Page 16 of Falling for Roxanne

“Are we sure she’s not a fool?” I asked, half sarcastically.

“No, but we’re all fools at one time or another,” he said.

He gathered up the trash and threw it away, then he put the leftovers in a small refrigerator. “You should take some of those home later. Didn’t you say you have a roommate?”

“Cathy. She’s in your class as well. She’d devour the last of those egg rolls so fast you could lose a finger if you don’t get out of the way in time.”

“They were good,” he said. “Do you want to be the one to speak to Pansy Lestrade or do you want me to?”

“You’d trust me to do that? It’s such an important conversation though. Do you think that an intern—”

“No, but I know that you can do it. Not just an intern and a law student, but Roxanne Park. Daughter of Jeremiah Park, wrongfully convicted of armed robbery. She can do this with her eyes closed. You’re smart and persuasive and you have the sympathy angle if you want to disclose to her what happened to your father. I wouldn’t ask you to share personal information like that, and you don’t have to mention it at all—”

“If it would help, if knowing what happened to him might convince her to tell the truth, it’s worth it. I can’t be ashamed of what happened to my family or let my pride get in the way of helping somebody else escape the same fate. This is bigger than just me.”

“Yes, it is. But not everyone would be so generous with their personal story. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to let someone else swing from the gallows if it means protecting their own privacy,” I said ruefully.

“I wished a hundred times someone would speak up for him or tell us there was still hope. Anything. So, if I can be that lifeline for somebody else in that situation, why would I get stuck on my pride? Being embarrassed is nothing compared to the years it can cost a family when someone is wrongly convicted of a crime. Whether it was an honest mistake and there’s new evidence to exonerate them or if it’s corruption like it was in my dad’s case, everyone deserves a fair trial and a fair verdict. That’s the hill I’m willing to die on, Hamilton,” I said.

He smiled suddenly. “That’s a good hill to make your stand on. A friend of mine, Aaron—his hill is that pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza,” he chuckled.

“Okay, well, he must have a less complicated life. Nothing wrong with strong opinions about pizza toppings,” I said lightly. I had gotten really impassioned again talking about the case. I knew that I had to be calmer, cooler when I spoke, and I figured I needed to apologize. “I’m sorry about that. I get wound up about my dad’s experience in the justice system. It’s kind of a trigger for me. I’m going to do better and keep my cool. I know it’s unprofessional.”

“Not at all. That kind of passion is not a weakness. If I had to pick someone to be on my side, I’d choose you over someone who’s dry as dust and calm as the grave. Believe me, there’s a lot of them walking around practicing law when you wonder if they even have a body temperature that would register on a thermometer. I’ve looked across the courtroom at the opposite counsel’s table more than once and thought we needed to do a pulse check. You know what it’s like to suffer at the hands of a broken system, and you’re determined to keep that from happening to anyone else. That’s ambitious and noble and there’s nothing about your emphatic speaking that’s unprofessional. You have convictions, Roxanne. That’s a good thing, and rarer than you know,” he said. “And now I’m the one making impassioned speeches.”

“It must be the Chinese food,” I said with a laugh.

“It could be the dumplings.”

“Nah, I didn’t eat any of those, and we’ve both come down with impassioned speeches. So it must’ve been something we both ate.”

“I think there’s a good possibility that we’ll succeed in exonerating our client, Roxanne. And that’s thanks in no small part to your research and paperwork and your devotion to the cause. In other words, you’re doing a great job here. I’m not someone who often takes on interns because in most cases it has been a glorified babysitting job. But you feel like part of the team already. Of course, you won Syd over with lattes the first few days. She has said you’re a self-starter and you don’t ask a lot of unnecessary questions—when Devon started as a paralegal, he apparently asked her nine different times how to send a fax.”

“He was pretending he couldn’t do it to try and get her to send it for him,” I said.

“She said something about if he was that incompetent he didn’t need to work here. That was the last time he asked about the fax. She had already put a sign above the machine listing the steps. Faxing for idiots, she called it.”

“Remind me to stay on her good side,” I laughed.

“A good assistant is too busy to suffer fools gladly. If she’d told me after the third time he asked, I would’ve put a stop to it. He does good work but requires extra time and support. I don’t think you’ve done him any favors by hitting the ground running here,” he said wryly.

“He didn’t go to law school. I’m about to graduate. We have different educational backgrounds,” I said. “And yes, I’m guilty of playing devil’s advocate. I’m one of those people who if I don’t know how to do something, I’ll learn to do it, so I don’t have to ask anyone for help. It’s like my toxic trait. I don’t judge people who need more help than I do…because maybe they’re better at asking for what they need,” I said.

“Nine times. He wanted help nine times on the fax,” Hamilton said ruefully. “That’s not a healthy appreciation for expert advice. That’s laziness.” He heaved a sigh, “And don’t think for a minute that your performance on the job here has harmed his chances for retention. You’ve taken more than you needed to off his to-do list. In addition to working the appeal case with me. With the reduced workload, his output should have increased, and I haven’t seen an uptick in what he gets finished.”

“Do you think you’re going to let him go?”

“It looks that way. I’m trying to reserve judgment. In a couple of weeks, if he hasn’t improved significantly, I’m going to have to advertise for a replacement. We could hardly do worse. I don’t know if my expectations were unrealistic or if he is—”

Hamilton hesitated, choosing his words.

“Not a good fit for your team?” I offered.

“Exactly. Very polite and meant to spare his feelings. Which, considering the fact that I can’t give him a reference, will be the least of his worries. I’d say he’s made valuable contacts in the legal community, but I doubt that any of my colleagues have been terribly impressed by him.”

“So give him a reference that suggests he’d work best as part of a larger team of paralegals,” I said. “Which implies that he’s not a self-starter and needs someone to pick up his slack. But it sounds innocuous.”

“I could write him a subversive, damning reference letter, but is it worth the effort? When I’d just be pawning him off on someone else who’ll have to hound him to get his work done?”

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