My Life Would Suck Without You

The Hearing

"Hey", Miley greeted Ariana as she slid quickly into her seat. "Where have you been?"

"I'll tell you later", Ariana replied cryptically as she placed the heel on the long table in front of them.

Their attention was drawn to an odd clip-clop, clip-clop sound approaching from the entrance to the courtroom behind them. Miley looked over to see Ivy hobble past on her one broken heel, reminiscent of a child walking along the road with one foot on the sidewalk and one foot in the road with an awkward up/down gate. Ariana didn't bother to look up; instead, she idly spun the missing heel around in her hands as a secret smile graced her lips.

After the obligatory courtroom etiquette when the judge entered, everyone sat down with the exception of Ivy. She remained standing at the counselor's table and Ariana realized immediately that Ivy had stepped out of her shoes and was standing, facing the bench in her bare feet. She was definitely five inches shorter than she was before lunch. And she was obviously nervous; Ariana assumed that creating off-shore corporations to hide huge semi-legal fortunes didn't involve a lot of public speaking.

Clearing her throat for a third time, Ivy began. "Ariana Grande, star of over 17 school productions, is a self-proclaimed drama queen. As such..."

Miley quickly shot to her feet. "Objection! She's attacking the personal character of my client."

"Your honor, the personal character of her client is the primary focus of this hearing ... as it relates to her job performance, of course."

The judge looked thoughtful before replying, "Ms. Grande's character must be laid open for public examination ... if ... it bares directly with the case. You should be aware of that, Ms. Cyrus. However, it must be relevant. Is that clear, Ms. Michaels?"

"Yes, your Honor."

"Then, objection overruled", pronounced Judge Clinton with a light tap of her gavel.

Ivy shuffled her papers before finding her spot again. She quickly filtered through her notes to weed out any material the judge might find objectionable.

"As I was saying, Ms. Grande has a history of seeking the spotlight ... of wanting it all ... even if she doesn't deserve it. Women are under the assumption that because of The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, a pregnant woman cannot be fired, demoted, or laid off. As you know, your Honor, that simply isn't the case. PDA doesn't protect women for poor job performance as is the case with Ms. Grande. Whether her poor job performance was motivated or caused by her pregnancy is irrelevant. A vital part of her job as a personal manager is to be available during weekends for ferrying clients or potential clients to various destinations. Such an event happened on the infamous ski weekend."

"Yes, yes...", the judge interrupted. "Ms. Cyrus has already explained that to us. So are you saying that Ms. Grande was required to be on call 24/7? Even the President of the United States is allowed an occasional day off; I should know."

Ivy forced a chuckle at the judge's joke. "Of course not, your Honor. The senior managers are on-call, according to a set schedule."

"And it was Ms. Grande's turn, I take it?"

"Actually, it wasn't. However, the on-call manager was out of town on a family emergency."

"So I assume that the on-call manager called Ms. Grande to let her know that she was now on-call?"

Ivy raised an eyebrow and shot a quick, worried look at Doreen, sitting to her right. "Unfortunately, no. The on-call manager left without informing Ari... Ms. Grande of the emergency."

"Then, how was she supposed to know, Ms. Michaels? Through her latent psychic abilities?" Hilary sighed. She was beginning to feel like Judge Judy.