3. Sabrina
3
SAbrINA
T he buzz about the internship grew over the weekend. Come Monday morning, it was the biggest thing on everyone’s mind.
It was on mine.
Just like Professor Angus said she would, she posted the criteria to apply online. The list was there, in detail, for all of us students to review.
I had already spent most of Sunday concentrating on how I could pull off meeting every one of those requirements. No matter how prepared I might have looked on paper, I was still nervous that I wouldn’t get this spot.
After torts, taught by the dullest professor in the whole department, I met up with Elise for lunch. Even though she had dropped out and switched her gears toward a nursing degree, she was still very informed about the happenings within law school.
She wiped her mouth after a bite of her greasy burger, then cleared her throat. I felt the burn of her stare as I tidied up my notebooks and papers. It was obvious she was curious about something, watching me closely like this, but I could play this waiting game just fine. She’d crack sooner or later. The way I looked at it, this was just practice, a test, for when I’d need to keep a straight face in court. If she had something to say, she was welcome to do so. I wouldn’t act like a mind reader.
“Are you sure this internship is something you even want?” she asked, caving as I knew she would.
I raised my brows at her, intrigued why she’d inquire about that at all. She, more than anyone, knew how determined I was to succeed. Elise was a scholarship student, just like me. And just like me, she’d fought to earn that scholarship to have a place at this university.
“How can you doubt that I do?”
She shrugged, returning her attention to her lunch as more students milled around the café-like area near the biggest and main law school building. Without any rain on the horizon, it was nothing but the Floridian sunshine beating down on us out here.
“You wouldn’t want to work for a firm like Lorsen & Spengler.”
I sat back and peered at her, giving up on organizing my papers for a moment. I had a few more minutes to kill before going back to class. “I wouldn’t?”
“No.” She smirked, as though that should be obvious.
“I beg to differ. Lorsen & Spengler is one of the best law firms in the state. The country.” She knew this. “Getting an internship with them would look very impressive on my résumé.”
“Sure. If you wanted to go into practicing that kind of law.”
I couldn’t help a little laugh. “El, I want to ensure I practice some kind of law, anywhere, so I can start earning and helping my mom and dad out more.”
“Yes,” she replied as she rolled her eyes. “Of course, you want something lined up. I’m not suggesting you can be choosy.” She frowned. “Uh, actually, I think I am.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I reminded her. Since she came from the same poor background that I did, she damn well knew how hard we had to fight for our dreams and not be picky about them. Law school was competitive and challenging. There was no room for being selective.
“Yeah, generally. But this is you we’re talking about.”
“Yeah.” I laughed again. “Me. A nobody.”
She flattened her lips in a droll look. “I think you lost the right to claim you’re a nobody when you were valedictorian at your high school.”
“No, she’s got a point,” Rachel piped up from the next table from ours.
I almost cringed at her haughty voice. Go figure, she’d be eavesdropping.
“You are a nobody, Sabrina,” Rachel taunted.
“Just a piece of trash,” Tiffany chimed in, muttering softly enough that others further away wouldn’t hear her. She narrowed her blue eyes at me as she flicked her straight blonde hair over her shoulder. There was no missing the pure loathing she held for me.
“Ha.” Elise didn’t share the motto I tried to stick with when they ganged up to bully me—which was nearly every day. I didn’t try to engage in anything with Professor Lorsen’s daughter, the esteemed golden child of the department. No matter what she said or did, it had to be wisest to ignore it. To roll with the punches.
My friend disagreed. She liked the paltry idea of fighting back. Maybe she had less at stake now since she wasn’t in the program anymore.
“Nobody but the student at the top of the class,” Elise said, peering at them coolly. “What was your LSAT again, Tiff?”
I bit my lip not to smile. She hated that shortening of her name. It wasn’t proper enough for her, I supposed.
“Fuck you,” she snarled.
“Oh, that’s right…” Elise tapped her chin. “It was in the low forties, wasn’t it?”
“Just shut up,” Rachel said, standing up for her queen bee. “Like you should talk. You dropped out, remember? Fricking loser.”
“I changed majors,” Elise corrected. “And even I scored higher than Tiff.”
Tiffany scowled, looking away.
“If you think about applying for that internship, you’re an idiot,” Rachel told me. “No one’s going to want a trashy scholarship student like you.”
“They won’t?” Elise said.
I bit my lip, wishing she’d ignore them. The sooner they realized no one was listening, they’d move on. It was getting old, hearing them tease me about being trash—a joke that started because they found out that my dad worked for the maintenance crew and was a garbage collector. His job wasn’t fancy, but it was necessary. Mom and I were damned grateful that he had the steady employment like that.
“Sabrina scored a 175 on her LSAT. Remember? She’s got straight As. No issues like kissing ass to the profs. And her community project is already making waves.” Elise grinned after bragging about my achievements. “No one’s going to consider anyone but her.”
“In your dreams,” Rachel said.
“Come on,” Tiffany told her, getting up to leave the area.
Once they moved away, I furrowed my brow at Elise. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes.” She smiled wider. “I know you’ve got your whole turn the other cheek mentality, but I’m sick of their bullying you. You’re in far better standing to get this internship—or any others—than they are. Because you’re that good of a student. That good of a person.”
“Thanks, but?—”
She wasn’t done, plowing on. “And because you’re that good of a person, that’s why I wonder if you really want this internship.” She held her hand up to quiet me when I opened my mouth. “Yes, I know. It’s Lorsen & Spengler. They’re big names. But they’re not going to give you a chance to work on the kind of cases you truly care about. They represent celebrities and rich, influential people who just want to be let off the hook for whatever crimes they did so they can do it again.”
I winced.
“See. You know I’m right.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. A little.”
“You want to give back to the community. Since junior high, you’ve said that you want to represent the needy, the minorities, the underdogs of society. Not help billionaires use loopholes or assholes screw over the middle class.”
“True. But Lorsen & Spengler would be a solid stepping stone to get me where I ultimately want to be.”
She frowned. “At the cost of how much of your integrity?” She gestured in the direction Tiffany and Rachel had gone. “You really want to consort with people like them?”
Her strong position on viewing the wealthy as the enemy was nothing new. Yet, I had to be practical about this. An internship with that firm would open more doors.
“I wouldn’t be consorting with her.”
“Just her dad,” she replied.
“Just with her dad’s firm.” Professor Lorsen wasn’t as bad as his daughter. He was proper and self-righteous, but a fair instructor, as far as I could tell.
Elise shook her head. “You’re selling yourself short, Sabrina. Your community project wouldn’t even align with their firm’s mission statements.”
“It doesn’t need to. The community project is only supposed to be an example of taking initiative and acting on it.”
“Yeah.” She started to gather her trash. “And your trying to get fundraising for a new community pool and offer swimming lessons isn’t anything the rich elite like the Lorsens would be impressed by.”
I joined her in getting up, aware that she’d need to hurry more than me to reach her next class across campus. While I wanted to agree with her and admit she had a point, I feared it would sound like I was giving up before I even applied.
“What case would you be able to sit in on if you got this internship?” she asked.
I cringed, knowing this would only further prove her point that Lorsen & Spengler wasn’t representative of the kind of law I was interested in. “Defending a CEO from embezzlement charges.”
She huffed. “And you would want to live with yourself for assisting in that?” Shaking her head, she got her bag on and studied me. “You’re more suited to be a DA, Sabrina. Fight for the people. Get the scumbags in jail. Not the other way around.”
“I don’t want that either. I want to fight for other injustices,” I reminded her. Civil law was more up my alley. Not criminal.
“I’m just saying,” she said a few moments later as we parted ways. “It’s something to think about.”
As I walked toward my next class, I sighed. This internship was all that I was thinking about. It was big news. It would be a huge opportunity. But it didn’t mean I’d be selling myself short or compromising my integrity. If I got the intern spot, it would be an exercise. A lesson. An experience to learn, not “change my colors” or anything drastic like that.
It’s not like I would want to stay on after the internship. Just get it on my résumé and ? —
So lost in my thoughts, I failed to pay attention to my surroundings.
Someone ran up alongside me as I went down the path toward the lecture hall. And they came too close, knocking into me and sending me into the fountain beside me.
I gasped as I was tilted off my axis. Too quickly, I was falling, careening into the shallow water. Before I could get a shout out, anything more than that sharp intake of air, I went down hard and fast.
My knee bumped into the concrete rim of the large fountain, and that was probably the only reason that my laptop didn’t drop into the water with me. The bag strap slipped down my arm as I plummeted, and it smacked onto the ledge where students usually sat.
They got up, startled by my being shoved into the pool of water. Laughter rang out as I splashed all the way in. Students and bystanders stood and pointed, cracking up that I was now sitting in the foot of water.
It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s not deep. It’s not the ocean. It’s not ? —
Forcing myself to breathe and not hyperventilate at the fear of drowning, I sat up to wipe off my face.
I was soaked. My clothes, my shoes, my bag with notebooks. It was all dripping wet. Still, the only thing I could let into my mind was that I wasn’t drowning, not in this shallow amount of water. I would be fine, if humiliated and having to dry out my things now.
Blinking quickly and hating this long-held phobia of bodies of water, I gazed at the laughing and smirking faces of my enemies.
Tiffany and Rachel smiled with glee, watching me spit out water and climb from the fountain.
“Whoops,” Rachel’s boyfriend said. “Didn’t see you there.”
“Because she’s just a nobody,” Tiffany said.
Refusing to cry or cave to their cruel antics, I stared her down and hoped she could see how wrong she was. How wrong she would be.
No matter how much I didn’t agree with what that law firm stood behind and no matter how faintly their ethics could match mine, I would do everything I could to get that internship.
I’d be the somebody to win that coveted spot.
Not her.
That was how I’d fight back. I’d show her. I’d show them all.
Nothing, and no one, would stop me.