Chapter 10

The day Nora was to return to work arrived on a sled of trepidation that crashed through the front door and flooded her apartment. The anxiety she'd managed to stave off lately—with a few notable exceptions—was back with a vengeance.

She would have been quite happy to never darken the door of November and Sons again... but reality was a bitch. With her usual bills and rent, plus the medical bills that were piling up (thanks to her trip to the coast, bills from a hospital her insurance deemed "out of network" were twice as costly) and her dad's increasingly reproachful texts, she had no choice but to return. For now.

She felt like she was walking into a prison, presenting herself to do her time. No one, save James, would be happy to see her. She'd never fit in there, had always felt like a tiny island far from the office shore.

Her father had leapfrogged her over everyone to install her into a coveted position in a swank corner office for having done nothing more than pass the bar exam. "On your second attempt,"as he so often liked to remind her. But she knew how the staff viewed her: the owner's kid without even a fraction of the experience most of them had and even less finesse. She was the walking definition of nepotism, and if there was any doubt, she'd heard the daddy jokes over the last few years.

After the night of her disastrous pass-the-bar party, Nora had insisted to her father that she was going into environmental law. He'd responded with a smirk. Which turned out to be a prescient smirk—she couldn't get an interview. On the rare occasion she did, she was told the field was highly competitive and they'd get back to her, but no one ever did.

At one interview, she'd told them she'd start anywhere. In the mailroom, if necessary. One of the partners had walked her out. At the elevator door, she'd said, "Do yourself a favor. Capitalize on your name and go to work for your father."

That's when it had clicked—potential employers saw no reason to give her a position and spend their resources training her when they assumed she would likely end up at November and Sons anyway.

Her lack of success at finding a job had emboldened her dad. He'd showered her with promises. He'd said he'd never show her favoritism, that he would treat her like any other lawyer. That those who were concerned about nepotism would be proved wrong.

But they weren't wrong, and her father didn't treat her like any other lawyer—he gave her high-profile cases that she was not prepared to take, told her exactly what to do, and left nothing to her judgment. At case review meetings, he would expect her to present, then pick apart everything she said, leaving her self-confidence in tatters.

In the two weeks leading up to her accident, she hadn't been sleeping well. She'd been wandering around her apartment at night, worrying about her work and the state of the world in general. About the state of her. She'd even told her parents that it didn't feel as if her mind was firing on all cylinders.

"How could it with all the carbs you eat?"her mother had said.

Just before she left on vacation to the coast, she'd had a case settlement meeting for a client who'd been injured at a refinery and fractured his hip. The man was in his fifties, had four kids, and was out of work for weeks. November and Sons was suing the company for damages on his behalf—the pockets of the oil and gas industry were notoriously deep. November and Sons maintained that the man's injuries were such that he'd probably never work again.

Before the meeting began, an attorney for the defendant pulled Nora aside and showed her footage of her client riding a motorcycle, picking up debris in his yard, and then going out for a jog. Nora understood that if they didn't settle, a trial would expose her client exaggerating the seriousness of his injury. She explained to her client that a judge or jury would not see his physical improvement as miraculous but more likely would conclude he'd made a fraudulent claim, and she convinced him to settle for less than the firm had been expecting to get.

She remembered walking into the case review meeting afterward, so tired that she'd bumped into another staff member on her way in. "Wow," he said. "You look like you've been on a bender."

"Sorry," Nora had muttered, lacking the energy to disabuse him of that idea. She sat at the table and looked down and happened to notice a coffee stain on the lapel of her light gray jacket. When had that happened?

When it came time for her to present the settlement results, her father had listened expressionless. When she'd finished explaining what had transpired, he asked, "How do you feel about the settlement?"

Nora had been his daughter for thirty-one years and knew a trick question when she heard one. But she never could seem to think fast enough. "Um..."

"If you don't have an opinion, which is a problem in and of itself, let me give you mine. You were too quick to settle. The amount you agreed to means we lose money on this case."

"I did the calculation and—"

"I'm talking," he snapped. "We were prepared to go to trial, Nora. Do you think someone's doctored video would stop us?"

Anxiety was radiating up into her brain, making it hard to think. "It wasn't doctored."

"Oh, so you're our new video expert? Because we have several, and I'm sure they would have found a way to prove the video was doctored or filmed at such an angle as to be misleading."

What he was suggesting was impossible. "The video was—"

"Not only have you let our client down, but you've also let this firm down."

"Wait... you haven't seen the evidence."

"Just admit that you blew it. Now all the other attorneys in here are going to have to bill more hours so that we can still meet our quarterly projections." He'd looked around the room. "You can thank her later."

Nora sat down. She could feel herself disappearing... fading into nothingness.

Later that afternoon her father walked into her office and perched on the table, all smiles. "I think you learned a valuable lesson today."

"Yeah," she said. "That no matter what I do, you'll find fault."

He'd chuckled. "I'm hard on you because I must be. If you're going to be in any shape to lead this firm one day, you need to be prepared. Those people are never going to respect you if I don't push you."

"Dad." Tears burned the back of her eyes. "They are never going to respect me because you don't respect me."

He didn't deny it. He'd probably assumed she would thank him for his tough-love tutelage. "You're too sensitive. Stop moping and clean yourself up. You look terrible."

She'd felt absolutely shattered. Nothing was ever right about her. She was one big walking mistake.

Well.

That was the Before. This was the After. Not only was she determined to get a new job as soon as possible, she was determined to learn how to never feel like a mistake again. She would start her transformation by walking into that office with confidence and surprising them all.

***

Confidence was not something Nora knew anything about, so she had to fake it. She kept her head high as she walked through the doors of November and Sons, sailing through cube nation in her therapeutic boot with a smile on her face, making eye contact with everyone she passed. They had never seen her exude confidence. And she couldn't be sure she was exuding it right.

But she remembered what Grandpa taught her many years ago, when she'd had to change softball teams after a reshuffling of the summer league. Nora had been scared to join a new team, scared the girls wouldn't like her. "You go in with confidence," Grandpa said. "Say hi to everyone. And then give them some of this." He'd handed her a brown paper bag.

Nora looked inside. "Bubble gum?"

"That's right. All great baseball players chew bubble gum. You introduce yourself, offer them a piece of bubble gum, and then you walk through that dugout like you invented the game. Now, go get 'em, Tiger."

She didn't have any bubble gum today, but she remembered doing what Grandpa had suggested that day and walking confidently through the dugout. And she'd found friends.

"Hey, Randy!" she called, startling a lawyer she'd worked with only once. "Felicia, hi!When is the baby due?"

Kevin Strothers, a new partner, came out of his office. "Kev," she said, pointing at him. "What's up?"

Everyone stared at her with a mix of alarm and fascination. In the Before, she would dart past them, head down, avoiding conversation.

She recalled how once, in her second year on the job, James had talked her into attending an after-work happy hour. "You never participate in anything, Nora. People talk," he'd said.

That's because she knew how they felt about her. But she took James's advice and went. She didn't say much; she didn't get the jokes about office life they were flinging around. At one point, she went to the bar to buy a round—she'd at least had enough sense to do that. She was standing next to a massive man, hoping the bartender would notice her, when she heard her name. Two of the firm's attorneys were standing on the other side of the man. And they were talking about her.

"It's like, seriously, Nora, law school 101—be prepared to present," the woman said. "Like, how hard is it? We do it every day."

She'd known immediately they were talking about a case review meeting earlier that week. Everything Nora had said about the case, her father picked apart. Contrary to what they thought, she gotit. She just sucked at it.

"She's an Eeyore," the man said.

"A what?"

"You know, the sad donkey. Always down in the dumps about something."

There was a silence.

"Winnie-the-Pooh?"

"Sorry, Yulang, I haven't read that classic in a very long time. And anyway, what does she have to be down in the dumps about? She sucks as a lawyer, and yet she'll run this firm one day. Cry me a river."

Nora winced with sympathy for the woman she'd been in the Before, trapped in the November snow globe.

But this was the After, and she was not an Eeyore; she was a... well, she didn't know what she was—yet—but she was nota sad donkey.

When James spotted her, he hopped up from his desk and followed her into her office.

"Hey, James. Thank you for vacating my office."

"I didn't have a choice. That weasel Brandon from HR came by and made me. Speaking of choices, that skirt is a brave one. And what did you do to your hair?"

"Like it?" she asked, raking her fingers through her hair. She glanced down at her ankle-length skirt with the splashy yellow and white flowers on a navy background. She'd spotted it in the window of the thrift shop. She'd gone in and bought this skirt, a couple of tops, and a pair of combat boots. She was wearing one on her left foot.

She twisted one way, making the hem flare out. "I like this skirt. It's comfy and it covers the therapeutic boot." She twisted again, but when she did, her gaze landed on a pot of succulents on the windowsill. The leaves had wilted and were draped over the sides of the pot like wet linens laid out to dry. The center plant, which looked like a fat cabbage, had turned yellow.

The shame of another dead plant crawled across Nora's skin.

"Nora!" Her father strode into the room, all smiles. He was tall and trim, wearing a bespoke suit. She could remember a time when he'd put her up on his broad shoulders to see the floats at the Fourth of July parade. How proud she'd been of her handsome, strong dad way back then.

"Good morning, sweetie." He held out his arms for a hug.

Sweetie?That was new. He never called her anything but Nora. "Hi, Dad." She cautiously walked into his arms, and he managed a loose embrace. He was not an affectionate man.

He dropped his arms and stepped back, still smiling. He looked pleased to see her, which was terribly unsettling, because Nora knew the hammer would eventually fall. "That's quite a haircut." His gaze drifted to her outfit and the smile disappeared. "What are you wearing?"

She glanced down. "I've decided to wear more color."

And just like that, his brown eyes turned cold. "You look like you're on your way to a folk dance."

This was the first her father had seen her since she'd come home from rehab, and the only thing he could say was that he didn't like her clothes. "I wish!" She smiled.

David November's heavy sigh was disturbingly familiar. "We have some cases that need your immediate attention. The bus company case has languished since your accident. You need to choose a lawyer to assist you and prepare for the deposition."

The new Nora jauntily saluted him, surprising herself. "Aye, aye, Captain." What was the matter with her? Her father was not a jovial man, and she'd certainly never been known for making things light around the office.

True to form, his face darkened. "Why are you acting like this?"

"Like what?" Not like her usual obsequiousself? She wished she knew the answer, but she could only offer that she'd been completely rearranged and this was her now. And she liked her now. "I guess because I had an NDE. Who knew it could be so invigorating?"

"A what?"

"A near-death experience."

"Don't say that," he said sharply. "You had an accident. You don't need to dramatize it."

"True. It was pretty dramatic all on its own." Wow, the new Nora was on fire today.

Her father's expression turned darker. Once, when she was in college, he'd been upset with her for a semester of grades that were average. He'd demanded to know if she knew what a higher education like hers cost per semester. She didn't know, because her parents had always said she was not to think of it, that she was to concentrate on her grades. She'd said, "More than a Maserati?"

He'd slapped her across the face.

For the record, she'd been right. Each semester cost more than a Maserati, but less than a Lamborghini. Gus had done the research for her.

Today's answer did not satisfy her dad either, and he shifted so close to her that she hardly had room to breathe. She could see a tiny fleck of toothpaste in the corner of his mouth, the beginning of what looked like a sty in his left eye. "Sweetie?"

Ick.She really did not like this new sweetie business.

"I know you had a bad experience. But it's over. You're a senior attorney at November and Sons law firm and on track to be partner by the end of the year. You need to show some decorum, snap out of this Daffy Duck routine, and get back to normal."

So if she wore a floral skirt to work and was perky, she was daffy. Got it. He wanted normal? But he'd always insisted on exceptional. He wanted a superhero in a cape who was demure and polite and a size 4, and if she could morph into her brother, Nathan, while she was at it, even better. "I'm just being myself, Dad."

He snorted disdainfully. "You're playing a victim, and I don't need victims in my firm. Never wear anything like that skirt into this office again. And do something with your hair. We have a dress code. At least have the decency to give the illusion of strength."

Ooh, there it was, the thing that had haunted her in the Before. She would never be able to give him what he wanted—he wanted a man. He wanted a son.

Nora wanted Nathan too. So many times in her life she'd felt herself missing him, wondering what life would have been like had he lived. Would they have been close? Shared a secret language? Would he have protected her, or her him? Would he have borne the brunt of criticism from their father so she was spared? Or would he have been like dear old Dad and found fault with her?

Her dad turned and stalked out, pausing to bark at James, "Don't you have work to do?"

James and Nora stood unmoving, breaths held, waiting to see if he returned for one last verbal blow. He didn't, and James slowly turned to her with a wide-eyed stare. "Like... are you okay?"

Astonishingly, she was. She felt weirdly exuberant, like she'd solved a puzzle for a big cash prize. She slid her foot out from beneath her skirt. "What do you think he'd say about this?"

James slapped a hand over his mouth at the sight of her combat boot. "Girl..."

"It's the same height as the therapeutic boot. It makes for a more comfortable walk. Stop staring at me like I've lost it."

"But, like, have you?"

She laughed. "Honestly? I'm not sure. I'd better get to work."

"I can't stop seeing the flowers on your skirt." He started for the door.

"Hey, James? The office pool... who has me going out early?"

James paused at the door. "Kevin. He said you wouldn't be back, and if you did make it back, you wouldn't last a full day."

Kevin had worked with her on the church van case. Four kids had died in a rollover. She'd not been able to get the four children out of her mind. To be fair, at the time she'd been thinking about children, wanting them, even though there was so much hopelessness in the world and no one had magically appeared to have them with.

Okay, so, yes, she'd had her Eeyore moments. But the world seemed much brighter today. She felt stronger. She felt like she was beginning to figure out how to control her life. All she had to do was find a job that didn't involve so much death and dismemberment.

She looked again at the succulents. She picked up the pot and brought it to her desk and poured a little water in it. There was a garden shop near her apartment. She'd pop in there after work and see if they had any suggestion for how to resurrect nearly dead cactuses.