Stiletto Sisterhood

Original Edition: Priya | 99 Red Balloons

By the time she'd reached her workstation, three of those were already long gone leaving only two she could recall with any clarity. After fifteen frustrating minutes, she'd realized she'd transposed the last names. Though she'd sensed Hadrian's gaze drilling through her left shoulder, Priya remained focused on her task at hand. She had bigger problems.

She'd sourced out a couple articles on Jessica—daughter of a major real estate mogul father and publisher mother, she was an only child. Brought up as an orthodox Jewish household and during her time at Columbia, she'd helped immigrant families navigate social services, the immigration detention system, and voter registration. She'd also worked as a paralegal at an immigration law firm where she translated for Yiddish-speaking clients and prepared visa applications.

Calvin, born in Hong Kong, immigrated to the US at the age of six, according to an interview conducted in his third year at Brown where he discussed overcoming a challenging childhood to pursue his dreams of law. His father became addicted to gambling and abandoned his family, leaving his mother to raise three young children on her own and they'd endured several stints of homelessness. And, by trolling his Facebook, she made the startling discovery that he was currently battling retinitis pigmentosa which caused slow, but progressive loss of vision, starting with peripheral. As of yet, there was no cure.

She'd only just started drafting her points of attack when Heather reappeared with a sharp clap of her hands. Nine fifteen galloped upon them like the headless horseman brandishing his flaming pumpkin and sharp sword.

Priya trickled in with the flow of her fellow candidates into the firm's library, positioned between the second and third boardroom, across from the file room. The library was aptly named with high cases lined with legal texts in various leather bound volumes. The floor thick carpeted and walls grey, she could almost envision herself in her, working late nights with her peers, pouring over doc reviews and litigation materials.

A trio of tables were set up at the front of the room, two set side by side and facing a third, next to which was a lone chair. The rest of the room had seating spaced out in court room style, with a reserved side row of nine already filled with the senior partners. Seven men and two women.

Unlike the remaining candidates in the room, she knew everything about them, right down to the barest detail, and for the first time all damn morning, Priya felt the cool, calming rush that presaged going to war. As nervous and under prepared as she felt with her skimpy notes and foggy thoughts, this was the part she'd always loved the most. Sitting in a courtroom, squaring off with a judge, tearing into a defendant on the stand.

She lived for the rush. The thrill.

Slipping into an available seat, Priya tucked her satchel at her feet and kept her notebook in her lap, pen uncapped and ready. Just because she hadn't accomplished much by way of research, didn't mean she couldn't make up for it now. Today was about feeling every one out, separating the weak from the strong. Priya knew which side of that line she planned to fall on.

Dressed in judge robes, Marai claimed her seat and, plucking a folded strip of paper out of a box, and by some unfortunate luck of the draw, Team D was up first.

"We'll go alphabetically," Marai said smoothly, easing back into her seat, hands folded atop the table. "Taryn Jobin."

Priya watched as a poised young blonde took to the stand, dressed in a charcoal suit and pale pink blouse. Random selection from the opposition Team C placed Calvin as her cross-examiner. The stocky Asian guy she'd sat next to in the boardroom. While he wasn't particularly graceful in the way he commanded a room, and a bit clumsy in his questioning, he kept Taryn on her toes throughout the fifteen-minute exchange.