Whipped, page 2
As Erica spoke, Cheyenne took furious notes on the back of the first sheet of paper she found. Ugh, try hard.
“Do you think you can handle that?” Erica asked rhetorically, having given Cheyenne a task any idiot could do.
Even one that hadn’t gone to law school. “Or do you need me to tell you what rule of procedure to look under?”
“I’m sure I’ll find it,” she replied with an unwavering smile and perplexing confidence. “When’s the deadline?”
Erica stood and refused to wince at the pain sparking up her back like an electric current. “An hour.”
Cheyenne nodded. “I’ll have it to you in forty-five minutes.”
The best Erica could do was wait until she turned around to roll her eyes. She hated eagerness. She won’t last, Erica told herself as she strode to her office, and it won’t be my fault.
CHAPTER 3
ON HER SECOND DAY, Cheyenne arrived early enough that there was plenty of open parking. She took the spot furthest from the Subaru already stationed near the stairwell and considered flicking some holy water on it.
Her meeting with her mentor couldn’t have gone worse.
Despite playing the interaction repeatedly in her mind, Cheyenne couldn’t figure out why it had gone so badly.
Cheyenne admitted to herself that she’d been thrown off when she saw her waiting in her office. She was shockingly just her type. Tall, dark, and terrifying like every professor she’d ever had a crush on, but she thought she’d recovered quickly. She’d been friendly and engaging, but it was no use.
The woman had gone in there with the intention of hating her.
Even when she’d completed the assignment without ever having seen a divorce case in her life, Erica rewarded her with nary a glance and a new task. It was the only indication that she’d done an acceptable job.
After saying hello to the receptionist, she turned right toward the criminal law wing rather than making a left toward her office. In the large kitchen and break room shared by the entire firm, Cheyenne found Anwar chatting with a woman while making coffee. In a sharp, white dress and short curly hair, she oozed enviable confidence.
“You survived your first day and you even came back!”
Anwar greeted before turning to the woman next to him.
“Dasia, this is Cheyenne. She’s the newbie in family.”
Cheyenne clasped the woman’s outstretched hand.
“So nice to meet you,” Dasia said as she gripped her in a firm shake. “I’m Dasia Johnson. I do mostly white-collar criminal defense. Welcome aboard.”
“You’ll never believe who her mentor is,” Anwar said as he added water to the coffee machine.
“Oh, God. Who?” Dasia’s dark brown eyes shone with curiosity. “Not Erica.”
Her reaction made Cheyenne uneasy. Not only was she nervous about someone overhearing them, but the horror on Dasia’s face was terrifying.
“Yup,” Anwar confirmed before pulling his mug out from under the machine and gesturing that it was open for Cheyenne. “I bet they don’t want to make her a partner until she can prove she’s not an actual monster of mythical proportions.”
Dasia suppressed a laugh, yanking a teabag out of her mug and tossing it into the garbage.
“Partner?” Cheyenne didn’t think Erica was old enough to be a partner. She’d never known one under fifty. There was no way Erica was more than a few years older than her twenty-seven. “Isn’t she too young for that?”
“She’s thirty-five,” Anwar explained as Cheyenne opened a cupboard and reached for one of the blue mugs imprinted with the firm’s logo and handed it to her. “I’m sure she’ll tell you soon that she wants to make partner before she turns thirty-six and be a judge by the time she’s forty. I think her aim was to be partner before thirty-five, but she had to move the goalpost.” He chuckled.
“Lofty goals,” Cheyenne admitted.
“She’s a freaking machine,” Dasia said as she stirred honey into her steaming cup. “I bet she’ll make it happen.”
“Not if she makes another intern cry she won’t,” Anwar joked as Cheyenne waited for her coffee to brew.
The notion of Erica making someone cry didn’t seem impossible. She was so cold and intimidating.
“Not just cry,” Dasia interjected. “He quit law school and started selling cars!”
“Damn, I forgot about that,” Anwar leaned against the sink before sipping his coffee. “I’m kind of surprised they’d let her mentor again.”
“Maybe they think someone who already passed the bar and acquired a hundred thousand dollars in student loans won’t give up that easily,” Cheyenne joked, hoping she wasn’t a science project. She just wanted to complete her six months of probation and get out of Erica’s way without incident.
Maybe then they could get to know each other as equals.
“He was a little weak,” Dasia conceded after giving it some thought. “She probably did him a favor. Poor kid.” She turned her attention directly to Cheyenne. “Don’t let her push you around. Erica is a good lawyer. I don’t think she means to be a fire-breathing dragon—”
“You might be alone in that assessment,” Anwar muttered into his mug before glancing back as if someone else had spoken.
Dasia shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, she can be an inflexible hard ass that bulldozes her way toward her goal—”
“That’s an understatement,” he mumbled.
“But…” Dasia shot him a look. “If she was a man, no one would be put off by her demeanor. We’d all just think she’s serious and driven. Give her your best, don’t expect to coast, and don’t be a doormat.”
“No way,” he objected. “This is not a gender thing. It’s not like I’m some neanderthal telling her to smile. Erica delights in torturing people, D. That’s not just being driven. She likes to break down and embarrass her targets. She hasn’t even told her that she can dress business casual if she’s not in court.”
Dasia considered Anwar’s points. “Yeah, that’s fair. She does like to crush the unworthy.” She turned to Cheyenne.
“Show her you’re not one to be messed with. She’ll respect that.”
With coffee in hand, Cheyenne started toward her office.
Anwar and Dasia’s warnings swirled around in her mind as she walked. She had noticed that most people didn’t wear full suits, but she’d followed Erica’s unspoken lead and dressed up. Was she being naive?
The office was still quiet. Most staff didn’t arrive until nine and the partners’ offices were still dark as she passed them.
The silence was eerie and foreboding as she neared Erica’s office. The light cast a glow unto the wood tiled floor.
Cheyenne slowed as she approached the glass door with the gold sign reading Erica Torres. Senior Associate.
Recalling Dasia’s advice, she straightened. With her head held high, she projected confidence and moved toward the door. Erica, her short hair parted on the side and sweeping across her forehead, was as erect as she’d been while waiting for Cheyenne yesterday.
Does she always sit that way? Did she have a metal rod in place of a spine?
Cheyenne knocked before she could lose her nerve and send Erica an email instead. She didn’t want Erica to think she was intimidated by her … even if she was disturbed by her inability to win her over.
“Come in,” Erica called without looking over from her computer screen.
Erica’s office was a little larger than Cheyenne’s and with a better view, but it had the same desk, two chairs, and small loveseat. Her degrees were different too, of course. Erica’s Princeton undergrad and Notre Dame law degrees were mounted on massive frames to her left.
“Good morning,” Cheyenne greeted cheerfully as she poked her head in the door.
Slowly, as if suddenly noticing a gnat that had been buzzing around her ear, Erica glanced away from her monitor and toward Cheyenne. When Erica’s cold gaze landed on her,
Cheyenne debated slinking back into the hallway. Instead, she forced herself to stand more upright.
No pleasantries, okay then.
“I’m ready for my next assignment,” Cheyenne said after deleting the smile from her lips per Dasia’s advice.
With a sweeping glance, Erica studied her from head to toe. Cheyenne refused to squirm under her inquisitive eye. She wouldn’t be made to feel like she didn’t belong.
“It’s already on your desk,” she said hoarsely as if she hadn’t spoken a word yet that morning and returned to whatever she was typing.
That’s it? Are you freaking kidding me?
Cheyenne clenched her jaw to keep from giving her the satisfaction of another word. She desperately wanted to ask what her problem was. Could she still be mad about the stupid parking thing? It was absurd to punish her for doing something she couldn’t have known was a mistake.
If you want to get a designated space, why don’t you stop treating people like shit and earn a partner spot.
It took all of Cheyenne’s self-control to keep her composure. She didn’t want anyone to know that Erica had gotten under her skin. Especially not Erica. Instead of slamming her soft-close glass door, Cheyenne grabbed the file sitting on her desk, dropped her purse in her drawer, and got to work.
“HEY, MOM,” Cheyenne called as she let herself into her mother’s house. The villa was a cute two-bedroom in a retirement community.
As soon as she stepped into the small entryway, she was met with two columns of stacked, tidy, plastic bins. She turned sideways to slide between them.
Even though her mother had bought the place three years ago, she was always in a perpetual process of moving in. If only she’d accept that she was no longer living in a large four-bedroom house, she could stop trying to make things fit.
“Mom?” Cheyenne called again when she spilled into the living room where a full upright piano did not fit yet occupied a wall just the same.
She walked past the homage to her around the piano.
Scores of photos of various recitals starting when Cheyenne was seven joined ribbons and plaques. It was white noise. A hazy picture of someone she used to be … or tried to be.
Beyond the dining room packed tight with three China cabinets full of dinner sets for big family meals they’d never have, Cheyenne spotted her mom’s salt and pepper head in the kitchen window.
I told you to wait for me!
Rushing to the back door leading to the garden, Cheyenne yelled at her mother to stop unloading wet bags of mulch from the back of her SUV.
“What the heck are you doing, Ma?” She chastised her as she darted between her mother and the open trunk where a dozen bags were waiting.
“I’m old, Shy. I’m not dead. I can move a few bags,” she joked, wrapping her arthritic hands around the moist plastic.
Cheyenne grabbed the bag before her mother could heave it off the ledge and toss it on the mound of fading black wood chips she was replacing.
“At least go change out of your nice clothes!” her mother scolded.
Glancing down at her black dress, Cheyenne shrugged.
She’d left her jacket in the car and changed into flip flops. “A little dirt won’t ruin it.”
“So stubborn,” her mother muttered with her hands on her hips.
I wonder where I get that from.
After more arguing, Cheyenne’s mother resigned herself and went inside to get them something to drink. Within seconds, Cheyenne began to sweat. The early April evening was slightly cooler than the heat of the afternoon, but with rain on the way, the humidity was suffocating.
As she carried the bags from the car to the island of palms and shrubs taking up a quarter of her mom’s small backyard, Cheyenne got into a groove. By the time she was ripping the plastic open and dumping the rich, black chips onto the faded old ones, her mind wandered.
Erica had barely said two words to her. She’d gotten a warmer reception from the lady who emptied the office trash.
At least they’d chatted for fifteen minutes when they met.
Cheyenne knew her name, how many kids she had, where each of them was attending college, and what year she’d moved to the United States.
All Erica had given her directly was her name. Nothing more. Her distance spurred on Cheyenne’s curiosity. What was going on under that perfect exterior?
Probably hardcore Pilates and a strict skincare regimen.
Cheyenne ran through the limited interactions they’d had over the last few days. What had she done to make her so hostile? Exist? Even the feedback she’d gotten on her work had been by way of tracked changes on a Word document.
And boy had there been changes. Not a single comma had been left in its original location.
If only Erica’s behavior didn’t push her to work harder. If only she could go to Toni and ask for a different mentor. But that would make her look weak, wouldn’t it? What would she say?
Hey Toni, Erica doesn’t chat with me, and she edits the hell out of my work. Can I get a gentler mentor, please, because I obviously can’t stand the mildest heat in the kitchen?
Cheyenne groaned as she tore open another bag. She usually loved the scent of wood and wet soil, but it was doing nothing to help her mood.
“You work fast,” her mother said when she appeared in the backdoor. Carrying two tall glasses of lemonade, she scrutinized her work as she approached.
Accepting the drink, Cheyenne noticed the tiny bits of pith.
Of course, she’d made some fresh squeezed rather than pouring some from a jug like a regular person.
Her mother’s eyes darted to Cheyenne’s dirt-caked fingers.
“Twenty years of beautiful piano,” she lamented aloud, “just to toil in the dirt.”
Cheyenne laughed even though her mother wasn’t joking.
She could bring anything back to the child she thought would be a concert pianist. In her unending grief for the lost prodigy, she sometimes stretched so far that it was funny rather than frustrating. It helped Cheyenne ignore the implication that what she had done with her life was insufficient.
“Are you making arroz con pollo on Sunday?” Cheyenne asked, fully disregarding her mother’s attention on her hands.
“Yes. Your cousins are coming from Boca.”
The simple question set her mother off on a tangent about her cousin remarrying. In under a minute, she’d rattled off a dozen of the man’s negative qualities. Ironically, they included the fact that he was divorced with two small children. She said it as if Cheyenne’s cousin wasn’t also divorced with two small children.
As she skewered the poor guy none of them had met yet, Cheyenne chugged her drink.
And you wonder why I am enthralled by difficult women who are impossible to please, Mom?
CHAPTER 4
AFTER NEARLY A MONTH, Cheyenne had acclimated to her new job. She hadn’t managed to turn anything in that didn’t get lit up like a Christmas tree with virtual red pen littered all over it, but she’d started trying to anticipate what Erica would change.
Thinking like Erica had admittedly made her writing more concise and effective. Wordiness had been something she’d struggled with since her first year of law school. Erica could say in one sentence what took Cheyenne a paragraph or two.
At least Erica was an outlier in the anti-social department.
Most everyone else at the firm was reasonably friendly and happy Cheyenne had joined the team. She hadn’t met any clients in person yet, but Erica insisted it wasn’t necessary to see anyone unless they were preparing for hearings or mediation. But the couple of people she’d spoken to on the phone had been pleasant enough.
The best part had been meeting Anwar and Dasia. After having gone to Washington DC for law school, Cheyenne had returned to Miami to find that she wasn’t quite in sync with her old friends. Hanging out with people who were living her same experience was a lifesaver.
“Delivery,” Anwar announced as he appeared in the office kitchen with an enormous white box.
“You better not have ordered that weird ass eggplant pizza again,” Dasia complained as she plopped a stack of napkins on the table.
Cheyenne pulled the bottle of soda from the fridge. She loved the Friday lunch ritual they’d started. The three of them were the only lawyers under thirty and had bonded quickly.
Cheyenne was the youngest, but not by much.
“I didn’t mind the eggplant,” Cheyenne decided as she set the soda on the table and went for the cups. “The hot dogs however,” she made a gagging face. “That was… a choice.”
Anwar rolled his eyes. “When it’s your week, you get to pick. I didn’t say anything when Shy picked pineapple.”
Cheyenne gasped in exaggerated offense. “Pineapple is a traditional and highly orthodox pizza topping.”
“It’s a fruit,” Anwar countered the same way he had when she’d made her selection. “What kind of monster puts fruit on a savory food item?”
Dasia laughed. “You don’t have any problem with the tomato sauce. That’s a fruit base. Plus, fruit, cheese, and bread have always made wonderful bedfellows.”
Cheyenne cackled. “Bedfellows?”
“Don’t you two gang up on me,” Anwar said, pointing his finger at them in warning before clapping his hands and rubbing them together as he looked longingly at lunch. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
“How’s the trial prep going?” Dasia asked as she took a slice of pizza.
Anwar sighed. The gleam in his eyes fading. “I don’t know. I met with this guy’s family today. He might not have enough to fight deportation. The judge we’re in front of is tough. I don’t think she’s going to be moved by what we have so far. I keep trying to impress upon the family how important this is, you know? Like this isn’t some time in jail or something, this is gone probably forever. If you can’t take time off from work to come speak on his behalf, the judge isn’t going to see him as more than just another face.”
