Grudge Tiger by Judith Fournie Helms

Author:Judith Fournie Helms
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TouchPoint Press
Published: 2021-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

JACKIE JUMPS OUT of the cab at her hotel and hurries through the lobby and up three flights of stairs to their little suite. The girls are out for the day with Jamie, so she has the quiet she needs to work on her cross-examinations, but the tsunami of memories won’t let up. They wash over her as she throws her briefcase on the couch and slips out of her blazer. She takes a quick, hot shower to try to rinse them off, but they cling—determined to distract her from her work. They are ever present after she dries off and puts on her sweats. She finally just gives in, climbs into her bed, and lets them have at her.

She is twenty-four and fresh out of law school. She spends that summer working at a book shop and studying for the July bar exam. After having aced her law school classes, it seems to her both anticlimactic and dreary to memorize statutes that any decent lawyer would look up, once in practice. It feels like an initiation torture, and she really doesn’t appreciate it. Finally, the big day comes, and she’s pleased with how it goes.

She and a friend agree to meet the next evening, a Friday, to celebrate at a Rush Street bar. The place has an Irish name and a reputation as a great place to party, though she doesn’t know it from personal experience as she’s done precious little partying in law school. She arrives shortly after 9:00 p.m. and thinks she was misled about the place. It isn’t crowded at all—hardly party central. Sarah hasn’t arrived yet, so she sits at the bar and orders a beer. She asks the bartender, a thirty-something redhead, why it’s so empty on a Friday night. The woman says, “It doesn’t get busy ‘til eleven o’clock or so. Most people wouldn’t show up this early—except maybe tourists.” Jackie just nods, embarrassed at her ignorance of bar culture.

A young man with a very short haircut sits a couple of barstools from hers, and must’ve heard the exchange. “Damn. I didn’t know that,” he says to the waitress, who smiles at him. He’s wearing blue jeans and a light green cotton pullover, and he is very nice-looking—as far as Jackie can tell in the dim light of the bar. He looks at her and says, “Do you mind if I join you?” He indicates the bar stool next to hers.

“Not at all. But, apparently, I’m a nerd about bars.”

He smiles and points at himself with both hands. “Me too.” He pauses, then looks at her and asks, “So, what brings you here?”

“‘Here’ meaning Chicago? Or ‘here’ meaning my early-bird appearance at this bar?”

“I’d love to hear both.”

She smiles. “I’m from Southern Illinois. I came up to Chicago for undergrad and law school. I just took the bar exam, so I’m celebrating being finished with that horror.”

“Celebrating alone?”

“Oh, no. I’m not quite that pathetic. My girlfriend is supposed to meet me here.”

“Cool.”

“I’m Jackie.”

He reaches out his right hand to shake hers and says, “It’s nice to meet you, Jackie.

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