walked to the door and shut it softly, then returned to my place in front of his desk. Broward leaned back in his chair and tapped his finger to his chin, mulling something over while looking at me. I fought the urge to fidget.
“Okay, to begin, let’s attack the elephant in the room.” He leaned forward and met my gaze firmly, his almost-stern expression reminding me of when my father used to lecture me on the importance of high school English. What elephant in the room? Is this about the coffee?
“Brad De Luca,” he began. “Brad is, without a doubt, the best divorce attorney in the south. His waiting list is over ten months long, and many unhappy wives prolong a marriage for the sole reason of waiting to have Brad represent them.” His voice was matter-of-fact and slightly wry. “Brad is a shark in the courtroom and has no problem splattering the walls with blood. He also takes very, very good care of his clients.”
His tone and expression led me to believe that “taking care” of his clients might mean a little more than one would think. I nodded to indicate that I got the point.
“You will no doubt notice the daily breakfast platters, be invited on the Bahamas work weekends and hear the drone of excessive and unnecessary celebrations going on in that wing of this floor.” His stern gaze moved up in intensity to level six. “Julia, I don’t want you to have any part of that. Brad runs his part of the office that way—I run mine in a more...professional and efficient manner. There is a reason that you were not assigned to Brad. Stay away from him.” The approachable, friendly Broward was gone. In his chair sat a dictator speaking to me in the manner one might use on a bad puppy.
I was contrite and didn’t even know why. “Yes, sir,” I said, firmly but quietly.
“Great,” he said briskly. “Now, moving on to the other partner, Hugo Clarke. Clarke focuses on criminal law. His clients are mostly white-collar, though if a case has enough publicity, he will take on the bloodier ones. He is a great source of knowledge, and is always happy to help our interns. He has a young grandson who often spends time here at the office. If you see a two-year-old wandering around, that would be Clarke’s.”
I waited for another death glare and a warning that Clarke sold black market organs, but Broward seemed to be off his soapbox and was now almost jovial. Good lord, it was like dealing with a menopausal woman.
“I focus almost entirely on corporate law—all civil matters. Our work has a lot less emotion involved, but is exciting all the same.” Right. Every law student can’t wait to dive into corporate reform.
Broward skimmed over the other attorneys and reviewed the billing procedures and his general expectations. They all seemed reasonable, though I suspected his general reference to my expected sixty-hour weeks would probably be more of a seventy-or eighty-hour commitment. He signaled the end of our conversation by pressing Sheila’s extension on his phone and indicating that I should open the door.
Her melodious voice came through the speakerphone. “Yes, sir?”
“Please give Julia a tour of the office. Apparently Jane didn’t do a proper job in orientation. Also, she will be running over to Rothsfield to get the Danko file, so please explain the mileage system and petty cash.”
“Certainly.”
Sheila appeared in Broward’s doorway within seconds. She matched her polished voice—an older woman, in her sixties, with a blue sweater set, gray wool dress pants, perfectly coiffed silver hair and a string of pearls. She smiled kindly at me and ushered me out of Broward’s office, closing his door softly behind her.
Sheila’s tour of the wing was in-depth and informative. I met over twelve secretaries, six paralegals, and Attorney Liz Renfield. I nodded at the other interns as we passed through their areas, but didn’t have any conversations. I figured out early why Sheila didn’t bring Broward’s coffee. Handing me the petty cash key, she had an extreme shake to her hands. She was a talker, and I learned as much about her as the firm. She had been there twenty-two years, since it was just Clarke Law Firm and they had to occasionally miss a paycheck if it had been a slow month. By the end of the tour I had learned that Liz Renfield and Robert Handler had once shared more than a case, and that recently Chris Hemming, a civil attorney, had been caught embezzling funds and had been fired.
Sheila led me up a vacant and stale stairway leading to the attic file storage, pausing at the top, key pointed toward the lock in her shaky hand. She glanced at me, somewhat casually. “Did Mr. Broward mention anything about Brad De Luca?”
Four
Sheila and I were alone in the attic, a stuffy room with rows and rows of file boxes. At my initial estimate, there seemed to be over twenty rows, each over fifteen boxes deep and eight or nine boxes high on each side. Fluorescent lights above us made it a well-lit but hot area. The lights combined with Sheila’s question made me feel like a prisoner being interrogated. What is everyone’s obsession with this guy?
“Yes, Broward—Mr. Broward—told me that their side of the office operates a little differently than ours, and that I should steer clear of it.” I mumbled the words like a schoolgirl reciting her daily duties.
Sheila’s eyes gleamed with the excitement of gossip, but also with warning. “Mr. Broward was probably too proper to say that Brad is absolutely incorrigible! He stopped being assigned female interns three years ago because he couldn’t keep his hands off them. He’s divorced due to another one of his...relationships, and is never without some young thing on his arm. He’s Italian— You know how those men are.” She pronounced “Italian” as if it was some kind of diseased animal, and waved her hand as if that should explain everything. “Bottom line...” She fixed her steely gaze on me. “You are exactly his type. You need to stay as far away from Brad De Luca as you can get.”
Sheesh. This is what everyone is worried about? That I am about to become one of a senior partner’s latest conquests? First off, I am as sexually unpromiscuous as...probably Sheila! I am a twenty-one-year-old college student who has had a total of two partners. In college terms, I’m practically a saint! Secondly, isn’t De Luca like forty? In his late thirties at least. Who in their right mind would think I would be attracted to someone that old?
I was more than a little offended by the perception of my low standards.
I met Sheila’s eyes firmly and confidently. “Sheila, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Trust me.”
Her return look was less confident.
Five
A bit awkwardly, we finished the tour, and ten minutes later I was in my car with the windows down and “Whatever” by Hot Chelle Rae blaring. It was hot as hell outside but I didn’t care. I needed wind filling my car and blaring music in order to get my funk to pass. I wanted to make an impression at my internship, but one as an intelligent hardworker, not as the chick that everyone thinks Brad freaking De Luca is going to bang. My head was properly cleared but I was still a little bitchy when I returned to the office, Danko file in hand, along with a still-steaming cup of Starbucks coffee with “light cream and Equal” in it.
I gave the file to Sheila and dropped the coffee off at Broward’s desk. He was on another call and waved distractedly to me. I went into my office and started where I had left off the night before. Within three minutes, my office door banged open and Todd Appleton plopped his body into one of my chairs. Really? Am I going to get any freaking work done today?
I looked up over my file with what I hoped
