Effortlessly Real by Christa Wick & C.M. Wick

Author:Christa Wick & C.M. Wick [Wick, Christa & Wick, C.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Evergreen Books Publishing

Chapter Fourteen

Five cars cluster near the front door of Chatham, Lahser and Meir when I arrive a little after nine-thirty. None of them belong to Artie. Driving around back, I park out of view of the main street and use my keycard to enter through the rear door.

My office on the third floor is smaller than that of most senior associates, even the ones who weren’t on the precipice of becoming a partner. Wrinkling my nose as I remember all the old reasons why I was shoved into a broom closet with a window, I sit at my desk and turn on my laptop.

I log in. The file I was working on Thursday fills the screen. I superstitiously hit save even though I would have done so before leaving my desk. I close the file, open up my calendar. There’s a planning meeting for Neptune Beach on Wednesday. I’m scheduled to speak. I pull up the files on my computer, walk into the hall to make sure the shared printer is on and filled with paper, then return to my computer and send the print command. As the machine spits a hundred plus pages out, I scroll through my email looking for anything new that is important enough for me to need a personal back up.

Hearing the tap of a cane out in the hall, I quickly navigate to another program and open a new file.

Leaning heavily on his cane, Artie Chatham appears in my open doorway. At sixty-three, he seems too young to need the cane, but he rolled his golf cart last year and had to have hip replacement surgery.

It’s been whispered around the halls that alcohol was involved. One look at all the broken capillaries on his face that weren’t there when I started at the firm suggests the whispers are more than idle gossip.

“Good morning, Artie,” I say, my gaze barely flicking in his direction before returning to the file I just opened.

I don’t mention the envelope. I had to sign for the delivery, so he knows I received it. I leave it to Artie to make the next move.

He settles slowly into my chair. Normally, I feel sympathy for him in these brief moments when he can’t help but wince in pain. Right now, I don’t feel bad. Then I kind of feel bad that I don’t feel bad.

Mashing my lips together, I rotate my chair and dig into the extra large filing cabinet I have for architectural plans and sitemaps. I pull out the set for Neptune Beach, roll the sheets and place them in a tube.

All while Artie remains silent.

I stifle a snort. No way am I talking first.

Other attorneys in the firm may joke about how slow Artie is when he speaks, and how slow he is to start talking. They seem to think this is something he can’t help—like a stutter or a lisp. So they laugh behind his back.

And he laughs behind theirs.

Hearing the printer stop, I leave my office, grab my copies, and return to my desk.

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