Page 8 of The Suit

As though it were yesterday, I could still picture us standing in his office at the Kent County Law Courts, sun shining through the windows, him behind the desk while I sat in one of the maroon leather wing-backed chairs, and begged him to tell me everything he knew about the law.

I held my breath under the water until the tightening in my chest lessened, to stop the spasming which always appeared whenever I thought of Muscot Holmes and his wife Santa; the only parents I’d known. In the nine years I’d been with them, they’d given me more than anyone else ever had, including their name. And living with them in the tiny town of Kent, Massachusetts, was thefirsttime I’d ever had a real home.

Santa had found me in the corridor of the Green Valley hospital I’d refused to leave. If I left, it meant I would then be truly,trulyalone, even though they’d already taken my brother’s tumor riddled body to the morgue. She’d told me her name was Rosanna, which my eleven-year-old self heard as Santa and immediately warmed to her because it reminded me of the Christmases with Jackson when actual Santa would visit. She brought me a hot chocolate with a slice of apple pie, which to this day is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. She’d stayed with me for six hours, sitting mostly in silence, except for warding off the social care worker who was trying to hurry up the paperwork and go for the day. She didn’t pressure me like the other foster parents I’d had to stay with while Jackson was sick, and she smelled like roses and sugar. When I finally plucked up the courage to leave, Santa took me home in the role of my new foster mom, to where Muscot was waiting with more pie and hot chocolate, and I ate it all until I was sick.

Jackson and I had moved around the country every few months; he was seven years older than me and somehow managed to keep us together and out of the foster system. Our mom had taken off before my fifth birthday, and for the next year, Jackson had ensured we maintained a routine. It lasted until one too many people started asking questions, because Beulah was a small town. He woke me in the middle of the night, holding a backpack filled with what few clothes I had, a couple of books, and my teddy, and we snuck onto a train headed for Little Rock.

While Jackson had always been smart, I still hadn’t figured out how he managed to take care of us or get money to pay rent on the places we lived, but from Little Rock up to the day we realized Jackson was sick, I’d stayed under his protection. Until Muscot he’d been the only father figure I’d known. He’d kept me clean and fed, and made sure we kept learning through his version of homeschooling. Each town had a subject we’d focus on as much as we could, and then when it was time to move on, we started with a new one.

I still thought about Elephants and Africa whenever someone mentioned Oklahoma, because for those two months we learned everything we could about animals after I’d seen a poster for the St. Louis Zoo when we lived near the train tracks running into the city.

In St. Louis we learned about space.

In Albuquerque we learned about Europe, and its Kings and Queens.

And in Wyoming we’d learned about the US government, the president, Washington D.C. and how America was built.

I might not have had a traditional schooling up to my twelfth year, but it was all I’d known, and it planted the seed for my thirst for learning.

I’d only seen a house like Muscot and Santa’s in the books I’d read on America; a traditional Colonial style house set on a peaceful road lined with leafy green trees. Looking back now it was relatively modest, but then, walking nervously through the door with Santa, it felt like a palace. Jackson and I had always shared a room, and usually a bed; but now I had my own with warm, clean clothes laid out for me. And on my first morning when I’d woken up in a crimson sweatshirt with HARVARD embroidered on the front, I saw it matched Muscot’s, and asked what it meant.

Muscot had taught Constitutional Law at Harvard then retired early to live in West River, a small town in Kent County, where he also held the position of the local judge - ruling with a fist that was both fair and kind - as well as iron. One day, Santa had taken me to visit him at work where we’d watched him preside over a case. I was engrossed.

From that moment forth, Harvard and the law became my new thing to learn about. I wanted to know everything I could, everything Muscot could teach me.

They’d enrolled me in the local school, and the second the home bell rang, I’d make my way over to the courthouse for the rest of the afternoon, until it was time for us to return to Santa. I devoured every book in his library, and more. I did nothing but study.

And study.

And study.

I was the only person with warm brown skin in a predominantly white town. I had all the time in the world to study. But Muscot and Santa taught me not to care what anyone said or thought, they showed me how to carve my own path.

And all I wanted to do was make them proud.

The day they were officially announced as my legal parents was the happiest of my life; coming in at a close second was the day I received my acceptance letter to Harvard. Muscot took me to one side and handed me his Harvard gown – the one he’d worn when he’d graduated and told me he’d see me wearing it when I graduated.

He was there when I did, so proud standing next to Santa, that I bawled my eyes out for the whole ceremony.

It was déjà vu when I received my acceptance into Harvard Law – except then he repeated what he’d said years before…

Find your opponent, Beulah.

By the time my first class came around - Introduction to the Law - I’d selected Cindy Aldrove to get me to be the best lawyer I could be. I’d spent weeks poring through my class prospectus, narrowing down a list, then digging through Facebook to find the perfect person - and Cindy had been it. She’d grown up in the south, and from what I could tell, her social life consisted of days at the library and volunteering. She took life seriously; she’d take her studies seriously – as seriously as I did.

Yes, she would be a worthy opponent.

What I hadn’t counted on was Raferty Latham. I hadn’t counted on him at all. I’d barely glanced at him - immediately dismissing him as a legacy kid with a relatively pretty face who liked to party, someone who’d bought their way into Harvard; someone who’d be guaranteed a job at a top tier firm no matter how good he was because his family owned the biggest in the country, almost the world. His name was already in lights on the tops of the buildings. Not to mention his Facebook page looked like a who’s who of every identikit blonde-Abercrombie-beach-bum-wannabe in his giant house in the Hamptons/Aspen/some anonymous yacht sailing round some anonymous European island.

He wouldn’t have to put in the hours I would. He wouldn’t study like I would. He wouldn’t care like I would. I needed someone to challenge me and make me the best.

Raferty Latham would not be that person.

I needed Cindy Aldrove. I’d had no doubt.

If Raferty Latham had turned up to our Harvard Law socials the week before classes started, then I might have realized I’d massively underestimated him and been more prepared. I might have changed my mind about Cindy Aldrove. But he hadn’t, so I didn’t. The fact that he didn’t turn up only cemented my righteousness and bias that I’d been correct in my assessment.

Yet when he sauntered into our first class and introduced himself to everyone, grinning a Colgate grin enhanced by his European yacht tan, I forgot how to breathe. The pictures I’d seen hadn’t done him justice. Seeing him walk to the empty seat in the row across from me, towering over Madison Roberts before he sat down, was the difference between two and three dimensional, or a grainy dated photograph of the Sistine chapel versus experiencing it in real time. He was, simply put, the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my life. So much so that I missed what Professor Callahan asked me because I was staring at the back of Raferty Latham’s head as he turned round to talk to Brad Nokowski. I still remember squeezing my fists tight before anyone noticed my fingers twitching to run through his glossy dark brown hair that curled at the nape of his neck.

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