Call Me Copy Girl One More Time Chapter 08

Call Me Copy Girl One More Time Chapter 08: First Chair of Nothing

Harlan Pierce found out at 8:04 the next morning.

I know the exact time because Jules was standing in the elevator when the all-firm email went out, and she

says grown partners made noises she’d never heard before.

RE: NOTICE OF APPEARANCE STATE v. ASHFORD

M. Calloway, Esq. – First Chair, Trial Counsel, Ashford Matters.
Sloane Whitaker found me in the records hallway at 8:20, still holding her coffee, and she was smiling.

That’s how I knew it was going to get ugly.

“Ms. Calloway,” she said. “So we’ve all been calling you the wrong thing.”

“Sloane-”

“Nine years.” She said it pleasantly. “Nine years I clawed for that chair. Weekends. Nights. Every filthy political

thing you can imagine. And you got it in nineteen hours by standing next to a rich man’s terrified brother.”

“I didn’t ask for the chair.”

“No, you did something so much worse. You had it the whole time.” Her smile finally slipped. “Do you know how many of my briefs came back corrected in pencil? Forty. Forty times some ghost fixed my work and let

me keep my reputation. And it was you. Down here. Watching me.”

“I never wanted you to fail.”

“You let me not know how good I actually was.” Her voice shook, and for one second I saw something almost human. “Which is the same thing, Tess. That’s exactly the same thing.”

She walked away, and at the corner she stopped.

“Four days,” she said. “Long trial. Lot of hours. Lot of things can go wrong in front of a jury.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a prediction.” And she was gone.

Thursday, I met Eli Ashford properly.

He had his brother’s eyes and none of his frost.

“You’re the date-stamp lady.”

I’m the date-stamp lady.”

“They said you’re famous.”

“They exaggerate.”

“My brother doesn’t exaggerate about anything, ever, it’s honestly a problem.” He pulled his knees up on the couch. “Am I going to prison?”

The old me would have said something warm and useless.

“Maybe,” I said. “The chance is about one in five. That’s the honest number, and if anyone gives you a better one they’re managing you, not representing you.”

He stared at me. Then he laughed, wet-eyed. “God. Thank you. Everyone talks to me like I’m a hamster.”

“You’re not a hamster. You’re a defendant with a plan.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

“Of what?”

I looked at him, and I told the truth.

“The last person I defended was my brother,” I said. “And I lost him.”

Eli was quiet for a while.

Then he reached over and took my hand – the way you’d take a friend’s hand, not a lawyer’s.

“Then let’s get you a better last one,” he said.

At 10 p.m. I went to the court’s online docket to check the room assignment for Monday.

Monday, 09:00. STATE v. ASHFORD, Counsel: CALLOWAY, T.

Courtroom: 48.

I stood in that dim hallway and felt three years of carefully packed ice crack straight down the middle.

I’d made it a condition. Cole’s people had confirmed it with the clerk. Anything but 4B.

Chapter 8: First Chair of Nothing

I pulled up the scheduling change log.

Courtroom reassignment. Timestamp 9:12 p.m. Reason: “counsel scheduling conflict.”

Requested by: WHITAKER, S., Esq., Harlan Pierce LLP.