is that what you’re calling yourselves?”

  “Law school nickname. Not one we gave ourselves. It is catchy, but since there’s no Charlie, not really appropriate. We’re more like the law firm equivalent of the Ghostbusters.”

  “Well, whoever you are, I’m sure you’re more Brax’s speed than a bunch of old guys stuck in the past.”

  Again with the old reference. Now. Now was the time to mention that not all the lawyers at Worth Ingram were past their prime or guys, and one in particular might even be date-worthy, but her phone chimed to signal it was time to head to Wynne’s office. “Speaking of the other law firm, I’m supposed to be there for a meeting in just a few. How about we get together Friday after work and I’ll catch you up.”

  “No can do. I’ve got a gig, but Perry’s birthday is coming up,” he said, referring to their younger sister. “Give me a call later and we’ll make plans.”

  Campbell left the office feeling slightly guilty. She and Justin didn’t keep secrets, but Wynne wasn’t a secret, was she? No, she was a business thing. A smoldering, hot business thing that was getting under her skin.

  The lobby of Worth Ingram was decorated with oversized antiques and a hideous combination of artwork in gilded frames with no central theme, as if each of the partners had brought a piece of art from home to be displayed in a scattered arrangement of expensive bad taste. She gave her name to the receptionist who asked if she’d like a cup of coffee while she waited. She declined, but after five, then ten minutes passed while she was kept waiting, she was beginning to wish she hadn’t. Finally, the receptionist returned with another woman in tow. The new woman extended her hand with a smile, but Campbell could see a trace of apprehension.

  “Hi, Ms. Clark. I’m Jennifer, Ms. Garrity’s assistant. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. Ms. Garrity is at your office right now, waiting for your meeting.”

  Campbell looked at her phone to check her calendar, but there had been no change to the schedule on her end. She pulled up her firm email account and saw a message from about an hour ago from the new receptionist Grace had hired, Blue Dawn. She rolled her eyes at the name and opened the message. Win Geriti called to confirm your meeting. And that was it. She quickly typed a reply. “And did you confirm? Did you discuss location? Are you dense?”

  She stared at the screen for a moment, and then started backspacing until she was back to the first two sentences. She’d had high hopes for this receptionist since they’d gone through a ton of résumés before they found any applications with experience working at a law firm. She made a mental note to talk to Grace about the new hire and drove to her office, frustrated about the confusion, but unable to contain a growing excitement at the prospect of seeing Wynne again.

  * * *

  Wynne watched while the receptionist at Campbell’s fledging firm wrote down her name as Win, but she didn’t bother to correct the misspelling. Now that she was an adult, she liked having an unusual name but it had been the bane of her existence early on. Today, she’d take Win and accept it as foreshadowing, because she was going to show up Campbell Clark and her Barbie friends when it came to Leaderboard’s business.

  “Please have a seat and I’ll let Miss Clark know you’re here.”

  Wynne took her time walking back to the group of colorful, modern chairs arranged in the lobby and surveyed the den of her rival. The offices were bright and airy with lots of natural light pouring in from the tall windows. As a senior associate, she had a tiny window in her office at Worth Ingram that overlooked the roof of the building next door, but the majority of the firm was shut off from the natural rhythms of sunup and sundown, likely in an effort to fool all the associates into working round the clock.

  “Wynne?”

  Wynne turned to see Abby Keane sta
nding behind her, a curious expression on her face. “Hi, I hope you don’t mind. I was just admiring your new office while I waited.”

  “No worries,” said Abby. “But do you mind if I ask what you’re waiting for?”

  These women needed to get their act together. Or not. Wynne glanced at her watch. “I have a meeting with Campbell. Matter of fact, it was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago.” Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have thrown in that last bit of snideness, but they were both on the clock here, and if Campbell was going to keep her waiting, she’d be better off going back to her office and getting some work done there.

  “I know,” Abby said. “I mean I know about the meeting, but it’s supposed to be at your office, not here. Campbell was going straight there after court this morning.”

  Wynne shook her head. “My assistant called yesterday to change the location. She confirmed with someone named…” she paused to look at her phone. “Blue Dawn?” Abby jerked her gaze toward the receptionist and uttered a low growl.

  “Ugh, I’m sorry. Have a seat and I’ll straighten this out.”

  Wynne watched as Abby walked over to Blue Dawn who had just broken out a Bento box with some seriously pungent food right there at the front desk. She couldn’t quite hear every word of the whispered conversation, but she did catch a few snippets.

  I can’t believe you didn’t tell Campbell the meeting had changed.

  There are a lot of calls. I can’t be expected to remember everything everyone says.

  Put that smelly crap away. Your desk is not a dining room.

  When Abby headed back her way, Wynne pretended she hadn’t been listening, but Abby didn’t get a chance to say anything before Campbell burst through the doors.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Wynne considered several possible responses to Campbell’s barked question. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”