Amy Brown was ready.
But then, Amy thought to herself, Amy Brown was always ready, for anything. She gave herself another quick once-over in the mirror, just to confirm that everything was in place. Brown hair in a tight, professional ponytail. Makeup tastefully applied to compliment her piercing blue eyes. Small, elegant gold earrings. Grey Brooks Brothers pantsuit with a subtle pinstripe pattern, the single-breasted jacket de-emphasizing her otherwise prominent bust (large breasts were for bimbos, and Amy was certainly no bimbo), the pants specially tailored to hug the curves of her well-toned hindquarters. Light pink Donna Karan blouse. Black Jimmy Choo pumps. Matching handbag. Finally, to complete the ensemble, a pair of black Calvin Klein horn-rimmed glasses. Amy didn't really need the glasses, her vision was nearly 20/20, but she felt they added to her professional appearance. Perfectly put together, Amy was the picture of a confident, professional attorney and, moreover, someone you didn't want to screw with.
She checked her watch. 6:30. Perfect. Leave the apartment now, in the subway station by 6:40, at her office downtown by 7:30, grab her brief case (already packed the Friday before with all the files she would need), at the courthouse by 8:00, in the courtroom by 8:10, spend an hour and a half reviewing her case notes, meet the opposing petitioner at 9:40 and attempt to intimidate her into conceding, then ten minutes to silently visualize her flawless performance before court came into session at 10:00. Everything, as always, according to plan.
Well, almost everything. Amy worked for the IRS Office of Chief Counsel in Manhattan. Today would be her first trial, her first appearance in Tax Court. The case was simple, but was sure to be momentous, a flawless and seemingly effortless victory that would serve as the commencement of a distinguished legal career. Amy had gone to the best college in California for her Bachelors of Arts in History and Legal Studies, followed by the best law school for her law degree. She had graduated with the highest honors at every stage of her academic career, from grade school to grad school. The one snag came in the hiring process for her first legal job.
Amy knew she was destined for greatness and, being interested in public service, the most prestigious place to work after law school was the Department of Justice, and specifically the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. But the Southern District wasn't hiring when she was interviewing, and Main Justice in Washington D.C., for reasons she couldn't understand, had decided not to hire her (probably, Amy thought to herself when she was in a particularly bitter mood, because they had some minority quota to fill). So Amy had settled for the next best thing: The Office of Chief Counsel of the IRS.
Amy had breezed into the Office of Chief Counsel on the strength of her resume. And why shouldn't she have? She had clearly gone to a better law school than anyone there, including the Area Counsel. In fact, she sniffed, she didn't think any of her co-workers had even gone to an Ivy League school. Amy didn't care for tax law, and she was clearly smarter than anyone else in her office, but the job would give her lots of courtroom experience, essential for when she eventually abandoned the IRS to move up to the US Attorney's Office, and her clear superiority to her fellow attorneys would make it all the more obvious what a mistake the Department of Justice had made in not hiring her the moment she made herself available to them.
Amy boarded the subway train at 6:39. Excellent. She found a seat, not too difficult at this hour, and engaged in her favorite pass time: Envisioning her future. After a couple of brilliant years with the IRS, she would move over to the Southern District of New York, work as an Assistant US Attorney for a few years, in the Criminal Division, naturally, get appointed chief of one of the sexier units (International Terrorism? Organized Crime?), then become head of the entire Criminal Division. From there she expected she'd be appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District, and from there, who knew? A run for Mayor? Governor? Senator? President?
Amy stared into space as she began mentally decorating the Oval Office, when a voice penetrated her happy fog.
"ThisisFultonStreetnextstopHighStreetBrooklynBridgestandclearoftheclosingdoorsplease." *Bing, Bong!*
"Wait, what?" Amy snapped out of her revery in a panic. Fulton Street was her stop, and the next stop was a long way off in Brooklyn. She got up and dashed for the exit, but she'd chosen a seat at the center of the car and couldn't reach the door in time. Amy slammed into the door nose-first. CRACK! Her glasses flew from her face and smashed into the floor of the subway car. Amy, meanwhile, had rebounded from the impact and, after teetering for a moment on her high-heeled shoes, fell backwards with a PLOP! onto her ass when the train jerked forward.
"Eh-heheheheh!" laughed the car's only other occupant, what appeared to be a homeless man missing more than a few teeth. Amy shot him a look that should have melted the skin off his face. When it failed to do so, Amy began searching the floor for her glasses. When she found them, she discovered that one lens was missing, the other cracked, and the frame had gotten twisted out of shape.
"Fudge." Amy muttered to herself. She had long ago cured herself of the habit of cursing, a behavior that was both low-class and unbefitting someone who expected to be in the public eye. She tossed the broken glasses into her handbag, picked herself up, and smoothed out her clothes. "Not the end of the world," she thought to herself, "it isn't like I need the glasses, and I'm sure my brilliance will shine through without them."
After a long trip through the tunnel, the train emerged at the High Street subway station. Amy would need to get off the train, head up the stairs, walk over to another set of stairs, head back down, and board a train heading back the way she had come.
As she stepped off, she heard an announcement: "Attention passengers. There is a Manhhattan-bound A train now entering the station." Amy went into crisis mode; she had at most a minute to get to the other platform if she wanted to make that train and keep close to her schedule. She dashed up the stairs two at a time when *Crack!* the floor beneath her right foot seemed to give out, twisting her ankle and causing her to flail, then fall backward. She landed on her butt again, but this time on the edge of the step. The last fall hurt her dignity. This fall hurt her ass. She slid down the stairs, her butt banging against each step on the way.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!"
She reached the bottom as the Manhattan-bound A train entered the station. Amy slowly picked herself up, rubbing her sore ass as she stood. By the time she was back on her feet, the train was pulling out of the station.
"So much for my schedule," she grumbled to herself. But this still wasn't terrible. She had built in plenty of slack time, just in case, and could sacrifice a bit of review time. After all, she was more than prepared. In fact, a little less prep time would make her performance seem less rehearsed and more natural. This whole business was probably a blessing in disguise!
As she started back up the stairs she discovered the cause of her fall: The heel of her right shoe had broken off, ruining it. Amy signed and took her shoes off. She had a pair of worn-out sneakers in her bag that she planned to wear when she went for a job after work. They'd have to do until she got to the office, where she always kept a pair of emergency flats. Not ideal, but good enough. She made her way to the other platform, where the A was a half an hour in coming.
The remainder of her trip to the office was uneventful. She flashed her badge to security and took the elevator up to her office. She checked the clock on her phone as she strode into her office. 8:15. Not ideal, obviously, but she still had plenty of time. She took a moment to admire her office. Everything organized, files arranged into piles by filing date, each pile sorted alphabetically. The walls were adorned with all of Amy's degrees, honors, and citations. Just looking at them built her confidence. There was nothing she couldn't achieve!
She walked over to the chair where she had set her briefcase, loaded up with her case files. But the chair was empty.
"Where's that briefcase? I could have sworn I left it here." Amy scoured the office. Not a sign of it. She walked out into the hall to continue her search.
"Hiiiiieeee!" It was Jess the Paralegal. Jess was, for lack of a better word, cute. Red hair, freckles. She dressed as Pippi Longstocking every year for Halloween. She had comically big cheeks that made her look sort of like a cartoon character. She had a skinny body. No breasts. No ass. A little on the short side. She wasn't particularly bright, but she made up for her dull intellect with unstoppable enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that Amy happily exploited when she needed simple tasks done.
"Jess, I've no time to chat. Have you seen my briefcase? The black one?"
"Yes I have! You told me Friday you were closing the case on that one, so I took the initiative to have the files put in storage!"
Amy closed her eyes and rubbed her temple. Perhaps she had been exploiting Jess's enthusiasm a little too much. "No, Jess, it was a figure of speech. I meant that, on Monday, today, I would be bringing the case to a decisive end when I won it in court. I need those files right now. Where did you put them?"
"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. Well, like I said, I took them to storage, so I would guess that... Linda has them."
"Oof." Linda was the worst possible person to have the file. Bureacratic and officious, Linda had been a file clerk for twenty years, would be a file clerk until the day she retired, and hated Amy. Amy assumed this was because Linda hated anyone with ambition. Amy tromped off to Linda's office in the hopes that, this one time, Linda would show some basic human decency.
Linda, of course, was having none of it. "Closed files go into storage. If you want to re-open a file, you'll need to prepare a File Request Form and submit it to me in triplicate, one copy for the administrative file, one copy for the case file, one copy for the administrative record."
"But the file shouldn't even have been here in the first place. It shouldn't have been closed, so it therefore shouldn't need to be re-opened."
"Maybe it shouldn't have been closed, but it was, and closed files can't be removed from storage unless they're re-opened, and you can't re-open a file without a File Request Form."
"But-"
"Look, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry Christmas, but you won't be getting your little files without a File Request Form."
Amy stormed off to obtain a form, fill it out, photocopy it, and return it to Linda.
"Great. You're welcome to go look in the back for it. I'm pretty sure I put it in a blue folder. Can't miss it."
Amy opened the door to the storage room and found a dark, dank hallway, lined with probably two dozen rows of shelves on each side, each shelf full to bursting with blue file folders.
It's roughly at this moment that panic began to set in.
Amy started pulling folders off the shelf at random, frantically searching for her case files. Nothing even close to what she needed, and no apparent organizational scheme. Where could it be?! She spotted a box on the floor and knelt down to inspect its contents.
RIIIIIIIIIPP!
Amy's jacket had caught on a sharp metal point that stuck out from one of the beat-up old shelves. The jacket had been nearly bisected, with a long tear running from the center flap in the back up to between her shoulder blades. Amy angrily tore the jacket off her shoulders.
POIT!
Unbeknownst to Amy, in her enraged struggle with the jacket one of the buttons had been knocked off her shirt and sent flying across the room, finally relieved of the pressure of holding in her large breasts.
Amy put both her hands on her head and began pulling her hair. This was not how her day was supposed to go. Then, calm reasserted itself. Amy took a deep breath. She knew her case backward and forward. She didn't need her case files. She could handle this. She just needed to get to court and everything would be fine.
She stood up and, as gracefully as she could, walked back to her office. After Amy left and was safely out of earshot, Linda looked down at her desk. "Oh, wait. Silly me. Here it is. Oh well. Guess it wasn't too important or she'd still be looking."
Amy marched up to Jess. "You have an emergency jacket, right?
"Yep, I sure do! I keep it around just in case I have to go to court. You never know when someone's gonna need a file or a brief or."
